Note 61 — Chapter III · CONCERNING THE INTERPRETATION AND CRITICISM OF SOME CONCEPTS OF MARXISMToC

It may be remarked that in the difficulty of distinguishing the purely scientific from the practical lies the chief cause of the dangers and poverty of the social and political sciences. And we may even smile at those scientists or their ingenious admirers, who claim to accomplish the salvation of the social and political sciences, by applying to them the methods, as they say, of the natural sciences. (An Italian astronomer, ingenuous as clever, has suggested the formation of sociological observatories which, in a few years would make sociology something like astronomy!) Alas! the matter is not so simple; all sociologists intend indeed to apply exact methods; but how can this application succeed when one advances per ignes or over ground which moves; d'una e d'altra parte sì come l'onda chefugge e s'appressa? (From both sides like the wave which ebbs and flows.)