Page:Georges Sorel, Reflections On Violence (1915).djvu/170

156 that everything can be expressed by some mathematical law. Evidently there are no laws of this kind in sociology; but man is always susceptible to analogies connected with the forms of expression: it was thought that a high degree of perfection had been attained, and that already something had been accomplished for science when—starting from a few principles not offensive to common sense, which seem confirmed by a few common experiences—it had been found possible to present a doctrine in a simple, clear, and deductive manner. This so-called science is simply chatter.

The Utopists excelled in the art of exposition in accordance with these prejudices; the more their exposition satisfied the requirements of a school book, the more convincing they thought their inventions were. I believe that the contrary of this belief is the truth, and that we should distrust proposals for social reform all the more, when every difficulty seems solved in an apparently satisfactory manner.

I should like to examine here, very briefly, a few of the illusions which have arisen out of what may be called the little science, which believes that when it has attained