262 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
mistic. He said that sociologists could not help him in solving the problems of history, and particularly as to why the Reformation occurred when and where it did. I think they do. I think Comte would help him ; Buckle would help a little ; and Spencer would help, though he is unhistorical. You can get certain rational statements of a cause to show why the Reformation broke out in Germany at the time that it did. I would remind him that there is always an x in the other sciences. H 2 O is water, but you have an x there. You have the phenomena of reaction. You may get the same chemical elements, but, being in different arrange- ments, you get extremely different results. That is the x. There is no more x in sociology than in any other science. When we wish to understand how history happened in the way it did, we go about that business in the spirit of a scientific man. There is a justification for taking the physical science as a type or model for social sciences. The sociologist had a peculiarly stern aversion to the physical sciences. He had to get rid of rhetoric absolute empty verbalisms. The explanations of race where did the Romans get them from ? Something in the Roman mind and character. That is a verbal explanation which would never arise if men followed the model of physical science. Let me remind Dr. Reich, who says we cannot get explanations and laws, that he himself gave us the case of slavery. Discover the effect of slavery on the minds of master and man, and it will be a case for all time. If it is a correlation about which you may be sure, you get what is possible in the way of law in social things. There must be law in the broad and general sense of the term, if there be law at all.
While I do not at all indorse Dr. Ingram's somewhat extreme admiration of Comte, -I would say it would be a very good thing if the sociologist did discuss Comte. There was good sociology done in the eighteenth century by a whole group of writers. If we were to discuss Comte, we should get to conclusions a great deal quicker. I did study Comte with the greatest interest. I found his historical explanation verbalist. Chivalry did one thing, the church another, and woman did the third, and so forth ; which is verbalist. I think the metaphysical method lingered into Comte's system. I think we must admit that Comte left the whole question a stage advanced, and that his method was better than any previous method ; and while we detect errors, the natural course of sociology is to rise on stepping-stones and to derive a great deal of profit from criticism as well as study.
The following communications were presented :
FROM DR. BEATTIE CROZIER, AUTHOR OF " HISTORY OF INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT."
As I am in hearty agreement with so much that is said by Professor Durkheim and Mr. Bran ford, the points I would venture to submit will be brought out best, perhaps, by marking out those aspects of the problem in which I differ from them ; principally, I think, from Professor Durkheim, for with Mr. Branford I am almost entirely in agreement. Broadly speaking, then, sociology may be defined as the science of general civilization, or of civilization in general ; and before it can have a definite status of its own, and the specialisms that fall under it can be worked with advantage, its function in relation to these specialisms must be clearly determined. In my judgment, sociology performs a double func- tion in reference to these specialisms : at once a controlling and a receptive function ; a controlling function, inasmuch as it is to it that we must look for the general laws and principles which are to guide the specialisms in arranging and distributing the material with which they severally deal ; a receptive function, inasmuch as it must be continually perfecting these laws in their application to detail by the reports of fresh facts that are being constantly sent up to it by these specialisms. Its function may be compared to that of the brain, which, while controlling and co-ordinating the action of the different organs of the body, is in turn affected by them ; or to the central government of a country, which, while guiding and controlling the action of the various provinces and municipalities, is in turn modified in its action by them. In other words, while sociology is distinct from the specialisms, it is not separable from them ; while in and among them, as it were, it is not of them. For its laws, although mingling in all the work of^ these specialisms, are not drawn from the specialisms, but, on the contrary, have to be introduced into them as a seminal principle before they can become fruitful and
