August 30, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



253 



tent on a priori reasoning, instead of a pos- 

 teriori, as true science demands. The scien- 

 tific method of procedure is too often neg- 

 lected. 



It seems that as yet both writers and 

 practitioners rely more upon proposed work- 

 ing theories than upon discovered laws, and 

 hence we find the economists divided into 

 camps and schools, diflering in the most 

 fundamental principles ; partisanship, pref- 

 erences, bias of education, personal opinion, 

 sentiment, dogmatism, rather than facts, 

 truths, and natural laws, predicating unal- 

 terable consequences, are at the very foun- 

 dation of the superstructure. 



All science, to be sure, requires working 

 theories as methods for further develop- 

 ment, and in these there may be differences 

 of conception which lead to diversity of 

 opinion as to the probable truth, such as 

 the dynamic and fluid theory of electricity, 

 the undulatory and corpuscular theory of 

 light. But these theories are the scaffold- 

 ing outside of the unfinished building, not 

 the foundation that is placed on broad 

 unalterable law, on facts observed, which 

 can be tested, and it is the organized and 

 related condition of these facts and laws, 

 their ' cause and effect,' interdependence, 

 their sti-uctural aggregation which gives to 

 the building its name and character of ' Sci- 

 ence,' although the building may not yet 

 be, never is to be, finished. 



Do we have such a substructure and suf- 

 ficient foundation walls for social science, 

 or even for that part which has been most 

 developed. Political and Economic Science, 

 to deserve its appellation, or is it only a 

 scaffolding from which to work in the erec- 

 tion of the building with a few isolated 

 foundations of some of its walls, not too 

 firmly placed and often lacking connection 

 and mutual support ? 



Is not even the plan of the building so 

 ill understood that the masons on each of 

 the four walls have worked independently. 



without reference to what the whole is to 

 be, and some of them think that they are 

 building an independent and separate struc- 

 ture instead of an integral part of the 

 whole; so that, for instance, the worker on 

 the economic side is jealous of and quarrel- 

 ing with the sociologist ? ( Vide Discussion 

 in the latest Proceedings of Am. Economic 

 Association.) 



It was not, however, Tuy purpose to carp 

 about names and classification, although I 

 believe that proper nomenclature and clas- 

 sification assist greatly in advancing sci- 

 ence; or to quarrel with the builders, except 

 to warn them against dogmatism, which is 

 unscientific, and against narrow conceptions 

 of the sphere of their work, which is detri- 

 mental to its efiSciency. I wish to empha- 

 size that foundations are still needed on 

 which to erect the building of social science 

 and mutual supports for the walls, that 

 have hitherto been left to stand independ- 

 ent; that the forces and stresses need to be 

 more carefully calculated and their direc- 

 tion determined with more precision before 

 the building may satisfactorily proceed. 

 Finally, I desired to use this occasion for 

 calling the attention of the workers on this 

 building to the advantages they could de- 

 rive for their fundamental work in this As- 

 sociation, which affords intercourse with 

 the workers in other biolo'gical sciences, an 

 advantage which the student of Social Sci- 

 ence cannot afford to neglect. 



While thus I desire to emphasize the ad- 

 vantages that come from such association, 

 it wiU be part of my theme to point out the 

 danger and impropriety of considering the 

 social development of man as closely an- 

 alogous to, nay, as of the same order as the 

 biological development of plant and animal, 

 an impropriety which is perpetrated by that 

 school which has potently infiuenced eco- 

 nomic thought for many decades, known as 

 individualists, with Herbert Spencer as 

 their most powerful exponent. 



