A Voss and Pike Casefile: The First Case
Section 1: The Lecture
"Before Comte," you said, "nobody thought you could study society the way you study a chemical reaction. The social world was God's business, or fate's, or nobody's business at all - certainly not something a person could stand outside of and measure." You tapped the whiteboard, where SOCIOLOGIE sat circled in blue marker. "Comte believed every society passed through three stages - theological, metaphysical, positive - ending in a world run on reason and evidence instead of superstition. He thought sociology would be the science that got us there."
A hand went up near the back. Eighteen, hood down out of politeness rather than habit, a library book already dog-eared before the course had properly started. "Did it work?" said the boy. "Did reason win?"
"That," you said, "is next week's lecture, Mr Pike. Though I'll give you the short answer for free: not yet. Possibly not ever. That's rather the interesting part."
Dr Ada Voss, thirty-six, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Saltmarsh, eleven years into a career you had, until this particular Tuesday, assumed would end with your name on a door that said Professor.