Periodical literature

Abstract

FRENCH. Every sociologist ought to read LA SCIENCE SOCIALE for November, and so ought every politician aud every social worker who would avoid putting incorrect interpretations on what he observes. It is a Cours de mithode de science sociale which is so admirably clear, that it would serve as a text-book of applied logic for many a student who has struggled to understand his college manuals on the subject in vain. The writer, M. Paul Descamps, defines social science as the study of the phenomena that are due to the association of human beings one with another in any kind of group, and phenomena as determinable changes within the realm of nature. Advising the investigator to adopt the procedure of Le Play and the nomenclature of Henri de Tourville, he recommends a process of " experimental reasoning," which consists in observation followed by theorizing and verification leading to the discovery of those facts that occasion the most numerous and most important repercussions. The greatest number of characteristic reactions which take place in any group are to be discovered, he says, in the daily life of a working-class family pursuing an industry which is essential to the existence of the group. His method brings into use both creative imagination and critical reason. These gifts in combination may be rare; but even the most muddle-headed student could acquire sufficient power of both sorts to understand social phenomena by learning from M. Descamps how to check theory by fact and fact by theory. The perspicuity both of style and thought which is characteristic of this publication sometimes makes it commonplace. This fault has not been avoided in the October issue, in which M. Paul Rousiers discusses La Formation de I'ilite dans la sociitd moderne. His article is a plea for more capable and more numerous entrepreneurs and initiators in every trade and profession. He shows that brain power is becoming more and more important in the struggle for a livelihood, but does not give any eugenic valuation of the actual population such as Mr. and Mrs. Whetham have made, for this country, in many an able, if one-sided, study of hereditary capabilities.