Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/115

 THE PRETENSIONS OF SOCIOLOGY loi

not even animals so closely akin to men as the anthropoid apes. But Professor Ward makes this hypothetical state of nature the basis of his argument:

Having arrived at a rational conception of what kind of a being man was before any society existed — that ie, before the essential condition of society, populousness, existed — we are better able to understand how society and government should have come about.

If man was in a state of happiness when there was no government to restrain his impulses, he was defrauded in some way when gov- ernment was instituted. Hence Professor Ward concludes that government is essentially a usurpation:

It must have been the emanation of a single brain or of a few concert- ing minds, the special exercise of a particular kind of 'cunning or sagacity, whereby certain individuals, intent on securing the gratification of the special passion knowm as love of power, devised a plan or scheme of gov- ernment.

If this be so, then government is a thing to be got rid of as soon as possible. That is just what Professor Ward holds to be the end of social effort and the blessed consummation of the labors of sociologists. What men and women are struggling to attain is "freedom to do as their desires prompt them, and to be their own judge of the rightfulness and justness of their actions." Hence robust sociologists contend that we should all be as free to find our affinities as cats or dogs. Suggestions of trial marriage are made simply as a temporary palliative of an enslaving institution. The trouble with divorce laws is not that they are loose, but that there should be any laws at all. Human beings should be free to mate as they please, and separate as they please, like other animals enjoy- ing their natural freedom.

We have here an instance of what is a striking characteristic of sociology. It gives a hospitable reception to notions examined, discredited, and rejected by established science. After a hard struggle political science has got rid of the noxious fallacies gen- erated by French ideology in the eighteenth century. They now reappear as doctrines propounded by sociology. And so, likewise, in other branches of science, sociology appears as an interloper, proclaiming that the work must all be done over again, and so it starts to rake the refuse heap. It is a whimsical situation. Soci- ology admits that it has really no scientific credentials, and yet it claims sovereign authority in the field of science. Professor