REVIEWS.
Pure Sociology: A Treatise on the Origin and Spontaneous Develop- ment of Society. By LESTER F. WARD. New York : The Macmillan Co., 1903.
FROM the psychological point of view, this book is more instructive in what it attempts but fails to do than in what it actually accomplishes. This remark, however, is not intended as a wholly unsympathetic criticism, for many writers on sociology escape this failure only because they are not bold enough to make the attempt. The author's avowed aim is to ground sociology in psychology. If he falls short of attaining this end, it is because of the character of the psychological conceptions which he employs. His failure is therefore instructive as pointing the way to sounder psychological principles as a basis for this sociological superstructure.
Throughout the book psychological terms and distinctions form crucial points in the course of the argument. The exact meaning of such terms as "feeling," "sensation," "conation," "interest," "will," "subjective and objective faculties," "intuition," "perception," "reason," etc., is thus very important. But it is just here, in spite of the display of considerable solicitude on the part of the author to define his terms with precision, that there is to be found a vagueness and haziness, not to say inconsistency, in his use of terms, which betrays the diverse sources from which these psychological conceptions have been derived. Many of these conceptions, of course, are true, but they are not consistently developed. The psychological doctrines do not form a coherent view taken by themselves, and notably fail to articulate in any organic way with the biological and the sociological parts of the system.
According to Mr. Ward, achievement, or social activities as embodied in institutions, constitutes the fundamental subject-matter of sociology. "It does not really study men or the human race at all. That belongs to other sciences than sociology, chiefly to anthropology. It studies the activities, results, products, in a word, achievement" (p. 38). " The social forces are .... psychic, and hence sociology must have a psychological basis" (p. 101). "Human events are
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