Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/135

 THE FOUNDERS OF SOCIOLOGY 123

principles at his finger-ends. Take one subject, statistics. I think all social reforms, if they are to bear good fruit, must be based on well-weighed and well- digested statistics. The census returns, and the returns of births and deaths, might save us from many wild projects of reform. Our statistics at present are very inadequate. They could be indefinitely improved. They could be treated by able mathematicians to yield very good results, and enable us to see in what direction we should endeavor to move.

D : I think we have scarcely borne sufficiently in mind that Mr. Branford was not here. I think his speech was choke full of knowledge which he desig- nates in a very fine little phrase " The scaffolding of life." We must remember, I think, that whatever subject is taken, a writer must take one particular phase or side of it the side that he sees ; and we must expect it to be only a limited view. Especially of big subjects it must be so. And I don't think it altogether amiss, because we get, as in this case, a lot of knowledge we should not get in the ordinary way.

I think we amateur sociologists ought to take heart of grace and feel that we are engaged in a very useful purpose. I never understood before so clearly what sociology was. We call ourselves " The London Sociological Society," and we vaguely understood the term ; but, as we have had it put very tersely by Mr. A, there is more theory than practice. I remember that when we were founding the society, it was distinctly stated that we did not intend to be constructive in any way as a society. But I know that, in my own case, there was the idea that the society would lead to something definite apart from itself that, as Mr. A said, we should touch the soul.

I think what is wanted is the general dissemination of knowledge. There should not be a few people who know a lot and a number of men of action who do not know where they are going. As Englishmen we have always had the energy and physical " go," but not the science. And, therefore, if even in a small way, I think if we can turn out more workers, the society will really have done the work it was intended to do.

E: I do not intend to have much to say in criticism of the paper, as Mr. Branford is not here. I content myself with saying that Mr. Branford has started far too soon in finding founders of sociology. The science is in its infancy, and sociology is surely the codifying of knowledge in relation to society ; and this has never been attempted until very recently. I do not think he should have started quite so early.

F: I think there is one thing that struck me in the paper, and that was the relation which the writer made between sociology and religion. Mr. A, in his criticism, made an antagonism between them, but it seemed to me that sociology is essentially a spiritual science all that religion and spiritual things have developed out of society, out of the interrelation of human beings ; and, therefore, sociology does include religion, tor it is itself it will be the religion of the future.

There was another way in which he touched upon the same point, when he spoke about the past and the present and the future ; I mean that the prophets and the religious people of old always dealt with the same thing in a different way. They brought up all the instances of the past, and ranted to the people on the present, and prophesied about the future ; but the prophecies did not, as a rule, come true. But sociology takes up the same subject and covers the same ground, and, I think, on the sociological basis we can argue more safely about the future than on the old religious ground.

G: I think Mr. Branford was rather unfortunate in the title of his paper. The paper, in my opinion, was an exceedingly good one, containing a valuable amount of information. [Hear, hear!] And if he had called it "Speculations on Sociology with Slight Reference to Condorcet," it would have been descriptive, and saved him from some of the severe criticism to which he has been subjected.

Sociology is trying to find an explanation of the whole phenomena of life, seeing where they tend, and what really, from all sources of our knowledge, exist- ence means. That, of course, is the most comprehensive of all sciences, and to follow it out in the scientific spirit means to supersede all previous methods means