THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. n 



visit a shrine? Who would have thought it possible that a public 

 sentiment and a force of custom might be such that a man should 

 revenge himself on one who insulted him by disembowelling himself, 

 and so forcing the insulter to do the like ? Or to take historical cases 

 more nearly concerning ourselves Who foresaw that the beliefs in 

 purgatory and priestly intercession would cause the lapse of one-third 

 or more of England into the hands of the Church ? Or who foresaw 

 that a flaw in the law of mortmain might lead to bequests of large 

 estates consecrated as graveyards ? Who could have imagined that 

 robber-kings and bandit-barons, with vassals to match, would, genera- 

 tion after generation, have traversed all Europe through hardships 

 and dangers to risk their lives in getting possession of the reputed 

 burial-place of one whose injunction was to turn the left cheek when 

 the right was smitten ? Or who, again, would have anticipated that, 

 when, in Jerusalem, this same teacher disclaimed political aims, and 

 repudiated political instrumentalities, the professed successors of his 

 disciples would by-and-by become rulers dominating over all the kings 

 of Europe ? Such a result could be as little foreseen as it could be 

 foreseen that an instrument of torture used by the Jews would give 

 the ground-plans to Christian temples throughout Europe; and as 

 little as it could be foreseen that the process of this torture, recounted 

 in Christian narratives, might come to be mistaken for a Christian 

 institution, as it was by the Malay chief who, being expostulated with 

 for crucifying some rebels, replied that he was following "the English 

 practice," which he read in " their sacred books." ' 



Look where we will at the genesis of social phenomena, and we 

 shall similarly find that, while the particular ends contemplated and 

 arranged for have commonly not been more than temporarily attained, 

 if attained at all, the changes actually brought about have arisen from 

 causes of which the very existence was unknown. 



How, indeed, can any man, and how more especially can any man 

 of scientific culture, think special results of special political acts can 

 be calculated, when he contemplates the incalculable complexity of 

 the influences under which each individual, and a fortiori each society, 

 develops, lives, and decays? The multiplicity of these factors is 

 illustrated even in the material composition of a man's body. Every 

 one, who watches closely the course of things, must have observed 

 that at a single meal he may take in bread made from Russian wheat, 

 beef from Scotland, potatoes from the midland counties, sugar from 

 the Mauritius, salt from Cheshire, pepper from Jamaica, curry-powder 

 from India, wine from France or Germany, currants from Greece, 

 oranges from Spain, as well as various spices and condiments from 

 other places; and if he considers whence came the draught of water 

 he swallows, tracing it back from the reservoir through the stream and 

 the brook and the rill, to the separate rain-drops which fell wide apart, 



l Boyle'3 "Borneo," p. 116. 



