to professional knowledge, but as we pass from the smaller professional knowledge of early times to the greater pro fessional knowledge of our own. The question with the mod ern physician is not as with the ancient— shall the treatment be blood-letting? shall cathartics, or shall diaphoretics be given? or shall mercurials be administered? But there rises the previous question — shall there be any treatment beyond a wholesome regimen? And even among existing physicians it happens that in proportion as the judgment is most culti vated, there is the least yielding to the " must-do-something " impulse.
Is it not possible, then — is it not even probable, that this supposed necessity for immediate action, which is put in as an excuse for drawing quick conclusions from few data, is the con comitant of deficient knowledge? Is it not probable that as in Biology so in Sociology, the accumulation of more facts, the more critical comparison of them, and the drawing of con clusions on scientific methods, will be accompanied by in creasing doubt about the benefits to be secured, and increasing fear of the mischiefs which may be worked? Is it not prob able that what in the individual organism is improperly, though conveniently, called the vis medicatrix natures, may be found to have its analogue in the social organism? and will there not very likely come along with the recognition of this, the consciousness that in both cases the one thing need ful is to maintain the conditions under which the natural actions have fair play? Such a consciousness, to be antici pated from increased knowledge, will diminish the force of this plea for prompt decision after little inquiry; since it will check this tendency to think of a remedial measure as one that may do good and cannot do harm. Nay more, the study of Sociology, scientifically carried on by tracing back proxi mate causes to remote ones, and tracing down primary effects to secondary and tertiary effects which multiply as they dif fuse, will dissipate the current illusion that social evils admit of radical cures. Given an average defect of nature among the units of a society, and no skilful manipulation of them will prevent that defect from producing its equivalent of bad results. It is possible to change the form of these bad results; it is possible to change the places at which they are manifested; but it is not possible to get rid of them. The belief that faulty character can so organize itself socially, as to get out of itself a conduct which is not proportionately faulty, is an utterly-baseless belief. You may alter the incidence of the mischief, but the amount of it must inevitably be borne somewhere. Very generally it is simply thrust out of one form into another; as when, in Austria, improvident marriages being prevented, there come more numerous illegitimate chil dren; or as when, to mitigate the misery of foundlings, hos pitals are provided for them, and there is an increase in the number of infants abandoned; or as when, to insure the sta bility of houses, a Building Act prescribes a structure which, making small houses unremunerative, prevents due multipli cation of them, and so causes overcrowding; or as when a Lodging-House Act forbids this overcrowding, and vagrants have to sleep under the Adelphi-arches, or in the Parks, or even, for warmth's sake, 011 the dung-heaps in mews. Where the evil does not, as in cases like these, reappear in another place or form, it is necessarily felt in the shape of a diffused privation. For suppose that by some official instrumentality you actually suppress an evil, instead of thrusting it from one spot into another — suppose you thus successfully deal with a number of such evils by a number of such instrumentalities; do you think these evils have disappeared absolutely? To see that they have not, you have but to ask — Whence comes the official apparatus? What defrays the cost of working it? Who supplies the necessaries of life to its members through all their gradations of rank? There is no other source but the labour of peasants and artisans. When, as in France, the ad ministrative agencies occupy some 600,000 men, who are taken from industrial pursuits, and, with their families, supported in more than average comfort, it becomes clear enough that heavy extra work is entailed on the producing classes. The already-tired labourer has to toil an additional hour; his wife has to help in the fields as well as to suckle her in fant; his children are still more scantily fed than they would otherwise be; and beyond a decreased share of re turns from increased labour, there is a diminished time and energy for such small enjoyments as the life, pitiable at the best, permits. How, then, can it be supposed that the evils OUR NEED OP IT. 21 have been extinguished or escaped? The repressive action has had its corresponding- reaction; and instead of inteiiser miseries here and there, or now and then, you have got a misery that is constant and universal.
When it is thus seen that the evils are not removed, but at best only re-distributed, and that the question in any case is whether re-distribution, even if practicable, is desirable; it will be seen that the " must-do-something " plea is quite in sufficient. There is ample reason to believe that in proportion as scientific men carry into this most-involved class of phe nomena, the methods they have successfully adopted with other classes, they will perceive that, even less in this class than in other classes, are conclusions to be drawn and action to be taken without prolonged and critical investigation.
Still there will recur the same plea under other forms. " Po litical conduct must be matter of compromise." " We must adapt our measures to immediate exigencies, and cannot be deterred by remote considerations." " The data for forming scientific judgments are not to be had: most of them are un recorded, and those which are recorded are difficult to find as well as doubtful when found." "Life is too short, and the demands upon our energies too great, to permit any such elab orate study as seems required. We must, therefore, guide our selves by common sense as best we may."
And then, behind the more scientifically-minded who give this answer, there are those who hold, tacitly or overtly, that guidance of the kind indicated is not possible, even after any amount of inquiry. They do not believe in any ascertainable order among social phenomena— there is no such thing as a social science. This proposition we will discuss in the next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
IS THERE A SOCIAL SCIENCE?
ALMOST every autumn may be heard the remark that a hard winter is coming-, for that the hips and haws are abun dant: the implied belief being that God, intending to send much frost and snow, has provided a large store of food for the birds. Intei'pretations of this kind, tacit or avowed, pre vail widely. Not many weeks since, one who had received the usual amount of culture said in my hearing, that the swarm of lady-birds which overspread the country some sum mers ago, had been providentially designed to save the crop of hops from the destroying aphides. Of course this theory of the divine government, here applied to occurrences bearing but indirectly, if at all, on human welfare, is applied with still greater confidence to occurrences that directly affect us, indi vidually and socially. It is a theory carried out with logical consistency by the Methodist who, before going on a journey or removing to another house, opens his Bible, and in the first passage his eye rests upon, finds an intimation of approval or disapproval from heaven. And in its political applications it yields such appropriate beliefs as that the welfare of England in comparison with Continental States, has been a reward for better observance of the Sunday, or that an invasion of chol era was consequent on the omission of Dei gratia from an issue of coins.
The interpretation of historical events in general after this same method, accompanies such interpretations of ordinary passing events; and, indeed, outlives them. Those to whom the natural genesis of simpler phenomena has been made manifest by increasing knowledge, still believe in the super natural genesis of phenomena that are very much involved, and cannot have their causes readily traced. The form of mind which, in an official despatch, prompts the statement that " it has pleased Almighty G-od to vouchsafe to the British arms the most successful issue to the extensive combinations rendered necessary for the purpose of effecting1 the passage of the Chenaub," 1 is a form of mind which, in the records of the past, everywhere sees interpositions of the Deity to bring about results that appear to the interpreter the most desirable. Thus, for example, Mr. Schomberg writes: — " It seemed good to the All-beneficent Disposer of human events, to overrule every obstacle; and through His instrument, William of Normandy, to expurgate the evils of the land; and to resuscitate its dying powers." * And elsewhere: — "The time had now arrived when the Almighty Governor, after having severely punished the whole nation, was intending to raise its drooping head — to give a more rapid impulse to its prosperity, and to cause it to stand forth more prominently as an EXEMPLAR STATE. For this end, He raised up an individual eminently fitted for the intended work" [Henry VII.J.3 And again: — " As if to mark this epoch of history with greater distinctness, it Was closed by the death of George III., the GREAT and the GOOD, who had been raised up as the grand instrument of its accomplishment."4 The late catastrophes on the Continent are similarly ex plained by a French writer who, like the English writer just quoted, professes to have looked behind the veil of things; and who tells us what have been the intentions of God in chastising his chosen people, the French. For it is to be ob served in passing that, just as the evangelicals among our selves think we are divinely blessed because we have preserved the purity of the faith, so it is obvious to the author of La Main de VHomme et le Doigt de Dieu, as to other Frenchmen, that France is hereafter still to be, as it has hitherto been, the leader of the world. This writer, in chapters entitled " Causes providentielles de nos malheurs," " Les Prussiens et les fleaux de Dieu," and " Justification de la Providence," carries out his interpretations in ways we need not here follow, and then closes his " Epilogue " with these sentences: — " La Revolution moderee, habile, sagace, machiavoliqne, diaboliquement sage, a ete vaincue et confondue par la justice divine dans la personne et dans le gouvernement de Napoleon III.
" La Revolution exaltee, bouillonnante, etourdie, a ete vaincue et confondue par la justice divine dans les personnes et dans les gouvernements successifs de Gambetta et de Felix Pyat et compagnie.
" La sagesse humaine, applaudie et trioinphante, personnifiee dans M. Thiers, ne tardera pas a etre vaincue et confondue par cette meme Revolution deux fois humiliee, mais toujours renaissante et agressive."
" Ce n'est pas une prophetic: c'est la prevision de la philosophic et de la foi chretiennes.
" Alors ce sera vraiment le tour du Tres-Haut; car il faut que Dieu et son Pils regneut par son Evangile et par son Eglise.
" Ames frangaises et chretiennes, priez, travaillez, souffrez et ayez confiance! nous somines pres de la fin. C'est quand tout semblera perdu que tout sera vraiment sauvc.
" Si la France avait su profiter des desastres subis, Dieu lui eut rendu ses premieres favours. Elle s'obstine dans 1'erreur et le vice. Croyons que Dieu la sauvera malgre elle, en la regenerant toutefois par 1'eau et par le feu. C'est quand Fimpuissance humaine apparait qu'eclate la sagesse divine. Mais quelles tribulations! quelles angoisses! Ileureux ceux qui survivront et jouiront du triomphe de Dieu et de son Eglise sainte, catholique, apostolique et romaine." 5 Conceptions of this kind are not limited to historians whose names have dropped out of remembrance, and to men who, while the drama of contemporary revolution is going on, play the part of a Greek chorus, telling the world of spec tators what has been the divine purpose arid what are the di vine intentions; but we have lately had a Professor of History setting forth conceptions essentially identical in nature. Here are his words: — " And now, gentlemen, was this vast campaign [of Teutons against Romans] fought without a general? If Trafalgar could not be won without the mind of a Nelson, or Waterloo without the mind of a Wellington, was there no one mind to lead those innumerable armies on whose success depended the future of the whole human race? Did no one marshal them in that impregnable convex front, from the Euxine to the North Sea? No one guide them to the two great strategic centres of the Black Forest and Trieste? No one cause them, blind barbarians without maps or science, to follow those rules of war without which victory in a protracted struggle is impossible; and by the pressure of the Huns behind, force on their flagging myri ads to an enterprise which their simplicity fancied at first beyond the powers of mortal men? Believe it who will: but I cannot. I may be told that they gravitated into their places, as stones and mud do Be it so. They obeyed natural laws of course, as all things do on earth, when they obeyed the laws of war: those, too, are natural laws, explicable on simple mathematical principles. But while 1 believe that not a stone or a handful of mud gravitates into its place without the will of God; that it was ordained, ages since, into what particular spot each grain of gold should be washed down from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain man might find it at a certain moment and crisis of his life;— if I be superstitious enough (as, thank God, I am) to hold that creed, shall I not believe that, though this great war had no general upon earth, it may have had a general in heaven 1 and that, in spite of all their sins, the hosts of our forefathers were the hosts of God." 6 It does not concern us here to seek a reconciliation of the incongruous ideas bracketed together in this paragraph — to ask how the results of gravitation, which acts with such uni formity that under given conditions its effect is calculable with certainty, can at the same time be regarded as the results of will, which we class apart because, as known by our expe rience, it is comparatively irregular; or to ask how, if the course of human affairs is divinely pre-determined just as material changes are, any distinction is to be drawn between that prevision of material changes which constitutes physical science and historical prevision: the reader may be left to evolve the obvious conclusion that either the current idea of physical causation has to be abandoned, or the current idea of will has to be abandoned. All which I need call attention to as indicating the general character of such interpretations, is the remarkable title of the chapter containing this passage — " The Strategy of Providence."
In common with some others, I have often wondered how the Universe looks to those who use such names for its Cause as " The Master Builder," or " The Great Artificer; " and who seem to think that the Cause of the Universe is made more marvellous by comparing its operations to those of a skilled mechanic. But really the expression, "Strategy of Provi dence," reveals a conception of this Cause which is in some respects more puzzling. Such a title as " The Great Artificer," while suggesting simply the process of shaping a pre-existing material, and leaving the question whence this material came untouched, may at any rate be said not to negative the assump tion that the material is created by "The Great Artificer" who shapes it. The phrase, " Strategy of Providence," how ever, necessarily implies difficulties to be overcome. The Divine Strategist must have a skilful antagonist to make strategy possible. So that we are inevitably introduced to the conception of a Cause of the Universe continually impeded by some independent cause which has to be out-gencralled. It is not every one who would thank God for a belief, the im plication of which is that God is obliged to overcome opposi tion by subtle devices.
The disguises which piety puts on are, indeed, not unfrequently suggestive of that which some would describe by a quite opposite name. To study the Universe as it is manifested to us; to ascertain by patient observation the order of the manifestations; to discover that the manifestations are con nected with one another after a regular way in Time and Space; and, after repeated failures, to give up as futile the attempt to understand the Power manifested; is condemned as irreligious. And meanwhile the character of religious is claimed by those who figure to themselves a Creator moved by motives like their own; who conceive themselves as dis covering his designs; and who even speak of him as though he laid plans to outwit the Devil!
This, however, by the way. The foregoing extracts and comments are intended to indicate the mental attitude of those for whom there can be no such thing as Sociology, prop erly so called. That mode of conceiving human affairs which is implied alike by the " D. V." of a missionary-meeting placard and by the phrases of Emperor William's late despatches, where thanks to God come next to enumerations of the thou sands slain, is one to which the idea of a Social Science is entirely alien, and indeed repugnant.
An allied class, equally unprepared to interpret sociologi cal phenomena scientifically, is the class which sees in the course of civilization little else than a record of remarkable persons and their doings. One who is conspicuous as the exponent of this view writes: — "As I take it, universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked here." And this, not perhaps distinctly formulated, but everywhere implied, is the belief in which nearly all are brought up. Let us glance at the genesis of it.
Round their camp-fire assembled savages tell the events of the day's chase; and he among them who has done some feat of skill or agility is duly lauded. On a return from the war path, the sagacity of the chief and the strength or courage of this or that warrior, are the all-absorbing themes. When the day, or the immediate past, affords no remarkable deed, the topic is the achievement of some noted leader lately dead, or some traditional founder of the tribe: accompanied, it may be, with a dance dramatically representing those victories which the chant recites. Such narratives, concerning, as they do, the prosperity and indeed the very existence of the tribe, are of the intensest interest; and in them we have the com mon root of music, of the drama, of poetry, of biography, of history, and of literature in general. Savage life furnishes little else worthy of note; and the chronicles of tribes contain scarcely anything more to be remembered. Early his toric races show us the same thing. The Egyptian frescoes and the wall-sculptures of the Assyrians, represent the deeds of leading men; and inscriptions such as that on the Moabite stone, tell of nothing more than royal achievements: only by implication do these records, pictorial, hieroglyphic, or written, convey anything else. And similarly from the Greek epics, thougli we gather incidentally that there were towns, and war-vessels, and war-chariots, and sailors, and soldiers to be led and slain, yet the direct intention is to set forth the triumphs of Achilles, the prowess of Ajax, the wisdom of Ulysses, and the like. The lessons given to every civilized child tacitly imply, like the traditions of the uncivilized and semi-civilized, that throughout the past of the human race, the doings of conspicuous persons have been the only things worthy of remembrance. How Abraham girded up his loins and gat him to this place or that; how Samuel conveyed divine injunctions which Saul disobeyed; how David re counted his adventures as a shepherd, and was reproached for 28 TOE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
his misdeeds as a king — these, and personalities akin to these, are the facts about which the juvenile reader of the Bible is interested and respecting which he is catechized: such indica tions of Jewish institutions as have unavoidably got into the narrative, being regarded neither by him nor by his teacher as of moment. So too, when, with hands behind him, he stands to say his lesson out of Pinnock, we see that the things set down for him to learn, are — when and by whom Eng land was invaded, what rulers opposed the invasions and how they were killed, what Alfred did and what Canute said, who fought at Agincourt and who conquered at Flodden, which king abdicated and which usurped, &c.; and if by some chance it comes out that there were serfs in those days, that barons were local rulers, some vassals of others, that subordi nation of them to a central power took place gradually, these are facts treated as relatively unimportant. Nay, the like happens when the boy passes into the hands of his classical master, at home or elsewhere. " Arms and the man " form the end of the story as they form its beginning. After the mythology, which of course is all-essential, come the achieve ments of rulers and soldiers from Agamemnon down to Cyesar: what knowledge is gained of social organization, man ners, ideas, morals, being little more than the biographical statements involve. And the value of the knowledge is so ranked that while it would be a disgrace to be wrong about the amours of Zeus, and while inability to name the com mander at Marathon would be discreditable, it is excusable to know nothing of the social condition that preceded Lycurgus or of the origin and functions of the Areopagus.
Thus the great-man-theory of History finds everywhere a ready-prepared conception — is, indeed, but the definite expres sion of that which is latent in the thoughts of the savage, tacitly asserted in all early traditions, and taught to every child by multitudinous illustrations. The glad acceptance it meets with has sundry more special causes. There is, first, this universal love of personalities, which, active in the aboriginal man, dominates still — a love seen in the urchin who asks you to tell him a story, meaning, thereby, some body's adventures; a love gratified in adults by police-reports, court-news, divorce-cases, accounts of accidents and lists of births, marriages, and deaths; a love displayed even by con versations in the streets, where fragments of dialogue, heard in passing, show that mostly between men, and always be tween women, the personal pronouns recur every instant. If you want roughly to estimate any one's mental calibre, you cannot do it better than by observing a ratio of generalities to personalities in his talk — how far simple truths about indi viduals are replaced by truths abstracted from numerous experiences of men and things. And when you have thus measured many, you find but a scattered few likely to take anything more than a biographical view of human affairs. In the second place, this great-man-theory com mends itself as promising instruction along with amusement. Being already fond of hearing about people's sayings and doings, it is pleasant news that, to understand the course of civilization, you have only to read diligently the lives of dis tinguished men. What can be a more acceptable doctrine than that while you are satisfying an instinct not very remotely allied to that of the village gossip— while you are receiving through print instead of orally, remarkable facts concerning notable persons, you are gaining that knowledge which will make clear to you why things have happened thus or thus in the world, and will prepare you for forming a right opinion on each question coming before you as a citizen. And then, in the third place, the interpretation of things thus given is so beautifully simple — seems so easy to comprehend. Providing you are content with conceptions that are out of focus, as most people's conceptions are, the solutions it yields appear quite satisfactory. Just as that theory of the Solar System which supposes the planets to have been launched into their orbits by the hand of the Almighty, looks feasible so long as you do not insist on knowing exactly what is meant by the hand of the Almighty; and just as the special creation of plants and animals seems a tenable hypothesis until you try and picture to yourself definitely the process by which one of them is brought into existence; so the genesis of societies by the actions of great men, may be comfortably believed so long as, resting in general notions, you do not ask for particulars.
But now, if, dissatisfied with vagueness, we demand that our ideas shall be brought into focus and exactly defined, we discover the hypothesis to be utterly incoherent. If, not stopping at the explanation of social progress as due to the great man, we go back a step and ask whence comes the great man, we find that the theory breaks down completely. The question has two conceivable answers: his origin is super natural, or it is natural. Is his origin supernatural? Then he is a deputy -god, and we have Theocracy once removed — or, rather, not removed at all; for we must then agree with Mr.
Schomberg, quoted above, that "the determination of Caesar to invade Britain " was divinely inspired, and that from him, down to "George III. the GREAT and the GOOD," the succes sive rulers were appointed to carry out successive designs. Is this an unacceptable solution? Then the origin of the great man is natural; and immediately this is recognized he must be classed with all other phenomena in the society that gave him birth, as a product of its antecedents. Along with the whole generation of which he forms a minute part — along with its institutions, language, knowledge, manners, and its multitudinous arts and appliances, he is a resultant of an enormous aggregate of forces that have been co-operating for ages. True, if you please to ignore all that common observa tion, verified by physiology, teaches — if you assume that two European parents may produce a Negro child, or that from woolly-haired prognathous Papuans may come a fair, straighthaired infant of Caucasian type — you may assume that the advent of the great man can occur anywhere and under any conditions. If, disregarding those accumulated results of ex perience which current proverbs and the generalizations of psychologists alike express, you suppose that a Newton might be born in a Hottentot family, that a Milton might spring up among the Aiidamanese, that a Howard or a Clarkson might have Fiji parents, then you may proceed with facility to ex plain social progress as caused by the actions of the great man.
But if all biological science, enforcing all popular belief, convinces you that by no possibility will an Aristotle come from a father and mother with facial angles of fifty degrees, and that out of a tribe of cannibals, whose chorus in preparation for a feast of human flesh is a kind of rhythmical roaring, there is not the remotest chance of a Beethoven aris ing; then you must admit that the genesis of the great man IS THERE A SOCIAL SCIENCE! 31 depends on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and the social state into which that race has slowly grown. If it be a fact that the great man may modify his nation in. its structure and actions, it is also a fact that there must have been those ante cedent modifications constituting national progress before he could be evolved. Before he can re-make his society, his society must make him. So that all those changes of which he is the proximate initiator have their chief causes in the generations he descended from. If there is to be anything like a real explanation of these changes, it must be sought in that aggregate of conditions out of which both he and they have arisen.
Even were we to grant the absurd supposition that the genesis of the great man does not depend on the antecedents furnished by the society he is born in, there would still be the quite-sufficient facts that he is powerless in the absence of the material and mental accumulations which his society inherits from the past, and that he is powerless in the absence of the co-existing population, character, intelligence, and social ar rangements. Given a Shakspeare, and what dramas could he have written without the multitudinous traditions of civil ized life — without the various experiences which, descending to him from the past, gave wealth to his thought, and without the language which a hundred generations had developed and enriched by use? Suppose a Watt, with all his inventive power, living in a tribe ignorant of iron, or in a tribe that could get only as much iron as a fire blown by hand-bellows will smelt; or suppose him born among ourselves before lathes existed; what chance would there have been of the steam-engine? Imagine a Laplace unaided by that slowlydeveloped system of Mathematics which we trace back to its beginnings among the Egyptians; how far would he have got with the Mecanique Celeste 1 Nay, the like questions may be put and have like answers, even if we limit ourselves to those classes of great men on whose doings hero-worshippers more particularly dwell — the rulers and generals. Xenophon could not have achieved his celebrated feat had his Ten Thousand been feeble, or cowardly, or insubordinate. Caesar would never have made his conquests without disciplined troops, inheriting their prestige and tactics and organization from the Romans who lived before them. And, to take a recent in stance, the strategical genius of Moltke would have triumphed in no great campaigns had there not been a nation of some forty millions to supply soldiers, and had not those soldiers been men of strong bodies, sturdy characters, obedient na tures, and capable of carrying out orders intelligently.
Were any one to marvel over the potency of a grain of det onating powder, which explodes a cannon, propels the shell, and sinks a vessel hit — were he to enlarge on the transcendent virtues of this detonating powder, not mentioning the ignited charge, the shell, the camion, and all that enormous aggre gate of appliances by which these have severally been pro duced, detonating powder included; we should not regard his interpretation as very rational. But it would fairly compare in rationality with this interpretation of social phenomena which, dwelling on the important changes the great man works, ignores that vast pre-existing supply of latent power he unlocks, and that immeasurable accumulation of antecedents to which both he and this power are due.
Recognizing what truth there is in the great-man-theory, wTe may say that, if limited to early societies, the histories of which are little else than endeavours to destroy or subju gate one another, it approximately expresses the fact in rep resenting the capable leader as all-important; though even here it leaves out of sight too much the number and the quality of his followers. But its immense error lies in the assumption that what was once true is true for ever; and that a relation of ruler and ruled which was possible and good at one time is possible and good for all time. Just as fast as this predatory activity of early tribes dimin ishes, just as fast as larger aggregates are formed by con quest or otherwise, just as fast as war ceases to be the busi ness of the whole male population, so fast do societies begin to develop, to show traces of structures and functions not before possible, to acquire increasing complexity along with increasing size, to give origin to new institutions, new activi ties, new ideas, sentiments, and habits; all of which unob trusively make their appearance without the thought of any king or legislator. And if you wish to understand these phenomena of social evolution, you will not do it though you should read yourself blind over the biographies of all the great rulers on record, down to Frederick the Greedy and Napoleon the Treacherous.