172 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



"The progress toward institutions more and more popular may be slow, buc 

 it is sure. Whenever any class has conceived the hope of being fairly repre- 

 sented, it is certain to fulfil its own hopes, unless it employs or provokes, 

 violence, impossible in England. The thing will be 1 ... . 



"If any young gentlemen look forward .... to a Conservative reac- 

 tion of any other kind than this .... to even the least stoppage of What 

 the world calls progress which I should define as the putting in practice the 

 results of inductive science then do they, like King Picrochole in Eabelais, 

 look for a kingdom which shall be restored to them at the coming of the 

 Cocqcigrues." 2 



And in a preface addressed to working-men, contained in an earlier 

 edition, lie says : 



"If you are better oflf than you were in 1848, you owe it principally to those 

 laws of political economy (as they are called) which I call the brute natural 

 accidents of supply and demand, etc." 3 



Which passages offer explanations of changes now gone by as having 

 been wrought out by natural forces in conformity with natural laws, 

 and also predictions of changes which social forces at present in action 

 W T ill work out. That is to say, by the help of generalized experiences 

 there is an interpretation of past phenomena and a prevision of future 

 phenomena. There is an implicit recognition of that Social Science 

 which is explicitly denied. 



A reply to these criticisms may be imagined. In looking for what- 

 ever reconciliation seems possible between these positions, which seem 

 so incongruous, we must suppose the intended assertion to be, that 

 general interpretations and previsions only can be made, not those 

 which are special. Bearing in mind Mr. Froude's occasional explana- 

 tions of historical phenomena as naturally caused, we must conclude 

 that he believes certain classes of sociological facts (as the politico- 

 economical) to be scientifically explicable, while other classes are not ; 

 though, if this be his view, it is not clear how, if the results of men's 

 wills, separate or aggregated, are incalculable, politico-economical 

 actions can be dealt wdth scientifically, since, equally with other social 

 actions, they are determined by aggregated wills. Similarly, Canon 

 Kingsley, recognizing no less distinctly economical laws, and enunciat- 

 ing also certain laws of progress nay, even warning his hearers 

 against the belief that he denies the applicability of the inductive 

 method to social phenomena must be assumed to think that the appli- 

 cability of scientific methods is here but partial. Citing the title of 

 his address, he will possibly hold its implication to be merely that 

 there are limits to the explanation of social facts in precise ways; 

 though this position does not seem really reconcilable with the doc- 

 trine that social laws are liable to be at any time suspended, provi- 

 dentially or otherwise. 



1 " Alton Locke," new edition, preface, p. xxi. s Ibid., pp. xxiii., xxiv. 



* Ibid., preface (1854), p. xxvii. 



