Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/281

 REVIEWS 263

down into the concrete long enough to find a point or two of corre- spondence between his generalizations and reality. It would seem likely a priori that he would try to discover in the course of human experience at least one specific "sociological type" for example, the use of which he might demonstrate in a single instance. If the archi- tect of human fortunes has always been the "sociological type," it would seem as though a solitary instance at least might be specified. To inductive thinkers the name and address of a thousand such would have to be assured in order to give the hypothesis credit. The method of the author is not inductive, however, and it apparently does not acknowledge the necessity of evidence. There are hints at supposed cases in point (vide pp. 74, log, iii, 154, etc.), but these are merely dogmatic illustrations, not cases critically examined in test of the thesis. Accordingly the book is full of generalizations that are true of nothing in particular.

This disregard of the canons of inductive science does injustice to the elements of truth which might be discovered by critical use of the author's postulate. " Selective transition " (p. 84) is not a factor utterly unknown in social changes. It is not present in these changes in the form and force which the author presumes. Accordingly such a writer as von Jhering has detected much more than the present author about the facts of individual contribution to social changes. Even in case of conscious societary action, the thing willed is only rarely change of type — as when a state adopts a new constitution — and in those rare instances the change is thought of as a change of type by a rare few only. The conscious end in most cases is a specific good of situation or possession. This good, when realized, may be a factor making for change of type, but this latter fact does not help the author's thesis.

Several traits of Dr. Crowell's style are exemplified in the following sentence (p. 100; cf. pp. 117, 154, etc.):

Personality has become what ke is by conformity to traditional type : this factor, plus his impelling desires, are the two forms indicating to us what fie tends to become.

I do not understand these liberties with the personal pronouns. To my mind no end justifies the means. The solecisms throw no light on the thought. There is a still more radical fault involved, viz., that of dealing with the abstraction, personality, when we ought to be studying the concrete qualities of persons. It crops out again in this form (p. 128) :

The traditional and the adoptive types of personality .... become more