450 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



On the other hand, the remaining divisions of the work have, in 

 the writing, undergone unlooked-for expansion ; the three bulky 

 volumes now before us containing, in addition to nearly six 

 hundred pages setting forth data and inductions, elaborate 

 treatises on domestic, ceremonial, political, ecclesiastical, profes- 

 sional, and industrial institutions, their genesis, growth, charac- 

 teristics, significance, and probable future developments. 



Of the direct bearings of these volumes upon the urgent prob- 

 lems of modern social life, this is, unfortunately, not the place to 

 speak ; though we may note in passing that here, as elsewhere, 

 the Spencerian philosophy reveals its eminently practical quali- 

 ties. No matter to what profound depths its arguments may 

 take us, its doctrines relate themselves at every point with vital 

 issues, and thus, in Lord Bacon's phrase, come home to men's 

 business and bosoms. We feel, in following its speculations, that, 

 remote and labyrinthine as these must necessarily sometimes seem 

 to be, we are never, after all, very far away from the broad high- 

 way of human affairs. But if we must not now dwell upon this 

 particular point, still less must we allow ourselves, in connection 

 with it, to be drawn off into any discussion of Mr. Spencer's indi- 

 vidualism.* We must confine ourselves to the merest statement 

 of the purpose of the Sociology, taken as a whole. 



Such purpose is, of course, in a word, the interpretation of the 

 phenomena of social growth and organization, from the simplest 

 to the most intricate, in terms of universal evolution. Societies 

 are organisms evolving aggregates ; and their progress is clearly 

 marked by even greater and greater multiformity in unity that 

 is, by gradual advance from the comparative homogeneity, indefi- 

 niteness, and incoherence of the simple tribe, to the constantly 

 increasing heterogeneity, definiteness, and coherence of the civil- 

 ized nation. To work out this continuous process of integration 

 and differentiation along the great lines of social structure and 

 function ; to make clear that the transformations everywhere 

 going on, from the minutest change in a tribal group to the far- 

 reaching metamorphoses of modern civilization, are at bottom 

 exemplifications of the ultimate laws of evolution ; and to show 

 that the complex play of forces in the superorganic, no less than 

 in the organic, world tends inevitably toward equilibration ; in 

 such a general consensus of results, then, the various detailed 

 portions of the Sociology all merge ; in such a consensus the fun- 



* I may perhaps be allowed to refer the reader who is interested in this special matter 

 to the chapter on The Spencerian Sociology in my Introduction. I there endeavored to 

 show that Mr. Spencer's political views grow naturally out of the body of his thought, and 

 constitute an essential part of his general doctrine of evolution. The subject is a vast one 

 for brief treatment, and I was, therefore, the more gratified when Mr. Spencer expressed 

 entire satisfaction with my analysis of his arguments and conclusions. 



