ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS 



be understood without previous knowledge of the 

 whole history of Christianity, and indeed of hu- 

 man speculative thought since men began to be 

 aware of the universe about them. Our political 

 organization can be scientifically interpreted only 

 as the offspring of ancestral political organiza- 

 tions in a series reaching back to the primitive 

 tribal community.^ And so with all the aspects 

 of society. Whether we are studying a creed, a 

 code of laws, a dialect, a system of philosophy, 

 a congeries of myths, or a set of manners and 

 customs, we can arrive at the rational solution 

 of our problem only through a historical in- 

 quiry. Hence the doctrine of genesis, indispen- 

 sable as it is in the other two organic sciences, 

 becomes, if one may say so, even more indis- 

 pensable in sociology. Here the whole science 

 rests upon sociogeny,and until we have reached 

 a scientific conception of progress we cannot stir 

 a step. 



Thus, in addition to the unparalleled com- 

 plexity of its phenomena, and to its general 

 dependence both for doctrine and for method 

 upon the simpler sciences, we perceive still an- 

 other reason why the science of sociology has 

 been the last to be constituted. Resting as it 

 does upon the law of progress, it has had to 



1 See Mr. Freeman's book. Comparative Politics, — the 

 work of a great scholar who inherits the gift of Midas, and 

 makes gold of every subject that he touches. 



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