394 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
difficulties of the social problem prompts sociologists to do the best they know in the way of immediate social action ; if for no other reason, because it is the best available substitute for scientific experi- ment."
Meanwhile it is puerile to reject a method indicated by the impli- cations of a complex problem on the ground that it is complex. If it were<iess complex it would not satisfy the conditions of the problem. We cannot teach a boy in the grammar school to calculate the next eclipse with nothing but the rule of three. No more can we work out real formulas of social forces in terms less complex than the factors actually involved. Hence the alternative, either persistent parade of mock knowledge, or consent to go about the quest of real knowledge in the only way in which it can be found.
Albion W. Small.
The University of Chicago.
■ " The Sociologists' Point of View," American Journal of Sociology, Sep- tember, 1897, pp. 153-5.
