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SUGGESTIONS OF SOCIOLOGY. 50I 



LINES OF SOCIOLOGICAL ENQUIRY. 



The lines of sociological work are parallel to those 

 in biology: — 



(A) Describing the structure of society l^.^^^^^^^!^ ^^^^^^^ 



or of societary forms = Social V r)i^oloe-v 

 otaticSi J 



(B) Analysing the activities of society^ ^, _^,i 4-^ r>v, ^ 



or of societary forms = Social Incomparable to Phys- 

 Dynamics. J ^^^^SY- 



} Comparable to Gen- 

 eology (Embryol- 

 ogy, Palaeontology, 

 etc.)- 



Comparable to JEti- 

 ology, but it need 

 not be separated as 



(D) Inquiring into the factors of social 

 evolution (variation, selection, 



etc.), or into the factors in the y a special depart- 



evolution of any particular form 

 or function of society. 



ment as it must be 

 our way of looking 

 at the whole. 



It may be of service to illustrate this classifica- 

 tion by means of some representative examples. 

 These are indicative of some of the steps of nine- 

 teenth-century sociological work, but it should be 

 noted (1) that many of the best pieces of work tra- 

 verse the whole field, and that even when an investi- 

 gator refrains from enquiring into the historical or 

 evolutionary aspect, he usually brings some evolu- 

 tionist ideas into his morphology; (2) that, as be- 

 fore said, the lines separating sociological enquiry 

 from anthropology, psychology, and history (in the 

 narrow sense) are artificial lines of convenience ; and 

 (3) that the great bulk of sociological work (we do 

 not refer to sociological ideas) is subsequent to Her- 

 bert Spencer's finely conceived introduction to the 



