REVIEWS.
Theology and the Social Consciousness. By HENRY CHURCHILL KING. New York : The Macmillan Co., 1902. Pp. 252.
PROFESSOR KING defines what he means by the "social conscious- ness" by analyzing the sense of the like-mindedness of men, the sense of the mutual influence of men, the sense of the value and sacredness of the person, the sense of obligation, and the sense of love. He finds the ultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness in the immanence of God and his supporting will. Then he traces the influence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion and upon theological doctrine.
What is the interest of the sociologist in such discussions ? Pro- fessor King makes his own statement of the relation of theology to sociology (p. 5) : the theologian interprets, but does not attempt to explain ; it is sociology which traces the processes of phenomena in causal connections. The sociologist, as such, is interested in the inquiry of this volume first of all because religious factors are social facts. This is as obvious to the agnostic as to the theologian. Soci- ology must deal with all causal elements, even with those which are detestable. Religious ideas, feelings, purposes, actions, customs, and institutions are social phenomena and part of the causative facts in history. Society might be better or worse without religion, but it indubitably would be different.
Theological studies like the one under our notice tend to illumi- nate these regions of social consciousness, to reveal the nature of the contents of religious experience, and to measure the forces here at work. The book before us is a fine example of the perspicacity and subtle analysis of facts which are best known from the inside, facts which 'can be described only by one instructed by sympathy. But sociology does not stop with explanation and causal connections of social phenomena ; that is, with theory ; it is also and inevitably a prac- tical science ; it deals with practice. Practical social science transcends the merely mechanical and physical methods of reasoning, which are inadequate even in theory, and it treats of associations of persons who aim at ends on which they set a value and who put forth conscious
412
