ABSTRACT
A central purpose of the history of science is to draw the particular disciplines out of the invariable sectarian pride accompanying the flood of discovery and application. More recently developed social sciences, such as sociology, in part as a justifiable desire to avoid the production of memoirs prior to having produced new insights, are only now becoming aware that any useful history of science is at the same time a source for new discoveries and no less, a fresh view of the past. Who can doubt that Parsons’ (1937) investigations of the writings of Durkheim, Weber and Pareto opened wide new sociological channels? It is likewise clear that Sabine’s (1937) work in the history of political theory, particularly his efforts on behalf of the English forerunners to political science—Hobbes, Winstanley, Harrington, and Sidney—performed a similar role of cutting new pathways. Examples of this can be multiplied indefinitely: Wolff’s efforts on behalf of Simmel (1950, 1959); Gerth on Weber (1946, 1951, 1952, 1958), Merton on LeBon (1960), Kecskemeti on Mannheim (1952, 1953, 1956). The point is a simple one. A true accounting of the history of any given science is often a useful handmaiden to problems of current research.
