THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



AUGUST, 1880. 



THE KEARNEY AGITATION IN CALIFORNIA. 



Br HENRY GEORGE. 



ALTHOUGH something has been done toward the scientific treat- 

 ment of history and of the larger facts of sociology, the concep- 

 tion of the reign of law amid human actions lags far behind the recog- 

 nition of law in the material universe, and the disposition to ascribe 

 social phenomena to special causes is yet almost as common as it is in 

 the infancy of knowledge so to explain physical phenomena. 



We no longer attribute an eclipse to a malevolent dragon ; when a 

 blight falls on our vines, or a murrain on our cattle, we set to work 

 with microscope and chemical tests, instead of imputing it to the anger 

 of a supernatural power ; we have begun to trace the winds and fore- 

 tell the weather, instead of seeing in their changes the designs of 

 Providence or the work of witch or warlock. Yet as to social phe- 

 nomena, infantile explanations similar to those we have thus discarded 

 still largely suffice us. One has but to read our newspapers, to attend 

 political meetings, or to listen to common talk, to see that very many 

 people, who have in large measure risen to scientific conceptions of the 

 linked sequence of the material universe, have not yet, in their views 

 of social facts and movements, got past the idea of the little child 

 who, if shown a picture of battle or siege, will insist on being told 

 which are the good and which the bad men. 



As the conductors of this magazine evidently realize the importance 

 of popularizing in their applications to social questions the scientific 

 spirit and scientific method, which in other departments have achieved 

 such wonders, I propose in this paper to say something of a series of 

 events in California that has attracted much attention. In an article 

 vol. xvii. 28 



