THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 643 



whole. There is, indeed, nothing like so close a dependence of the 

 unit upon the aggregate ; hut still there is a very decided dependence. 

 Speaking generally, the citizen's life is made possible only by due 

 performance of his function in the place he fills ; and he cannot wholly 

 free himself from the beliefs and sentiments generated by the vital 

 connections hence arising between himself and his society. Here, 

 then, is a difficulty to which no other science presents anything analo- 

 gous. To cut himself off in thought from all his relationships of race, 

 and country, and citizenship to get rid of all those interests, preju- 

 dices, likings, superstitions, generated in him by the life of his own 

 society and his wn time to look on all the changes societies have 

 undergone and are undergoing, without reference to nationality, or 

 creed, or personal welfare ; is what the average man cannot do at all, 

 and w r hat the exceptional can do very imperfectly. 



The difficulties of the Social Science, thus indicated in vague out- 

 line, have now to be described and illustrated in detail. 



V. Objective Difficulties. 



Along with much that has of late years been done toward changing 

 primitive history into myth, and along with much that has been done 

 toward changing once-unquestioned estimates of persons and events 

 of past ages, much has been said about the untrustworthiness of his- 

 torical evidence. Hence there will be ready acceptance of the state- 

 ment that one of the impediments to sociological generalization, is 

 the uncertainty of our data. When we bear in mind that from early 

 stories such as those about the Amazons, their practices, the particu- 

 lar battles with them, and particular events in those battles, all of 

 which are recorded and sculptured as circumstantially as they might 

 be were the persons and events historic when we bear in mind, I say, 

 that from such early stories down to accounts of a well-known people 

 like the !New-Zealanders, who, " by some .... are said to be intelli- 

 gent, cruel, and brave ; by others, weak, kindly, and cowardly," ' we 

 have to deal with an enormous accumulation of conflicting statements ; 

 we cannot but feel that the task of collecting facts from which to draw 

 conclusions, is in this case a more arduous one than in any other case. 

 Passing over remote illustrations, let us take an immediate one : 



Last year advertisements announced the "Two-headed Nightin- 

 gale ; " and the walls of London were placarded with a figure in which 

 one pair of shoulders was shown to bear two heads looking the same 

 way (I do not refer to the later placards, which partially differed from 

 the earlier). To some, this descriptive name and answering diagram 

 seemed sufficiently exact ; for in my hearing a lady, who had been to 

 see this compound being, referred to the placards and handbills as 

 giving a good representation. If we suppose this lady to have re- 



1 Thomson's " New Zealand," vol. i., p. 80. 



