MODERN SOCIOLOGY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 162, 3 April 1919, Page 6

MODERN SOCIOLOGY

LECTUKE BY PROFESSOR HUNTER-

A lecture upon "Sociology" was delivered by Professor T. A. Hunter, of Victoria College, before the Workers' Education Association iu tho hall of the Central Chamber of Commerce last night. The lecture was to have been the first of a series dealing with the 6ame subject, but Professor Hunter had found that a suitable text book was not procurable. He suggested other subjects for the 6eries of lectures, and the class decided in favour of industrial psychology. l Professor Hunter mentioned the conflict between social order and social progress. Social order, without the influeuce of social progress, would bo stagnation; social progress, unchecked by social order, would tend to become anarchy. In a. well organised society social order and social progress would go hand-in-hiind, but in a. badly-organised society there was a tight between the two factors, the supporters of social. order resisting social progress. The lecturer sketched the beginnings of the science of sociology. The basis of modern sociology was that every event was produced by antecedent events. Men had abandoned the theological or supernatural explanation of phenomena in favour of the physical explanation. They had realised that phenomena were produced by antecedent phenomena. All the sciences had been developed on these lines, sociology being included. The theory of a natural evolution of society, involving recognition of the fact that society was governed by natural law, was now accepted. The causes of social phenomena must be sought in various stresses, economic, intellectual, or social. It was no longer possible to explain a revolution as the outcome of the perversity of certain individuals. A revolution was the result of conditions that preceded it. Professor Hunter set out tho basis of the science of sociology, and insisted that every event must be recognised to be the product of certain causes. There could be no unrelated, unconnected event.