ii6 The Special Sociological Errors 



great injury to their reputation and without excit- 

 ing much ridicule. Some examples of the false 

 reasoning, sophistries, and contradictions, still 

 current in the subject, are given in the present 

 chapter — enough to show the pre-scientific condi- 

 tion of the subject. And the state of sociology is 

 reflected in all the other social sciences of which 

 sociology should be the keystone. ' ' We live in the 

 stone age of political science, " says Prof. Lester F. 

 Ward. "In poHtics we are still savages."' 



Sociology seems to confirm the law of three 

 states formulated by the founder of the science, 

 August Comte. It is still almost completely in 

 the metaphysical period. It has not yet entered 

 into the second state, the positive phase. It does 

 not place itself in direct and immediate contact 

 with the concrete facts. Vague theories, general 

 propositions, affirmations which are naive, in 

 their lack of precision, still characterize many of 

 the books on the subject. 



As an example of the purely metaphysical 

 reasoning which is still so common in the literature 

 of the subject, and which takes no account of 

 the most elementary concrete facts, the following 

 phrase from August Comte himself is illuminating : 



War constitutes at the beginning the most simple 

 means of procuring subsistence.^ 



* American Journal of Sociology, March, 1905, p. 645. 

 » Cours de philosophie positive, 3rd edition, 1889, volume iv., p. 

 506. 



