Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/524

 508 ■ THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

that the chief significance of the sociologists is in their instinct of the oneness of all knowledge about men. If names were consistently used, sociology would not be understood to mean a phase of social science. It would be the comprehensive term for all search into the facts of human association, somewhat as biology no longer means any special phase of the science of life, but the whole body of investigation into vegetable and animal phenomena. We are obliged to use the term " sociology," however, to designate that standpoint from which a better survey of human association is becoming possible, which at present seems, to those social scientists who do not occupy it, entirely isolated from their interests. The best that has been done so far by sociology in the narrower sense, except inciden- tally in certain of its concrete divisions, is to demonstrate the lack of method in analyzing social relationships, and in search- ing for the secrets of social cause and effect. The history of sociology is a record of an apparently aimless hunt for something which the hunters did not know how to describe or define. In the last half-century a few students of society have been filled with vague discontent because of haunting dissatis- faction with the sort of insight into social truth which the tradi- tional studies furnished. These students have beaten the air, sometimes only to raise more dust, but sometimes also with the result of chasing away some of the lingering clouds. On the whole, the history of sociology consists mainly of attempts to plan a kind of study which will yield more intimate knowledge of society than the traditional social sciences have reached. As yet there is very little to show by way of conclusion from these quests. The fortunes of these attempts are nevertheless a pre- cious legacy to the present generation. They are, first of all, object-lessons in how not to do it. In the second place, they are indirect and fragmentary indications of how to state the problems of society and how to proceed in solving them. The history of sociological method is thus the most effective discipline in methodology, if we are wise enough to gather up its teachings. In accordance with the foregoing, we may join with Tarde in finding the progenitors of our sociologists long before the