as a separate department of scientific studies. The word "sociology" he sanctioned by frequent use in the final book of his Logic-that "On the Logic of the Moral Sciences," perhaps the least studied and most valuable of all the parts of the famous treatise. Writing in 1843, Mill said:

If the endeavors now making in all the more cultivated nations, and beginning to be made even in England (usually the last to enter into the general movement of the European mind), for the construction of a philosophy of history, shall be directed and controlled by those views of the nature of sociological evidence which I have (very briefly and imperfectly) attempted to characterize, they cannot fail to give birth to a sociological system widely removed from the vague and conjectural character of all former attempts, and worthy to take its place, at last, among the sciences. When this time ✔ shall come, no important branch of human affairs will be any longer abandoned to empiricism and unscientific surmise.

Anticipating the practical effects of sociological study on statesmanship, Mill said:

By its aid we may hereafter succeed, not only in looking far forward into the future history of the human race, but in determining what artificial means may be used, and to what extent, to accelerate the natural progress in so far as it is beneficial; to compensate for whatever may be its inherent inconveniences or disadvantages; and to guard against the dangers or accidents to which our species is exposed from the necessary incidents of its progression. Such practical instructions, founded on the highest branch of speculative sociology, will form the noblest and more beneficial portion of the political art. That of this science and art even the foundations are but beginning to be laid is sufficiently evident. But the superior minds are fairly turning themselves toward that object.

For a long time the word "sociology" made little headway, and this notwithstanding Mill's sanction and usage of it, and the rapid acquisition and long maintenance by his Logic, of classic rank throughout the western world; carrying as it did the new term into quarters-notably in Germany and America—where the Positive Philosophy did not penetrate. It was not, in fact, till more than half a century had passed that the word could be said to be accepted as part of the international vocabulary of the learned world. In this, to be sure, it followed the general tendency of ideas to outstrip words. No one, for instance, today denies the legitimacy of general studies in the natural sciences,

and yet there are universities in which the word "biology" is not yet officially recognized. And "biology," it has to be remembered, had more than a generation's start of "sociology" as a piece of technical nomenclature. It is therefore not surprising that what Huxley said of "biology" in 1876 should be widely applicable to "sociology" still: "There are, I believe, some persons who imagine that the term 'biology' is a new-fangled designation, a neologism in short." Incidentally it is worth noting that Huxley in that same address in 1876 spoke of sociology as a "constituted science." By this he did not, of course, mean that our knowledge of social phenomena was scientifically organized. He merely meant that to the needed work of organization a group of trained investigators was pledged to contribute co-operatively that, in short, a system of organized study was being built up.

One important factor in the ultimate establishment of the word "sociology" was, of course, Spencer's adoption of it. His book The Study of Sociology won recognition in almost every civilized country during the two decades between 1870 and 1890. The first volume of the Principles of Sociology appeared in 1876 and the last in 1896. Though comparatively neglected by British universities, the work has been extensively studied in German and still more in American universities. In France, too, Spencer's influence has tended to the dissemination both of the idea and the word; for he is there considered as the chief continuator of the philosophical and scientific work of Comte-a continuation in some respects the more emphatic and convincing by Spencer's repudiation of discipleship and total rejection of the political and religious deductions made by Comte in his later years from his sociological and philosophical system.

In the last decade of the nineteenth century there was a very considerable development of interests and studies specifically sociological. It was a time of growth characterized by the customary symptoms both of expansion of studies and of co-ordination of them—the establishment of chairs, lectureships, and institutions; the multiplication of literature (much of it, to be sure, calling itself sociological with little justification), and the

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founding of sociological journals. Outstanding marks in the history of the word during this decade were: in France, the sociological lectures and writings of Tarde and of Durkheim, the establishment of the International Institute of Sociology (1893), the publication of the Revue internationale de sociologie and the addition (1894) to the Revue philosophique of a section under the title "Sociologie," and the publication of the Année sociologique (1898); in Italy, the publication of the Rivista Italiana Sociologia (1897), and the growth of sociological courses in the universities; in Belgium, the foundation of the Université Nouvelle in Brussels, under de Greef, on a specifically sociological basis; in Germany, the specifically sociological courses of Simmel in Berlin, and of Barth in Leipzig, and the publication of the latter's Die Philosophie der Geschichte als Sociologie (1897); in the United States, the wide extension of sociological courses in the universities, colleges, and theological seminaries, and the publication (in 1895) by the elaborately equipped sociological department in Chicago University of the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, at once accepted in Europe as an important addition to the periodical literature of scientific studies.

During the past two or three years the further growth of the word in international usage is marked by the foundation of the Institut de Sociologie in Brussels, by the inclusion of an article under the heading "Sociology" in the supplement to the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (following in this the recent example of the Grande Encyclopédie, and by the addition (in 1902) of the word "sociology" to its title by the well-known quarterly (Vierteljahrschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie und Soziologie) founded by Mach, Avenarius, and Riehl. In Great Britain, almost alone of leading nations, sociology is today unrepresented by any special institution or periodical of scientific studies, and our universities stand in conspicuous isolation; whether on the implicit assumption that sociological studies are adequately pursued under some other title, or that means and men are needed, we need not for the moment inquire.

In contending that the word "sociology" has established itself in international usage, it is not, of course, intended to

convey the impression that hostility has ceased, indifference been expelled, or misundertanding corrected. There is, for instance, in many quarters a prejudice against sociology on the ground of its supposed antagonism to specialist studies of social phenomena. Sociology is, by these critics, conceived as an exclusive alternative to the group economics, politics, ethics, etc. As well accuse the architect of being inimical to the mason and the carpenter. For this and other reasons it remains a fact, evident to the most superficial observer, that numerous influential groups of philosophers, scientists, and critics still reject the word or restrict it either to some specialist application in science (as, for instance, to empirical anthropology), or to the vague purposes of popular usage. Of those who take up this position, some still do so on the grounds of genuine, though unconscious, ignorance of what scientific sociology stands for. Others—and to be sure they are both numerous and influential—have been at pains to investigate the case. Of these there are two main groups. The first group either denies the possibility of a general study of social phenomena in terms of causation, or admits it as an intangible contingency of a remote future. The second group, while admitting the present need and opportunity for a general study of social phenomena, yet denies the relevancy and legitimacy of the work of professed sociologists. This second group of investigators customarily pursues general social studies under some other title than "sociology." Some of them do so by broadening out their own particular specialism-economics, politics, jurisprudence, psychology, anthropology, etc.—till it yields them a theory of social development, function, and organization, which, however, is almost of necessity colored by the initial sectional bias. Students of economics, for instance, have been fertile in constructing systems rejected by economists as theories of business, but not admissible by sociologists as theories of society. From this particular source of error—a fallacy of which Æsop made a well-known study-other students of social theory free themselves by starting from the more comprehensive standpoint of philosophy or of history, and the resulting study is pursued under the title of "social philosophy" or of "philosophy of history."

Of all these different groups of social investigators working outside the conception of a sociological science, it has to be remarked-in no disparagement of their work, but as matter of observed fact that they are apt to be deficient in some one or more of the necessary elements of a comprehensive sociological equipment. Those who deny to general social studies a scientific status are customarily specialists lacking in philosophical or broad historical training, and consequently habituated to narrow their range of vision by a too strict confinement within the rigid, yet often arbitrary, boundaries marked off for them by the division of scientific labor. Those who make some sectional study or groups of studies a point of departure for the pursuit of a general social theory are customarily men of broad mind, but may be limited in philosophical or historical knowledge; while those who seek a social theory under the title of "social philosophy" or "philosophy of history" are apt to be defective in their equipment of exact science. To the last two statements there are, to be sure, notable exceptions in individual cases; but the broad truth of the description will probably pass without challenge. It remains nevertheless a fact that a steady flow of excellent contributions to sociology comes from each of the foregoing groups, and not the least in either excellence or number from those specialists who repudiate the existence of general studies in social phenomena. In this, in fact, lies the main strength of the sociological position and its fulness of promise for the future that each one of the sciences that directly deal with the phenomena of man is gradually organizing and orienting itself toward a sociological position. The more that process of reorientation can be brought within the conscious and educated intention of the specialist investigator, the more rapid will be the growth of the still nascent science of sociology. On these grounds alone it behooves those interested in the development of sociological studies to organize the alliance and co-operation of all who, under whatever titular mark, pursue studies that touch upon man. To disclose these common truths, to advance these common interests by bringing together representatives of the different groups, is one of the main purposes of the proposed Sociological Society.