ABSTRACT
Once, it was thought that sociological research could be undertaken and understood only by the elite. In the 19th century, the elite was composed of “armchair scholars” who attempted to explain the whole course of social development based on information that they could find in the library. Auguste Comte, the reputed founder of sociology, even stopped reading after some years and practiced what he called “mental hygiene,” which meant avoiding being “contaminated” by other people's writings. After all, Comte had been a brilliant student and had read extremely widely before writing his major works. Karl Marx, another scholar whose work left a lasting mark on sociology, spent most of his time in the British Library in London, where he not only read books but also studied the statistics being gathered by government factory inspectors and local health officers. Herbert Spencer, also based in London, whose social evolutionary sociology had a major impact in America, was reputed to have done most of his reading in the Athenaeum, a gentlemen's club.
