Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/657

 STUDY OF HOMERIC RELIGION 643

almost wholly from the sphere of those influences which tend to perturb the scientific judgment; it is of far away and long ago, and can be viewed by most of us perfectly objectively, as ob- jectivity goes. A great many cannot so view the Bible; and as we approach our own age, the subjective element cannot but enter, whether we will or no, in a progressively increasing degree. Science — and social science is no exception — succeeds best when it works in materials from which their own nature, or time, or distance has removed all contemporaneity except that which exists in almost impersonal form in the essential likenesses of human experiences and destinies. In working with such ma- terials the investigator can more readily attain atmosphere, distance, perspective, detachment, or whatever else it may be called. He is not summoned to draw conclusions from the self- same instances to which it is then proposed to apply those conclu- sions; nor to work in the turmoil of contemporary passions, sympathies, and animosities. There is little chance for the emo- tions to get in and warp the work of the intellect. For these reasons labor carried on amidst this style of material is particu- larly suited to the beginner, that he may get started aright; and even to the older student, that he may apply to himself a cor- rective. Studies of this nature approach the type of those which are pursued by natural scientists and historians; and it is very desirable that a social scientist should not lose a sense of their value. In any case, sociology has never incurred the ridi- cule of true scientists because of its actual labors over materials dispassionately viewed and objectively treated; it is half-baked theorizing over contemporary conditions, wholesale pretensions with no basis in actual demonstration, that have done the science the most menacing disservice. So hard it is to be Olympian in the present age that anyone might be excused for going back to Olympus for a breath of its atmosphere.

It has been said in the foregoing that the social scientist can hardly scan his Homeric evidence otherwise than in a detached and dispassionate way. But there have been students of Homer who could not take this attitude ; and it may be worth the while to indicate the damage which this incapacity has done to their