558 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 94. 



be awakened by it to a larger and nobler 

 conception of the true mission of labor, and 

 by its practice, along the path of simple, 

 honest, persistent work, life may be made 

 easier, and men and women healthier and 



happier. 



William R. Lazbnby. 

 Ohio State Univeesity, 



Columbus, Ohio. 



SECTION L— SOCIAL AND ECONOIIIC SCIENCE. 



The sessions of the Section of Social and 

 Economic Science had rather more interest 

 and attendance this year than usual from 

 the reopening of the question, voted upon 

 the previous year, of an appropriate title, 

 the new proposition being one of nearly 

 identical meaning, but not so clearly defined 

 in the word Sociology. As first used by 

 Comte (not a very respectable paternity, by 

 the way) and adopted by Spencer, sociology 

 is confined to human societary evolution, 

 a species of linear succession in the unfold- 

 ing of psychology. Giddings, in his recently 

 issued Principles of Sociology, bases it on 

 the ' consciousness of kind,' a basis broad 

 enough to include the societary institutions 

 of animals, especially certain insects. The 

 fact that several American universities have 

 established chairs of sociology, and the name 

 already includes quite a bibliography with 

 the adjunct of a monthly periodical (al- 

 though the Europeans are still rather shy 

 of the name) brings into prominence the 

 need of some appropriate title for that 

 branch of knowledge which is concerned 

 with demography, vital statistics, polity, 

 economics, ethics, government, crimes, pun- 

 ishments, education, etc. The determina- 

 tion of this point brings up the underlying 

 one of the need of some recasting of the 

 departments of science concerned in psy- 

 chical development. New classifications 

 continually appear, in greater or less con- 

 formity with the broader views made possi- 

 ble by modern research. It is apparent that 



we are on the threshhold of a ISTew Physics' 

 which threatens to overlap that of the new 

 Astronomy on the one hand and the new 

 Chemistry on the other ; and also to invade 

 the domain of Psychology, with all the por- 

 tentous consequences implied thereby. So 

 of anthropology (another of Comte 's prog- 

 eny) of indefinite extent, as at present 

 outlined, embracing archeology, ethnology, 

 mythology and folk lore, somatology and 

 psychology. Is sociology properly a branch 

 of anthropology ; or should it merely, for 

 convenience of consideration, to be erected 

 into a quasi-independent science ? 



Popular interest in the deliberations of 

 the Section of Economic Science was this 

 year enhanced by the pending National 

 Presidential election and the political parti- 

 san platform issues, especially the '■ gold vs. 

 silver ' controversy, which occupies so large 

 a space in the newspaper and periodical 

 press discussions, as if it were a new subject 

 recently dropped into our economic life. Bi- 

 metallism is really an old debate which has 

 been within a generation intensified by the 

 nearly concurrent action of (1) the sale of 

 the German indemnity silver after 1871; 

 (2) the suspension of free coinage (at 15|- 

 to 1) by the Latin Union ; (3) the dropping 

 of the silver dollar from the legal tender 

 United States coins in 1873 ; (4) the fall in 

 market value of silver by the increased out- 

 put of United States mines, due to richer ores, 

 better machinery and superior methods of 

 extraction ; (5) the cessation of silver ab- 

 sorption in Asiatic population — one-third of 

 the human race — due in part to the intro- 

 duction of railroads and telegraphs, and in 

 part to the supply of ready-made jewelry 

 and silverwares, formerly composed of 

 hoarded coin and reconvertible into coin ; 

 (6) the law of redundancy or 'glut,' which 

 operates to send down the price of the whole 

 product, and (7) the widespread agitation 

 and discussion of the value of silver as a 

 unit measure of value which has resulted in 



