The Sociologist

Abstract

Pareto’s sociological system was based on his economic system. He was always very clear about this point. In his Cours [d’économie politique], he insisted that in a synthesis of concrete economic phenomena it was essential to take social factors into account, and stressed even more the interdependency of social relations. But, at the time, he was still not in a position to formulate theories for these relations and general social phenomena.

It was the urge to add an indispensable extension to the study of political economy, and above all the inspiring example of natural sciences, which led me to write my Traité de sociologie, of which the sole aim — I say sole, and I insist on this point — was to research into experimental reality by applying to the social sciences methods which have proved their worth in the fields of physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and other similar sciences.

Pareto, at his Jubilee