PRESENT POSITION OF SOCIOLOGY, 817 



people perish for lack of wisdom. To enlighten the public mind on 

 vital social questions and thus to promote an intelligent direction of 

 social conduct toward rational ends is the high function of sociology. 

 This practical purpose, however, should be kept always secondary 

 to the pursuit of knowledge. " The knowledge is the important thing. 

 The action will then take care of itself." * The discussion of the 

 what-ought-to-be must wait on the investigation of the what-is. The 

 neglect of this caution has been responsible for much false doctrine 

 and foolish counsel. Sociologists have allowed their enthusiasm for 

 ideals to blind the eye and bias the judgment. Panacea hawkers 

 of all sorts have attempted to prescribe for social diseases, without 

 making any study of social structure and function. Communistic 

 quackery has masqueraded as sociological wisdom. The wild-cat 

 sociology of the present day is a result of the over-addiction to social 

 reform which besets students of society. It can not be too strongly 

 emphasized that the primary object of the sociologist is the impartial 

 investigation of facts. The man who forgets this becomes dangerous. 

 He is liable to run amuck. 



The differences of opinion as to the scope, method, and purpose 

 of sociology have been found upon examination to be less serious 

 than they at first sight appeared. But in regard to the fundamental 

 principles of sociology, the confusion is hopeless. The student will 

 search in vain in the systematic treatises on sociology for any definite 

 body of established doctrine which he can accept as the ground-prin- 

 ciples of the science. He finds only an unmanageable mass of con- 

 flicting theories and opinions. Each treatise contains an exposition 

 of what the author is pleased to label the Principles of Sociology. 

 But the "principles" are not the same in any two treatises; and 

 by no process of analysis and synthesis can they be brought into 

 harmony. They are fundamentally contradictory. It is impossible, 

 I believe, to discover a single alleged ground-principle of sociology 

 that has commanded general assent. 



Some of the recent writers on sociology have devoted themselves 

 particularly to the task of establishing one basal principle which may 

 be applied to the interpretation of all social phenomena. At least 

 half a dozen claims to the discovery of such a principle have been put 

 forward. Prof. Ludwig Gumplowicz finds the elementary social fact 

 to be conflict; Prof. Guillaume De Greef finds it to be contract; 

 M. Gabriel Tarde contends that the fundamental principle of 

 society is imitation; Prof. Emile Durkheim argues that it is "the 

 coercion of the individual mind by modes of action, thought, and 

 feeling external to itself." Professor Giddings criticises all these 

 explanations of society, as either too special or too general, and undor- 



* Ward. Ibidem. 

 VOL. LV. — 56 



