Special Report On Prisons and Prison Discipline, Made Under Authority of the Board of State Charities. by the Secretary of the Board

Other social scientists — economists, psychologists, political scientists, anthropologists — saw social reality piecemeal, through the narrow lens of their specialization. Sociology was unique in its aim to combine these disparate specialties into one integral discipline. This methodological imperative was matched by a theory that saw an unprecedented affinity of human consciousness and interests throughout modern life. In the landmark essay in which he declares "the scope of sociology" to be the organization of the "human sciences into a system of reciprocally reinforcing reports," Albion Small characterizes society as a "realm of circuits of reciprocal influence between individuals and groups." In keeping with the strategies of White City, Small's image is achieved at the cost of an evolutionary sleight of hand. What Small calls at one point, for example, that "serious scientific problem, the status of the coloured race in the United States," is subsumed in the image of "the last native of Central Africa. . whom we inoculate with a desire for whiskey add[ing] an increment to the demand for our distillery products and effect[ing] the internal revenue of the United States." Small's vision of human reciprocity, his description of alien populations that can be "innoculated" into a worldwide web of social and economic interest, was framed in a society fragmented by a bewildering heterogeneity of interests ...»