THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 649 



zation Society, was but one of a class, shows what this process may 

 end in. And the vitiation of evidence is an inevitable concomitant. 

 One whom I have known during his thirty years' experience of 

 Leagues, Alliances, Unions, etc., for various purposes, writes : " Like 

 religious bodies, they (Associations) form creeds, and every adherent 

 is expected to cry up the shibboleth of his party. . . . All facts are dis- 

 torted to the aid of their own views, and such as cannot be distorted 

 are suppressed. ... In every association with which I have had any 

 connection, this fraud has been practised." 



The like holds in political agitations. Unfortunately, agencies es- 

 tablished to get remedies for crying evils, are liable to become agen- 

 cies maintained and worked in a considerable degree, and sometimes 

 chiefly, for the benefit of those who reap incomes from them. An 

 amusing instance of this was furnished, not many years ago, to a Mem- 

 ber of Parliament who took an active part in advocating a certain rad- 

 ical measure which had for some years been making way, and which 

 then seemed not unlikely to be carried. Being a member of the Asso- 

 ciation that had pushed forward this measure, he happened to step 

 into its offices just before a debate which was expected to end in a 

 majority for the bill, and he found the secretary and his subs in a state 

 of consternation at the prospect of their success : feeling, as they obvi- 

 ously did, that their occupation was in danger. 



Clearly, then, where personal interests come into play, there must 

 be, even in men intending to be truthful, a great readiness to see the 

 facts which it is convenient to see, and such reluctance to see opposite 

 facts as will prevent much activity in seeking for them. Hence a large 

 discount has mostly to be made from the evidence furnished by insti- 

 tutions and societies in justification of the policies they pursue or ad- 

 vocate. And since much of the evidence respecting both past and 

 present social phenomena comes to us through agencies calculated 

 thus to pervert it, there is here a further impediment to clear vision 

 of facts. 



That the reader may fully appreciate the difficulties which these 

 distorting influences, when combined, put in the way of getting good 

 materials for generalization, let him contemplate a case : 



All who are acquainted with such matters know that, up to some 

 ten years since, it was habitually asserted by lecturers when address- 

 ing students, and by writers in medical journals, that, in our day, syph- 

 ilis is a far less serious evil than it was in days gone by. Until quite 

 recently this was a commonplace statement, called in question by no 

 one in the profession. But just as, while a gradual decrease of drunk- 

 enness has been going on, Temperance-fanatics have raised an increas- 

 ing outcry for strenuous measures to put down drunkenness ; so, while 

 venereal disease has been diminishing in frequency and severity, cer- 

 tain instrumentalities and agencies have created a belief that rigorous 



