Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/521

 MINOR EDITORIALS.

THE EPITAPH OF SOCIOLOGY.

definition of sociology has been "a long felt want." The lack is now supplied. The Bibliotheca Sacra projects its view into the near future and reads from the portents that sociology is "Passing Fad." This settles it. Let the definition be the epitaph!

Meanwhile the craze will survive in the minds of a few less discerning people than the discoverer of its futility. In the reckless spirit of those other gross and sordid souls who refuse to be diverted from their ordinary avocations by the latest prediction of the end of the world, we shall pursue the illusion that the study of actual men in actual social relations will continue to reward the student, and through him bless mankind at large, during a considerable portion of the twentieth century. At all events we shall not suspend publication before current subscriptions expire.

THE LIMITS OF "CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY." following note explains itself:
 * It seems tome that Professor Shailer Mathews' suggestion in your pages that we may properly use the term "Christian Sociology" to designate the social philosophy of Christ as we use Hegelian, Baconian, Aristotelian of the philosophy of Hegel, Bacon and Aristotle is a conclusive answer to those who deny the propriety of the term "Christian Sociology." But a remark of Rodbertus, quoted and approved by Uhlhorn (Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, p. 29) is a yet more fundamental defense of the term under consideration. Rodbertus and Uhlhorn show that "we can speak of a community (that is, of society) only after Christianity had formed such." That all the human beings in one locality, in one nationality, in the world, including women, children, slaves, foreigners, constitute in each case a community, of which each soul is a sacred unit and the whole a common race, has never been clearly apprehended or practically