Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/272

 258 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY '

Professor Sidgwick and published in 1896 under the title Introduction to Political Science. Pointing out that political science now concerns itself only with civilized states, excluding from consideration the wild and con- fused associations in which savages and barbarians may seem to live, Professor Seeley remarked : "An inductive system of political science must begin by putting aside as irrelevant the distinction of barbarous and civi- lized, and by admitting to an impartial consideration all political aggregates, all societies h^ld together by the principle of government. We must dis- tinguish and arrange the various kinds of the state in the same purely observant spirit which a Linnaeus brought to plants or a Cuvier to animals. We can no longer think of excluding any state because we do not like it, any more than a naturalist would have a right to exclude plants under the contemptuous name of weeds, or animals under the name of vermin." Referring to the fact that in the animal kingdom, the greater number among the large classifications are assigned to strange organisms in which the vital principle is developed in such a manner that the being has little external resemblance to what is popularly called an animal. Professor Seeley said that if political entities were studied by the same method, "It would not be surprising if all the states described by Aristotle, and all the states of Europe into the bargain, should yield but a small proportion of the whole number of varieties, while those states less familiar to us, and which our manuals are apt to pass over in silence as barbarous, yielded a far larger number.""

The query is pertinent, why more progress has not been made in formulating this methodological concept. The answer is that there is still vast preliminary work to be done, ' Professor J. G. Frazer, of Cambridge University, in his Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, puts the case exactly :

In order to make a sound induction large collections of facts are neces- sary; hence in the inductive sciences it is essential that a period of collection should precede a period of generalization Now anthropology in gen- eral and the history of institutions in particular are still in the collecting stage. The prime want of the study is not so much theories as facts. This is especially true of that branch of the study which treats of origins ; for. as I have said, most great institutions may be traced back to savagery."

Such slow work is in marked contrast to the rapid progress of sociology. That has already produced an elaborate methodo- logical scheme, which makes an imposing appearance, but un- fortunately it is not true. It is founded on appearances and not on reality, and all its conclusions are vitiated by the unsoundness

^Proceedings of the American Political Science Association, 1905. "Pp. S. 6.