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The article presents a speech by the president of the Sociological Society Edward Brabrook, during its annual meeting in London, England. The president addressed few words on the occasion of the annual meeting of the society. He paid tribute to physician J.H. Bridges, one of the most efficient member of the society. The production of three volumes of sociological papers, and of the first volume of quarterly "Sociological Review" were further discussed. In the first volume, published in 1904, V.V. Branford, honorary secretary and founder of the society traced the origin and the use of the word sociology. The twofold method by which the study is to be pursued was broadly defined. In the second volume its relation to the philosophy of history and its relation to ethics were stated, while the third volume fitly closes with the paradox of H.G. Wells, that sociology is not a science. The other sections discussed in the speech were progress report of the "Sociological Review," various meetings of the society in the past, finance, eugenics, civics, education and social economy.

The article analyzes American sociologist Robert K. Merton's thesis on the relation of science to the "Puritan ethos" of seventeenth-century England. Ill-conceived knowledge has a way of getting embedded in the literature and persisting for generations, only eventually being dislodged with a mighty effort. There are portents that Merton's conclusions are headed for or such a career. The purpose, then, is to halt a trend rather than to make a systematic restatement of a proposition. Merton's declaration is that it is the thesis of this study that the Puritan ethic, as an ideal-typical expression of the value-attitude basic to ascetic Protestantism generally, so canalized the interests of seventeenth-century Englishmen as to constitute one important element of the enhanced civilization of science. The rationale of such a study is not readily apparent. While not deigning to make a formal definition of Puritanism, Merton would list its "dominant tenets." The first characteristic is the "juxtaposition of the spiritual and material" which might be acceptable as an interpretive construct of the Calvinistic "ethos."