Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/136

 124 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

to gather up the threads of a tangled skein, and to sift them out and see what purpose is fulfilled in them all.

NVith regard to the observation that Mr. A has made, I will say a few words before I sit down. He objects to science entirely and to sociology in particular. He specifically objects to sociology [No, I don't!], and says there is something mysterious, something that man cannot grasp. In fact, his speech was a plea for mysticism. I think that none of us here would be in favor of that idea. Mysti- cism, the school of mystics, has ever been antagonistic to science. They never get any farther. They always say there is something beyond you can never explore a safe position, but it does not help us very much in the progress of discovery.

In the French Revolution there were many people ready to die for ideals, but that has been true in the history of the world. That is not a proof that the ideals are true. You have to examine these ideals in the light of experience, history, reason, and logic, before you can turn them to any practical benefit. It recalled to my mind an expression of Lacordaire's in which he characterizes the expression " liberty, equality, and fraternity " as " liberty to do what you please, equality with God, and fraternity with the devil."

With regard to these various movements, these great movements of the human race, I might commend to Mr. A a very instructive book. It is entitled The Psychology of Suggestion. It is an extremely instructive book. Though I do not agree with much the author says, he shows the effect that suggestion has on the human race, and how this has been exemplified in many of the intellectual and other movements of the times. And he has arranged in the chronological table at the end all the great movements in mediaeval times, to show one continuous effect of suggestion, and that in every age there has been some overwhelming idea occupying a nation's or a people's thought. And that has been the result of the suggestion on the people of the time. He goes into it from a hypnotic point of view and shows the sociological effect it has upon the people.

H : I would say a few words on science and religion. I read a very remark- able statement made by a follower of Spinoza. He said : Formerly we had the tyranny of the churches and priests, but now we have the tyranny of the scientific man. This is my experience too. I do not know who have done the more harm in the world, but there are many people who are as foolish as the church people, because they have unlimited trust in the scientific man. For instance, the agnos- tics and materialists, who trust men like Darwin and Buchner. They were great philosophers, but we must be careful not to put our full trust in any man or mortal. It is my experience that science cannot explain everything. I think materialism, as it is preached by Buchner and other great men, is declining, or dying out. I think we must be very careful, if we make any progress, that we do not make a pope of any man, whether a great philosopher or great naturalist, but that we always discriminate between man and man. In my opinion, the only way of coming to a good conclusion is that we not only apply our mind, but do not forget that we have a heart.

/ : Well, Mr. Chairman, if you want me to come among a company of mystics, I will come to a sociological society. I have heard tonight, from different gentlemen who have been speaking, an interpretation of the term " sociology," and, as far as I can see, every man has a different interpretation to give. I do not see that there is any united thought or concentrated view to be learned from sociologists. I think it is a very false method to push truths on one side and to say you have to go to religion to find mysticism. I think the paper was a very clever paper, but I should say for busy men of this world the paper was altogether loo long, that the words used were terribly technical, which, if the mystics here can understand, I confess I do not. And if we are to bring encyclopaedias and dictionaries to interpret these words, I am afraid I must withdraw my name from the association. I came here with the object of learning, or imparting a bit of knowledge. If men speak to me in a language I cannot understand surely our English language is broad enough why should it be that men should write in other tongues if they have a handle behind their name or if they have not think the highest state of education a man may be in is to use simple terms that all may understand.