Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/639

 SOCIOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION LINES. I 1

SECTION I. INTRODUCTORY

In several issues of a German chemical journal there appeared a curious advertisement. It stated that a certain name had been registered as a trademark, and offered a reward to the chemist who should produce a compound to fit the name. Somewhat similarly, the name "sociology" has taken a prominent place in the public mind, and has become the center of high hopes, before there is any clear and general agreement as to what sociology is or is to be. Even intelligent persons, who believe that the name contains a splendid prophecy, would be at a loss to assign to it a definite content, satisfactory to themselves or to other people of like intelligence and interest in the theme.

The word " sociology " is the name not so much of something that we already possess as of something to be striven for, 2 of a body of knowledge that we deeply need, that we have learned to want, and that we are beginning to accumulate. The spirit of sociology appears in a waking up to our ignorance of matters that are of the highest interest, as some items of knowledge suggest how much more we ought to know. The glimmering of light serves to make darkness visible. The problems to be studied are vast and intricate. No true spirit of sociology will pretend to their easy or quick solution. A new science is to be built up by

1 This paper was read and discussed in my seminar in the spring of 1902. It contains, so far as I am aware, the first formulation of the theorem which I sup- ported in a paper in this Journal, Vol. X, No. 3, "The Subject-Matter of Sociology." The manuscript of Professor Hayes's paper had never been in my hands until after the publication of mine. Meanwhile I had completely overlooked the fact that he had anticipated me in drawing a conclusion to which the logic of the situation has been pointing for a half-century. Upon reading the manuscript it was evident that an apology was due to the author, and this is the most adequate means of making the proper amends. ALBION W. SMALL.

1 Since this was written, in 1902, that which " we already possess " as soci- ology has increased in definiteness and richness, beyond the hopes of some of its disciples. Yet that " to be striven for " still forms the alluring horizon in every direction, and at many points presses close about us.

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