May 8, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



709 



researches at Heligoland, Trieste and Mar- 

 seilles, and these he began in 1845. 



Very likely other zoologists as well as Esch- 

 scholtz used the tow-net before Miiller. One 

 can hardly see how an ardent collector of marine 

 animals could have escaped resorting to some- 

 thing of the kind, even though he had never 

 before seen such a thing. 



Wm. E. Rittee. 



University of California. 



SCIENTIFIC LITEM A TUBE. 

 The Principles of Sociology. By Franklin H. 



GiDDiNGS. Pp. 476+16. Macmillan & Co. , 



New York. 1896. 



Sociology has had a checkered and disappoint- 

 ing career. Its study began not because there 

 was a body of men ready to devote their ener- 

 gies to its advancement, but because certain 

 system makers found what they supposed to be 

 a vacant field to which some attention must be 

 given. The men who have done the most from 

 this point of view are Comte and Spencer, 

 though the main interest of neither lay in the 

 development of this field. For these philoso- 

 phers ' sociology ' became the depository of the 

 odds and ends of thought for which no other 

 convenient place could be found. It is needless 

 to say that such a method failed. The creators 

 of a science must live in it, and with this con- 

 dition these system-makers did not comply. 



This new field, this land along the edge of 

 which Comte and Spencer sailed, supposing it 

 to be unoccupied, had residents and tillers. Its 

 aboriginal inhabitants were called economists 

 and, even though not recognized by the system- 

 makers, had really created a science. It is not 

 to be claimed that the whole field was culti- 

 vated or even that the occupied portion was 

 cultivated to the best advantage. But work of 

 a permanent character had been done and, at 

 the same time, public opinion had been recon- 

 structed in many important respects. It is the 

 fuiaiment of these conditions that justifies the 

 claim of any science. 



The second attempt to found a sociology grew 

 out of the shortcomings of these economists. 

 Those who resisted the narrowing tendencies of 

 the definite creed formulated by the economists 



found sociology a convenient name and took it to 

 designate their field. But the latter were moved 

 too largely by their sympathies to be scientific 

 workers, and their energies were spent more in 

 denouncing the hard-hearted economists than 

 in formulating better laws. Sociology with 

 them remained, as with the system-makers, 

 a dumping ground for the crude doctrines 

 and rubbish rejected by the economists.. Such 

 work and such men could scarcely found a 

 science. 



To neither of these causes is due the new 

 American sociology. Professor Giddings is not 

 a wandering philosopher looking for a job, nor is 

 he an outcast economist of the soft hearted 

 variety. Among economists no one has a bet- 

 ter reputation. By his good work he has earned 

 a place in their ranks and he leaves them with 

 their hearty good will. The cause of the new 

 movement lies not in personalities nor quarrels, 

 but in conditions — conditions that can be made 

 plain only by a restatement of the history of 

 economic thought. 



The science of economics is a product of 

 Eighteenth Century rationalism. By the phil- 

 osophers of the last century it was assumed 

 that man was a reasonable being. Customs, 

 habits, national feelings and the like were 

 thought to be remnants of past conditions, due 

 to the oppression from which the race still suf- 

 fered. Conscious calculation should be the only 

 guide; expediency the only rule of action. Each 

 decision was to be made by a summing of utili- 

 ties. The free man should have only two mas- 

 ters, pleasure and pain. 



With such premises the social sciences could 

 be divided into only two parts, economics and 

 utilitarianism. Economics treated of the ma- 

 terial sources of pleasure, the influence of the 

 environment on their production and the pains 

 which this production involved. The older 

 forms of ethics, politics and law were to be dis- 

 placed by utilitarianism, thus including within 

 its scope all decisions where the pleasures and 

 pains were immaterial. Welfare reckoned in 

 material goods was economics; welfare reckoned 

 in units of pleasure was utilitarianism. No 

 rational being should consider other motives, 

 and in time they would disappear through the 

 elevation of the race. While this distinction 



