874 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 207. 



people. With the former all men of science 

 are in substantial accord ; against the latter ar- 

 gument is almost futile. It has been said that 

 as everyone has a blind spot in his eye so 

 everyone has an idiotic spot in his brain. Anti- 

 vivisection is the idiotic spot of many estimable 

 persons. Regarding the merits of the bill lim- 

 iting research in the District of Columbia, now 

 pending in the Senate, we cannot do better 

 than refer our readers to a report adopted by 

 the National Academy of Sciences. The report 

 states that physiology must be studied by ex- 

 perimental methods. The physiologist, no less 

 than the physicist and the chemist, can expect 

 the advancement of science only as the result 

 of carefully planned laboratory work. If this 

 work is interfered with, medical science will 

 continue to advance by means of experiment, 

 for no legislation can affect the position of 

 physiology as an experimental science. But 

 there will be this important difference. The 

 experimenters will be medical practitioners and 

 the victims human beings. That animals must 

 suffer and die for the benefit of mankind is a 

 law of nature, from which we cannot escape if 

 we would. But the suffering incidental to bio- 

 logical investigation is trifling in amount and 

 far less than that which is associated with 

 most other uses which man makes of the lower 

 animals for purposes of business or pleasure. 

 The men engaged in the study of physiology 

 are actuated by motives no less humane than 

 those which guide the persons who desire to 

 restrict their actions, while of the value of any 

 given experiment and the amount of suffering 

 which it involves they are, owing to their special 

 training, much better able to judge. When 

 the men to whom the government has entrusted 

 the care of its higher institutions of research 

 shall show themselves incapable of administer- 

 ing them in the interest of science and human- 

 ity, then, and not till then, will it be necessary 



to invoke the authority of the national legisla- 

 ture.— Ed. Science.] 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



Outlines of Sociology. By Lester F. Ward. 



New York, The Macmillan Company. 1898. 



Pp. xii-h301. 



It is never too late to call the attention of 

 competent readers to a work of the value of Dr. 

 Ward's 'Outlines.' Dr. Ward is one of the few 

 authentic scientists to be met with in the varie- 

 gated crowd of the so-called 'sociologists.' 

 Every contribution of his deserves, therefore, 

 the most careful consideration. 



The book contains twelve papers already pub- 

 lished in the American Journal of Sociology. It 

 is divided into two parts : (I.) Social Philoso- 

 phy ; (II.) Social Science. By the former Dr. 

 Ward means the study of the relations of So- 

 ciology to the other sciences. By the latter he 

 means the study of the laws of society. Hereby 

 Dr. Ward has adopted Professor Robert Flint's 

 view, according to which " each special science 

 and even every special subject may be naturally 

 said to have its philosophy, the philosophy of 

 a subject as distinguished from its science being 

 the view or theory of the relations of the sub- 

 ject to other subjects, and to the known world 

 in general, as distinguished from the view or 

 theory of it as isolated or in itself" (p. viii). We 

 believe this distinction to be entirely mislead- 

 ing. Science means investigation of a well de- 

 fined group of phenomena. Now, the very act 

 of marking or of ascertaining and setting a limit 

 to the field of inquiry presupposes the discus- 

 sion of the relationship which the group of 

 phenomena under investigation bears to the 

 other groups of phenomena. Thus, on reflec- 

 ting well, the task assigned to 'philosophy ' by 

 Professor Flint appears to be unavoidably co- 

 extensive with one of the fundamental exigen- 

 cies of the scientific research. As long as the 

 discussion of the relationship of the subject to 

 other sulijects is carried out merely with the 

 purpose of defining the boundaries of the field 

 of inquiry, we do scientific rather than philo- 

 sophic work. Philosophy begins only when the 

 study of the relationship which one group of 



