Ross, EDWARD A. The Psychological View of Society SANBORN, F. B. History of the American Social Science Association The Sociological Stage in the Evolution of the Social Sciences SPARGO, JOHN. Christian Socialism in America STOCKWELL, ALCOTT W. The Immigrants' Bill of Rights WILLIS, LOUIS. Biblical Sociology IV ⚫WARD, LESTER F. Ludwig Gumplowicz Sociology and the State WEATHERLY, ULYSSES G. Race and Marriage WEBSTER, HUTTON. Influence of Superstition on the Evolution of WILLCOX, WALTER F. The Outlook for American Statistics REVIEWS 79 ABBOTT, EDITH. Women in Industry-A Study in American Economic - ADDAMS, JANE. The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets.-Harriet Park Following the Color Line.-Charles A. Ellwood BELL, EARNEST A. War on the White Slave Traffic.-A. W. Small BRANDEIS, LOUIS D. Brief and Argument.-C. R. Henderson Rural Hygiene.-C. R. Henderson CASSON, HERBERT N. Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work.- COMMONS, JOHN R. AND OTHERS. A Documentary History of American History of American Industrial Society. Vols I and II.-William CROLY, HERBERT. The Promise of American Life.-George E. Vincent 830 41 DEMING, HORACE E. The Government of American Cities.-A. B. Hall 848 - DEVINE, EDWARD T. Misery and its Causes.-William L. Chenery FRANCIS, ALEXANDER. Americans, An Impression.-L. L. Bernard GENNEP, ARNOLD VAN. Les rites de passage.-Frederick Starr GEORGE, WILLIAM R. The Junior Republic, Its History and Ideals GRAVES, FRANK PIERREPONT. A History of Education before the Middle 418 854 - 707 702 Reports of the Cambridge Anthro- - - HILLQUIT, MORRIS. Socialism in Theory and Practice.-A. B. Wolfe KIRKUP, THOMAS. A Primer of Socialism.-C. R. Henderson la Revolution: Les campagnes.-Isaac A. Loos LAZARD, MAX. Le chômage et la profession.-Frances Fenton LINCOLN, J. T. The City of the Dinner Pail.-C. R. Henderson MASTEN, VINCENT MYRON. The Crime Problem.-C. R. Henderson MISAWA, TADASU. Social Development and Education.-S. Chester Parker 849 OTIS, EDWARD O. The Great White Plague.-C. R. Henderson PARSONS, JOHN. Each for All, and All for Each.-L. L. Bernard PRUIS, A. La défense sociale et les transformations du droit final.- PUNNETT, R. C. Mendelism.-Carol Aronovici RICHARDSON, N. A. Industrial Problems.-C. R. Henderson ROGERS, JAMES EDWARD. The American Newspaper.-Frances Fenton 562 - SIMPSON, W. J. A Treatise on Plague.-C. R. Henderson Religion in the Making.-V. E. Helleberg STEINER, EDWARD A. The Immigrant Tide-Its Ebb and Flow.-E. S. SUMNER, HELEN. - Equal Suffrage.-Frances Fenton 703 853 560 Revolution of the TOLMAN, WILLIAM H. Social Engineering.-C. A. Ellwood Eighteenth Century in England.-Isaac A. Loos - WASSAM, C. W. The Salary Loan Business in New York City.-C. R. WINES, F. H. Punishment and Reformation.-C. R. Henderson - WITT-GUIZOT, FRANCOIS DE. Les réflexions de Monsieur Houlette.- Professor Henry Jones Ford of Princeton has lately done sociologists the notable service of advertising to the world how ingeniously sociology may be misunderstood.1 This is by no means the first instance of strange sayings coming out of Princeton on this subject, but, in connection with recent occurrences at that venerable seat of learning, one of the effects of this elaborate darkening of counsel is reinforced suspicion that sociological obscuration is not only an affliction at Princeton but a policy. Professor Ford does this Journal the honor of quoting, not without a certain fraction of approbation, the editorial in the first number of the volume just closed.2 He had read the article, therefore, or at least parts of it. His allusions show that he recognized in it a thesis which deserved a certain degree of respect. He chooses, however, to ignore the methodological argument, and instead of meeting sociology frankly on that plane, he throws around the situation a dust of incoherence, and irrelevance and triviality. The article is consequently a curious specimen of pseudo-scientific muck-raking. Its distortion and dislocation of near-facts into counts against sociology culminate in a permanent contribution to the humor of anti-sociological 1 Cf. The Pretensions of Sociology, below pp. 96 and 105. 2 "The Meaning of Sociology," Am. Jour. of Sociol., XIV, 1. prejudice. The climax of sociology's misdoings is found in Professor Simon N. Patten's address at Atlantic City last December, when he was speaking as president of The American Economic Association! Assuming, as a preface to the present argument, the editorial above referred to, we take Professor Ford's article as occasion. for discussing the question, What sort of vindication is coming to sociology? Instead of attempting to answer the question by direct reply to the various types of misconstruction packed into Professor Ford's paper, we prefer to restate the meaning of the sociological movement. The vindication of sociology will appear, not in discovery of specific facts, nor in adoption of particular plans, still less in the attainment of a pedestal upon which sociology may pose in solitary state. It will come in eventual adjustment. by the social sciences, and by social practice, to the conception of social relations which sociology represents. Whether or not he meant just what we must put into the words today, Comte was close to a crucial truth, more intelligible now than at his time, when he said, two-thirds of a century ago: It cannot be necessary to prove to anybody who reads this work that ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos; in other words, that all social mechanism rests upon opinions. The great political and moral crises that societies are now undergoing is shown, by a rigid analysis, to arise out of intellectual anarchy. While stability in fundamental maxims is the first condition of genuine social order, we are suffering from an utter disagreement which may be called universal. Till a certain number of general ideas can be acknowledged as a rallying-point of social doctrine, the nations will remain in a revolutionary state, whatever palliatives may be devised; and their institutions can only be provisional. But whenever the necessary agreement on first principles can be obtained, appropriate institutions will issue from them, without shock or resistance; for the causes of disorder will have been arrested by the mere fact of the agreement. It is in this direction that those must look who desire a natural and regular, a normal state of society." The substratum of meaning, which Comte was not late enough to put in full force into his quasi-prophetic language, is Pos. Phil., chap. i. |