The Sociological Review Volume 1 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: REVIEWS. A DISCIPLE OF LE PLAY. " The Growth of Modern Nations: A History of the Particularist Form of Society." Translated from the French of Mkmii De Tourvillb, by M. G. Loch. London: Edward Arnold. 12s. 6d. net. This work of the late M. de Tourville, besides its intrinsic merits, is noticeable as the first of the many writings of the school of Leplay to be translated into English?an honour which has not yet fallen to the Master himself. M. de Tourville, however, is by no means a typical example of the school. It is the great merit of Leplay and of most of his followers to ground their theories on an extensive and careful collection of facts, and by a discriminating choice of typical instances, submitted to a minute but rationally conducted investigation, to unite the accuracy of the statistical method with the informing result of actual observation, to breathe the breath of life into the statistician's figures, and make his dry bones live. But in this method, there lurks a great danger. The foundation tends to become the goal. Facts are sought for themselves. Monograph follows monograph. The formulation of general laws is indefinitely postponed. And in the end, the enquirer is choked and smothered by the overwhelming mass of unconnected observations. The great truth is forgotten that Sociology like other sciences must advance by a series of hypotheses, each approximating more nearly to the truth, and every one in its turn serving to connect and co-ordinate the observations on which it is based. Now M. de Tourville is equally free from the merits and the dangers which are found in most of the writers of his school. He has a keen eye to general relations, an adventurous scientific imagination, and no inclination to particular enquiries. Accepting the general principles of s...