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 630 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

the curiosity of investigators who want to know the literal truth about the social reality. For these reasons biological science has been called to the assistance of sociologists, not- merely in fur- nishing truth about the physiological substructure of human associations, but in furnishing thought-appliances for investiga- tion of those relationships which are beyond the competence of biology. It is thus sheer muddle-headedness to confuse the tool of investigation and the medium of expression with the supposed nature of the portion of reality investigated.

It must be admitted that some of the most perspicuous thinking on this subject has uttered itself in language that encourages this confusion. It has doubtless been a mistake to allow the terminology of sociological inquiry to seem to over- shadow in importance the subjects of inquiry themselves. Soci- ologists who are perfectly free from uncertainty about the above distinction have frequently used terms in a way that has pre- vented less discerning persons from reaching the distinction. The phrase " biological sociology," whether used with correct or incorrect connotations, has always been unfortunate in this respect. It seems to imply what has been denied above. Hence it is to be pronounced a misnomer, whether adopted by friends or applied invidiously by foes.

It must be admitted, too, that use of biological figures is worth only what it is worth. Its utility depends largely upon the temper, training, and taste of the investigator, or, in the case of teachers, upon the mental content of their pupils. Doubtless much discovery among social relationships may be made by men whose method of approach and whose form of expression are predominantly mathematical, or mechanical, or philosophical. Whatever may be claimed to the contrary, the prevailing note in sociology, from Comte down to the present time, has been belief in a psychical something and somehow, marking a sphere of socie- tary reality distinct in thought from physical reality. This proposition is not intended in a dualistic sense, although it may have been true in that sense of some men. It is used here in a sense in which the stoutest monist might employ the terms, namely : sociologists actually distinguish orders of fact and