Councillors-Ernest W. Brown, Edwin B. Frost, J. S. Plaskett, Joel Stebbins.

The next meeting of the society will be held at the Harvard Observatory about September 1, 1918. Following is the list of papers presented at the meeting, the abstracts of which are published in Popular Astronomy:

Sebastian Albrecht: On the variation in spectral type of the fourth-class variable star 1 Carina.

S. I. Bailey: Note on the variable stars in the globular cluster Messier 15.

L. A. Bauer: A brief statement of the work of the Committee on Navigation and Nautical Instruments of the National Research Council.

R. R. Candor: A mechanical device for interpolation.

Annie J. Cannon: Distribution of light in stellar spectra.

J. B. Cannon: Note on two spectroscopic binaries.

W. A. Conrad: Note on a possible explanation of erratic jumps in clock rates.

R. H. Curtiss: Spectra of Nova Geminorum No. 2 and other stars.

Ralph E. De Lury: A new form of spectrocomparator.

A. E. Douglass: The Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona.

A. E. Douglass: An optical periodograph. Raymond S. Dugan: On the eclipsing variable R Canis Majoris.

W. S. Eichelberger: Eccentricity and longitude of perisaturnium of the orbits of Enceladus, Tethys and Dione.

W. S. Eichelberger: The obliquity of the ecliptic from the Sun observations made at the U. S. Naval Observatory, 1903-1911.

W. S. Eichelberger: The refraction at Washington.

W. S. Eichelberger and F. B. Littell: Day observations minus night observations.

W. S. Eichelberger and H. R. Morgan: Comparison of Washington right ascensions with those of Newcomb, Auwers, Boss, Hedrick and Poulkowa, 1905.

W. S. Eichelberger and H. R. Morgan: Comparison of Washington declinations with those of Newcomb, Auwers and Boss.

George E. Hale: The best service of astronomers in time of war.

W. E. Harper: Notes on some spectroscopic binaries.

C. C. Kiess: On the presence of rare earths in a Canum Venaticorum.

E. S. King: Some recent work in photographic photometry.

Jacob Kunz and Joel Stebbins: Photo-electric observations of new variable stars.

C. O. Lampland: Measures of position of the nucleus of the great nebula in Andromeda.

C. O. Lampland: Recent observations of Nova Persei 1901.

C. O. Lampland: Photographic observations of the variable nebulæ N.G.C. 2261 and N.G.C. 6729. F. B. Littell: Variation of latitude at the U. S. Naval Observatory.

W. F. Meggers: Photography of the solar spectrum.

Paul W. Merrill: Photography of the extreme red and infra-red portions of stellar spectra.

Joel H. Metcalf: A comparison of an 8-inch doublet with a 10-inch triple anastigmatic lens. G. H. Peters: The photographic telescope of the U. S. Naval Observatory.

E. C. Pickering: Variation in light of asteroids. W. F. Rigge: The total solar eclipse of June 8, 1918, as visible in the United States.

Luis Rodés: Direct application of Wulf's electrometer for recording the time sent by wireless telegraphy, and its connection with the potassium photo-electric cell to register the duration of totality in a solar eclipse.

H. B. Rumrill: A plea for the small telescope. H. N. Russell: The masses of the stars. H. N. Russell: On the calculation of the orbits of visual binaries.

H. N. Russell: New double star orbits.

F. H. Seares, A. Van Maanen and F. Ellerman: Location of the sun's magnetic axis.

H. T. Stetson: Some recent improvements in thermo-electric apparatus for photographic photometry.

Frank Schlesinger: Determination of stellar parallaxes at the Allegheny Observatory.

V. M. Slipher: Observations of the aurora spectrum.

V. M. Slipher: Spectrographic observations of star clusters.

R. Trümpler: Preliminary results on the constitution of the Pleiades group.

David Todd: Weather prospects along the central line of total eclipse, 1918, June 8.

A. Van Maanen: Discussion of the Mt. Wilson parallaxes.

F. W. Very: On a possible limit to gravitation.
JOEL STEBBINS,
Acting Secretary

plains much of their unsettled condition and of the lack of harmony among their devotees. Nevertheless, this does not explain all. There are other conditions which explain the present backwardness of the social sciences, which are more remediable, and which it should be the object of this society to aid in removing. It is the purpose of this paper to point these out, and I believe that the chief among them is the failure of the leaders of the social sciences to develop an adequate, sound and generally accepted scientific method. Scientific method may not be very important in the laboratory sciences where mechanical instruments of precision often take the place of methods of reasoning; but in the social sciences "a sound method is alone competent to the uniform and constant discrimination of truth from error.' As has been well said, what the microscope is to biology, or the telescope to astronomy, that a sound scientific method is to the social sciences. In other words, the tendency toward methodological "fads" or one-sidedness is one of the most serious impediments to the development of the social sciences, and at the same time one most easily removable.

What, then, may be regarded as a sound and adequate method for the social sciences? My thesis is that such a method must be an extension and an adaptation of the methods employed by the so-called natural sciences. If it be objected that this means materialism or at least "mechanistic interpretation" in the social sciences, the reply is that this is a mistake. Science builds itself upon no universal, a priori hypothesis. People who try to make it do so are imbued with the metaphysical rather than with the scientific spirit. The spirit and the method of all true science is matter-of-fact, inductive and pragmatic, not deductive and dogmatic. It takes the world as it finds it, correcting common sense only as it is shown to be in error. It explains

phenomena, not by reference to some universal abstract principle, such as mechanical causation, but by describing fully all the conditions essential to their appearance. But this is exactly what the social sciences do also. They also seek to explain the phenomena with which they deal by observing and describing all the conditions which seem to be in any way connected with their appearance. Science is therefore one, even though reality may be complex; and the same general spirit pervades all science, even though different methods of investigation and research have to be developed and applied in different realms of phenomena. Moreover, inasmuch as the universe is interdependent in all its parts and forms a working unity, it follows, as Comte long ago pointed out, and as every worker in the natural sciences practically acknowledges, that the more complex sciences are dependent upon the less complex, and the more specialized upon the more general.

An immediate corollary from these conclusions is that the social sciences should preserve the point of view and utilize the results of the natural sciences; that is, they should preserve the same matter-of-fact method and build themselves upon the antecedent sciences as their basis. This is in no sense to surrender the inductive spirit of science. The inductive spirit is behind all science, and when a worker in a more complex science borrows a principle or a truth from a simpler science and applies it in his own field, he is not thereby giving up the inductive spirit of science, even though for the time being he is working deductively. For there is no reason why a student of society should have to work out for himself independently truths which have already been discovered through inductive processes by investigators in other realms. The true inductive spirit is not opposed to the proper use of deduction. What passes for induction in the social sciences-the

mere gathering and amassing of facts-is often but superficiality under another name. If there is any hope of the social sciences getting beyond the stage of mere socially approved opinions, and of coming to substantial agreement on fundamental issues, it must be through basing themselves upon the established results of antecedent sciences, particularly of biology and psychology. Yet the natural-science point of view is largely lacking in much of the literature of the social sciences to-day. Many of their devotees seem to think that the world of human society, of social phenomena, is a thing apart, to be studied and understood by itself. This is noticeable, not only in politics and in economics, but also in sociology, where for a number of years a considerable school have openly maintained that the biology and psychology of the individual have little effect upon the group or social life, and that therefore the social sciences can not base themselves upon biology and psychology. Even the most notable book published in sociology during the present year-Professor R. M. MacIver's "Community"-though in many ways a remarkable book, showing both penetration and breadth of view, fails to recognize explicitly the close connection between the natural and social sciences and denies altogether that sociology should in part be based upon psychology.

But two of the social sciences at the present time may be said to have attained even to a partly adequate method if judged by the standards which have been just set forth. Both these sciences, however, are preliminary and methodological to the more theoretical and applied social sciences. They are anthropology and history. Anthropology, on account of its close connections with zoology, especially in its physical sections, has long had the point of view of the natural sciences, though for a long time 2 The Macmillan Company, 1917.

its work was narrowly individualistic. The new school of social anthropologists, however, have developed a social point of view while making full use at the same time of modern psychology. The achievements and methods of this school we shall touch upon later. Suffice to say that modern anthropology has demonstrated its right to a place among the social sciences, and in its carefully worked out and highly conscious methods it is perhaps the best equipped of all of them. This explains its rapid recent advance. But dealing as it does with human origins in general and with social and cultural origins in particular, its work from any practical viewpoint must be regarded as preliminary to the other social sciences.

History, the oldest of the social sciences, has long since worked out an elaborate methodology for the critical determination of events, conditions, and institutions in the human past. But only recently has a new school of historians, led chiefly by Professor J. Harvey Robinson in this country, attempted to bring history into vital touch with the natural sciences, on the one hand, through anthropology, and with the theoretical social sciences on the other, through social psychology. From this "new history" we can expect much; but from the standpoint of the theoretical and applied social sciences history is chiefly important as a method of approach to their problems. It is, indeed, of vital importance; and I know of no surer touchstone of sanity in the social sciences than the amount of consideration which is accorded to human history. But every historian should know, what every economist, sociologist, and political scientist does know, that the historical method has not yielded the results which were once hoped from it. By itself the historical method is inadequate from the very nature of recorded human history. The historical evidence of the past is at