“Sociologists have abandoned the attempt to create a pure science of society”

“SOCIOLOGY is the youngest of the sciences, and there are still many who question its right to be considered a science at all. It is but a century since August Comte announced the advent of the new science that was to be the keystone of the scientific edifice and the crown of man’s intellectual achievement, and though the last hundred years have seen a great increase of interest in social questions and an enormous production of sociological and semi-sociological literature, there is still little prospect of the realization of his ideal. In fact, there has been, in some respects, a distinct retrogression from the position that had been reached in the middle of the last century. Sociology no longer possesses a clearly defined programme and method; it has become a vague term which covers a variety of separate subjects. Sociologists have abandoned the attempt to create a pure science of society and have directed themselves to the study of practical social questions.”

~Christopher Dawson: Sociology as a Science (1934)