Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/273

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 261

is in existence sufficient to form a basis for a sociological society. They tell us that there is such a body of truth in a number of specialisms, and they go on to say that these specialisms are suffering from the want of co-ordination.

All that seems to me to be a matter of considerable value, and I think it is distinctly a fruitful line to lay before the Sociological Society. I believe that anyone who wishes to study the subject will proceed on the method of the papers before us. He will endeavor to acquire such competent knowledge of a certain number of specialisms as to enable him to bring them together for the purpose of comparison. He will study them, and in the process he will find much irrelevant detail which will dismiss itself, and a great core of other matter will come for- ward ; and the student will soon find himself led by the subject itself to con- centrate himself on that part of it which is necessary to bring them all together.

As soon as the point of view is stated, other considerations arise. Are you to call these philosophy ? What do you mean by " philosophy " on the one hand, and "sociology" on the other? I should agree with Mr. Hodgson in saying that philosophy is more comprehensive than sociology ; that it endeavors to ^ive us a view of reality as a whole. If I understood the papers before us, they only speak of a synthesis of the social sciences, not of all sciences, and therefore they are within their right in speaking of the social sciences. I do not think they can be charged with any confusion. Then, again, the question arises : Is sociology a natural science or not? That is only a more philosophical form of putting the question as to whether there do or do not exist sociological laws. It should be known that the conception of law at the present time is in the nature of metaphor. You have to analyze the meaning of the term " law," and know in what sense you are going to apply it to sociology. If you think you are going to get sociological laws in studying young women in France, or by asking whether there is going to be a revolution in the eleventh year before the end of every century, you are starting with a sort of tabula rasa of the mind, or mind as a blank, in regard to analysis. You do not know what sort of explanation you are going to look for.

I do not agree with every word of the papers before us, but it does seem to me that they have indicated for us, in a way that certainly deserves our thanks, what sociology actually claims to be, and have indicated the next steps which investigation ought to take.

MR. J. M. ROBERTSON.

While deeply interested in the study of sociology, I confess to a certain reluctance to approaching it on the methodological side taken in this discussion. I have a good deal of sympathy with a biological friend who considers that an orderly discussion should set out with definition. There are cases where definition should be the first step, and there are cases where it should not. I think our dis- cussion might be more luminous and more fruitful if we handled some of the problems of sociology. Dr. Hodgson has told us that sociology can never become an exact science until it is founded in psychology. I challenge that at once. I clearly recognize that psychology may be a help. Take the question : Why did the Reformation break out at such and such a time and place? In answering such a question as this, undoubtedly physiological psychology will give us help. Sociology is the science of history. It will deal with a certain type of experience. It is the type of experience collected for us in the histories of societies. And, I take it, other sciences will similarly help. Then, as to whether sociology is to be a body of special sciences or a unification of them, we get help from them, but sociology will make its own classification of the other sciences. It will use them for sociological purposes. Sociology will look to almost every one of the sciences for some help. When it carries its research a certain distance, it will come into biology, chemistry, etc. It will use these sciences, but it will clearly be a science of itself.

Dr. Hodgson's account of the matter did not even look at the historical factor. To exclude the factor of history from the purview seems to me to confuse the methodological problem at the outset. There is no such difficulty in finding sociological solutions to problems as has been suggested. Dr. Reich was pessi-