Excerpt from An American Town: A Sociological Study The study of human motives is, however, by no means a simple matter. The author does not concur in the popular notion that while other sciences may be permitted the use of expressions and methods which bewilder the uninitiated, yet sociology should speak so plainly that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. All serious students of sociology have found that, far from being free from the tech nicalities which make other sciences diflicult, sociology is the most complicated of all the sciences. Accordingly, we must refuse at the outset to simplify matters at the expense of truthfulness. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.