5 i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and that the assemblages will differ in their characters in proportion 

 as the component individuals of the one differ from those of the other. 

 Yet when this, which is almost a truism, has been admitted, it cannot 

 be denied that in every community there is a group of phenomena 

 growing naturally out of the phenomena presented by its members 

 a set of properties in the aggregate determined by the sets of proper- 

 ties in the units ; and that the relations of the two sets form the sub- 

 ject-matter of a science. It needs but to ask what would happen if 

 men avoided one another, as various inferior creatures do, to see that 

 the very possibility of a society depends on a certain emotional prop- 

 erty in the individual. It needs but to ask what would happen if each 

 man liked best the men who gave him most pain, to perceive that so- 

 cial relations, supposing them to be possible, would be utterly unlike 

 the social relations resulting from the greater liking which men indi- 

 vidually have for others who give them pleasure. It needs but to ask 

 what would happen if, instead of ordinarily preferring the easiest ways 

 of achieving their ends, men preferred to achieve their ends in the most 

 troublesome ways, to infer that, then, a society, if one could exist, 

 would be a widely-different society from any we know. And if, as 

 these extreme cases show us, cardinal traits in societies are determined 

 by cardinal traits in men, it cannot be questioned that less-marked 

 traits in societies are determined by less-marked traits in men ; and 

 that there must everywhere be a consensus between the special struct- 

 uies and actions of the one and the special structures and actions of 

 the other. 



Setting out, then, with this general principle, that the properties of 

 the units determine the properties of the aggregate, we conclude that 

 there must be a Social Science expressing the relations between the 

 two with as much definiteness as the natures of the phenomena permit. 

 Beginning with types of men w T ho form but small and incoherent social 

 aggregates, such a science has to show in what ways the individual 

 qualities, intellectual and emotional, negative further aggregation. It 

 has to explain how slight modifications of individual nature, arising 

 under modified conditions of life, make somewhat larger aggregates 

 possible. It has to trace out, in aggregates of some size, the genesis 

 of the social relations, regulative and operative, into which the mem- 

 bers fall. It has to exhibit the stronger and more prolonged social in- 

 fluences which, by further modifying the characters of the units, facili- 

 tate further aggregation with consequent further complexity of social 

 structure. Among societies of all orders and sizes, from the smallest 

 and rudest up to the largest and most civilized, it has to ascertain what 

 traits there are in common, determined by the common traits of human 

 beings ; what less-general traits, distinguishing certain groups of so- 

 cieties, result from traits distinguishing certain races of men ; and what 

 peculiarities in each society are traceable to the peculiarities of its 

 members. In every case it has for its subject-matter the growth, de- 



