82 2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



claim to existence as a science than astronomy would if we found some 

 astronomers insisting that the sun went around the earth and others 

 contending that the earth went around the sun." * 



After all, the question whether sociology deserves to be called 

 a science or not is one of merely academic interest. It has received 

 far more attention than it really deserves. Nor will any amount of 

 discussion upon this point help to make sociology a science. " It is 

 safe to say," remarks the critic from whom we have just quoted, 

 " that no gTcat scientific work was ever done by a man who was fret- 

 ting over the question whether he was a scientist or not. The work is 

 the thing and not what it is called. On the other hand, no name can. 

 dignify a work which is petty and futile." 



It is not by talking about it, but by working over it, that a body 

 of knowledge is developed into a science. And sociologists would do 

 well to heed the advice of Tarde, the French writer : " Instead of 

 discoursing upon the merits of this infant — sociology — which men 

 have had the art to baptize before its birth, let us succeed, if pos- 

 sible, in bringing it forth." f 



A FEATHEKED PAEASITE. 



Bt leander s. keyser. 



NOTHING could more clearly prove that a common law runs 

 through the whole domain of Nature than the fact that in 

 every division of her realm there seems to be a class of parasites. 

 In the vegetable world, as is well known, there are various plants 

 that depend wholly upon other plants for the supply of their vital 

 forces. And in the human sphere there are parasites in a very real 

 and literal sense — men and women who rely upon the toil and thrift 

 of others to sustain them in worthless idleness. 



In view of the almost universal character of this law it would 

 be strange if these peculiar forms of dependence did not appear in 

 the avian community. We do find such developments in that de- 

 partment of creation. Across the waters there is one bird which 

 has won an unenviable reputation as a parasite, and that is the Eu- 

 ropean cuckoo, which relies almost wholly on the efforts of its more 

 thrifty neighbors to hatch and rear its young, and thereby perpetu- 

 ate the species. Strangely enough, our American cuckoos are not 

 given to such slovenly habits, but build their own nests and faith- 



* The Nation, vol. Ix, p. 351. Review of Small unci Vincent's Introduction to the Study 

 of Society. 



f Quoted by Vincent in American Journal of Sociology, January, 1896, p. 487. 



