THE

PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY

BY

EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS, PH.D., LL.D.
Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin.
Author of "Social Control," "Social Psychology," "Foundations
of Sociology," "The Changing Chinese,” “Changing
America," "South of Panama," "Russia
in Upheaval," etc.

ILLUSTRATED WITH

DIAGRAMS

NEW YORK

THE CENTURY CO.

ΤΟ

ROSCOE POUND

DEAN OF THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL

PRINCE OF LAW TEACHERS

AND

BUILDER OF SOCIOLOGICAL JURISPRUDENCE

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

PREFACE

--

After a cataclysm which has destroyed in battle seven and a half million men and set civilization back at least a life time the world ought to be interested in the scientific study of human relatras. Sociology was young what time the World War was inbating, but it is a satisfaction to recall her unregarded voice was ever lifted in protest against the dance toward the yss. Nowhere in Europe was she so contemned as in Germany, where her few champions in the Universities were utterly browbeaten by the arrogant professors of Staatswissenschaften. Sociologists follow the methods of Science but they are by no means content to seek Knowledge for her own sake. They are tashamed to avow an over-mastering purpose and that is to better human relations. They confess that they are studying how to lessen the confusion, strife and mutual destruction among men and to promote harmony and team work. A quaint idea- but after watching civilized humanity tear at its vitals for four and a quarter years one wonders if there may not be something in it! The sociologists have been taken in by none of the evil docrines which have brought the world to its present desperate Flight. On the other hand, they listen with patience to those who really have at heart the amelioration of man's lot, but they acept no panacea. They do not pin their hopes of social progress to putting "God" in the Constitution, Sabbath protection, probition, collective bargaining, single tax on land values, syndiam, public ownership, or guild socialism. Knowing that humanity must advance along many roads they keep their program bad

This book I am offering has been a slow growth. Seventeen pars have elapsed since I laid out the chapter scheme and began electing material for it. It contains a system of sociology, i.e., the parts are fitted to one another and taken together they are intended to cover the field; but I do not put it forward as the sys

While it is that organization of knowledge about society which helps me the most, no doubt other equally valid systems are