Elgin Gould, Charles Richmond Henderson, Albion Woodbury Small, and William Isaac Thomas

“ All that is needed is that our moralists should acquaint themselves as fully and precisely with the facts of industry and commerce as our mathematicians do with the properties of matter. The processes of the operative, the manufacturer, the warehouseman, the carrier, the merchant, and the retailer must be put under the microscope, and every detail of them examined under the dry light of disinterested science, when much that is unfit to face the pencil of the recorders will at once shrink out of existence. ”

“ Crafts writes is inspired by a noble purpose, and its substance is true and strong. In the present instance the author's purpose is to "coordinate all these reforms as parts of one great reform—the reform which is the culmination of religion, namely, the Christianizing of society, which is the 'kingdom of God,' to the establishment of which, not to personal salvation merely, 'the chosen people' of both Testaments are divinely, but not yet effectually, called." ”

“ We agree with Mencius that there is no difference between killing a man with a sword, and letting him die because we do not know how to regulate the struggle for existence ; and there is no general disposition to repudiate 'the everlasting obligations which are due by man to man.' The problem has reached the intellectual stage, and we need men of science to show how the felt obligations may be met almost more than moral teaching to rouse the sense of duty. ”

“ If there is a single item of social analysis about which there is practical agreement, from the anarchist in the popular sense to the socialist or communist, it is that the present industrial regime is a reign of laws which restrict the liberty that they professedly promote. ”

“ Each special physical and social science is called upon to furnish elements in the solution of the difficulty. Only when these special sciences have reached a certain stage of development, and only when we have succeeded in coordinating the results of such particular studies, are we in the way of securing the most rational treatment of crime and criminals. The necessity for a social science is clearly seen and abundantly illustrated, and the relation of social pathology to the subject is distinctly pointed out. ”

“ The statistician is primarily the man of facts, not merely a recorder of facts, but one upon whom is laid the duty of their orderly arrangement, their exposition and scientific coordination. Our author inferentially recognizes these functions by mapping out a general work to bear the title of the science of the statistics. Herein will be arranged the principal contents of statistical knowledge, in two separate volumes, the one having particular reference to the needs of sociology, the other of economics. ”

“ We have seen that the same kind of qualities enable tribes as well as nations to flourish unchangingly for ages, so it is clear that this longevity does not depend upon political organization. The widest generalization that our facts seem to warrant is that it depends upon the prevalence among the people of a temperament, which, when undisturbed by foreign elements, inspires a theoretical and practical adoption of the homely doctrine, 'Live and let live.'
"In the communities of the West, we weed out our social failures, we throw them—or let them sink—into what we call the residuum. ”

“ One must not infer from the title that statistics in the scientific meaning of the term is an integral part of sociology, but that sociology, the general science of society needs to make use of statistical laws and conclusions just as it would the generalizations of political economy, of politics or of social ethics, in studying the organic development of society and in formulating a social synthesis. Population is the most important subject matter of statistical science, it is likewise a central fact in sociology. ”

“ Small wonder that under this treatment it grows less virulent, it is tamed until it becomes a harmless inoculant, and might in time lose all its power to infect. But we, instead, plant the children of our social failures in a soil where their parents' vices and defects must become intensified, and where every kind of quality and propensity injurious to the individual and to society must develop. The children of drunkards, nurtured in the lowest depths of city squalor, have their hereditary craving for alcohol stimulated by chronic hunger, exhaustion, and foul air. ”

“ The first suspicion which the table of contents creates is that unwarranted liberties have been taken with the term Sociology. The five parts into which the volume is divided profess to treat in turn of "Customs," "Economics," "Civics," "Ethics," and "Religion," each "as a factor in Sociology." In no single instance has the treatment conformed to the title. The factors named have been treated almost exclusively in their relations to social action, which is an entirely distinct affair. The nearest approach to any exception is in the division on Economics, but even here the fault remains. ”

“ In these mysteries of religion is the recognition that God is a Cosmic Power, and rules this earth through solar force. There is also the Christian confession that this aqueous age of the planet is passing away and the age of the Spirit is coming. ”

“ In each case, however, the significance of the opinion is incidental to the demonstration that the author has not succeeded in proving the opinions to be sanctioned by the science invoked.
Some men are at present engaged in working out a philosophy of society. They call their desideratum Sociology. Other men, or the same men at other times, are trying to decide what conduct in society is most rational at the present moment. ”

“ Christian leaders may not be convinced that Mr. Crafts has discovered just the place or just the way to apply Christian force, but they will be very obdurate if they can read his book without a quickening of their conviction that they ought to be more devoted to finding the place and the way.
Mr. Crafts is a social evangelist rather than a sociologist, and I am often ready to confess that the class he represents may temporarily do more good, if they are judicious, than the other class. It is well for us to be told forcibly that we must bestir ourselves if the world is to be redeemed. ”

“ The social sentiments relating to crime are traced in their historical evolution, from the half-instinctive and reflex vengeance of savages through the regulated retributive justice of former ages to the more humane desire to reform the criminal which has characterized this century. ”

“ Our social residuum lives and propagates its species in a medium as well prepared for the growth of anti-social vices as the hay tea or chicken broth in which amateurs of microbes cultivate their disease germs. But the man of science calls cultivation successful if the virus grows milder and less fatal in each generation. ”

“ There is need of clearer ideas respecting the brotherhood of man (p. 33) . "Before the kingdom of God can fully come a great many Christian people will have to change their minds concerning the true nature of charity" (p. 37) . "Beyond all controversy this pauper class owes its existence, in large measure, to the subtle selfishness of the almoners of charity, who are more willing to bestow a dollar than to give a helping hand" (p. 40) .
5. There must be reconstruction of ideas concerning the independence of the individual as related to the solidarity of society (pp. 63-96) . ”

“ The malign influence exercised in the middle of the present century, by the accepted doctrines of political economy, lay exactly in the encouragement they gave to the delusion that all natural tendencies were unalterable, even by experience revealing new evils consequent on their operation. ”

“ To the sociologist, who has the threefold task of finding his facts, reading his ideals out of the facts, and carrying the ideals over into action, this work is of great value, and especially so since its author is not merely a compiler of facts, but a searcher to whom the significance of the process underlying the facts is all-important. ”

“ It is only after reading the history of Egypt or China as disinterested students, that we can trust ourselves to generalize as to the conditions of the stability and conservatism, which we began by recognizing as the common feature of the great primitive civilizations. Knowing better than Cicero how great nations may not only decline in fortune, but actually cease to exist, we cannot doubt that there must have been 'wisdom and breeding' in any people whose life has endured for two, three, or four thousand years. ”

“ In large sections of the Christian church the crucial question respecting the Christian life is 'How do you feel?' Salvation, or at any rate the evidence of it, is, according to this view, a satisfied and pleasurable feeling. ”

“ Past nations lived their life as their fate and choice determined, with no view certainly to the instruction of posterity; and hence the truth of history must be distorted if we study it exclusively with a view to the lessons to be learnt from it for our own profit. ”

“ Salter finds that "anarchy" and "liberty " are practically synonymous; that in a society of thoroughly good men compulsion which limits liberty would be unnecessary; hence anarchy is ideally possible and desirable; that in view of this desirability of liberty or anarchy the practical problem of government is: How far may a community or society use force in attaining its objects? ”

“ Human needs, human instincts, and human perceptions do not alter in their nature, and the dislocations of intricate social adjustments, which follow from the natural course of historic development, will not prove beyond the skill of social surgery to reduce, if the need is recognized for encyclopædic wisdom in the professors of the healing art. ”

“ A writer may express opinions upon difficult questions in such decisive form that doubt is created about his right to any opinion at all. An author may pass judgment upon so many difficult questions in succession that readers are made to query whether the profoundest investigations of any of them can have been taken into the calculation. ”

“ And the pursuance of this course holds out, unless human nature has altered in 5000 years, the best prospect of social and economic welfare to the multitudes of the West, as well as to the ancient nations, versed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and the learning of the Chaldeans. ”

“ It is meanwhile to be deplored that men who write books are not willing to contribute frankly to the one series of problems or to the other, allowing those contributions to stand on their merits, without attempting to borrow authority from assumptions about the other series. ”

“ On the face of it, it does not appear to be a more complicated problem to apply the principles of righteousness to the ramifications of trade and industry than to apply the principles of pure mathematics to the construction of the Forth Bridge. ”

“ We acquiesce in all this not as morally right or practically expedient, but as the natural or necessary consequence of the free play of individual enterprise in the struggle for existence. And, so far the heterogeneous society of the West can be said to guide its conduct by any creed, it is probably inspired by a kind of faith in the healing power of freedom. There is no new thing under the sun, and English Liberalism agrees with Chinese Taoism: 'There is such a thing as letting mankind alone ”

“ We ridicule the idea of making occupation hereditary, yet we acquiesce in the propagation of classes in which one generation has nothing to bequeath to the next save bad health, bad habits, and general incapacity for wholesome and serviceable living. ”

“ It is a foolish fatalism to assume that everything which occurs naturally must occur necessarily, or that nothing new can become natural. Every historical occurrence is at once natural and necessary, in the sense of being necessarily due to causes naturally operating on existing minds under existing conditions. But men act under the influence of felt desires, and the unforeseen results of their action are sometimes inconsistent with the ends intentionally aimed at ”

“ It is unsafe to trust a paraphrase; we must use the author's own words when he describes what ought to be. After the conventional socialistic arraignment of capitalistic society the author constructs in the air a society which is eminently satisfactory—to himself. ”

“ It deserves to become a classic example of the advocate's tendency to smuggle conclusions into his allegations of facts. It would be difficult to cram more unfairness into an equal number of words without resorting to absolute falsehood. ”

“ She has considered the Egyptian, Babylonian, what she calls for convenience the Syro-Phœnician and Lybo-Phœnician, and the Chinese civilizations, avowedly with the purpose of outlining the history of ownership in these archaic communities; but industrial, militant and social conditions are treated with great fullness, and the position of women receives at every turn especial attention. ”

“ To combine progress and stability, it is necessary, not to prevent all change of status on the part of individuals, but to establish laws and customs which shall make it impossible for large classes to contract themselves into an intolerably painful or injurious status ”

“ Agitation is wholesome when conducted by men of good will, who have positive beliefs, even if the things they believe are not relatively as important as the agitators imagine. For this reason the book is to be welcomed. ”