+5 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the laws of which Political Economy seeks to generalize, men would 

 have continued in the lowest stage of barbarism to the present hour ; 

 they would see that, instead of jeering at the science and those who 

 pursue it, their course should be to show in what respects the gen- 

 eralizations thus far made are untrue, and how they may be so 

 expressed as to correspond to the truth more nearly. 



I need not further exemplify the perturbing influence of impatience 

 in sociological inquiry. Along with the irrational hope so conspicu- 

 ously shown by every party having a new project for the furtherance 

 of human welfare, there habitually goes this irrational irritation in 

 presence of stern truths which negative sanguine anticipations. Be 

 it some way of remedying the evils of competition, some scheme for 

 rendering the pressure of population less severe, some method of 

 organizing a government so as to secure complete equity, some plan 

 for reforming men by teaching, by restriction, by punishment; any 

 thing like calm consideration of probabilities, as estimated from expe- 

 rience, is excluded by this eagerness for an immediate result ; and, 

 instead of submission to the necessities of things, there comes vexa- 

 tion, felt if not expressed, against them, or against those who point 

 them out, or against both. 



That feelings of love and hate make rational judgments impossible 

 in public affairs, as in private affairs, we can clearly enough see in 

 others, though not so clearly in ourselves. Especially can we see it 

 when these others belong to an alien society. France, during and since 

 the late war, has furnished us almost daily with illustrations. The fact 

 that, while the struggle was going on, any foreigner in Paris was liable 

 to be seized as a Prussian, and that, if charged with being a Prussian, 

 he was forthwith treated as one, sufficiently proves that hate makes 

 rational estimation of evidence impossible. The marvellous distortions 

 which this passion produces were abundantly exemplified during the 

 reign of the Commune ; and yet again after the Commune was sub- 

 dued. The " preternatural suspicion," as Mr. Carlyle called it, which 

 characterized conduct during the first revolution, characterized con- 

 duct during the late catastrophe. And it is displayed still. The 

 sayings and doings of French political parties, alike in the Assembly, 

 in the press, and in private societies, show that mutual hate causes 

 mutual misinterpretations, fosters false conclusions, and utterly viti- 

 ates sociological generalizations. 



While, however, it is manifest to us that, among our neighbors, 

 strong sympathies and antipathies stand in the way of reasonable views 

 and well-balanced policy, we do not perceive that among ourselves 

 sympathies and antipathies distort judgments in degrees, not perhaps 

 so extreme, but still in very great degrees. Instead of French opin- 

 ion on French affairs, let us take English opinion on French affairs 

 not affairs of recent date, but affairs of the past ; and, instead of a 

 case showing the false estimation of evidence which sympathies and 



