THE FOUNDERS OF SOCIOLOGY 121
something like that of a biograph too rapidly worked, in which the objects repre- sented flit past us with such astonishing rapidity that it is impossible to see any- thing clearly. We have had many characters rushing past us like figures on the " living picture " that is being turned too fast, and our minds have not been able to assimilate everything that has been said. I do not wish to say anything in disparagement of the author. I think that we should recognize that Mr. Branford is himself a typical sociologist. [Hear, heart] He is a man who is applying the scientific method to the consideration of the problems of social life and civiliza- tion. He is not merely a scientific man and nothing else ; he is not a mere dry-as-dust man ; he has a notion of something beyond that ; and he is trying to teach us that there is something a little ahead of the merely logical and scientific.
" Sociological " is a hybrid word, half Greek and half Latin. It means the science of human affairs, of men in communities. The question is whether the scientific method is really the right method, is the fullest and most proper method of pursuing it. The writer has included all sorts and conditions of reformers and theologians as sociologists. He includes Plato and Aristotle. Of course, sociology was not invented until a hundred and fifty years ago. It is quite a modern word, and it implies the scientific way of looking at social things. But those who have effected great changes have done them, not from the operation of the intellect, but through the spirit of man. I always think there is something about the cold method of science that is unproductive. We have to take part in affairs, and conduct our own lives and live them well, and do the best we can for the community in which we live.
Again, the study of sociology is one that can be taken up by any nation. It is treated as if it were chemistry, which deals with the laws and properties and qualities of matter, or physics ; and it omits a most important thing, and that is the national aspect of things. A Frenchman might write a pamphlet on social phenomena, and an Englishman might do the same, and they might arrive at certain conclusions ; but the true way of progress might be missed by both, because each is a believer in certain national ideals. I am a believer in my own country, and see that it has the germs of progress that other countries do not possess in the same degree. Therefore, I object to sociology itself as a raise of the studies.
It is a useful thing to go hand in hand with the spiritual conception. As was said by a gentleman at the last meeting : a great nation, or a development of a great nation, does not rise spontaneously by taking thought. You cannot add a cubit to your stature ; but unless there is a certain spirit which accomplishes the thing, the whole would be useless. If you see a burglar coming into your house, you may say to yourself, " I will arrest the man ; " and you forthwith describe the arrangement of muscles, nerves, joints, by which you will outstretch your hand and arrest him. But another man, who knows nothing about all this, arrests the burglar. The person who describes it all scientifically is the typical sociologist. He looks at life as a " living picture " in which he takes an interest, and from which he gets intellectual amusement. But the men who have effected refonrs are the men who have done the thing without knowing why.
Take a man like Cromwell, or take the French Revolution. The French have not the intuitive power of the Germans or the English, but they are great scientific people and great logicians. Yet that Revolution was accomplished by one very astonishing fact, and it is this : that in the Revolution men were ready to die for an idea in order to make it a fact in the face of Europe, and in the face of the world. And this you will find to be true, if you examine history. These men may be called atheists, and they did not believe in a future life ; but they were prepared to die for their ideal. The spirit was in that nation of France, of frivolous people ; they had been touched in some way, and they were prepared to die rushed forth to the battlefield to make good that ideal that had somehow touched the soul of humanity.
It is the teaching of the soul that is important ; not merely the survey of the history, not recounting the achievements and writings of these learned men, but the actual doing of the thing by the man who is touched by the spirit, the tran-
