REVIEWS 305
In a word then, so far as Giddings has applied his strength within the recognized lines of scientific method he has earned the gratitude of sociologists. In so far as he has attempted to operate a method of his own his processes are of a sort which the maturer sciences long since disowned, and most sociologists have had enough scientific dis- cipline to insure them against voluntary exchange of positive science for dogmatism.
The task of analyzing forms of human association, past and present, of determining the forces operating through these forms, and of gen- eralizing the laws of their action, is a task in which real progress can be made only by strict observance of those conditions of knowledge which have passed into settled scientific tradition. The unscientific remainder in our minds is never perfectly secure against seduction by the fair promises of lawless speculation. It is to be regretted that Professor Giddings has made the meretricious element so conspicuous in his book that it will have more influence upon the great majority of
readers than the strictly scientific portions.
ALBION W. SMALL.
An Introduction to Sociology. By ARTHUR FAIRBANKS. The Eng- lish and Foreign Philosophical Library. Pp. xv 4-274. $2.00. Imported by Charles Scribner's Sons.
THE author's programme is thus stated in the preface : " It has been my aim to furnish a brief introduction to the subject, which would make plain to the reader something of its scope and importance, and, it may be, aid him in further study. That the specialist in sociological investigation will find much here to advance the knowledge of the science is not my expectation." king this explanation at face value I should say that the book does unusually well what it proposes. No one who can intelligently read current technical discussions in sociology will find in the volume either new information or contributions to method. College teachers are dealing continually, however, with students who are just beginning to suspect that there is something real beneath that obscure term, sociology. I have seen no better book to put into the hands of students at just that stage. Herbert Spencer's Study of Sociology might be prescribed to create the appetite which this book may for a time feed. Mackenzie's Introduction to Social /'/// losophy contains in principle everything that is valuable in this book,
