ABSTRACT
IT is fitting that I should begin this inaugural address by expressing my sense of the great honour which the University of London has conferred upon me in appointing me to succeed the late Prof. Hobhouse. Very few workers either in England or abroad have done as much as Hobhouse towards the promotion of the scientific study of sociology, or made significant contributions to so many of its fields of inquiry. No one, I will venture to say, had such a profound grasp of the relations in which the various social sciences stand to each other and to philosophy, or held the balance between them so finely. To follow such a master is indeed a heavy task, and I should approach it with but little confidence were it not for the knowledge that Hobhouse himself often expressed his eager desire that I should be his successor, which encourages me in the hope that if I cannot rival his achievements, I may yet make some contribution to the development of the science of which he laid the foundations.
