2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



may regard conduct as always the result of certain forces ; or dealing 

 with its problems morally, and considering its outcome as in this case 

 good and in that case bad, we may allow now admiration, and now 

 indignation, to fill our consciousness. Obviously, it must make a 

 great difference in our conclusions whether, as in the one case, we re- 

 gai'd men's doings as those of alien creatures, which it merely concerns 

 us to understand ; or whether, as in the other case, we regard them as 

 the doings of creatures like ourselves, with whose lives our own lives 

 are bound up, and whose behavior arouses in us, directly and sympa- 

 thetically, feelings of love and hate. 



In " The Study of Sociology," I have described in detail the vari- 

 ous perversions produced in men's judgments by their emotions. Ex- 

 amjjles are given showing how fears and hopes betray them into false 

 estimates ; how impatience prompts unjust condemnations ; how in 

 this case antipathy, and in that case sympathy, distorts belief. The 

 truth that the bias of education and the bias of patriotism severally 

 warp men's convictions, is enforced by many illustrations. And it is 

 pointed out that the more special forms of bias the class bias, the 

 political bias, the theological bias each produces a strong predisposi- 

 tion toward this or that view of public affairs. 



Here let me emphasize the conclusion that in pursuing our socio- 

 logical inquiries, and especially those on which we are now entering, 

 we must, as much as possible, exclude whatever emotions the facts 

 are calculated to excite, and attend solely to the interpretation of the 

 facts. There are several groups of phenomena, in contemj^lating 

 which either contempt, or disgust, or indignation, tends to arise, but 

 must be restrained. 



Instead of passing over as of no account, or else regarding as 

 purely mischievous, the superstitions of the primitive man, we must 

 inquire what part they play in social evolution ; and must be pre- 

 pared, if need be, to recognize their usefulness. Already we have 

 seen that the belief which prompts the savage to- bury valuables with 

 the corpse and carry food to the grave has a natural genesis ; that 

 the propitiation of plants and animals and the "worship of stocks 

 and stones " are not gratuitous absurdities ; and that slaves are sacri- 

 ficed at funerals in pursuance of an idea which seems rational to unin- 

 structed intelligence. Presently we shall have to consider in what 

 way the ghost-theory has operated politically ; and, if we should find 

 reason to conclude that it has been an indispensable aid to social evo- 

 lution, we must be ready to accept the conclusion. 



Knowledge of the miseries that have for countless ages been 

 everywhere caused by the antagonisms of societies must not prevent 

 us from recognizing the all-important part which these antagonisms 

 have played in civilization. Shudder as we must at the cannibalism 

 which all over the world in early days was a sequence of war ; shrink 



