Faculty Books

THE NATURE AND ELEMENTS OFSOCIOLOGY. By McQuilkin DeGrange'28h. New Haven: Yale University Press,1953. 668 pp. $8.50.

If the world is divisible into Dartmouth and non-Dartmouth men, then Dartmouth men can be thrown into.two categories: those who have and those who have not been students of McQuilkin DeGrange.

This book will not influence his former students because contact with him has already produced a permanent intellectual and emotional effect. Perhaps it can serve to refresh their memories of him and his courses, and thus to restore some of the clear and enthusiastic thinking which characterized them as undergraduates and which may possibly have atrophied somewhat in the interim.

Without hesitation non-Dartmouth men and non-students of DeGrange may be told that a truly great man has emitted a book which, embodying the distillation of his creative life, does complete justice to its author.

Here is no textbook but the kind of synthesis which occurs only two or three times in any generation. Sociology studies men in society in a scientific manner. DeGrange first indicates how and why such a discipline could come into existence: he traces the historical development of the "scientific spirit" and the "scientific method" from their probable origins to modern times. Then he shows how the important, not the picayune thinkers in social science have utilized this cultural heritage to examine social phenomena. Over 65 per cent of the book contains a presentation of DeGrange's own sociological system. Therein he wrestles with the problem of establishing the fundamental variables and principles of the nascent science.

The book is large, the subject matter is of cosmic seriousness. The style, however, is as sprightly and whimsical as the author's bushy eyebrows. In fact, DeGrange's students inevitably must feel that they are back in his exciting classroom when they watch him carefully and objectively present the viewpoint of a philosopher like Plato or a doctrine like common-sense and then, so skillfully and openly, plunge his dagger into the flabby spots. The volume, therefore, must be read in small closes by readers who actively accompany, challenge, and later in large part agree with the reasoning.

There are pitifully few opportunities in a dismal world for men to be lifted into the clouds and thereby secure rational perspective on the tragic or petty events which engulf them. DeGrange has always offered his students such an opportunity and has made them feel almost optimistic, at least for the long run. Now, most fortunately, his wisdom is universally obtainable in book form.