770 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
economic science" he deems "an impossibility as representing only one portion of a complex organism all whose parts and their actions are a constant relation of correspondence and recip- rocal modification."
The antiquated systems, reasoning from metaphysical assump- tions or from supposed properties of human nature, are sterile. The disciples of the abstract political economy, the unhistorical jurisprudence, the a priori ethics, and the speculative politics make no headway because they shut their eyes to the interde- pendence of dissimilar facts. In each field of social inquiry the laurels are going to those investigators who look over into other fields, who correlate the form of government with humble geo- graphical, military, or industrial facts, religious progress with family or tribal development, moral crises with changes in con- sumption or in the constitution of classes.
The certainty that profounder research will reveal still closer relations of this sort is the ground of our faith in the future of sociology. We know we can afford to bide our time. We do not expect to win by preaching. In the long run the nature of things will prevail. Vested interests in learning will yield to the logic of facts. So far as social life is one, there will be one mas- ter science of social life. If not today, then tomorrow, if not by this generation, then by the next, the necessity for sociology will be fully recognized. There is a vacant chair among the great sciences, and sooner or later that chair will be filled.
Assuming the vassal and dependent character of the social sciences has been made clear beyond the shadow of a doubt, we next take up the question : "Are these sciences to become mere branches of sociology, or will they retain a measure of their old distinctness and individuality?"
It may be they will stand to sociology as the special to the general. This is how the theory of agriculture, transporta- tion, or commerce stands to economics. Administration and comparative legislation are special in respect to political science, just as histology and embryology are special with reference to biology. Now a social science will be merely special sociology
