EDITOR'S TABLE. 



73 



Mr. Harris begins his discourse with 

 an excellent presentation of the method 

 of the science of the present day. He 

 recognizes that its tendency is to pass 

 from the mere sensible properties of 

 objects to their relations by saying: 

 " No object can be understood by it- 

 self, and even the weather of to-day is 

 found to be conditioned upon antece- 

 dent weather. . . . Science sees the 

 acorn in the entire history of the life 

 of the oak. It sees the oak in the en- 

 tire history of all its species, in what- 

 ever climes they grow. . . . We must 

 trace whatever we see through its an- 

 tecedent forms, and learn its cycles 

 of birth, growth, and decay. . . . We 

 must learn to see each individual thing 

 in the perspective of its history. . . . 

 as a part of a process. . . . The ordi- 

 nary habit of mind occupies itself with 

 the objects of the senses, and does not 

 seek their unity ; . . . the scientific 

 habit of mind chooses its object, and 

 persistently follows its thread of exist- 

 ence through all its changes and rela- 

 tions." 



All this is as true as it is well stated, 

 and Mr. Harris, moreover, agrees that 

 this method is coextensive with nature, 

 and is therefore properly characterized 

 as " natural science." But he knows 

 a place where it does not apply and can 

 not reach ; a place so far set off from 

 nature that it requires a new method 

 of study, and gives rise to a new kind 

 of science different from the common 

 kind ; and this, strange to say, is social 

 science. He says : " Social science deals 

 with man. Man has a natural being as 

 a mere animal, as well as a spiritual be- 

 ing of intellect and will. . . . Man is 

 not only an animal, having bodily wants 

 of food, clothing, and shelter, but he is 

 a spiritual being, existing in opposition 

 to nature. . . . Man as a child or a sav- 

 age is an incarnate contradiction ; his 

 real being is the opposite of his ideal 

 being. His actual condition does not 

 conform to his true nature. His true 

 human nature is reason; his actual 



condition is irrational, for it is con- 

 strained from without, chained by brute 

 necessity, and lashed by the scourges 

 of appetite and passion. There is thus 

 a paradoxical contrast between nature 

 and human nature. ... As man as- 

 cends out of nature in time and space 

 into human nature, he ascends into a 

 realm of his own creation. . . . The 

 natural self must be abdicated in order 

 that the personal self may be realized." 



This theory of human nature is not 

 new, but Mr. Harris certainly proposes 

 to make a new use of it. For thousands 

 of years it has been customary to divide 

 man into two natures: a low, gross, 

 corrupt, perishable, animal nature to be 

 reprobated and renounced ; and a high, 

 pure, exalted, immortal nature, chained 

 to the brutal part, and at war with it 

 through all the course of our earthly life. 

 This view has long been useful to theo- 

 logians and moralists, but Mr. Harris is 

 the first to reconstruct modern science 

 on this basis. He would hand over the 

 bestial, vulgar, and vilified part of hu- 

 manity to " natural science " ; and he 

 would erect the upper and nobler por- 

 tion into a new kind of science by a new 

 method ; and, as it is the more exalt- 

 ed portion of man which he " realizes 

 in institutions," the new method be- 

 comes that of social science. 



Yet, with reference to science, low- 

 er and higher are all one, and man is a 

 unity. His higher nature is phenom- 

 enal, and in its constitution, mode of act- 

 ing, as well as in its productions, it is not 

 chaotic, but orderly, and is thus open 

 to investigation like all the other parts 

 of nature. That there is a profound 

 difference between the corporeal and 

 the psychical parts of man involves no 

 such consequences as are here assumed. 

 However deep may be the diversities 

 among the objects of study in nature, 

 the method of science in dealing with 

 them is the same ; because science, be- 

 ing the most valid knowing, depends 

 upon the laws of knowing, and not upon 

 the differences among the objects in- 



