Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/122

 io8 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

can be made for sociology, as Comte himself emphasized. If it be claimed that the subject of which political science treats is a unity and requires a unified science, then again the same claim can be made for sociology. The psychological and biological aspects of sociological theory by no means reduce that science to mere psy- chology and biology, any more than the psychology in economic theory reduces economics to psychology. Social evolution and social organization are unified processes, and a theory of social evolution and organization must take into account and harmonize both their psychological and biological elements.

Professor Ford adds to the speciousness of his argument by carefully selecting sociologists that are easy to criticize. He does not mention Tarde, Simmel, Barth, Ratzenhofer, Hobhouse, or Westermarck, but selects particularly Spencer and Ward as typical sociologists. Both of these men in their thinking were dominated by the traditional English philosophy, with its materialistic empiri- cism and sensationalistic psychology. Both were at bottom anti- Darwinian in their views of life, and hence in their theories of society. Nearly all that Mr. Ford says in criticism of their socio- logical doctrines is entirely just so far as it goes, but he forgets to mention their really great services to the scientific study of human society.

Mr. Ford has his own sociological theories (as every thinking man has), and strongly implies that a correct theory of social evo- lution can be built simply upon Darwin's teachings. He seems to be unaware that the "massive parapets and bastions" of Darwin- ism have recently been shaken to their foundations, and that a theory of society built upon them (as many sociologists whom he neglects to mention have attempted) may be no more secure than other theories. The truth is, sociology and all the other social sciences must wait upon the development of biology and psy- chology; and these antecedent sciences are, even today, in an un- settled condition. How absurd, then, to demand that sociology shall have a settled body of theory, or else deny to it the name of science! None of the social sciences possesses a settled body of theory; and no one understands so well as the trained sociologist how i>erilous it is to dogmatize on social questions. Probably if psychologists and biologists were to express themselves on the questions of the day, they, too, would express themselves dog- matically, and I believe that about the same proportion of radicals