singly those factors which it is the aim to disentangle and identify and measure; and the tendency to rest in the results reached, as though they were the final results to be sought. The chemist, by saturating, neutralizing, decomposing, pre cipitating, and at last separating, is enabled to measure what quantity of this element had been held in combination by a given quantity of that; and when, by some alternative course of analysis, he has verified the result, his inquiry is in so far concluded: as are kindred inquiries respecting other affinities of the element, when these are qualitatively and quantitatively determined. Plis habit is to get rid of, or neglect as much as possible, the concomitant disturbing factors, that he may ascer tain the nature and amount of some one, and then of some other; and his end is achieved when accounts have been given of all the factors, individually considered. So is it, too, with the physicist. Say the problem is the propagation of sound through air, and the interpretation of its velocity — say, that the velocity as calculated by Newton is found less by one- sixth than observation gives: and that Laplace sets himself to explain the anomaly. He recognizes the evolution of heat by the compression which each sound-wave produces in the air; finds the extra velocity consequent on this; adds this to the velocity previously calculated; finds the result answer to the observed fact; and then, having resolved the phenomenon into its components and measured them, considers his task concluded. So throughout: the habit is that of identifying, parting, and estimating factors; and stopping after having done this completely.
This habit, carried into the interpretation of things at large, affects it somewhat as the mathematical habit affects it. It tends towards the formation of unduly-simple and unduly- definite conceptions; and it encourages the natural propensity to be content with proximate results. The daily practice of dealing with single factors of phenomena, and with factors complicated by but few others, and with factors ideally sepa rated from their combinations, inevitably gives to the thoughts about surrounding things an analytic rather than a synthetic character. It promotes the contemplation of simple causes apart from the entangled plexus of co-operating causes which all the higher natural phenomena show us; and begets a ten- DISCIPLINE. 293 dency to suppose that when the results of such simple causes have been exactly determined, nothing remains to be asked.
Physical science, then, though indispensable as a means of developing the consciousness of causation in its simple definite forms, and thus preparing the mind for dealing with complex causation, is not sufficient of itself to make complex causation truly comprehensible. In illustration of its inadequacy, I might name a distinguished mathematician and physicist whose achievements place him in the first rank, but who, nevertheless, when entering on questions of concrete science, where the data are no longer few and exact, has repeatedly shown defective judgment. Choosing premisses which, to say the least, were gratuitous and in some cases improbable, he has proceeded by exact methods to draw definite conclusions; and has then enunciated those conclusions as though they had a certainty proportionate to the exactness of his methods.
The kind of discipline which affords the needful corrective, is the discipline which the Concrete Sciences give. Study of the forms of phenomena, as in Logic and Mathematics, is needful but by 110 means sufficient. Study of the factors of phenomena, as in Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, is also essential, but not enough by itself, or enough even joined with study of the forms. Study of the products themselves, in their totalities, is no less necessary. Exclusive attention to forms and factors not only fails to give right conceptions of products, but even tends to make the conceptions of products wrong. The analytical habit of mind has to be supplemented by the synthetical habit of mind. Seen in its proper place, analysis has for its chief function to prepare the way for syn thesis: and to keep a due mental balance, there must be not only a recognition of the truth that synthesis is the end to which analysis is the means, but there must also be a practice of synthesis along with a practice of analysis.
All the Concrete Sciences familiarize the mind with certain cardinal conceptions which the Abstract and Abstract-Con crete Sciences do not yield — the conceptions of continuity, complexity, and contingency. The simplest of the Concrete Sciences, Astronomy and Geology, yield the idea of continuity with great distinctness. I do not mean continuity of existence 294: THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
merely; I mean continuity of causation: the unceasing pro duction of effect — the never-ending work of every force. On the mind of the astronomer there is vividly impressed the idea that any one planet which has been drawn out of its course by another planet, or by a combination of others, will through all future time follow a route different from that it would have followed but for the perturbation; and he recognizes its reaction upon the perturbing planet or planets, as similarly having effects which, while ever being complicated and ever slowly diffused, will never be lost during the immeasurable periods to come. So, too, the geologist sees in each change wrought on the Earth's crust, by igneous or aqueous action, a new factor that goes on perpetually modifying all subsequent changes. An upheaved portion of sea-bottom alters the courses of ocean-currents, modifies the climates of adjacent lands, af fects their rain- falls and prevailing winds, their denudations and the deposits round their coasts, their floras and faunas; and these effects severally become causes that act unceasingly in ever-multiplying ways. Always there is traceable the per sistent working of each force, and the progressive complica tion of the results through succeeding geologic epochs.
These conceptions, not yielded at all by the Abstract and Abstract-Concrete Sciences, and yielded by the inorganic Con crete Sciences in ways which, though unquestionable, do not arrest attention, are yielded in clear and striking ways by the organic Concrete Sciences — the sciences that deal with living things. Every organism, if we read the lesson it gives, shows us continuity of causation and complexity of causation. The ordinary facts of inheritance illustrate continuity of causa tion — very conspicuously where varieties so distinct as negro and white are united, and where traces of the negro come out generation after generation; and still better among domestic animals, where traits of remote ancestry show the persistent working of causes which date far back. Organic phenomena make us familiar with complexity of causation, both by show ing the co-operation of many antecedents to each consequent, and by showing the multiplicity of results which each in fluence works out. If we observe how a given weight of a given drug produces on no two persons exactly like effects, and produces even on the same person different effects in dif- DISCIPLINE. 295 DISCIPLINE. 295 ferent constitutional states; we see at once how involved is the combination of factors by which the changes in an organ ism are brought about, and how extremely contingent, there fore, is each particular change. And we need but watch what happens after an injury, say of the foot, to perceive how, if permanent, it alters the gait, alters the adjustment and bend of the body, alters the movements of the arms, alters the fea tures into some contracted form accompanying pain or incon venience. Indeed, through the re-adjustments, muscular, nervous, and visceral, which it entails, this local damage acts and re-acts on function and structure throughout the whole body: producing effects which, as they diffuse, complicate in calculably.
While, in multitudinous ways, the Science of Life thrusts on the attention of the student the cardinal notions of con tinuity, and complexity, and contingency, of causation, it in troduces him to a further conception of moment, which the inorganic Concrete Sciences do not furnish — the conception of what we may call fructifying causation. For as it is a distinction between living and not-living bodies that the first propagate while the second do not; it is also a distinction be tween them that certain actions which go on in the first are cumulative, instead of being, as in the second, dissipative. Not only do organisms as wholes reproduce, and so from small beginnings reach, by multiplication, great results; but com ponents of them, normal and morbid, do the like. Thus a minute portion of a virus introduced into an organism, does not work an effect proportionate to its amount, as would an inorganic agent on an inorganic mass; but by appropriating materials from the blood of the organism, and thus immensely increasing, it works effects altogether out of proportion to its amount as originally introduced — effects which may continue with accumulating power throughout the remaining life of the organism. It is so with internally-evolved agencies as well as with externally-invading agencies. A portion of germinal matter, itself microscopic, may convey from a parent some constitutional peculiarity that is infinitesimal in relation even to its minute bulk; and from this there may arise, fifty years afterwards, gout or insanity in the resulting man: after this great lapse of time, slowly increasing actions and prod- 296 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
ucts show themselves in large derangements of function and structure. And this is a trait characteristic of organic phenom ena. While from the destructive changes going on through out the tissues of living bodies, there is a continual production of effects which lose themselves by subdivision, as do the eifects of inorganic forces; there arise from those constructive changes going on in them, by which living bodies are distin guished from not-living bodies, certain classes of effects which increase as they diffuse — go on augmenting in volume as well as in variety.
Thus, as a discipline, study of the Science of Life is essen tial; partly as familiarizing the mind with the cardinal ideas of continuity, complexity, and contingency, of causation, in clearer and more various ways than do the other Concrete Sciences, and partly as familiarizing the mind with the cardi nal idea of fructifying causation, which the other Concrete Sciences do not present at all. Not that, pursued exclusively, the Organic Sciences will yield these conceptions in clear forms: there requires a familiarity with the Abstract-Concrete Sciences to give the requisite grasp of simple causation. Studied by themselves, the Organic Sciences tend rather to make the ideas of causation cloudy; for the reason that the entanglement of the factors and the contingency of the results is so great, that definite relations of antecedents and conse quents cannot be established: the two are not presented in such connexions as to make the conception of causal action, qualitative and quantitative, sufficiently distinct. There re quires, first, the discipline yielded by Physics and Chemistry, to make definite the^deas of forces and actions as necessarily related in their kinds and amounts; and then the study of or ganic phenomena may be carried on with a clear conscious ness that while the processes of causation are so involved as often to be inexplicable, yet there is causation, no less neces sary and no less exact than causation of simpler kinds.
And now to apply these considerations on mental discipline to our immediate topic. For the effectual study of Sociology there needs a habit of thought generated by the studies of all these sciences — not, of course, an exhaustive, or even a very extensive, study; but such a study as shall give a grasp of DISCIPLINE. 297 the cardinal ideas they severally yield. For, as already said, social phenomena involve phenomena of every order.
That there are necessities of relation such as those with which the Abstract Sciences deal, cannot be denied when it is seen that societies present facts of number and quantity. That the actions of men in society, in all their movements and pro ductive processes, must conform to the laws of the physical forces, is also indisputable. And that everything thought and felt and done in the course of social life, is thought and felt and done in harmony with the laws of individual life, is also a truth — almost a truism, indeed; though one of which few seem conscious.
Scientific culture in general, then, is needful; and above all, culture of the Science of Life. This is more especially requisite, however, because the conceptions of continuity, complexity, and contingency of causation, as well as the con ception of fructifying causation, are conceptions common to it and to the Science of Society. It affords a specially-fit dis cipline, for the reason that it alone among the sciences pro duces familiarity with these cardinal ideas — presents the data for them in forms easily grasped, and so prepares the mind to recognize the data for them in the Social Science, where they are less easily grasped, though no less constantly presented.
The supreme importance of this last kind of culture, how ever, is not to be adequately shown by this brief statement. For besides generating habits of thought appropriate to the study of the Social Science, it furnishes special conceptions which serve as keys to the Social Science. The Science of Life yields to the Science of Society, certain great generaliza tions without which there can be no Science of Society at all. Let us go on to observe the relations of the two.
CHAPTER XIV.
PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY.
THE parable of the sower has its application to the progress of Science. Time after time new ideas are sown and do not germinate, or, having germinated, die for lack of fit environ ments, before they are at last sown under such conditions as to take root and flourish. Among other instances of this, one is supplied by the history of the truth here to be dwelt on — the dependence of Sociology on Biology. Even limiting the search to our own society, we may trace back this idea nearly three centuries. In the first book of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, it is enunciated as clearly as the state of knowledge in his age made possible — more clearly, indeed, than was to be expected in an age when science arid scientific ways of think ing had advanced so little. Along with the general notion of natural law — along, too, with the admission that human ac tions, resulting as they do from desires guided by knowledge, also in a sense conform to law; there is a recognition of the fact that the formation of societies is determined by the at tributes of individuals, and that the growth of a govern mental organization follows from the natures of the men who have associated themselves the better to satisfy their needs. Entangled though this doctrine is with a theological doctrine, through the restraints of which it has to break, it is expressed with considerable clearness: there needs but better definition and further development to make it truly scientific.
Among re-appearances of this thought in subsequent Eng lish writers, I will here name only one, which I happen to have observed in An Essay on the History of Civil Society, published a century ago by Dr. Adam Ferguson. In it the first part treats " of the General Characteristics of Human Na- PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 299 ture." Section I., pointing out the universality of the grega rious tendency, the dependence of this on certain affections and antagonisms, and the influences of memory, foresight, language, and communicativeness, alleges that "these facts must be admitted as the foundation of all our reasoning rela tive to man." Though the way in which social phenomena arise out of the phenomena of individual human nature, is seen in but a general and vague way, yet it is seen — there is a conception of causal relation.
Before this conception could assume a definite form, it was necessary both that scientific knowledge should become more comprehensive and precise, and that the scientific spirit should be strengthened. To M. Comte, living when these conditions were fulfilled, is due the credit of having set forth with com parative defmiteness, the connexion between the Science of Life and the Science of Society. He saw clearly that the facts presented by masses of associated men, are facts of the same order as those presented by groups of gregarious creatures of inferior kinds; and that in the one case, as in the other, the individuals must be studied before the assemblages can be understood. He therefore placed Biology before Sociology in his classification of the sciences. Biological preparation for sociological study, he regarded as needful not only because the phenomena of corporate life, arising out of the phenomena of individual life, can be rightly co-ordinated only after the phenomena of individual life have been rightly co-ordinated; but also because the methods of inquiry which Biology uses, are methods to be used by Sociology. In various ways, which it would take too much space here to specify, he exhibits this dependence very satisfactorily. It may, indeed, be con tended that certain of his other beliefs prevented him from seeing all the implications of this dependence. When, for instance, he speaks of " the intellectual anarchy which is the main source of our moral anarchy " — when he thus discloses the faith, pervading his Course of Positive Philosophy, that true theory would bring right practice; it becomes clear that the relation between the attributes of citizens and the phe nomena of societies is incorrectly seen by him; the relation is far too deep a one to be changed by mere change of ideas. Again, denying, as he did, the indefinite modifiability of spe- 300 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
cies, he almost ignored one of the cardinal truths which Biol ogy yields to Sociology— a truth without which sociological interpretations must go wrong. Though he admits a certain modifiability of Man, both emotional and intellectual, yet the dogma of the fixity of species, to which he adhered, kept his conceptions of individual and social change within limits much too specific. Hence arose, among other erroneous pre conceptions, this serious one, that the different forms of so ciety presented by savage and civilized races all over the globe, are but different stages in the evolution of one form: the truth being, rather, that social types, like types of indi vidual organisms, do not form a series, but are classifiable only in divergent and re-divergent groups. Nor did he arrive at that conception of the Social Science which alone fully affiliates it upon the simpler sciences — the conception of it as an account of the most complex forms of that continu ous redistribution of matter and motion which is going on universally. Only when it is seen that the transformations passed through during the growth, maturity, and decay of a society, conform to the same principles as do the transforma tions passed through by aggregates of all orders, inorganic and organic — only when it is seen that the process is in all cases similarly determined by forces, and is not scientifically interpreted until it is expressed in terms of those forces; — only then is there reached the conception of Sociology as a science, in the complete meaning of the word.
Nevertheless, we must not overlook the greatness of the step made by M. Comte. His mode of contemplating the facts was truly philosophical. Containing, along with special views not to be admitted, many thoughts that are true as well as large and suggestive, the introductory chapters to his Sociology show a breadth and depth of conception beyond any previously reached. Apart from the tenability of his so ciological doctrines, his way of conceiving social phenomena was much superior to all previous ways: and among other of its superiorities, was this recognition of the dependence of Sociology on Biology.
Here leaving the history of this idea, let us turn to the idea itself. There are two distinct and equally-important ways in which these sciences are connected. In the first PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 301 place, all social actions being determined by the actions of individuals, and all actions of individuals being- vital actions that conform to the laws of life at large, a rational interpre tation of social actions implies knowledge of the laws of life. In the second place, a society as a whole, considered apart from its living units, presents phenomena of growth, struc ture, and function, like those of growth, structure, and func tion in an individual body; and these last are needful keys to the first. We will begin with this analogical connexion.
Figures of speech, which often mislead by conveying the notion of complete likeness where only slight similarity ex ists, occasionally mislead by making an actual correspondence seem a fancy. A metaphor, when used to express a real re semblance, raises a suspicion of mere imaginary resemblance; and so obscures the perception of intrinsic kinship. It is thus with the phrases "body politic," "political organization," and others, which tacitly liken a society to a living creature: they are assumed to be phrases having a certain convenience but expressing no fact — tending rather to foster a fiction. And yet metaphors are here more than metaphors in the ordinary sense. They are devices of speech hit upon to suggest a truth at first dimly perceived, but which grows clearer the more carefully the evidence is examined. That there is a real anal ogy between an individual organism and a social organism, becomes undeniable when certain necessities determining structure are seen to govern them in common.
Mutual dependence of parts is that which initiates and guides organization of every kind. So long as, in a mass of living matter, all parts are alike, and all parts similarly live and grow without aid from one another, there is no organiza tion: the undifferentiated aggregate of protoplasm thus characterized, belongs to the lowest grade of living things. Without distinct faculties, and capable of but the feeblest movements, it cannot adjust itself to circumstances; and is at the mercy of environing destructive actions. The changes by which this structureless mass becomes a structured mass, hav ing the characters and powers possessed by what we call an organism, are changes through which its parts lose their orig inal likenesses; and do this while assuming the unlike kinds 302 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
of activity for which their respective positions towards one another and surrounding things fit them. These differences of function, and consequent differences of structure, at first feebly marked, slight in degree, and few in kind, become, as organization progresses, definite and numerous; and in proportion as they do this the requirements are better met. Now structural traits expressible in the same language, distinguish lower and higher types of societies from one another; and distinguish the earlier stages of each so ciety from the later. Primitive tribes show no established contrasts of parts. At first all men carry on the same kind of activities, with no dependence on one another, or but occa sional dependence. There is not even a settled chieftainship; and only in times of war is there a spontaneous and temporary subordination to those who show themselves the best leaders. From the small unformed social aggregates thus character ized, the progress is towards social aggregates of increased size, the parts of which acquire unlikenesses that become ever greater, more definite, and more multitudinous. The units of the society as it evolves, fall into different orders of activities, determined by differences in their local conditions or their individual powers; and there slowly result permanent social structures, of which the primary ones become decided while they are being complicated by secondary ones, growing in their turns decided, and so on.
Even were this all, the analogy would be suggestive; but it is not all. These two metamorphoses have a cause in com mon. Beginning with an animal composed of like parts, severally living by and for themselves, on what condition only can there be established a change, such that one part comes to perform one kind of function, and another part another kind? Evidently each part can abandon that orig inal state in which it fulfilled for itself all vital needs, and can assume a state in which it fulfils in excess some single vital need, only if its other vital needs are fulfilled for it by other parts that have meanwhile undertaken other special activities. One portion of a living aggregate cannot devote itself exclusively to the respiratory function, and cease to get nutriment for itself, unless other portions that have become exclusively occupied in absorbing nutriment, give it a due PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 303 supply. That is to say, there must be exchange of services. Organization in an individual creature is made possible only by dependence of each part on all, and of all on each. Now this is obviously true also of social organization. A member of a primitive society cannot devote himself to an order of activity which satisfies one only of his personal wants, thus ceasing the activities required for satisfying his other personal wants, unless those for whose benefit he carries on his special activity in excess, give him in return the benefits of their special activities. If he makes weapons instead of continuing a hunter, he must be supplied with the produce of the chase on condition that the hunters are supplied with his weapons. If he becomes a cultivator of the soil, no longer defending himself, he must be defended by those who have become specialized defenders. That is to say, mutual dependence of parts is essential for the commencement and advance of social organization, as it is for the commencement and advance of individual organization.