Socialism

Durkheim's study of socialism is a document of excep-
tional intellectual interest for several reasons. Not the least
of these is that it presents us with the now somewhat un-
usual case of a truly first-rate thinker who had the inclina-
tion to contribute to the history of sociological theory and
to comment extensively on the work of a key figure in that
history, Henri Saint-Simon. The core of this volume con-
I tains Durkheim's presentation of Saint-Simon's ideas, their
sources and their development.
Indeed, Durkheim so subordinates himself in these pages
that we might well wish that he had developed his own
critical reactions to Saint-Simon at greater length. This is
somewhat unusual in the annals of current sociological schol-
arship in America, which has tended to leave "mere" exe-
gesis and historical commentary to text book writers, and
which sometimes unwittingly fosters the barbaric assumption
that books and ideas more than twenty years old are beyond
scientific salvation. In contrast to such current preoccupa-
tions with the modern, it is noteworthy that at the time
Durkheim (1858-1917) wrote these lectures on socialism
and Saint-Simon (1760-1825), the latter was dead some
I seventy years.

In some quarters a concern for the history of sociological

I theory is now regarded as misguided. Of course, it is easy
to understand how the usual trite chronicle of thinkers and
ideas could foster such a disillusioned appraisal. Yet this
dim view of the history of sociological theory may be pre-
maturely pessimistic about earlier theory and unduly opti-

; mistic about the state of current theory.