with potential capacity for humanization under appropriate conditions. All theories postulating the existence of natural rights enjoyed by man before he was united with his fellows in social and political relations collapse at once if Darwinism be valid. And yet, on this fundamental point of trenchant importance as regards system and terminology, sociology is distracted. On the one hand, Professor Franklin H. Giddings declares:

There is hardly a single fact in the whole range of sociological knowledge that does not support the conclusion that the race was social before it was human, and that its social qualities were the chief means of developing its human nature.

On the other hand, Professor Ward rejects the conclusions of Aristotle and Darwin, holding in express opposition to them both that man was not originally a social animal, but "that he was descended from an animal that was not even gregarious by instinct, and that human society. . . . is purely a product of his reason, and arose by insensible degrees, pari passu, with the development of his brain." No disagreement could be more radical than this. The Darwinists hold that socialization developed the human brain; the anti-Darwinists hold that the human brain developed socialization. No wonder, then, that, lacking any base of operations, the movement is nothing more than desultory roving in all directions.

The unsystematic character of the movement accounts for its marked tendency to fall into errors, that might be avoided by recourse to established science. Sir Frederick Pollock, in his History of the Science of Politics, remarks that "after Burke it was impossible for anyone in England to set up the social contract again, either in Rousseau's or in Locke's form, for any effectual purpose." But sociologists in America do that very thing. Sociological discussion of the nature of government reads like an ardent revival of Rousseau's political philosophy. Professor Ward, in his Dynamic Sociology (Vol. II, pp. 212 f.), argues that government was originally a system of imposture:

It is evident that man in a supposed unrestrained state, in which none of his own race have the power to deprive him of any pleasure which he may seek, and be able to secure, would be far happier than in a condition where half of his desires which might otherwise be gratified are forbidden that gratification by the laws of government.

What is this but Rousseau's state of nature? If Darwin be right, in this "unrestrained state" we should not find men at all; perhaps

not even animals so closely akin to men as the anthropoid apes. But Professor Ward makes this hypothetical state of nature the basis of his argument:

Having arrived at a rational conception of what kind of a being man was before any society existed-that ie, before the essential condition of society, populousness, existed-we are better able to understand how society and government should have come about.

If man was in a state of happiness when there was no government to restrain his impulses, he was defrauded in some way when government was instituted. Hence Professor Ward concludes that government is essentially a usurpation:

It must have been the emanation of a single brain or of a few concerting minds, the special exercise of a particular kind of cunning or sagacity, whereby certain individuals, intent on securing the gratification of the special passion known as love of power, devised a plan or scheme of gov

ernment.

If this be so, then government is a thing to be got rid of as soon as possible. That is just what Professor Ward holds to be the end of social effort and the blessed consummation of the labors of sociologists. What men and women are struggling to attain is "freedom to do as their desires prompt them, and to be their own judge of the rightfulness and justness of their actions." Hence robust sociologists contend that we should all be as free to find our affinities as cats or dogs. Suggestions of trial marriage are made simply as a temporary palliative of an enslaving institution. The trouble with divorce laws is not that they are loose, but that there should be any laws at all. Human beings should be free to mate as they please, and separate as they please, like other animals enjoying their natural freedom.

We have here an instance of what is a striking characteristic of sociology. It gives a hospitable reception to notions examined, discredited, and rejected by established science. After a hard struggle political science has got rid of the noxious fallacies generated by French ideology in the eighteenth century. They now reappear as doctrines propounded by sociology. And so, likewise, in other branches of science, sociology appears as an interloper, proclaiming that the work must all be done over again, and so it starts to rake the refuse heap. It is a whimsical situation. Sociology admits that it has really no scientific credentials, and yet it claims sovereign authority in the field of science. Professor

Edward A. Ross, of the University of Nebraska, in his Foundations of Sociology, says: "It aspires to nothing less than the suzerainty of the special social sciences. It expects them to surrender their autonomy and become dependencies, nay, even provinces of sociology."

These remarks are made in discussing the "problem of coming to terms with the special social sciences, such as economics, jurisprudence, and politics," and it is anticipated that "the workers in long-cultivated fields will resist such pretensions." That is very likely the more so since sociology invites them to turn back to old errors. In America, although not to any extent in Europe, sociology, considered as a scheme of methodology, has made some impression on scholars in established sciences. There was a time in this country (chiefly owing to Spencer's influence) when there was, perhaps, a preponderance of scientific opinion to the effect that the scheme was theoretically feasible, and that sociology would eventually be established as a comprehensive system of science. I myself held that opinion at one time, and, impelled by it, I read extensively in sociological literature. But I finally concluded that if Darwin was on the right track, sociology was on the wrong track. Political and social phenomena can never be fully interpreted as results of individual activities. The attitude of sociology is precisely like that which a biologist would adopt if he should endeavor to discover the causes of the formation of tissues by scrutiny of the characteristics of individual cells instead of by consideration of the growth and development of the organism that includes the cells and conditions their activities. The true cause of the difficulties which the exponents of sociology have in formulating it, is that in reality there is no basis for it as a science. All its troubles come from its primal trouble that its fundamental concept is an illusion. Hence it is doomed to error by its nature. In endeavoring to substitute its elaborate ideology for existing scientific system, it is not going forward, but backward. All of the material with which it attempts to deal, according to the various definitions given of its purpose, is already allotted to better advantage. Take from it what belongs to psychology, history, anthropology, ethics, civics, jurisprudence, economics, statistics, and charity administration, and there is nothing left of value. So far as sociology differs from established sciences, it is an asylum for their castaways.

IV

In considerations like these one should bear in mind Huxley's wise observation that "there is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued." Sociology may be worthless, but the streams of sentiment from which its fogs arise are by no means worthless. Professor Small points out the thing that counts when he says that even if there is no science of sociology, there is the sociological movement. There is, indeed, a world-wide movement for social reform involving extensive readjustments of public order and of governmental function. Civilization is apparently engaged in the dangerous but periodically unavoidable process of exuviation, when old forms are cast and new forms are shaped. But in Europe this is a political movement, and if in the United States it is regarded as a distinctly sociological movement, American scholarship is at fault. If sociology lacks scientific validity, it cannot give safe guidance to any movement and its invasion of the political arena is an added peril. Hence it is impossible to follow Professor Small's logic when he holds that the movement "clearly vindicates the sociologists." It may account for the activity of the sociologists and for the attention their projects receive, just as the prevalence of disease accounts for the activity of quacks, but it certainly does not vindicate them. Apart from the general futility of sociology considered as a science, the American brand of the article is exposed to especial condemnation from the aid and comfort it gives to charlatanry. Instead of inspiring caution, it encourages haste, levity, and sensationalism in dealing with social problems. The official address delivered at Atlantic City, December 28, by the eminent sociologist, Professor S. N. Patten of the University of Pennsylvania, is open to such charges. Among similar matter, he says: "No argument is good in a book or in a classroom unless it could convince the million readers of a daily paper and could find place in the campaign-book of a political party." Indeed! Thus sociology commends itself to people who mistake reverie for thought and feeling for judgment; who reach emotional conclusions from sentimental assumptions, and who impute to their projects the merit of their motives. We shall be lucky if we get through the present era of Jacobinism in ethics and politics without serious disaster.

In the ordinary course of scientific progress error is eliminated

by discussion and concepts found to be invalid are discarded. If the invalid concept was of vital importance, then the terminology derived from it is also discarded and a new terminology is evolved. The process is illustrated by the way in which chemistry superseded alchemy. A similar fate seems to impend over sociology, but until the reconstruction of political science on Darwinian principles, now taking place, advances beyond the present stage of collection and verification of data, and has some generalizations to propound, sociology has its day. The matter might be left to right itself if sociology preserved the proper scientific habit of reserve as to provisional and tentative conclusions. But since it has gone into the forum to harangue the mob, it is the duty of whom it may concern to follow it there and to give notice that it possesses no authority whatever. If anything is urged in the name of sociology the fit rejoinder is that there is no such science.