742 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
aided the same truth. He has not enlarged the truth. The means of discovering what are human rights, what are human duties, and so what is the material of morality, are not increased by anything that Spencer has written.
Of the sociology scattered through several volumes besides those bearing the title, the judgment of sociologists would doubtless be more appreciative if Mr. Spencer's work had ended with the generation to which his thought belongs. It would be unfilial to repudiate the obligation which the younger sociologists owe to Herbert Spencer. It cannot be precisely characterized in a few words. Enough that it is distinct and large. Yet Mr. Spencer's sociology is of the past, not of the present. It has a permanent place in the development of sociolog- ical thought. Present sociology, however, is neither Spencerianism nor is it dependent upon anything Spencerian.
The Principles of Sociology may be described as an attempt to arrange facts about society in such order that they may be made to divulge social and sociological principles. Disciples and opponents of Spen- cer may agree that his labors to this end are valuable beyond estimate. Possibly they will soon agree, if they cannot now, that the element of highest value in them is their inevitable demonstration that after all they only advertise the need of labors a thousandfold more abundant to accumulate sufficient material for induction of sociological princi- ples. It cannot be said, as of the "data of ethics," that the " principles of sociology" are no "principles" at all ; for Spencer has put general- izations in the form of principles. We must rather say that Spencer's "principles" of sociology are supposed principles of biology prema- turely extended to cover social relations. But the decisive factors in social relations are understood by present sociologists to be psychical, not biological. Whether Spencer's biology will stand is a question by itself. Whether Spencer's biology is also a correct prevision of social psychology is a much more involved problem. The present presump- tion is altogether against it. I am not aware that there is a sociologist in the world who accepts Spencer's sociology at its author's appraisal. The volumes entitled Principles of Sociology contain an array of provok- ingly interesting details, classified under obvious and familiar categories, and interpreted by hypotheses that do not explain. In other words, Spencer has collected a vast amount of descriptive material which is not reduced to science, but is rather cumulative evidence that social science is yet to be developed. ALBION W. SMALL.
