SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL 



pair proceed according to immutable laws, or to 

 forestall possible cavils by declaring that, al- 

 though we cannot predict our states of health 

 from week to week, nevertheless organic pheno- 

 mena are not the sport of chance. It is other- 

 wise in sociology, which is a new science, en- 

 cumbered with many popular misconceptions, 

 and regarded with an evil eye by theologians, — 

 persons who profess great devotion to the in- 

 terests of advancing knowledge in general, while 

 the particular advance in knowledge at any time 

 going on somehow never happens to be the one 

 which they think fit to regard with favour. Of 

 each new trophy which Science has from time to 

 time laboriously won, these opponents have 

 hastened to declare, " Behold, it is the last ! '* 

 Though the phenomena presented by the hea- 

 venly bodies, by the surface of the earth, and by 

 the life which covers the earth, have one after an- 

 other, in spite of vehement theological protest, 

 been made the subjects of science,^ it is still 

 stoutly maintained that the results of human 

 volitions can never become amenable to scienti- 

 fic treatment. Here, it is cried, on the thresh- 

 old of sociology we must take our final stand, 



^ *' Als Pythagoras seinen beriihmten Lehrsatz entdeckte, 

 opferte er den Gottern eine Hekatombe, d. h. ein Opfer von 

 hundert Stieren. Seitdem briillen alle Ochsen, so oft eine neue 

 Wahrheit entdeckt wird." Buchner, Die Darwin* sche The- 

 oricy p. 288. 



243 



