THE AMERICAN
JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
VOLUME X NOVEMBER, IQ04 NUMBER 3
THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY.
THE proposition to be developed in this paper is that the subject-matter of sociology is the process of human association. 1
Ever since Comte proposed the name " sociology," and parallel with all subsequent attempts to give the term a definite content, one mode of attack upon the proposed science has been denial that it could have a subject-matter not already pre-empted by other sciences. This sort of attack has been encouraged by the seemingly hopeless disagreement among sociologists about the scientific task that they were trying to perform. If sociology has had anything to say about primitive peoples, for instance, it has been accused of violating the territory of anthropology and eth- nology. If it has dealt with evidence recorded by civilized races, it has been charged with invading the province of the historian. If it has touched upon the relations of social classes in modern times, the political scientist or the economist has warned it to cease infringing upon his monopoly. Thus sociology has seemed to workers in other sciences either a pseudo-science, attempting to get prestige in their own fields by exploiting quack methods, or a mere collector of the waste thrown aside by the more important sciences. At the same time, sociologists themselves have uninten- tionally done not a little to confirm this impression. As has been hinted above, their failure to agree upon a definition of their
1 Professor Ross implies precisely this view, though he does not directly declare it (AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Vol. IX, pp. 201 ff.).
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