EDITOR'S TABLE. 



407 



common and peculiar to many and di- 

 verse communities. 



The enterprise was, moreover, whol- 

 ly new, nothing having been previously 

 done toward gathering the multitudinous 

 data necessary for studying what may 

 be called the natural history of human 

 societies. It was also desirable that the 

 work should at first be so effectually 

 done that it could be made popularly 

 available ; and, in securing this object, 

 the magnitude of the effort expended 

 upon it by the editor and the compilers 

 simply represented so much labor saved 

 by the student of social questions. Its 

 preparation was not only an elaborate 

 process of condensation and simplifica- 

 tion, but it involved a selection of valu- 

 able data to be of permanent use in 

 subsequent social inductions and con- 

 structions. An incalculable amount 

 of material had to be overhauled to 

 find the pertinent facts. It was a win- 

 nowing of the bulky chaff of history 

 to separate its wheat. Science applied 

 to history gives us first of all a revalu- 

 ation of its materials. The great mass 

 of it must be left out as comparatively 

 worthless. As Professor J. R. Seeley 

 well remarks: "History is now a de- 

 partment of serious scientific investi- 

 gation. T\'e study history now in the 

 hope of giving more precision, definite- 

 ness, and solidity to the principles of 

 political science." And it may be add- 

 ed that we are beginning to study his- 

 tory with a view of obtaining clearer, 

 truer, and broader ideas of the consti- 

 tution and development of human so- 

 ciety. 



It is unnecessary here to expatiate 

 on the value of Spencer's method in 

 this undertaking, or the thoroughness 

 of its execution. The original plan, 

 though liot technically completed, has 

 been carried out on a comprehensive 

 scale. Three great groups of human 

 communities have been treated, viz. : 

 1. Savage and Uncivilized Societies ; 2. 

 Civilized Societies, Extinct or Decayed ; 

 and, 3. Civilized Societies, Historic and 



still Flourishing. Of these groups, rep- 

 resenting communities of every type and 

 grade, past and present, stationary and 

 progressive, the social constitution and 

 history of seventy-two distinct com- 

 munities are systematically described. 



This is done in eight large folio 

 parts or separate treatises, in which the 

 facts are first brought into relation by 

 tabular arrangements, and then the au- 

 thorities for all the statements are given 

 in an appended form as extracts from 

 the works consulted. The simplifica- 

 tion is remarkable ; and the command 

 given over the immense details of the 

 whole subject is something quite in- 

 credible to those unacquainted with the 

 work. 



"We are therefore justified in say- 

 ing that Spencer's "Descriptive Soci- 

 ology" is nothing less than a cyclo- 

 paedia of social data, inexhaustible in 

 its wealth of instructive facts, lucid in 

 method, elaborately fortified in its au- 

 thorities, free from all hypothesis, and 

 furnishing in a very accessible form 

 the kind of knowledge most demanded 

 by the modern student of social affairs. 



It would seem that such a work 

 ought to have been welcomed and lib- 

 erally sustained by a public-spirited age. 

 But it has been commercially a disas- 

 trous failure. The obvious reason is, 

 that there is but very little appreciation 

 of the need of such a work. Neither 

 our so-called " Schools of Political Sci- 

 ence" nor our so-called "Associations 

 for the Promotion of Social Science " 

 seem to have any idea of what science 

 means in relation to social phenomena. 

 The solitary cultivators of the science 

 are without backing by any parties, so- 

 cieties, or schools, and are left to their 

 unaided exertions. Mr. Spencer could 

 find no publisher to take the pecuniary 

 risk of his enterprise, and so he printed 

 his costly cyclopaedia at his own ex- 

 pense. He contributed his talent and 

 his time, paid his assistants and his 

 printer's bills, but he made a work that 

 was not wanted and would not sell, and 



