PRESENT STATUS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 603 



oldest books in the world are among the most valuable, that age does 

 not necessarily detract from the real merit of a book, or of any truth 

 it may advocate, any more than it does from the quality of wine, or 

 of ancient, long-tried, long-approved friendship, that an old truth is 

 even better than a new error, and that one of the highest and most im- 

 portant functions of the philosopher, in every age, is to reconcile the 

 new with the old, to harmonize the latest revelations of science with 

 the venerable traditions and immutable ideas of the race ; in short, to 

 keep mankind constant, and bring them back to the old landmarks, 

 the primary and fundamental truths, from which they have a constant 

 tendency to wander off and go astray. Perhaps it might not be amiss, 

 furthermore, to remind him that the present age, more than any other, 

 and especially this department of science, require to be admonished 

 with the warning proverb of Solomon, " Remove not the ancient land- 

 marks which thy fathers have set." 



But with what propriety can a book be called old, or antiquated 

 in character, that deals almost exclusively, and that, too, with almost 

 unqualified approbation and accord, with the views of such recent and 

 highly-advanced thinkers as Guizot and Hallam, Sismondi and Mill, 

 Cousin, Buckle, Comte, and Herbert Spencer ? 



If the book in question is old, all that Herbert Spencer has written 

 on sociology is likewise old. If there is nothing new in this book, 

 there is nothing new in any of the reasonings, on society, of that 

 Magnus Apollo, we might almost say, that alter ego, of The Popular 

 Science Monthly. We challenge our critic to produce a single idea 

 of Herbert Spencer's, having any important bearing on the philosophy 

 of society, and any claim to be considered at all new, either in his 

 " Social Statics," or any other of his works, that is not contained in the 

 " Present Status of Social Science," either in direct expression, or in 

 fair, direct, and inevitable logical sequence, from what is directly ex- 

 pressed. Will our critic accept the challenge, with the privilege of 

 only a brief reply accorded to a misrepresented and much-wronged 

 author ? We hardly think so. 



The truth rather seems to be, that the work in question contains 

 rather too much about Mr. Spencer and his philosophy of society. It 

 contains, substantially, not only all that is true or essentially valuable 

 in the suggestions of that great and eminently valuable thinker, up to 

 the present time, but something that is not so valuable or true. It 

 contains, in short, a rather too caustic, possibly too just, and unan- 

 swerable criticism on his extreme and exaggerated applications of the 

 laissez-faire doctrine, and upon his fantastical reasonings about " the 

 evanescence of evil." It takes too just exceptions to his condemna- 

 tion of any and all provision, by the state, for the relief of the poor, 

 or even for their education. 



But the plea of our critic, which is plausible only on its face, is, 

 that it was unfair, unjust, thus to attack Mr. Spencer, when his views 



