sociologist (cassh)

[Eng. sociolog ( y ); -ist.) One who studies, treats of, or is versed in sō-çi-ol-ô-gỹ (ca h), s. [Fr. so cio logie, a bybrid word coined by Auguste Comte, from Fr. soc iété =society, and Gr, logos a discourse.] marine; gō, pot, socius the wider question of evolution in general. It is claimed for Comte that he created the science of Sociology, but according to Mill, he only rendered such a science po ible. Lewes ( Hist . Philos ., ii, 721) points out that Macchia vell i, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, and Bentham had had a full conviction that social phenomena conform to invariable laws, but that it was reserved for Comte to bring them under his Law of the Three Stages [STAGE, 8., and to show that all societies pa through a theological, a metaphysical, and a positive stage. The subject of Sociology embraces all social phe nomena under their statical and dynamical aspects. Social statics is the study of the conditions of existence and permanence of the social state; social dynamics studies the laws which govern the evolution of society. Herbert Spencer, in the Plan of his Principles of Sociology (prefixed to his First Prin ciples ) proposes to begin with the data of Sociology (the several sets of factors entering into social phe nomena), and to give the empirical generalizations arrived at by comparing different societies and succe ive phases of the same society; next to deal with political, ecclesiastical, ceremonial, and industrial organizations; then to treat of the evolution of languages, knowledge, æsthetics, and morals, and lastly, the nece ary interdependence of structures and of functions in each type of society, and in the succe ive phases of social development. The completion of his great systematic work was accomplished in 1896, by the publication of his third volume of "Principles of Sociology." Separate schools or departments of sociology have recently been organized by several of the American Univer sities. IMG:content-1683.png:[blocks in formation]