EXACT METHODS IN SOCIOLOGY. 151 



to the general public conclusions based upon more exact methods 

 of induction. 



Let us now look at the relations which the development of 

 statistical method bears to that development of fundamental 

 conceptions, which has already been described. Do we here dis- 

 cover increasing harmony, a tendency toward co-ordination, or 

 have analyses of concepts, on the one hand, and developments 

 of statistical method, on the other hand, followed diverging 

 lines ? 



There can be no possible doubt of the answer that must be 

 made to these questions. Conceptions and methods are in as per- 

 fect accord as can be discovered in any branch of science. The 

 merest glance over the field of social statistics shows that, for the 

 most part, they record and classify phenomena that are essentially 

 psychological. In working from the general theory of evolution 

 through the biological parallelism down to psychological premises, 

 analytical sociology has been doing in one way precisely what sta- 

 tistics have been doing in another. The moment we pass from 

 statistics of density and distribution of population we find our- 

 selves dealing next with groups of facts that are biological (the 

 facts, namely, of distribution according to sex and age periods), 

 through facts that are partly biological and partly psychological 

 in character (the facts, namely, of nationality), and then, leaving 

 these behind, we deal henceforth entirely with facts that belong- 

 to the mental and moral categories. To name them would be 

 only to repeat the categories already enumerated: the statistics 

 of intelligence, industry, and moral character, of emotional or 

 rational social action, of various forms of organization for the 

 achievement of as many different purposes, and of the develop- 

 ment of the conscious personality of man as a result of his social 

 relations and activities. 



]^ot only is this true, but the further interesting fact may be 

 discovered that social statistics of every category employed or 

 known are based upon a frank recognition of that coefiicient of 

 resemblance, physical or mental, which I have contended is a mark 

 of social phenomena. The first step in statistical tabulation is 

 classification, and classification invariably starts from an assump- 

 tion of real or supposed resemblance, l^ot to dwell on such fun- 

 damental distinctions as those of color, race, and nationality, we 

 encounter the more special resemblances of agreement in religious 

 belief, agreement in industrial preference, agreement in political 

 conviction (as shown in election returns), similar susceptibility to 

 emotionalism, similar capacities for rational comprehension, simi- 

 lar imperfections of nature, which result in lives of crime or pau- 



