Sociology [pp. 303-323]

SOCIOLOG Y'.
have a maximum point for any society, or any given stage of
the arts, and a condition of under-population, or of an extractive industry below its maximum, is just as consistent with the
law as a condition of over-population and increasing distress.
Hence inferences as to the law of population drawn from the
status of an under-populated country are sure to be fallacious.
In like manner arguments drawn from American phenomena in
regard to rent and wages, when rent and wages are as yet onlyvery imperfectly developed here, lead to erroneous conclusions.
It only illustrates the unsatisfactory condition of political economy, and the want of strong criticism in it, that such arguments
can find admission to its discussions and disturb its growth.
It is to the pursuit of sociology and the study of the indus
trial organization in combination with the other organizations,
of society that we must look for the more fruitful development
of political economy. We are already in such a position with
sociology that a person who has gained what we now possess of
that science will bring to bear upon economic problems a
sounder judgment and a more correct conception of all social
relations than a person who may have read a library of the
existing treatises on political economy. The essential elements
of political economy are only corollaries or special cases of
sociological principles. One who has command of the law of
the conservation of energy as it manifests itself in society is,
armed at once against socialism, protectionism, paper money,
and a score of other economic fallacies. The sociological view
of political economy also includes whatever is sound in the
dogmas of the "historical school," and furnishes what that school
is apparently groping after.
As an illustration of the light which sociology throws on a
great number of political and social phenomena which are constantly misconstrued, we may notice the differences in the
industrial, political, and civil organization which are produced
all along at different stages of the ratio of population to land.
When a country is under-populated new-comers are not competitors but assistants. If more come they may produce not
only new quotas, but a surplus besides, to be divided between
themselves and all who were present before. In such a state of
things land is abundant and cheap. The possession of it con
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