\6z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



interpretations, is, the remarkable title of the chapter containing thia 

 passage " The Strategy of Providence." 



In common with some others, I have often wondered how the uni- 

 verse looks to those who use such names for its cause as " The Master 

 Builder," or " The Great Artificer; " and who seem to think that the 

 cause of the Universe is made more marvellous by comparing its oper- 

 ations to those of a skilled mechanic. But really the expression, 

 " Strategy of Providence," reveals a conception of this cause which is 

 in some respects more puzzling. Such a title as " The Great Artificer," 

 while suggesting simply the process of shaping a preexisting material, 

 and leaving the question whence this material came untouched, may at 

 any rate be said not to negative the assumption that the material is 

 also created by the Great Artificer who shapes it. The phrase, " Strat- 

 egy of Providence," however, necessarily implies difficulties to be over- 

 come. The Divine Strategist must have a skilful antagonist to make 

 strategy possible. So that we are inevitably introduced to the con- 

 ception of a cause of the universe continually impeded by some hide- 

 pendent cause which has to be outgeneralled. It is not every one 

 who would thank God for a belief, the implication of which is that 

 God is obliged to overcome opposition by subtle devices. 



The disguises which piety puts on are, indeed, not unfrequently 

 suggestive of that which some would describe by a quite opposite 

 name. To study the Universe as it is manifested to us ; to ascertain 

 by patient observation the order of the manifestations ; to discover 

 that the manifestations are connected with one another after a regular 

 way in time and space ; and, after repeated failures, to give up as 

 futile the attempt to understand the power manifested ; is condemned 

 as irreligious. And meanwhile the character of religious is claimed by 

 those who figure to themselves a Creator moved by motives like their 

 own; conceive themselves as discovering his designs ; and even speak 

 of him as though he laid plans to outwit the devil. 



This, however, by the way. The foregoing extracts and comments 

 are intended to indicate the mental attitude of those for whom there, 

 can be no such thing as Sociology, properly so called. That mode of 

 conceiving human affairs which is implied alike by the " D. V." of a 

 missionary-meeting placard and by the phrases of Emperor William's 

 late dispatches, where thanks to God come next to enumerations of 

 the thousands slain, is one to which the idea of a social science is en- 

 tirely alien, and indeed repugnant. 



An allied class, equally unprepared to interpret sociological phenom- 

 ena scientifically, is the class which sees in the course of civilization 

 little else than a record of remarkable persons and their doings. One 

 who is conspicuous as the exponent of this view writes : " As I take 

 it, universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this 

 world is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked 



