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GEORGE LlCHTHEIM
new branch of learning has had to go through a phase of wild
growth. Medicine sprouted from primitive witch-doctoring;
chemistry is supposed to have had its roots in alchemy. There must
at one time have been numbers of otherwise sane and respectable
people--doctors, pharmacists, and the like--who in their spare
hours dabbled in magic. How long was it before they reluctantly
abandoned their search for the Philosophers' Stone, or gave up
trying to make gold in their back kitchens? Bearing in mind the
time it took to shed these aberrations, one should not perhaps
worry too much about the Sorokins of this world. The real trouble
in any case is more deeply rooted. It has to do with the uncritical
veneration of quantitative measurement, and the resulting super–
stitious belief that meaningful conclusions can be extracted from
the juxtaposing of heterogeneous evidence--if this reviewer may
for a moment be permitted to lapse into jargon. This belief, alas,
is not confined to the more eccentric members of the profession;
it has its stalwarts among people who, by the usual criteria, must
be classed as sane. Until they are cured of their delusion, it is
to be feared that the public will continue to treat even the most
serious and reputable productions of the school with a scepticism
doubtless wounding to their authors, but not wholly unmerited,
and in any case less harmful than the mutual praise and encour–
agement practised within the walls. What is needed now is for
some leading sociologist to get up in public and announce
in
plain
terms that there is no such thing as statistical phlogiston.
