Includes bibliographical references.

This book consists of articles on the History and Prospects of the Social Sciences which, so the editor and contributors believe, possess something more than mere esoteric and scholarly significance, namely, an immediate practical value for the solution of concrete social problems. It is becoming ever more apparent that the complex difficulties of the present scientific and industrial age can in no way be competently dealt with by excellent intentions, single-track schemes of social and economic reconstruction, metaphysical idealism or religious zeal, important as all of these may be in their respective spheres. Not only have the social sciences themselves been a product of the developments of the last two centuries, but these very aspects of progress in science, technology, industry and social relations have produced a social order which is becoming more and more evidently and certainly dependent upon social science for adequate and intelligent control, direction and reorganization.

2021