Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/527

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 5 1 1

more than a rag-picker from the garbage-heaps of the past. But the more we study the philosophies of history that are no longer in vogue," the more are we impressed by a few common- places concerning them ; for instance :

First : People have attempted to make a very little knowledge go a long way in coining generalities about society. History has proved to be like the Bible : it may be made to teach any- thing, if we take it in sufificiently minute fragments.

Second : People have tried to create the general truths of history out of philosophical presuppositions, instead of building them up by collection and generalization of facts. That is, they have trusted to dogmatism and deduction instead of attempting induction.

Third : People have had very crude conceptions of the com- plexity of the things to which their assumed historical principles were supposed to apply. They have not been able to analyze the subject-matter so as really to see the elements involved.

Fourth : Hence the foregone conclusion of demand, sooner or later, for a method which shall be an improvement upon that of the philosophy of history.

At the same time, critical study of the philosophers of history is a most valuable propaedeutic for sociology. Every socio- logical system that is trying to push itself into favor today has its prototype among these more archaic systems, and not a few recent sociological schemes may be disposed of by the same process that rules these philosophies of history out of court.

On the other hand, each of these abortive philosophies of history has contributed its quota toward comprehension of the conditions of social problems, and together they have indirectly promoted the adoption of adequate sociological methods. This fact may be indicated more in detail if we adopt for illustration Earth's seven-fold division of the philosophy of history, instead of discussing a score or more of familiar theorems of alleged central principles in history. We find that each of these views attempted to bring into focus something that is actually present

■ Vidt Flint, Philosophy of History, The first edition is more useful for a general survey than the incomplete second edition.