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Annals of Science
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The early history of the term 'social science'
K. M. Baker
aa
University of Chicago,Online Publication Date: 01 September 1964
To cite this Article
Baker, K. M.(1964)'The early history of the term 'social science'',Annals of Science,20:3,211 — 226
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The Early History of the Term ' Social Science '
211THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE TERM 'SOCIAL SCIENCE'By K. M. BAKER, M.A., Ph.D.*THERE has been some interest in recent years in the origin and earlyhistory of the term ' social science '. Discussions in the
Jvurnal of theHistory of Ideas
during 1958-59 reached two conclusions in this respect. 1They remarked that the earliest usage of the term then discovered inFrench appeared in a work by Charles Fourier published in 1808. Theyalso suggested that John Stuart Mill was probably responsible for makingfamiliar in English a term he found current among the Saint-Simoniansin France, although it has more recently been shown that ' social science 'became known to the Benthamite group from Spanish sources beforeMill made the acquaintance of the Saint-Simonian school. ~ The purposeof the present investigation is twofold. It will suggest that the term'science soeiale ', already well established in France before the end of tileeighteenth century, may well have been coined and was certainly givenofficial sanction during the French Revolution. It will also point toways in which the term emigrated and became naturalized, first intothe language of the early American Republic and then, by the morecircuitous Spanish route, into that of the English Utilitarians. Althougha terminological investigation of this kind will not permit a comprehensiveexamination of the nature and meaning of the concept of social scienceduring this period, it is hoped that it will establish the existence of such aconception and present a
~rima facie
case for a more extended discussionof its significance.It might be remarked by way of preface that consideration of theearly history of the term ' social science ' aptly supports an observationput forward by the late Professor ]~oebner:'The semantics of politics offer many instances of a momentousconnection between the vicissitudes of vocabulary and the fates of statesand societies.' 3
* University of Chicago. This paper is based on research undertaken with the aid ofthe Central Research Fund of the University of London, for which I wish to express mythanks.z Peter 1%. Senn, ' The Earliest Use of the Term " Social Science ",'
Journal of theHistory of Ideas,
1958, 19, 568-70; ,l. It. Burns, ' J. S. Mill and the Term" Social Science ",'
ibid.,
1959, 20, 431-32; George G. Iggers, ' Further Remarks about Early Uses of the Terra" Social Science ",'
ibid.,
433-36.2 See J. H. Burns,
Jeremy Bentham and University College,
London, 1962, pp. 7-8.3 1%. Koebner, ' Despot and despotism: vicissitudes of a political term,'
Journal of theWarburg and Courtauld Institutes,
1951, 14, 275.
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212 K.M. Baker
on
Certainly, contemporaries of the French Revolution were in no doubt asto the existence of such a connexion. It was generally agreed that theRevolution had introduced many new terms into the language, andwriters of all persuasions found analysis of the terminology put intocurrency during the 1790s a useful means of presenting their points ofview. 4 Indeed, in an age fascinated by the philosophy of language,controversy over the form of the French language--its vocabulary,grammar and orthography--was an important aspect of the widerconfrontation of attitudes in revolutionary France. ' La langue a sesaristocrates et ses d~magogues ' commented Urbain Domergue, editor ofthe
Journal de Ia Langue Francaise:
' les premiers veulent en tout obdir aveuglement ~ l'ancien r6gime,£ l'usage; les autres veulent quc la raison immortelle, sans dgard pourl'usage, dicte routes des lois du langage des mortels. 5The necessity and possibility of bringing to social affairs the methodsand techniques of the physical sciences was widely discussed amongFrench scientists and academicians of the 1780s. No one is morerepresentative of this attitude than the
marquis
de Condorcet. At oncea mathematician and historian of the sciences, an economist and socialreformer, Condorcet was perpetual secretary of the Acad6mie des Sciencesduring one of the most fertile and vigorous stages of its existence--aperiod in which the Academy showed itself interested in the applicationof the methods of the sciences to a variety of human affairs.6 Somemeasure of the hopes thus inspired--and of the importance attachedto them--may be gauged from the inaugural discourse that Condorcetdelivered to the Acad~mie Frangaise on 21 February 1782. ~ Newly
a It is instructive, for example, to compare the
Journal d'Instruction Sociale; par lescitoyens Condorcet, Siey~s et Duha~el,
Paris, 1793 [B.M., 1t37.g.22(1)], which provided ananalysis of political vocabulary from a liberal point of view, with the
Nouveau Dictionnairepour servir h l'intclligencc des ter,raes mis en vogue par la Rgvolution; dddid aux amis de laReligion, du Roi et du sens commun,
Paris, 1792 [B.M., F.373(1)]. As in this case, I shallgive the location of little-known pamphlets either in the :B[ritish] M[useum] or the]~[ibliothSque] N[ationale].
5 Journal de la Langue Fran~aise, par Urbain Domergue,
26 February 1791, p. 312.6 These included not only demography and the mathematics of insurance but also thetheory of elections and even an attempt to arrive at universally applicable legal formulaeby appeal to combinatorial analysis: those concerns, in short, that Condorcet later groupedtogether under the rubric
math~natique sociaIe.
See Duncan :Black,
The Theory of Co~n-~ittees and Elections,
Cambridge, 1958, pp. 156-85; G.-G. Granger,
La Mathdmatique Socialedu ~tarquis de Condorcet,
Paris, 1958; M. J. J. Laboulle, 'La Math6matique sociale:Condorcet et ses pr~d6cesseurs ',
Revue d'histoire littdraire de la t~rance,
1939, 46, 33-55;Ernest Mainch'on,
Les Fondations de Prix 5 l'A caddmie des Sciences,
1714-1880, Paris, 1881,pp. 44-6.A. Condorcet-O'Connor and F. Arago (ed.),
(~uvres de Condorcet,
Paris, 1847-9, vol. i,pp. 389-415. Further references will cite this edition as
(Euvres.
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