PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. x i x 



THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY. 



Vol. I. 



Part I. The Data of Sociology. — A statement of the 

 several sets of factors entering into social phenomena — human 

 ideas and feelings considered in their necessary order of evo- 

 lution; surrounding natural conditions; and those ever com- 

 plicating conditions to which Society itself gives origin. 



II. The Inductions of Sociology. — General facts, struc- 

 tural and functional, as gathered from a survey of Societies 

 and their changes: in other words, the empirical generaliza- 

 tions that are arrived at by comparing different societies, and 

 successive phases of the same society. 



III. Political Organization. — The evolution of gov- 

 ernments, general and local, as determined by natural causes; 

 their several types and metamorphoses; their increasing com- 

 plexity and specialization; and the progressive limitation of 

 their functions. 



Vol. II. 



IV. Ecclesiastical Organization. — Tracing the dif- 

 ferentiation of religious government from secular; its suc- 

 cessive complications and the multiplication of sects; the 

 growth and continued modification of religious ideas, as caused 

 by advancing knowledge and changing moral character; and 

 the gradual reconciliation of these ideas with the truths of 

 abstract science. 



V. Ceremonial Organization. — The natural history of 

 that third kind of government which, having a common root 

 with the others, and slowly becoming separate from and sup- 

 plementary to them, serves to regulate the minor actions of 

 life. 



VI. Industrial Organization. — The development of 

 productive and distributive agencies, considered, like the fore- 

 going, in its necessary causes: comprehending not only the 

 progressive division of labour, and the increasing complexity 

 of each industrial agency, but also the successive forms of 



