Sociology

While it is impossible, in the present state of our knowledge, to make out precisely how the circuit was at last closed between all these stimuli and the minds of the men who actu ally won a place in social science for a new method of investigation, it is easy to make out the period after which the sociological conti nuity was unbroken. It has been almost undis puted tradition among the sociologists that August Comte, who is supposed to have coined the word, is also the "founder" of sociology (). In the light of later developments it reads like the author's involuntary warning of his approaching secession.

This historical survey would be misleading if it left the impression that the which converged at the points just indicated, and which, as we shall see, spread from these points as rapidly expanding programs, were driven exclusively by the scientific interest. It may he that sentimental philanthropic impulses did more than the strictly scientific temper to bring sociology into existence. Here are to be cited men, first, of the Rousseau-Diderot succession, then of the type of St. Simon (1760-1825) and Fourier (1772-1837), in France; such theorists as the Utilitarians, from Bentham to John Stuart Mill, then such as Robert Owen, Ruskin, Maurice, Kingsley and Robertson in England; the socialists of all countries, the advocates of "social policy" (Verein fiir Social politik) in Germany; a group of earnest so called ((social scientists" and especially certain types of philanthropists in the United States.

who industriously advocated "the improvement of social conditions." Presently the activities of this latter type of people became conclusive proof to other types of people that there was sore need of more searching study into social conditions. This conviction enlisted its quota for sociological • research in the scientific sense. (Consult Small, (General Sociology,' pp. 36 sq., and Small, 'Fifty Years of Sociology in the United States,' American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XXI, pp. 721-864). For striking evidence of the way in which these philanthropists affected one of the men who later had a con spicuous part in developing general sociology consult Sumner, Social Classes Owe to Each Other' (1883).

Since we have seen how sociology got a name and a place, the question remains, What sort of a thing is this that is so named and placed? The only valid answer is still essentially historical. From the time of Spencer and Schaffle sociology has been more a steadily developing mode of thinking than an entity conforming to a statical de scription. This is almost equally true of the more strictly generalizing type of sociology characterized in our original formula, and of the numerous techniques for concrete applica tion of scientific knowledge which also use the name sociology. Confining ourselves now to the former, the. early sociologists felt a woe is-me if they did not succeed in getting a vision of human society as a whole. Instead of feeling satisfaction with the conventions of social science, they were impressed with the futility of everything that had been accepted so far as scientific exposition of human ex perience. Comte's dictum that the root of evil in the European world was the "anarchy of fundamental ideas," might have been chosen as their slogan. They were convinced that the only way of removing the confusion in men's minds about social relations must be achieve ment of a controlling conception of human society in its entirety. Without apparent hesita tion about the chances of convincing the world, they gave themselves to the task of f raining a conception that would be justified by the facts. With differences of detail they believed that human society the world over, past, present and future, makes up some sort of a unity. They believed that parts of this whole, or in cidents within the operations of this whole, are to be understood only as they are assigned to their actual places and connections subordinate to the whole. All the variations which have be come parts of the main tendency of sociological theory since 1875 have started from some form of this presumption. At the time when this tendency entered upon its permanent course the most potent reconstructive factor in all science was Darwinian biology. It would have been wonderful if the attempts to visualize society in all its dimensions had not come under this virile influence. In fact, they were not only influenced but they were over influenced. Until well into the 20th century the strength of the sociologists was very largely applied, first, to debate with one another and with social scientists of the older types about classification of the sciences, and about claims between these older possessors and the socio logical intruders to .equities in scientific terri tory; second, to elaboration, attack upon and defense of schemes to exhibit the whole ness and the operations of human society as an organism, analogous with biological organisms.