Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/209

 MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY IQ5

ology, the other just as surely the basis of a science of history. There is a notion abroad that the scientific historian turns out partly generalized matter, whereas the sociologist turns out wholly generalized matter. The truth is the two men do not usually deal with the same materials and, when they do, they handle them differently.

Sociology is one of the abstract sciences. The sociologist aims to rise from particular cases to general terms which he can employ in formulating generalizations and laws. He wants not unique facts, but recurrent facts, for which he can frame a con- cept that shall neglect details and emphasize common properties. The facts he uses are in many cases too numerous and too insig- nificant to attract even the notice of the historian. Take, for instance, the data that seem to warrant the generalization that every new article of consumption is prized for its prestige before it is prized for its utility. So far as they are not thrust upon us by common observation, they are gleaned from myths, literature, biography, descriptions of manners, records of travel, etc., from anywhere almost save the stately page of history!

History is not, as many suppose, the quarry to which sociolo- gists resort for their material. The records of the past its monuments, survivals, legends, documents are the common quarry for both historian and sociologist. The former explores them for events, i. e., things that occur only once, and are definite as regards date, place, and person. The latter prizes most the humble facts of repetition, which interest the historian only at those rare intervals when he interrupts the current of his narra- tive to exhibit the state or transformations of domestic life, man- ners, industry, law, or religion.

The iridescent personages, deeds, situations, and scenes that most engross the historian and justify his purple patches the impeachment of Hastings, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, the death of Mirabeau, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the battle of Waterloo, the siege of Leyden, the sack of Magdeburg, the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the Diet of Worms these are intractable to the sociologist until abstraction has been made of the particular in them. Ere he can use them he must fade their