Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/108

 g6 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

history of sociology, and it is no mere coincidence that it appeared in the same year as saw the completion of Comte's Positive Philosophy. In fact, was it not Walter Scott and Balzac who contributed the particular or descriptive parts of the sociology, to which Comte contributed the general part, or principles?

Does not society, asks Balzac, in the preface cited, make out of given surroundings as many different kinds of man as there are varieties in zoology ? Are there not as many social species as zoological species ? Are they not to be counted as social species, he says, the soldier, the workman, the administrator, the advocate, the idler, the politician, the savant, the merchant, the sailor, the poet, the pauper, the priest ? What Buffon did for natural history, he says, has to be done for human society. But it is twice as difficult to describe a social as a zoological species, because in society woman is not always the female of the male. But, he adds, with the confidence of the realist : " French society is going to be the historian. I only need to be the secretary."

In a sense, then, we are all sociologists. But let us not con- fuse that with the utterance of the politician who said : " We are all socialists now." The latter saying is, or is meant to be, a witticism ; the former professes to be a literal truth, obvious as soon as the meaning of the words is made clear. As long as we allow that there is one person of sound mind who is not a socialist in any of the accepted meanings of the term that alone suffices to put socialism in the class of controversial and partisan subjects. Consensus of agreement is the final test of scientific truth. In what sense, then, is the word used, when it is asserted that every one is a " sociologist " ? Before giving the general and abstract answer to that question, let us consider one or two illustrations.

It is a common observation that when a sensitive child is accused of a wrongful act it will probably blush, whether guilty or innocent. Why is this? Mr. Spencer instances as an analo- gous case that of a well-dressed man who might be detected help- ing a lame costermonger to push a barrow. Though assured by his own conscience of the meritoriousness of the act, the well- dressed gentleman would become possessed by a feeling of shame, as soon as he saw that he was observed. Why is this? An