246 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
everything but name. He makes citations showing the impor- tance attached by German political economists to the psychology of motive, and he remarks that "they illustrate very clearly why the demand for a distinct sociological methodology has been less acute in Germany than in the English-speaking countries." It seems to me that the logic of this is that it does not matter in which direction you go so long as you know where you want to arrive. I think it matters a great deal ; one cannot reach any goal unless one moves toward it. The notion that one methodology is as good as another, so long as it is addressed to the same class of problems, is to my mind a logical absurdity. The essence of sci- entific rank in any body of knowledge is that it methodizes the facts with which it deals, so that they are brought into their proper relations. A methodological scheme is therefore a condi- tion precedent to any claim of scientific standing, but the claimant must stand or fall on the validity of its scheme. Professor Ell- wood sees this point. He admits that the problems with which sociology proposes to deal are not new, and he adds "nor is sociology a new science except in the sense that it proposes to attack these problems by the new methods of positive science."^ That is to say, it claims to be a science because it has or is acquiring a special methodology different from that of other sciences, and performing a service that they are unable to render. I have no trouble in following Professor Ellwood's argument and unreservedly admit that his case in this respect is sound in logical formulation. Sociology has its own methodological scheme and to that extent its pretensions to rank as a science are well founded. But to make good its claim its methodological scheme must be valid. It appears to me that usually in socio- logical literature the security of its methodological basis is regarded as obvious. Faith in the possibilities of sociology, which gives ardor to the efforts of so many sincere and indus- trious workers, seems to rest upon the assumption that there must needs be a province for a science construing the phenomena of human life in terms of association among individuals. They seem to think that this is too plain for argument, since it is
- Cf. "The Science of Sociology: A Reply," Am, Jour, of Social., XV, 106.
