Sociology [pp. 303-323]

THE PRINCE T0N RE VIE W.
sweeping a priori assumption. Above all other topics, social
topics lend themselves to the purposes of the diner-out.
Two facts, however, in regard to social phenomena need only
be mentioned to be recognized as true. (I) Social phenomena always present themselves to us in very complex combinations,
and (2) it is by no means easy to interpret the phenomena. The
phenomena are often at three or four removes from their causes.
Tradition, prejudice, fashion, habit, and other similar obstacles
continually warp and deflect the social forces, and they constitute interferences whose magnitude is to be ascertained separately for each case. It is also impossible for us to set up a
social experiment. To do that, we should need to dispose of
the time and liberty of a certain number of men. It follows
that sociology requires a special method, and that probably no
science requires such peculiar skill and sagacity in the observer
and interpreter of the phenomena which are to be studied. One
peculiarity may be especially noted because it shows a very common error of students of social science. A sociologist needs to
arrange his facts before he has obtained them; that is to say, he
must make a previous classification so as to take up the facts in
a certain order. If he does not do this he maybe overwhelmed
in the mass of his material so that he never can master it. How
shall any one know how to classify until the science itself has
made some progress? Statistics furnish us the best illustration
at the present time of the difficulty here referred to.
When, now, we take into account these difficulties and requirements, it is evident that the task of sociology is one which
will call for especial and long training, and that it will probably
be a long time yet before we can train up any body of special
students who will be so well trained in the theory and science
of society as to be able to form valuable opinions on points of
social disease and social remedy. But it is a fact of familiar
observation that all popular discussions of social questions seize
directly upon points of social disease and social remedies. The
diagnosis of some asserted social ill and the prescription of the
remedy are undertaken offhand by the first comer, and without
reflecting that the diagnosis of a social disease is many times
harder than that of a disease in an individual, and that to prescribe for a society is to prescribe for an organism which is
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