though permissible is advisable. Historically, at any rate, the term is at a disadvantage. The champions of some so-called Christian sociology are dangerously open to criticism similar to that which Voltaire passed upon the Holy Roman Empire— "It is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." It certainly is desirable that an end should come to such pious christening of scientific progeny of at best very questionable parentage. With all due allowance for its analogy with other scientific terminology, we bespeak for the term a more definite and positive definition.
This desired definition is to be found in the use of the word Christian as parallel with such adjectives as Hegelian, Aristotelian, Baconian. Just as the philosophies bearing these names are respectively the gifts of Hegel and Aristotle and Bacon, so Christian sociology should mean the sociology of Christ; that is, the social philosophy and teachings of Christ. In this restricted sense the term is both legitimate and capable of an at least tentatively scientific content.
It may be objected that no such philosophy and teachings exist—that Jesus was a teacher of religion and morals and that beyond the realm of these subjects his words are as few as those concerning biology or historical criticism. Such a view, however, is not easily tenable. While it is evident that Jesus has given us no system of social teachings, he certainly was no more a systematic theologian than he was a sociologist. And, a priori, it would be a singular phenomenon if Christian teaching and life which has everywhere effected the most remarkable social changes should itself be possessed of no sociological content It is not altogether a reply to say that good men must necessarily produce social improvements. Good Brahmans in India have not greatly elevated women, and good Greeks in Athens supported slavery. Advance in civilization has not been accomplished by simply producing individuals of high religious and moral character. Since the days when the law went forth forbidding the branding of criminals. Christian impulses have been quite as much social as individual. The yeast of the Kingdom has been quite as
