THE CLAIMS OF SOCIOLOGY 249
these are not refuted or rejected; they are simply ignored. That the fundamental concept of sociology should be fallacious seems as incredible as was at one time the statement that the earth is really round and not flat, despite the testimony of common-sense.
II
At times Professor Small uses language which seems to im- ply that sociology as a term connotes nothing more than the application of the methods of positive science to the interpreta- tion of human nature and its institutions. It would follow that if sociology were discarded in favor of a system of quite different terminology that would be "sociology in everything but name." I am unable to recognize any scientific quality in such a statement. It reminds me of the reasons (in Thackeray's Pendennis) which Captain Shandon gave for naming his new paper the Pall Mall Gazette: "Because everything must have a name. My dog Ponto has got a name." If the term sociology is not a mere appellation that may be applied indifferently to any methodological scheme, according to one's taste and fancy, I submit that it must be taken to be related to its etymology and that it connotes the hypothesis that institutional development is to be construed in terms of association among individuals. It postulates the existence of human beings and proposes to ac- count for the associations they form. As Professor Small puts the case in his General Sociology, the subject-matter of sociology is "the process of human association." This statement is cited with approval by Professor Ellwood, who goes on to remark that despite the great variety of sociological investigation, "the object of the sociologist's attention is always the associational process, that is, the psychical interactions of individuals."® The italics are Professor Ellwood's own.
When I criticize sociology, I desire to be understood as criti- cizing this hypothesis. Nothing is farther from my thought than any notion of antagonizing "the natural-science view of human society," or of resisting scientific effort "for obtaining an all-sided comprehensive view of the social life as opposed to
- Am. Jour, of Social., XIII, 311.
