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 THE AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

VOLUME III

SEPTEMBER, iSQ? NUMBER,

THE SOCIOLOGISTS' POINT OF VIEW.

THE fact which has begotten sociology is a dawning social consciousness. As in no previous age of the world's history men are with one voice inquiring "What are the facts and the forces that make or mar social life?" Sociology is not, like many of the systems of thought that have attracted men before, the amusement of recluse philosophers. Sociology is a frank attempt to assist in supplying a real popular demand. It springs from the people's thought, not alone from the lucubrations of closet speculators. 1 At the same time sociology attempts to inform and control the very popular thought by which it has been inspired. The concrete popular demand is for specifics Sociology is devoted to showing that specifics, if they could be invented, would not long satisfy the demand, and it is further bent on showing that something may presently be had better than specifics.

Practical men of all sorts and conditions are beginning to iiujuire whether social conditions may not, to a thus far unsus- pected degree, be like our food, our clothes, and our shelter something to be thought out, and planned, and systematically constructed. More men than ever before are at least dimlv aware that it is needful to give deliberate thought to social

I'iJf JOIKNAI. OF SOCIOLOGY, July 1 895, "The Era of Sociology."

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