OBSERVATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCE. 



9 



instance, the considerable profits made from home- 

 industries, the importance of woman's domestic 

 work, the improvidence of the working-classes. 

 Popular recreations exhibit a curious aspect of 

 local manners.* Thus, on the steppes of Russia, 

 when neighbors come together to assist one of 

 their number in performing some extraordinary 

 work, a liberal board is always spread, and the 

 occasion becomes a regular festival. Such gath- 

 erings are known among the Bashkirs as heum- 

 min, and among the peasants of Orenburg as 

 pomotch ; and they have their counterparts in 

 the deves-bras of the Bretons and the grandes- 

 journies of the Bearnais peasants. Then we 

 have the popular amusements of country-fairs, 

 family anniversaries, fireside gatherings in win- 

 ter for story-telling and courtship, the har- 

 vest-home, and the like. These modest recrea- 

 tions of rustics are a very different thing from the 

 costly pleasures which in great cities too often 

 absorb no small portion of the yearly earnings. 

 In taking note of these and similar aspects of 

 life among the laboring-populations, the author 

 of " Les Ouvriers Europeens " does but follow 

 the example set by Yauban, " who," says Fon- 

 tenelle, " carefully informed himself about the 

 value of soils, their products, the manner of cul- 

 tivating them, the means possessed by the peas- 

 ants, their ordinary diet, their daily earnings ; 

 details which, though apparently of no impor- 

 tance, nevertheless form part of the art of gov- 

 ernment." 



In the next place, it is charged that the au- 

 thor of " Les Ouvriers Europeens " has chosen to 

 write in an abstract, geometrical style, bristling 

 with technicalities and formulas, and difficult to 

 understand. This criticism, which, in our opin- 

 ion, was hardly justified by the first edition of 

 the work, will probably be passed also on the 

 second. True, we have here nothing like that 

 elegant and superficial language of the drawing- 

 room in which Diderot used to discuss, currente 

 caJamo, the highest social problems, without dis- 

 concerting even those whose studies had not 

 gone beyond their prayer-books. But is not this 

 a necessity ? When we quit venturesome gen- 

 eralizations for the firm ground of experience, it 

 is clear that we must adapt the exactitude of our 

 language to the precision of our thoughts. The 

 sciences as they develop can hardly comply with 

 Buffon's precept of giving to things only the most 

 generic names ; they must have a nomenclature 

 and a vocabulary of their own. The science of 

 society, in proportion as it becomes more clearly 

 formulated, must, without ceasing to be literary, 



restrict itself to the use of terms that are rigor- 

 ously defined, as is the case with the physical sci- 

 ences. 



Finally, it has often been said that, instead 

 of devoting time and labor to family monographs, 

 we should boldly face the burning questions of 

 the day, and attack our most difficult problems. 

 But while it seems as though by such a course 

 we should more quickly gain a knowledge of gen- 

 eral laws, the reverse is shown to be the fact by 

 the history of the development of the sciences. 

 Thus geology, for example, for a long time fluctu- 

 ated between the systems of the philosophers and 

 the fictions of the poets : the first researches 

 which won for it a solid basis did not have for 

 their object the solution of any general question, 

 and were restricted to closely analyzing, in a cir- 

 cumscribed locality, a small number of very 

 definite facts. It was thus that, by his modest 

 observations, a potter and a genius, Bernard 

 Palissy, outstripped the savants, and in his " Dis- 

 cours Admirables " explained the laws which had 

 regulated the formation of sedimentary terrains, 

 and the circulation of subterraneous waters. In 

 like manner, the fruitful conception of substitu- 

 tion, which has opened such broad horizons in 

 organic chemistry, suggested itself to Dumas 

 while making a minute examination of the reac- 

 tions of chlorine with hydrogen carburets. And 

 the domain of knowledge is still daily being en- 

 larged rather by painstaking analyses of details 

 than by brilliant surveys of the whole field. It 

 will be the same with social science : it will 

 make real progress only in proportion as it fol- 

 lows in the track of the sciences which have 

 gone before. 



It is incumbent, especially on statistical con- 

 gresses and geographical societies, to encourage 

 the use of family monographs in the discussion 

 of economic problems and in describing for- 

 eign peoples. Already, as we have said, the Bos- 

 ton Bureau of Statistics of Labor, while adopt- 

 ing as its method of investigation personal ob- 

 servations, at the same time borrowed from the 

 monographies at least the principal divisions of 

 their plan. The truth is that, instead of paint- 

 ing with a firm hand a few complete pictures, the 

 commissioners have chosen rather to present a 

 very large number of slight sketches, and hence 

 have left out many details ; thus, under the head 

 of "Receipts," neither "subventions" nor the 

 fruits of home-industries are mentioned. But, 

 defective though they are, these monographies, 

 beins; accompanied with reports on the different 

 sections of the family budgets, lead to important 



