dynamics, but the work which gives the most promise of being permanent is, from the sociologist's point of view, practically all descriptive. In the interest of careful, methodical, responsible science this condition ought to be advertised both to young students and to the oldest investigators. We shall lose nothing in the end by a frank showing of the situation.
This descriptive work being fundamental in all science, and especially since it is the order of the day, whether we will or no, in sociology, our designations ought to correspond with our processes. Tentative interpretation is always in order, but the heaviest constructive work in sociology for a long time to come must necessarily be in accumulation of material. Thus it is perfectly competent for sociologists, if they please, to devote themselves to description and corresponding arrangement of all the forms of human association discoverable in all lands, ages and nations, e. g., the patriarchal groups, the hordes, the tribes, the nationalities, the federations; the arrangements of persons within nationalities, according to race or occupation; the different forms assumed in different times and nations by groups originating in the same principle of composition, as, for instance, the various forms of the legislative element in political groups; the varieties of religious hierarchies, of industrial orders, etc. It is possible of course to conduct such studies with constant reference of the particulars investigated to the containing whole, and thus to pursue the form of a statical inquiry. I contend that it is in the majority of cases an empty form, until description has gone farther than at present. In any event, the logical distinction between the preliminary descriptive work and the subsequent work of interpretation is at least as important in sociology as it has ever been in any stage of the development of another science, and it deserves prominence rather than concealment.
Passing now to more direct consideration of statics and dynamics, there should be no difficulty in agreeing that every fact with which sociology has to deal is static or dynamic or both, according to that consensus of definition in which Comte, Ward, and Le Conte join. It is by no means true, however, as
