Introduction

i. Name 2. Definition 3. History 4. Object 5. Importance 6. Division

I. Name

The name sociology was coined in 1838 by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) to designate his newly formulated “science of the associated life of humanity.” The term is derived from the Latin socius, “companion, fellow, partner,” and the Greek logos, “science.” Thus, by virtue of its name, sociology means “a science of companions or partners.” It is a scientific study of man in association with his fellowmen. It is a science of human society. It is a social science. The terms society and social are themselves derived from socius. A society is a stable union of human beings, bonded together under a common direction or authority to attain a common end by the use of common means. There are many societies in the world, some natural (the family, the State), some free (such as a workmen’s union, a debating club, a sodality), and one supernatural (the true Church). But humanity itself is a society; indeed, it is of humanity at large that we speak when we employ the general term society. For, in spite of differences in races and nations, in colors and cultures, all men of all times constitute one society, the active members of which, at any given moment, are the living peoples of the earth, and the individual persons who compose them. And humanity is justly called a society, for all human beings are bound together by the tie of a common nature; all men have reason, which manifests duty or authority directing them in the achievement of their end; all have the same end, which is God, the Supreme Good, and endless happiness; all have understanding and free-will by which to labor for the attainment of that end. Thus humankind is a true society. Therefore, the adjective social is properly employed to designate what pertains to humanity, to the relations of its members one towards another, and to the duties, requirements, goods, and resources of mankind at large. And the sciences that study such matters are properly called social sciences. Important among these sciences are the following: Social Ethics, which manifests the fundamental norms of social morality, or right conduct, of justice, equity, and charity among men; Political Science, which studies the structure and functions of just government and the administration of civil laws; Economics, which discusses the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of wealth; Sociology, which we are now to define.

2. Definition

Sociology is the science of human welfare as guarded and promoted by the reasonable regulation of man’s activities with reference to his fellowmen. a) Sociology is a science, that is to say, it is a body of connected data, relatively complete and systematically arranged and integrated, together with the reasons which show these data to be true and certain. It is a practical science, inasmuch as its data serve as the norm and guide of reasonable action; it aims at something to be done for the protection and furtherance of human welfare. Sociology is thus distinguished from speculative or theoretical sciences, which study truth for the enrichment of the mind and the enlargement of culture, and not for the immediate purpose of discovering a direction and norm for action. b) Sociology is a science of human welfare. It seeks to help man to attain his last end (which is God and eternal happiness) by making his temporal relations with his fellowmen just, peaceable, happy, and mutually helpful. It seeks to remove from man’s earthly life the obstacles that prevent the reign of justice and equity and so destroy the peace and happiness of mankind and hinder men in the attainment of their last end. Sociology seeks to direct man in the exercise of the social virtues, which are well indicated in the lists of the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. Sane sociology does not try to supply a substitute for religion. It does not teach men to ignore God, and to look for their heaven here upon earth. It does not make the “world a better place to live in,” the end-all and be-all of human existence. It does not teach the topsy-turvy philosophy of Abou Ben Adhem. It does not spread a sticky sentimentalism over human relations, and teach men to talk of “service” without a true knowledge of what service means, and where and why it should be rendered. Sane sociology, ever mindful of man’s true character as a child of eternity, tries to make his earthly sojourn peaceable, well-ordered, happy, and suitable to the dignity of God’s image, by protecting and promoting the reign of justice, equity, and charity. To this end sociology studies the fundamental principles which must govern human lives and human activities, and, in the light of these principles, it makes plans and formulates programs for the betterment of human existence. Thus sociology is a science of human welfare, c) Sociology is a science which directs the activities of man with reference to his fellowmen. This characterization of sociology is loose and unsatisfactory, but it is not possible to put into a brief formula the clearly determined function of sociology as distinct from other social sciences. For sociology impinges so heavily upon these sciences, and borrows so largely from them, that a detailed investigation is needed to show the line of distinction which marks off sociology from religion, ethics, political science, and economics, and to indicate the debt of sociology to psychology, theodicy, and history. While we cannot pause to make such a detailed investigation here, it may be well to indicate the more obvious lines by which sociology is marked off from these other sciences. Religion (that is, the true religion) serves human welfare by regulating man’s relations with God, thus carrying him directly towards his supernatural last end. Sociology, subserving the ends of true religion, promotes human welfare by regulating man’s relations with his fellowmen, thus carrying man directly towards the natural and temporal end, called earthly well-being. Ethics serves human welfare, but it is a general science which does not enter into a detailed study of actual contemporary social conditions and circumstances with a view to their betterment; ethics lays down principles; it has no programs to offer; it shows, in general, what is to be done, but does not explain how it is to be accomplished. Sociology, resting upon sound ethical principles, makes a detailed study of social conditions and proposes plans for their betterment. Political Science serves human welfare in the restricted domain of government and just administration of true laws. Sociology, while fostering sane government and honest legislation, has much more within its scope. Economics serves human welfare, but in the single domain of commodities or wealth. Sociology, while promoting economic justice, reaches far into other fields. Further: sociology borrows from psychology the knowledge of man, whom it seeks to serve. From theodicy (or natural theology) sociology takes its fundamental recognition of God, and learns that the world in which it works is God’s world, and that man is God’s child, with a dignity and destiny that are not to be ignored in any social plan or program. From history sociology takes the light of human experience to guide it in formulating practicable programs for social betterment.

3. History

We make a clear distinction here. The history of true sociology, which we have defined and explained above, is one thing; the history of sociology as it has existed under that name since 1838, is another. In 1838, Auguste Comte invented a beautiful name for an evil thing. For his sociology, or science of the associated life of humanity, rules out God, makes humanity divine, and establishes the “service of humanity” (humanitarianism) as the only religion. Comtism was spread through the world by many influences, important among which were the writings of Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893) and Ernest Renan (1823-1892). Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) gave impetus and direction to the development of Comtist sociology by his doctrine of social evolution, which regards the whole human race as one growing and developing organism. Thus, from the beginning, Comtist sociology has been materialistic and evolutionistic. The sociologists have devoted themselves to the task of developing their science with energy and zeal—and with a complete absence of humor. Solemn investigations have been inaugurated for the purpose of dissecting the social organism and determining the elements of its “anatomy.” Studies have been made of “primitive forms” of human association, and an evolutionary progress has inevitably been traced through family, clan, tribe, and nation. Some sociologists have sought illumination in the study of statistics, and have set up comparative lists of figures which indicate facts or phases or fancies relative to races, religions, and nationalities, and which bear upon crime, pauperism, and other “social phenomena.” Stress has been laid upon the importance of recognizing one “master principle of social phenomena,” and this has been variously asserted to be “a modification of struggle by alliance,” “contract or compact,” “imitation,” “instinct,” “inherited prejudice,” and many another strange and fanciful thing.

Now, in all this, the Comtist-Spencerian sociology (which is modern sociology, as it is taught, and talked, and preached, and acted out to-day) is wrong, is evil, is an affront to the mind and a damage to the soul. That modern sociology has been productive of some accidental good, we are not concerned to deny; but it has been productive of much more evil, and its evil is not accidental, but essential. It has given offence to the mind and wrought harm to the spirit. Its view of mankind is a degraded view. Its influence appears in closely succeeding waves of scientism and sentimentalism, but the steady tide beneath the waves is a cruel and inexorable inhumanity. Even the accidental good which modern sociology has accomplished has come, in last analysis, from its infidelity to its own principles, and from its temporary and unconscious agreement with the requirements of logic and of Christianity, with neither of which, in theory, has it anything in the world to do. For modern sociology (which is Comtist-Spencerian sociology; which is materialist-evolutionist sociology) wants to do good to man while refusing to understand what man is. Not only does modern sociology falsify man’s position in the universe, limiting his existence to time and bounding his well-being with earthly horizons, but it falsifies man’s very nature. It makes man an animal and nothing more—granted, a superior animal that requires something other than manger and stall. It seeks to supply the needs of the human animal and to promote his well-being— granted, these be superior needs and a refined wellbeing. But it is not true that man is animal merely— granted, a superior animal. It is not true that human well-being is earthly well-being divorced from anything further and finer. Man is not only animal; man is rational. Man is not only body; man is soul and body. Man is not only temporal; man is also eternal. To see man as animal merely is not to see man as he is. To serve worldly and bodily ends, ignoring the soul and its requirements, is not to serve man as he needs to be served. Divide the decaying animal from the enduring mind; divorce soul from body; sever the eternal from the temporal element, and you destroy man. Modern sociology destroys man; then seeks to serve him. Thus, in its essential structure, modern sociology is a contradiction, an offence against logic, a damage to the mind. Its humanitarianism is not scientific, but scientistic. It is inexorably cruel, for it tends to herd men as animals, to breed men to desirable varieties, to weed out ruthlessly the defective and ineffective human animals— as witness its legislation for civic betterment, for eugenics, birth control, sterilization. It is yet more cruel to immortal man in its sinister influence, which teaches him to disbelieve in the life of the soul, the responsibility of the individual to Almighty God, and the eternal sanctions of the moral law. Yet this cruel thing is stickily sentimental, especially in point of its terminology; it offers man a prospect of “welfare,” “uplift,” “progress,” “betterment”; it breathes poetically of “euthanasia,” “eugenic measures,” “evolutionary progress of culture”; it points smilingly to a humanitarian (and utterly horrible) paradise. Even pseudo-science has long since abandoned the hope of some day finding homunculus in the retort of the deified laboratorian. But modern sociology, the super-pseudo-science, has made a laboratory of the world, and pretends to have produced man, for all to see and understand, from an apparatus of materialism and evolutionism. Modern sociology turns out its monster; it studies his needs; it seeks to serve him. Let modern sociology serve its monster; it can never serve man. For unless man be seen as more than an organism, however produced, man is not seen at all. Unless man be studied against the background of eternity, man is not studied at all. Unless man’s earthly welfare be understood as something that subserves his eternal interests, man’s earthly welfare is not understood at all. Man is an image; until you know whose image, you do not know man; you do not know what man means. To know man, you must recognize God. Now, there is something in the world which does know man because it recognizes God. There is something in the world which can sanely plan for man’s earthly well-being because it understands his eternal well-being, and knows why his earthly existence was bestowed. This thing is the Catholic Church. Let sound minds be earnest to see this fact; for it is a fact. Let honest reason, turning from the taunt of materialists and the half-witted sneer of sciolists, speed to the defence of this truth; for it is truth. It is no sectarian claim, no pietistic attitude. It is a fact. It is a fact for reason to recognize, for it stands clear-cut in human history; it stands undeniable in the logic of human existence; it stands inevitable in the pathway of the honest mind through the recorded experience of the ages. If—as Hilaire Belloc remarks in concluding his admirable study of the historic claims of the Catholic Church—if this fact be mere seeming, then all is void. The Catholic Church, divine mother of men through long centuries, recently heard the name sociology fall from human lips. She saw that fair name abused in monstrous misapplication. She took that name—not officially, but through the ministration of her scholars—and applied it where it has the right in justice to be applied. She redeemed the name from abuse. She did not baptize a pseudo-science modernly pagan; she saved a worthy name for proper use. And to the pseudo-scientists, the modern sociologists, she indicated the proper field in which their forms and forces might be fruitfully employed. She directed them, and still directs them, to bring their fine energy, ardent with plans and programs and investigations and statistics, to the service of the great end which she herself has been serving during all the years that she has lived and labored on earth. Thus we come to the second phase of our history, the history of true sociology. True sociology was born into the world with Christianity, and its history is part and parcel of the history of the Catholic religion. True sociology has its centre and soul in Christ crucified for His fellowmen. Before that Figure on the Cross the world lies in its true light. No longer is the earth a place of bond and free, for the soul of the slave is as precious as the soul of the master; the life of the serf is as valuable as the life of the sovereign. No longer are the poor to be neglected, the sick and maimed to be destroyed, the bonds of marriage to be the shameful links of a passing.allurement, the begetting of children to be a mere physical function discharged without clearly understood responsibilities, or thwarted by evil means. From her first days, the Church of the Crucified Redeemer, the Catholic Church, sent sons and daughters to carry to savage peoples the culture of Christianity and the refinement of the arts and sciences. Great religious Orders were founded; monasteries and schools arose side by side; hospitals and asylum^were multiplied; wild souls were tamed and taught the meaning of human existence; dull minds were enlightened; awkward hands were trained to skill; suffering humanity was taught to endure for Christ. In a word, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy were made working actualities. The Sacraments sanctified human life, raised up the fallen, fired the hopeless with abounding courage, purified life of dross, fed human souls with the eternal Bread of Life, which is God Himself. Here is service of human welfare. Here is rational and ennobling regulation of man’s activities with reference to his fellows. Here, in a word, is applied sociology> a science worthy of the splendid name that Comte and Spencer attached to an evil thing.

4. Object

Every science treats of a certain subject-matter, works in a definite field. This subject-matter, this field of inquiry, constitutes what is called its Material Object. And every science treats of its subjectmatter (that is, its Material Object) in a special way, and with a special end in view. This special and definite aim of a science constitutes what is called its Formal Object. The Material Object of sociology is the associated life of mankind. This is the subject-matter of the science, the field in which it works. And the Formal Object of this science is the regulation and improvement of social life to the end that man’s relations with his fellows may be just, equitable, peaceable, helpful, and happy. Briefly, the Material Object of sociology is society. The Formal Object of sociology is the wellbeing of society.

5. Importance

The study of man’s relations with his fellowmen has always been recognized as an important part of Christian ethics. That this study, enlarged in scope, particularized by special considerations and practical applications of principles, fortified by tabulated results of studies and investigations, enriched by the actual test of current problems, is now given a new form in the science of sociology, does not mean that the subject is new to Catholic scholars, or that its importance is likely to be underestimated among them. All that concerns man and man’s life and activities is of prime importance in the view of the Christian philosopher. Man is a social being; he has need of his fellows. Humanity is a society, not because of some primeval agreement among men to band together for their common benefit, but by reason of the requirements of human nature itself. Humanity is, therefore, a natural society, not an artificial one. It is man’s natural state and condition to live as a member of human society. Any serious study of this natural state is a matter that is worthy, noble, and highly important. Sociology is, therefore, a science of great importance. The pseudo-science called “modern sociology” engages the fervid attention and interest of thousands who have no clear knowledge of Christian principles, no wish to be guided by them, and no interest in the Catholic’s perfect understanding of human life and its glorious purpose. Hence the study of sociology is, at the present moment, not only a matter of interest and utility for educated Catholics; it is a matter of plain duty.

6. Division

In manuals of sociology it is usual to mention certain basic truths, proved in other branches of philosophy, as “postulates,” that is, as truths known for certain and hence justifiably assumed by the sociologist as the basis of his science. We deem it well, in this manual, to present a short statement and proof of these basic truths, and not merely to assume them as postulates. This part of our study we shall call “Fundamental Principles.” The second part of the manual treats of the structure of society. The third and final part discusses important social problems. The major divisions of this manual are, therefore, arranged as follows:

Book First Fundamental Principles Chap. I. God and Christ Chap. II. Man’s Soul

Book Second The Structure of Society Chap. I. The Social Element Chap. II. The Social Unit Chap. III. The Social Groups

Book Third Problems of Society Chap. I. Problems of the Family Chap. II. Problems of the Community Chap. III. World Problems

This Book presents a brief account and proof of truths that are of basic importance for sociology. We evidence the following facts: I. That there exists one, infinite, allperfect God, the Creator and Ruler of all things. 2. That Jesus Christ is true God as well as true man, the Redeemer of the human race, the Founder of the one true and necessary Church. 3. That man has a spiritual and immortal soul, endowed with understanding and free-will, which is subject to the obligation of religion and virtue and responsive to the supernatural influence of divine grace. These matters are discussed in the following Chapters: Chapter I. God and Christ Chapter II. Man’s Soul