SOCIOLOGICAL INSTRUCTION A T PARIS 2 \ \
of opinion concerning the bare existence of so-called social prob- lems ; there is a greater difference of opinion concerning their nature, their importance, and their causes; there are innumerable different opinions concerning the method of their solution and the final outcome. Now, these opinions, however diversified, are all of them manifestations of our social life they are social phenomena, many of which have attained historical importance. The diverse social doctrines deserve to be studied scientifically, if studied at all, and will undoubtedly be best presented by their avowed partisans. Nothing is more difficult than to detect the real nature and the veritable purpose of a social doctrine through the negative and often distortive criticism of an adversary. The various schools of theory and of method should therefore be represented by their respective members.
" Far from us," says M. Funck-Brentano, one of the founders of the school, "was the thought of proposing a conciliation of these diverse theories ; this could lead only to confusion or to eclecticism. But as each of these doctrines has its roots in our social condition and in our actual social state of mind, it is our duty to know them and to study them. To declare the diffi- culties insurmountable before having made a serious study of them is as presumptuous as it is unjust to stamp the search for a solution as a rash act. A naturalist who should exclude tigers and serpents from the field of his investigations under the pre- text that they are dangerous animals would make us smile. Would we possess the discoveries of Pasteur and his disciples if they had refused to study the ferments of hydrophobia and croup? If, then, we, in turn, want to deepen the science of men, let us be men ourselves, and not permit the fear of an imaginary danger to arrest us in the fruitful study of social crises. For they are like the diseases of the body ; science cannot combat them until it has determined their causes. Empiricism is just as insufficient in sociology as in medicii
It must be confessed that the concept " social science " was not very clearly outlined, and questions naturally arose as to the limits and number of disciplines to be taught. But in
