THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 159 



THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 



By HEEBEKT SPENCEK. 

 II. Is there a Social Science? 



ALMOST every autumn may be heard the remark that a hard win- 

 ter is coming, for that the hips and haws are abundant : the 

 implied belief being that God, intending to send much frost and snow, 

 has provided a large supply of food for the birds. Interpretations of 

 this kind, tacit or avowed, prevail widely. Not many weeks since, 

 one who had received the usual amount of culture said, in my hearing, 

 that the swarm of lady-birds which overspread the country some sum- 

 mers ago had been providentially designed to save the crop of hops 

 from the destroying aphides. Of course this theory of the divine gov- 

 ernment, extended to natural occurrences bearing but indirectly, if at 

 all, on human welfare, is applied with still greater confidence to occur- 

 rences that directly affect us individually and socially. It is a theory 

 carried out with logical consistency by the Methodist who, before 

 going on a journey or removing to another house, opens his Bible, and, 

 in the first passage his eye rests upon, finds an intimation of approval 

 or disapproval from Heaven. And in its political applications it yields 

 such appropriate beliefs as that the welfare of England, in comparison 

 with Continental States, has been a reward for better observance of 

 the Sunday, or that an invasion of cholera was consequent on the omis- 

 sion of Dei gratia from an issue of coins. 



The interpretation of historical events in general after this same 

 method accompanies such interpretations of less important events ; 

 and, indeed, outlives them. Those to whom the natural genesis of simi- 

 lar phenomena has been made manifest by increasing knowledge, still 

 believe in the supernatural genesis of phenomena that are very much 

 involved, and cannot have their causes readily traced. The attitude 

 of mind which, in an official dispatch, prompts the statement that "it 

 has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe to the British arms the most 

 successful issue to the extensive combinations rendered necessary for 

 the purpose of effecting the passage of the Chenaub," ' is an attitude 

 of mind which, in the records of the past, everywhere sees interposi- 

 tions of the Deity to bring about results that appear to the in- 

 terpreter the most desirable. Thus, for example, Mr. Schomberg 

 writes : 



" It seemed good to the All-beneficent Disposer of human events, to over- 

 rule every obstacle ; and through His instrument, William of Normandy, to 

 expurgate the evils of the land ; and to resuscitate its dying powers." 3 



1 Daily paper, January 22, 1849. 



s The " Theocratic Philosophy of English History," vol. i., p. 49. 



