Excerpt from Ceremonial Institutions: Being Part IV. Of the Principles of Sociology (the First Portion of Vol; II)
On sundry of the following chapters when published in the Fortnightly Review, a criticism passed by friends was that they were overweighted by illustrative facts. I am conscious that there was ground for this criticism; and although I have, in the course of a careful revision, diminished in many cases the amount of evidence given (adding to it, however, in other cases) the defect may still be alleged. That with a view to improved effect I have not suppressed a larger number of illustrations, is due to the consideration that scientific proof, rather than artistic merit, is the end to be here achieved. If sociological generalizations are to pass out of the stage of opinion into the stage of established truth, it can only be through extensive accumulations of instances: the inductions must be wide if the conclusions are to be accepted as valid. Especially while there continues the belief that social phenomena are not the subject-matter of a science, it is requisite that the correlations among them should be shown to hold in multitudinous cases. Evidence furnished by various races in various parts of the world, must be given before there can be rebutted the allegation that the inferences drawn are not true, or are but partially true. Indeed, of social phenomena more than all other phenomena, it must, because of their complexity, hold that only by comparisons of many examples can fundamental relations be distinguished from superficial relations.
In pursuance of an intention intimated in the preface to the first volume, I have here adopted a method of reference to authorities cited, which gives the reader the opportunity of consulting them if he wishes, though his attention to them is not solicited. At the end of the volume will be found the needful clues to the passages extracted; preceded by an explanatory note. Usually, though not uniformly, references have been given in those cases only where actual quotations are made.
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