DEPARTMENT XXII -SOCIAL SCIENCE 



(Hall 1, September 20, 2 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: MR. WALTER L. SHELDON, Ethical Society, St. Louis. 

 SPEAKERS : PROFESSOR FELIX ADLER, Columbia University. 



PROFESSOR GRAHAM TAYLOR, Chicago Theological Seminary. 



IN opening the work of the Department of Social Science the 

 Chairman, Air. Walter L. Sheldon, of St. Louis, spoke as follows: 



" It is now almost three quarters of a century since Auguste Comte 

 began issuing his Cours de Philosophe Positive, for which he coined 

 the now much- worn term ' Sociologie.' So it is that we connect the 

 birth and development of this science chiefly with the nineteenth 

 century, although its beginnings are to be traced long before. What- 

 ever may have been the crudities or defects of the Systeme by Comte, 

 surely the suggestion on his part was a luminous one and of far- 

 reaching significance, that we should study and analyze the phe- 

 nomena of human society for the purpose of discovering laws or regu- 

 larities there, just as we study the phenomena of chemistry or of 

 astronomy. It was inevitable, however, that these hints should have 

 remained in the background and have had comparatively little 

 influence until the doctrine of evolution had been launched in full 

 force later in the century. In spite of ourselves we cannot help 

 connecting the advance of sociology with the great new step taken 

 in biology through Charles Darwin. The abstractions of Comte 

 .had to be laid aside or go on the shelf, while the new science he had 

 inaugurated was to be brought into harmony with the doctrine of 

 evolution as a whole. 



" To-day we are discussing the problems of sociology as if they 

 had been under consideration for hundreds of years. We can 

 scarcely realize that it is only about a quarter of a century since 

 Albert Schaeffle attached his name to the preface of the first volume 

 of his Bau und Leben des Socialen Korpers, and Herbert Spencer 

 put forth his Principles of Sociology as a part of his great Synthetic 

 Philosophy. It may be that these men linked the new science too 

 closely to that of biology, because of the sudden and startling devel- 

 opments in the latter department of research. But of one thing 

 we are certain: These men have settled the fact beyond dispute 

 that there is such a thing as a science of sociology. One university 

 after another has been establishing chairs in this special department, 

 and one man after another has been consecrating his life to researches 

 in this direction, until now we have a whole literature pertaining to 



