interpretation of American history one would gather that protection was all that was needed in the United States for happiness to reign in every breast and joy to sit in every face.30 But the ostensible reasons for the intellectual position a man may assume are not always the real reasons, and it seems more probable that Carey was influenced to advocate protection because the economic interests of Pennsylvania, where he lived, clamored for high tariffs.31 At any rate, the economic thought of Carey is no more consistent than the arguments advanced by the politicians in Congress.

After 1880 a new development of thought may be discerned in England and the United States.32 The failure of Benthamism to solve the problems of society led to the overthrow of fixed principles whether of natural rights or of laissez faire. Jevons in England was arguing that legislation must "always proceed by reasoning from the most nearly proximate and analogous experience which is available." That is to say, a truly "Baconian course in legislation" must be pursued, in the course of which "we must not merely make experiments, but we must make them in the particular way calculated to prove or disprove the conclusion in view."34 Jevons thus pointed to that method of "legislation by statistics" which has become the general rule during the last forty years.

In the United States the individualistic theory has undergone far-reaching modifications.35 The extension of the doctrine of police power has not only subjected businesses affected with the public interest to governmental regulation but has set limits to individual liberty and the property right in the interest of the public. Confronted by an overwhelming mass of statistical data in support

36

" Cliffe Leslie, Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy, p. 146. An analysis of the doctrines of Carey will be found in Jenks, Henry Carey als Nationalökonom. Sammlung nationalökonomischer und statistischer Abhandlungen (ed. Conrad), IV, 1-158.

32 Barker, Political Thought from Spencer to Today, pp. 206-8.

83 The State in Relation to Labour, p. 23.

" Ibid., p. 26.

35 Merriam, American Political Ideas, chap. xii.

38

Compare the long line of decisions of the United States Supreme Court since Munn v. Illinois (1877), 94 U.S., 113, interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment.

of an hours-of-service law for women, the Supreme Court of the United States declared its willingness to "take judicial cognizance of all matters of general knowledge.' "37 Less than a decade ago this same tribunal gave unmistakable evidence of its abandonment of the individualistic theory of the state and the acceptance of an organic conception.38 While the tendency has not been in the direction of Socialism, it has been toward the establishment of a collectivist type of thinking which seeks "to analyze the social, industrial and living conditions of men and women and to apply such remedies as the situation may indicate."39

Now it is an easy matter to apply the statistical method in the collection of data in any social science. But

as every serious student of social matters knows by his own experience, it is impossible to touch a physical fact, or a statistical datum, or a legal enactment, in reference to its social bearing, without its at once, so to speak, coming alive in his hands, and attaching itself to an underlying relation of mind as the only unity which will make it intelligible, and correlate it with other experiences, by themselves no less fragmentary.40

In order to escape the futility of regarding mere dumb facts, the student of the social sciences is led to deal in analogies. The historical analogy has been supplemented by the analogy from biology. The imperfect anthropomorphism of the Middle Ages has given place to substantial biological facts and the special analogy of the living organism has come to occupy a peculiar place in social and political thinking. The result has been that the political scientist has found it necessary to seek his materials in other sciences with which he is not equipped to deal and which have not been ordered with a view to his needs. History, economics, statistics, sociology, and psychology all furnish materials of value in political research. But unless these can be made more readily available, it is not likely that political science will profit from new discoveries. A glance at some of the uses made of the biological analogy in the literature of the social sciences during the past fifty years discloses

38

Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington (1916), 243 U.S., 219, 240.

40

Bosanquet, Philosophical Theory of the State (3d edition), p. 39.

even greater crudities than in the use of the historical analogy by James Madison in the eighteenth century. Simply the accumulation of data without a logic through which to synthesize the essential elements will lead to confusion rather than improvement of political thinking.11

It will be remembered that the task of effecting a synthesis of the various branches of human knowledge was once regarded as the province of philosophy. But the student of the social sciences has had to part company with the philosopher because of the propensity of the latter to indulge in a terminology which cannot be widely understood. The truths of the social sciences must be stated in language which the layman can understand or the sciences fail in their mission. Since the time of Immanuel Kant philosophy has been so occupied with the elaboration of its peculiar terminology that it has ceased to influence the average individual.

At the present time a synthesis of the social sciences can be effected most appropriately through the medium of sociology. It was a sociologist who first attacked the individualistic theory scientifically and asserted the supremacy of the principle of co-operation over that of competition."2 Subsequent sociological investigations have wholly altered the traditional conception of the relations of society, state and government. "The so-called social hypothesis has now won well-nigh universal triumph."43 This has not been accomplished without arousing a certain amount of professional jealousy, but the inherent worth of the contributions of sociology has become impressed upon the other social sciences.

But it is not enough to evolve a philosophical synthesis of the special social sciences. The problem is much greater than this. Sociology might rest content with the achievement of such a synthesis; generalities would be vitalized and completed by the work of the other social sciences, and the phenomena of human association would be revealed in systematic arrangement. But if sociology is "For an account of the recent progress in political methods, see the report of the Committee on Political Research, Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev., XVII, 275-95. "Ward, Dynamic Sociology (1883).

43

Barnes, Sociology and Political Theory, p. 3. This book is extremely valuable in any survey of the relation of sociology to political science. The bibliographical aids are indispensable.

in turn to assist the special social sciences, it must undertake the development of a new logic through which the discoveries made in each science may be made readily available to students of allied sciences. It has been through the possession and use of a common logic that the natural and physical sciences owe their tremendous advance. It is to the credit of the sociologist that he has emancipated himself from the fallacies inherent in the earlier methods of thinking. Perhaps it is not too much to expect that sociology will take the lead in devising a common logic for the social sciences.

44

"Evidence of this may be seen in a comparison of the work of almost any of the leading sociological writers quoted by Professor Barnes and John Stuart Mill's chapters on the logic of the moral sciences in Book IV of his Logic.

SOCIAL INFLUENCES AFFECTING HOME LIFE'

ERNEST R. GROVES
Boston University

ABSTRACT

The family is in transition, due to changes in ways of living. Sentiment leads us to think of the family as something that ought not to need constant readjustment. The family, as an institution, however, is always sensitive to social changes and therefore is never static. The former dominance of man in the family is passing as a result of woman's increasing educational and industrial opportunities and experiences. Both marriage and parenthood are feeling the influences of our modern culture. Parenthood is becoming more and more a choice. The responsibilities of parenthood, especially in our cities, are also largely decided by the inclination of individual parents. The home without children runs risk of stressing sex and remaining an arrested type of family experiences. The material advantages of applied science are the fundamental cause of the present family situation. Education for marriage and parenthood, based on biological and social science, offers the best means of conserving and improving modern family life.

The home is changing. This is the most significant fact regarding the home, and perhaps the most important fact in our current civilization. There can be no doubt as to the cause of the changes taking place with reference to the home. Social life outside the home has changed, mostly due to science and the greater intellectual freedom that follows closely after science. The home has felt these outside conditions and in turn has been forced to modify former habits and motives.

It is not easy, however, to discover the full meaning of these changes in the home. Some are obvious and much talked about. These, perhaps, are on the surface, but on that account they are not necessarily less serious in their import. On the other hand, they may be the expression of deeply hidden causes, much more difficult to detect. Science cannot, of course, have the assistance of experiment in uncovering the character of contemporaneous home life. In its observations it is hampered by the sense of intimacy, the social reticence, and even outward deceit, which make a col1 A paper read at the December, 1924, meeting of the American Sociological Society.

1