THE PROVINCE OF SOCIOLOGY.
SYLLABUS OF A COURSE OCCUPYING FOUR HOURS PER WEEK DURING TWELVE WEEKS: GIVEN BY THE AUTHOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO IN THE AUTUMN QUARTER, 1895.
I. The Nature and Function of Method.
1. Method is mental machinery devised by men to deal with phenomena.
2. The scientific method is applicable in greater or less degree to all kinds of phenomena.
3. There are three modes of scientific investigation: observation, comparison, and experiment.
4. Method is an absolute necessity for systematizing and extending a knowledge of reality.
5. Method is a natural development from the instinctive impulse of the mind to organize its impressions into a consistent unity.
6. The preliminary discrimination of method is the distribution of all phenomena among certain grand divisions.
7. It is of vital importance to discriminate between a division of phenomena for purposes of study, and a separation of the phenomena thernselves.
8. Since the sciences deal with different aspects of the same objective world, it follows that they must cooperate to give a complete account of reality.
9. Scientific method has been developed historically first in application to inorganic phenomena, then to organic life, more recently to psychical and social phenomena.
10. Is there room for a further elaboration of method? Is there need of another department of investigation?
