REVIEWS
Foundations of Sociology. By EDWARD ALSWORTH Ross. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. xiv + 4io.
It would have been a miracle if the author of Social Control had been able to follow it up so soon with another equally original book. The volume before us traverses ground much of which has been often, if not well, surveyed before. The unity of impression made by the earlier book is lacking here, although the studies of which it is composed are organized to serve a definite purpose. In spite of these obvious qualifications, one can hardly read Foundations of Sociology without a sense of closing the Antean circuit with reality.
In my judgment, Professor Ross is as hot on the scent of the next important results in sociology as any of the men to whom we are looking for additions to knowledge. This book is, on the whole, devoted to the method, rather than to the content, of knowledge. It does much in the way of clearing the cobwebs out of the sociological skies. It is, however, a general survey rather than a treatise. It will be profitable reading for sufficiently mature students who are making their first approach to sociology. It will be not less useful to older students for review and recapitulation. At the same time, I predict that the author will very soon think beyond certain of the forms in which this summary leaves mooted questions. Indeed, it seems to me that he has not quite done justice to the full results of his own analysis up to date. He has left some things in less satisfactory shape than other parts of his work seem to dictate.
For instance (p. 6) he defines sociology by implication as the science of " social phenomena." As a way of putting it, this seems to me inadequate and unfortunate. No one has better thought out the reasons why than Professor Ross himself. If we stickle for the strict meaning of phrases, there is almost a contradiction of terms in the expression " science of phenomena." Considering phenomena simply as such, we exclude the relations which are the conditions of science. Every science must deal with some sort of relations between phenomena. In chap. I, therefore, we have, so far as mere words go, a much less mature conception of the scope of sociology than the one contained in chap. 4. On p. 91 the author virtually reaches the con-
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