THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



MAY, 1872. 

 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 



Br HEKBEET SPENCER. 

 I. Our Need of It. 



OVER his pipe in the village ale-house, the laborer says very posi- 

 tively what Pai'liament should do about the " foot and moutb 

 disease." At the farmer's market-table his master makes the glasses 

 jingle as, with his fist, he emphasizes the assertion that he did not get 

 half enough compensation for his slaughtered beasts during the cattle- 

 plague. These are not hesitating ojrinions. On a matter affecting the 

 agricultural interest, it is still as it was during the Anti-Corn-Law 

 agitation, when, in every rural circle, you heard that the nation would 

 be ruined if the lightly-taxed foreigner was allowed to compete in our 

 markets with the heavily-taxed Englishman : a proposition held to be 

 so self-evident that dissent from it implied either stupidity or knavery. 

 Now, as then, may be daily heard, among other classes, opinions 

 just as decided and just as unwarranted. By men called educated, 

 the old plea for extravagant expenditure, that " it is good for trade," 

 is still continually urged with full belief in its sufficiency. Scarcely 

 any decrease is observable in the fallacy that whatever gives employ- 

 ment is beneficial no regard being had to the value for ulterior 

 purposes of that which the labor produces ; no question being asked 

 what would have resulted had the capital which paid for the labor 

 taken some other channel and paid for some other labor. Neither 

 criticism nor explanation appreciably modifies these beliefs. When 

 there is again an opening for them, they are expressed with undi- 

 minished confidence. Along with these delusions go whole families 

 of others. People who think that the relations between expenditure 

 and production are so simple, naturally assume simplicity in other 

 relations among social phenomena. Is there distress somewhere ? 

 They suppose nothing more is required than to subscribe money for 



