Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1899 Vol. LVI, November, 1899 to April, 1900

In this thought‑provoking essay the author defends the emerging discipline of sociology against a chorus of skeptical voices that rush to dismiss it as unscientific. By tracing past battles— from Copernicus and Galileo to Darwin’s theory of evolution— he shows how every new field faces critics who cling to outdated standards. The piece argues that genuine scientific progress is marked not by the absence of contradictions but by the way scholars resolve them through increasingly precise methods.

The writer then outlines three concrete questions that can gauge a science’s maturity: which ideas are winning broader acceptance, how exact research techniques are advancing, and whether concepts and methods reinforce each other. Applied to sociology, these criteria reveal a steady march toward rigor and relevance, separating serious inquiry from mere opinion on social problems. Listeners will come away with a clearer sense of how sociology strives to become a disciplined, evidence‑based field.