544 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
tion for helping to spread the conviction that it has a province, and none are working more earnestly to discover and define that province. While I am obliged to differ with him fundamentally, I cannot guard myself too carefully against seeming to imply that it is easy to dem- onstrate a better way. Whatever he publishes contains evidence of wide information, of force and massiveness of thought, of independ- ence and vigor of judgment, which entitle him to the most respectful hearing. His conception of sociology, however, seems to make it responsible for wider and deeper wisdom about society than available knowledge can at present authorize. To justify its existence, soci- ology is accordingly called upon for deliverances far in excess of visible scientific sanction. To one who holds, in contrast with Pro- fessor Giddings, that sociology is today less a scheme of knowledge than a scheme of problems, these deliverances necessarily seem premature. They compromise sociology in the eyes of men who respect the proprieties of science in other departments. They place it outside the scientific pale, in a series with astrology and alchemy and phre- nology.
Sociology is an empty pretense if it in any way sets up a rivalry or competition with any other division of human knowledge. Sociology has no reason for existence except as a complementary division of knowledge about humanity. Sociology cannot be extemporized. It cannot be created in isolation from the researches that are prying into the elements of human conduct. It cannot be respectable if it under- takes to dogmatize about the constitution, processes, and results of human conduct ahead of authentic results from scientific research.
The present book is written for use in schools and colleges. To those who are familiar with Professor Giddings' previous work it goes without saying that the thought is presented with rare skill. The doctrines could scarcely be rendered in more appropriate and per- suasive manner in text-book form. If Professor Giddings is right that the contents of the book are sanctioned by the present state of science, and if he is right that these phases of doctrine about society are good for college undergraduates, and even younger pupils, the author is certainly to be congratulated upon having organized a most attractive body of instruction, and pupils might be assured that they would look in vain for stronger guidance through the diffi- culties of this type of social philosophy. Without claiming any other sanction for my dissent than the authority of facts open to all, which must at last reconcile differences of opinion, I venture to express a
