PRESENT STATUS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 605 



views. He % proceeds to say that now, after the lapse of fourteen 

 years, were he writing out his thoughts on the subject, he would ex- 

 press himself somewhat differently on several specified points. Then 

 by way of excusing himself from rewriting his views, and of showing 

 the little importance of his doing so, he concludes his preface with 

 these conclusive words, expressing himself in the third person : 

 " When, however, he comes to the closing volumes of this system, 

 should he ever get so far, he proposes to set forth in them the devel- 

 oped conclusions of which ' Social Statics ' must be considered a rough 

 sketch." What more conclusive proof could we need that " Social 

 Statics " was still, then and there, a substantial embodiment of his 

 views ? 



The critic says that the author of the work in question appears to 

 have " an obscure conception of social science," etc. It is to be re- 

 membered, however, that social science is a very large science, sus- 

 ceptible of very diverse renditions, or modes of consideration, and 

 that, when viewed, as it is by Mr. Spencer and his especial admirers, 

 from the lofty standpoint of universal science, it would be likely to 

 present somewhat different points of prominence for scientific con- 

 sideration from those it would present from the far less ambitious 

 standpoint from which it is viewed by the author in question the 

 standpoint of the practical statesman and jurist. 



By way of illustrating the fairness and justness of his criticism, 

 the critic quotes an isolated passage from the work under his consid- 

 eration, which, unexplained, and rent from its context, would appear 

 only as Greek, Hebrew, or Sanscrit, to the general reader; a passage 

 in which, after the example of Mr. Spencer himself, and other modern 

 scientists, the author had casually drawn on astronomical science for 

 illustration, and instituted a similitude between the forces of cosmical 

 and social life. But was that a really fair selection ? What would our 

 critic think if any one should undertake to judge Mr. Spencer, either 

 as a sociologist or a general scientist, solely by his fundamental postu- 

 late that all evolution is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous f 



The critic would have conveyed to his readers a far more just idea 

 of the scope and real character of the work under his review a mere 

 preliminary work as it is if he had seen fit to quote the seven propo- 

 sitions laid down in the author's sixth chapter, embodying, as they 

 claim to do, the essential import of all the most recent and most ad- 

 vanced thought in social philosophy; nay, embodying, in outline, the 

 very quintessence of Mr. Spencer's peculiar views, with the addition 

 of only a few highly-important ideas, which he seems to have either 

 overlooked or undervalued. 



And here it may be proper to remark that there is no essential 

 antagonism between Mr. Spencer and the author who has incurred 

 the displeasure of The Popular Science Monthly. On fundamental 

 principles, and in the general drift of their reasonings, likewise, they 



