Sociology [pp. 303-323]

THE, PRINCE TON R VIE W.
inchoate state. All that we can affirm with certainty is that
social phenomena are subject to law, and that the natural laws
of the social order are in their entire character like the laws of
physics. We can draw in grand outline the field of sociology
and foresee the shape that it will take and the relations it will
bear to other sciences. We can also already find the standpoint which it will occupy, and, if a figure may be allowed,
altho we still look over a wide landscape largely enveloped in
mist, we can see where the mist lies, and define the general
features of the landscape, subject to further corrections. To
deride or contemn a science in this state would certainly be a
most unscientific proceeding. We confess, however, that so
soon as we go beyond the broadest principles of the science we
have not yet succeeded in discovering social laws, so as to be
able to formulate them. A great amount of labor yet remains
to be done in the stages of preparation. There are, however,
not more than two or three other sciences which are making as
rapid progress as sociology, and there is no other which is as
full of promise for the welfare of man. That sociology has an
immense department of human interests to control is beyond
dispute. Hitherto this department has been included in moral
science, and it has not only been confused and entangled by
dogmas no two of which are consistent with each other, but also
it has been without any growth, so that at this moment our
knowledge of social science is behind the demands which existing social questions make upon us. We are face to face with
an issue no less grand than this: Shall we, in our general social
policy, pursue the effort to realize more completely that constitutional liberty for which we have been struggling throughout
modern history, or shall we return to the medieval device of
functionaries to regulate procedure and to adjust interests?
Shall we try to connect with liberty an equal and appropriate
responsibility as its essential complement and corrective, so that
a man who gets his own way shall accept his own consequences,
or shall we yield to the sentimentalism which, after preaching
an unlimited liberty, robs those who have been wise out of
pity for those who have been foolish? Shall we accept the
inequalities which follow upon free competition as the definition of justice, or shall we suppress free competition in the
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