42 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



forces, some of whom, following the lead of Quetelet, made use of 

 the statistical method, as Buckle, Galton, and Pearson, while 

 others, under the inspiration of Darwin, turned to an inductive 

 study of social facts and forces as Ratzenhofer, Gumplowicz and 

 the modern school of social scientists such as Le Play, Booth, 

 Rountree and the eugenicists, — represented in England by 

 Galton and Pearson and in America by Davenport, — and a 

 final group have endeavored to explain social progress in terms of 

 some one law or principle as Tarde and Giddings. 



As method is so important in any department of investigation, 

 especially in one that is new, and inasmuch as an appreciation of 

 the method used by an author often furnishes a valid means of 

 criticizing his conclusions, it may be well to devote some place 

 to a brief discussion of sociological methodology in general and of 

 some methods as illustrated by specific writers in this field whose 

 contribution to the development of the doctrine of adaptation 

 has been indirect rather than direct. 



When Comte and Spencer wrote, the deductive method reigned 

 almost supreme in social science, and though they prided them- 

 selves on breaking away from the methods of the past, they were 

 still, to a considerable extent, fettered by their training. Mal- 

 thus, Quetelet, and a few others, indeed, had turned their atten- 

 tion seriously to a scientific study of social phenomena but their 

 followers were few. 



Comte turned his attention to this subject holding that the 

 same inductive methods in vogue in biology were, with some 

 modification, applicable in sociology, viz., observation, experi- 

 ment, and comparison, with the promise of a fourth method to 

 be derived from biology, — since fulfilled in the so-called genetic 

 method. 1 Under experiment, Comte mentions only a study of 

 pathological conditions, but despite Mill's teaching concerning 

 the inapplicability of this method in social investigations, 2 we 

 have come to realize the possibility of arranging social conditions 

 and forces by forethought much as does the worker in the physical 

 or chemical laboratory, although as the phenomena are so much 

 more complex, and the time required to try out the experiment is 

 1 Positive Philosophy, ii, ch. II. 2 Logic, ch. VII. 



