Germany begins later than other countries to concern itself with sociology.Nota edytorska: Elektroniczna wersja książki Waentiga znajduje się w serwisie GoogleBooks pod adresem: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZyIsAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Heinrich+Waentig%22&ei=pQP2SunqLojENc-lka0F&hl=de#v=onepage&q=&f=false Anmerkung des Editors: Elektonische Version Waentigs Buches kann in GoogleBücher angesehen werden. Link: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZyIsAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Heinrich+Waentig%22&ei=pQP2SunqLojENc-lka0F&hl=de#v=onepage&q=&f=false Editors Note: The electronic version of Waentig’s publication can be viewed online on GoogleBooks under the adress: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZyIsAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Heinrich+Waentig%22&ei=pQP2SunqLojENc-lka0F&hl=de#v=onepage&q=&f=false Hitherto this science has met with great distrust in the German universities, and Auguste Comte has been almost unknown. Only very recently, since Herbert Spencer aroused in Germany an interest in sociology, has the French founder of sociology been made the subject of scholarly investigation, in the present book which has been done with a thoroughness which makes complete amends for all past neglect on this point. The author gives us an exhaustive study of Comte such as no other European literature as yet possesses. The book is, however, much more than a monograph on Comte; it is at the same time a very conscientious examination of sociology as a science, and it will undoubtedly contribute much to the introduction of this study into Germany.

After briefly sketching Comte’s forerunners in France as well as in the rest of Europe, particularly Turgot and the German writers of the philosophy of history, the author describes Comte’s character and general point of view. Then he gives us a detailed account of Comte’s social teachings, and after this investigates the influence exerted by Comte’s doctrines upon the principles of social science in France, England (together with America) and Germany. It was in England that Comte exercised the most pronounced influence; there he found his greatest follower in Herbert Spencer. In conclusion the author examines critically, though with sympathetic appreciation, Comte’s services to the social science of our century.

In the course of his investigation, the author draws into the circle of his observation all the newer sociological literature of Europe and America, and thereby furnishes us with an introduction into the study of sociology, such as the German literature has never before possessed. In doing so, the writer has met a very perceptible want.

The book forms one of the „Studies in Political and Social Science,“ edited by Professor von Miaskowski in Leipzig. This fact proves anew what was already sufficiently well known from the economic writings of von Miaskowski, that this eminent economist takes by no means so repellant an attitude toward sociology as do the majority of his fellow economists in Germany. On the contrary, in his economic writings he has often allowed himself to be guided by sociological ideas; and now by the publication of Waentig’s book, he has done sociology a great service.

Nay, indeed, it seems it is at the University of Leipzig that sociology, elsewhere sadly neglected, is experiencing a marked advancement. Another instructor of this university, Paul Barth, the author of an excellent book on the „Philosophy of History of Hegel and the Hegelians,“ in pursuing his historico-philosophical and sociological investigation, has published [1] a „Critique of the Fundamental Principles of Herbert Spencer’s Sociology.“ If we add that Simmel, an instructor at the University of Berlin, has likewise published some sociological studies, we may venture the supposition that now in Germany the ban which rested upon sociology is lifted, and that a fortunate change of view in regard to this science will ensue.

But as to what German diligence and German thoroughness can accomplish when they are directed to a definite intellectual field, brilliant proof is given by Waentig’s work on Comte.

LUDWIG GUMPLOWICZ.

(Translated by ELLEN C. SEMPLE.)

In view of the exhaustive criticism to which Comte has been subjected by Spencer, Cairds, Ward and others, the most interesting part of Waentig’s book for the English reader is his critical exposition of the sociological literature of France, Germany, England and America, in its relation to the social teachings of the Positive Philosophy. The author finds that in France the idealistic school, bearing as it does the characteristic stamp of French thought, and the classical economists with their deductive method had little in common with Comte. He therefore met only faint appreciation at the hands of his countrymen till the rise of the new naturalistic or realistic school. The tendency of this school is not to be attributed exclusively to Comte’s influence, especially as there are many elements in the realism of Comte which are antagonistic to the modern spirit; still it would be quite as unfair to ignore the many points of agreement which unite Comte with the modern tendency, particularly as the evidences of his influence are not few nor indistinct. The author thinks that Taine, as „the historian of environment,“ may be regarded as a follower of Comte.

In contrast with the lukewarm reception accorded Comte’s writings in France, in England their appearance was an epoch-making event. Those very elements in the Positive Philosophy which were antagonistic to French idealism, gained for Comte many adherents „among the followers of Bacon, with their eyes fixed upon the concrete, the real.“ Moreover, the progress of natural science in England through the work of Darwin and Wallace opened a way for him there; and the increasingprotests against the teachings of the classical school of economics could not fail to make an audience for a man who had always been openly hostile to that school. England needed to get its stimulus from without: the impulse aroused, „the modern development of social science in England has consisted chiefly in the extension and development of the social teachings of Comte.“

According to the author’s view, sociology in America, also, has felt Comte’s influence. Carey had much in common with him, though he rejects the latter’s historical method and substitutes the „mathematical“ method, which brings him nearer to the Belgian Quetelet. „A warmer and abler advocate the new science has found in the person of F. H. Giddings, in whom many fundamental principles of Comte appear, but whose method of „psychological synthesis“ is opposed to that pursued by Comte. The work of Lester Ward, in the opinion of the author, is more unified and better rounded out than that of Comte and Spencer, „the process of scientific crystallization having developed farther in him.“ Though he acknowledges his debt to his predecessors, and his work stands in close connection with theirs, it cannot be said to lose originality on that account.

The author accounts for Comte’s being so little known in Germany by the fact of the affinity between the social teachings of German scholars and of Comte, due to a similarity of method and point of view. The historical bent of the German mind began to manifest itself nearly synchronously with the positivism of Comte; the results showed naturally many coincidences, which were the outcome of a chance independent parallel development. To the Germans, therefore, Comte did not represent a wholly new idea as he did to the English. Moreover, the strained political relations between France and Germany affected even intellectual intercourse between the two countries; and the well-known French predilection for an abstract treatment of social questions may have deterred German readers from acquainting themselves with any French work on social science.

Waentig’s criticism of Comte as well as of the later sociologists is given on the basis of an almost exhaustive knowledge of the literature of the whole subject, and his opinions are marked by impartiality and keen discernment.

Louisville, Ky.

ELLEN C. SEMPLE.