Statistics and Sociology, by Richard Mayo-Smith, Ph. D., Professor of Political Economy and Social Science in Columbia College, New York. Macmillan & Co., 1895.
Professor Mayo-Smith's interest in the practical phases of social and economic science is well known. His scholarly preferences seem rather for the scientific exposition of facts than for the development of theories. Both types of scholarship are necessary, but it often happens that the value of the first sort is underestimated.
The statistician is primarily the man of facts, not merely a recorder of facts, but one upon whom is laid the duty of their orderly arrangement, their exposition and scientific coordination. Our author inferentially recognizes these functions by mapping out a general work to bear the title of the science of the statistics. Herein will be arranged the principal contents of statistical knowledge, in two separate volumes, the one having particular reference to the needs of sociology, the other of economics. Comparative data will be brought together in specific chapters with general statement of purpose, with critical review and reflective analysis; a well-conceived order, contributing to lucidity and a proper comprehension of the function of statistical knowledge.
The volume before us is the first part of the contemplated work and is called Statistics and Sociology. One must not infer from the title that statistics in the scientific meaning of the term is an integral part of sociology, but that sociology, the general science of society needs to make use of statistical laws and conclusions just as it would the generalizations of political economy, of politics or of social ethics, in studying the organic development of society and in formulating a social synthesis. Population is the most important subject matter of statistical science, it is likewise a central fact in sociology. The former treats the appropriate data at first hand and discovers laws and regularities which the latter uses for purposes of coordination along with other generalizations. It is well to keep this distinction in mind lest the investigation of contemporary social facts by the statistical method be also considered a function of sociology and the results to stand for sociological laws.
There can be no question of the great service which statistical science can render to sociology. Neither is there any question of the service which a scholar renders in making available for sociolog-
