Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/716

700 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

This work has all the appearances of a thesis for the doctorate. It may be said that it constitutes a definitive study on Condorcet, from the historical and sociological points of view. Unless new manuscripts of the eminent philosopher are discovered, it certainly seems that nothing can be said now that M. Alengry has not said already.

This very stout volume is rather dry reading, because of the great number of quotations, and the abundance and minuteness of details. What we consider a fault, from the literary point of view, is an advantage, if we consider the book from the student's standpoint, as being a work to consult for documents, facts, and arguments. M. Alengry studies Condorcet from the political, the constitutional, and the sociological points of view. The study is precise, minute, and based upon the most reliable sources—the unpublished papers left by the great thinker. The author has read all that was published by and on Condorcet, his book thus being a complete bibliography.

Book I treats the political side of Condorcet before, during, and after the Revolution: before the Revolution, he prepares it; during it, he directs and organizes it; after it, his memory is the rallying sign for the republican opposition and the parties of the vanguard from the Consulate to this day. Book II reveals a thinker no less unknown than the politician—a true theorist of constitutional law whose object, method, problems, and solutions have been indicated with a power and an authority which, according to M. Alengry, have never been surpassed, and whose influence is still felt among us, either in doctrine or in action. Book III deals with Condorcet as economist, moralist, and sociologist. Book IV investigates the originality of Condorcet and his historical influence, studying him successively as a man of action—republican, observer, utopist—and finally showing all that contemporaneous democracy owes to him.

Condorcet is a book which the philosopher, the sociologist, and the historian must read. They will find in it original chapters, as well as unedited and new particulars on the part played by Thomas Paine and David William on August 10, on the election of Danton,