PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

In this third edition of the Principles of Sociology, Vol. I, several improvements of importance have been made. The text has been revised; references to the works quoted and cited have been supplied; the appendices have been enlarged; and the work has now an index.

Each chapter has been carefully gone through for the purpose of removing defects of expression and with a view to condensation. By erasing superfluous words and phrases, I have reduced the text to the extent of forty pages, notwithstanding the incorporation here and there of a further illustration. This abridgment, however, has not diminished the bulk of the volume; since the additions above named occupy much more space than has been gained.

In the preface to the first edition, I explained how it happened that the reader was provided with no adequate means of verifying any of the multitudinous statements quoted; and with the explanation I joined the expression of a hope that I might eventually remove the defect. By great labour the defect has now been removed—almost though not absolutely. Some years ago I engaged a gentleman who had been with me as secretary, Mr. P. R. Smith, since deceased, to furnish references; and with the aid of the Descriptive Sociology where this availed, and where it did not by going to the works of the authors quoted, he succeeded in finding the great majority of the passages. Still, however, there remained numerous gaps. Two years since I arranged with a skilled bibliographer, Mr. Tedder, the librarian of the Athenæum Club, to go through afresh all Edition: current; Page: [vi] the quotations, and to supply the missing references while checking the references Mr. Smith had given. By an unwearied labour which surprised me, Mr. Tedder discovered the greater part of the passages to which references had not been supplied. The number of those which continued undiscovered was reduced by a third search, aided by clues contained in the original MS., and by information I was able to give. There now remain less than 2 per cent. of unreferenced statements.

The supplying of references was not, however, the sole purpose to be achieved. Removal of inaccuracies was a further purpose. The Descriptive Sociology from which numerous quotations were made, had passed through stages each of which gave occasion for errors. In the extracts as copied by the compilers, mistakes, literal and verbal, were certain to be not uncommon. Proper names of persons, peoples, and places, not written with due care, were likely to be in many cases mis-spelled by the printers. Thus, believing that there were many defects which, though not diminishing the values of the extracts as pieces of evidence, rendered them inexact, I desired that while the references to them were furnished, comparisons of them with the originals should be made. This task has been executed by Mr. Tedder with scrupulous care; so that his corrections have extended even to additions and omissions of commas. Concerning the results of his examination, he has written me the following letter:—

The statement above named as one withdrawn, was commented on by Prof. Max Müller in his Hibbert Lectures; in which he also alleged that I had erred in asserting that the Egyptians abstained from using the sacred name Osiris. This second alleged error I have dealt with in a note on page 274, where I think it is made manifest that Prof. Max Müller would have done well to examine the evidence more carefully before committing himself.

The mention of Prof. Max Müller reminds me of another matter concerning which a few words are called for. In an article on this volume in its first edition, published in the Pall Mall Gazette for February 21st, 1877, it was said that the doctrine propounded in Part I, in opposition to that of the comparative mythologists, “will shortly be taken up, as we understand, by persons specially competent in that department.” When there were at length, in 1878, announced Prof. Max Müller’s Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, etc., etc., I concluded that my curiosity Edition: current; Page: [viii] to see a reply would at last be gratified. But on turning over the published report of his lectures, I discovered no attempt to deal with the hypothesis that religion is evolved from the ghost-theory: the sole reference to it being, as Mr. Andrew Lang remarks, some thirteen lines describing “psycholatry” as exhibited in Africa. The work proved to be a superfluous polemic against the hypothesis that fetishism is the primitive form of religion—superfluous, I say, because this hypothesis had been, I think, effectually disposed of by me in the first edition of this volume. Why Prof. Max Müller should have expended so much labour in disproving a doctrine already disproved, is not clear. Still less clear is it why, having before him the volume, and adversely criticizing certain statements in it referred to above, he entirely ignored the chapter in which was already done that which his lectures proposed to do.

What was the indirect purpose of his lectures I do not understand. He could not himself have supposed that a refutation of the fetish-theory was a refutation of the theory now standing opposed to his own; though it is not improbable that many of his hearers and readers, supposed that it was.

Concerning the new matter, little needs to be said. To Appendix A, entitled “Further Illustrations of Primitive Thought,” the additions are such as practically to constitute it a second demonstration of the thesis demonstrated in Part I. To Appendix B, on “The Mythological Theory,” a section has been prefixed. And Appendix C, on “The Linguistic Method of the Mythologists,” is new.

PREFACE TO VOL. I.

For the Science of Society, the name “Sociology” was introduced by M. Comte. Partly because it was in possession of the field, and partly because no other name sufficiently comprehensive existed, I adopted it. Though repeatedly blamed by those who condemn the word as “a barbarism,” I do not regret having done so. To use, as some have suggested, the word “Politics,” too narrow in its meaning as well as misleading in its connotations, would be deliberately to create confusion for the sake of avoiding a defect of no practical moment. The heterogeneity of our speech is already so great that nearly every thought is expressed in words taken from two or three languages. Already, too, it has many words formed in irregular ways from heterogeneous roots. Seeing this, I accept without much reluctance another such word: believing that the convenience and suggestiveness of our symbols are of more importance than the legitimacy of their derivation.

Probably some surprise will be felt that, containing as this work does multitudinous quotations from numerous authors, there are no references at the bottoms of pages. Some words of explanation seem needful. If foot-notes are referred to, the thread of the argument is completely broken; and even if they are not referred to, attention is disturbed by the consciousness that they are there to be looked at. Hence a loss of effect and a loss of time. As I intended to use as data for the conclusions set forth in this work, the compiled and classified facts forming the Descriptive Sociology, it occurred to me that since the arrangement of those Edition: current; Page: [x] facts is such that the author’s name and the race referred to being given, the extract may in each case be found, and with it the reference, it was needless to waste space and hinder thought with these distracting foot-notes. I therefore decided to omit them. In so far as evidence furnished by the uncivilized races is concerned (which forms the greater part of the evidence contained in this volume), there exists this means of verification in nearly all cases. I found, however, that many facts from other sources had to be sought out and incorporated; and not liking to change the system I had commenced with, I left them in an unverifiable state. I recognize the defect, and hope hereafter to remedy it. In succeeding volumes I propose to adopt a method of reference which will give the reader the opportunity of consulting the authorities cited, while his attention to them will not be solicited.

The instalments of which this volume consists were issued to the subscribers at the following dates:—No. 35 (pp. 1—80) in June, 1874; No. 36 (pp. 81—160) in November, 1874; No. 37 (pp. 161—240) in February, 1875; No. 38 (pp. 241—320) in May, 1875; No. 39 (pp. 321—400) in September, 1875; No. 40 (pp. 401—462, with Appendices A & B) in December, 1875; No. 41 (pp. 465—544) in April, 1876; No. 42 (pp. 545—624) in July, 1876; and No. 43 (pp. 625—704) in December, 1876; an extra No. (44) issued in June, 1877, completing the volume.

With this No. 44, the issue of the System of Synthetic Philosophy to subscribers, ceases: the intention being to publish the remainder of it in volumes only. The next volume will, I hope, be completed in 1880.