CHAPTER XVIIL 



THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 



ANY attempt to discover the laws to which social changes 

 conform must run great risk of being frustrated by the mere 

 immensity of the mass of details which the investigator 

 strives to arrange in orderly sequence. Seemingly number 

 less as are the phenomena dealt with by the physical sciences, 

 they bear no proportion, either in multitude or in variety, to 

 the facts upon which the student of sociology must build his 

 scientific theorems. Facts concerning man in his physical 

 relations to soil, climate, food, and the configuration of the 

 earth, blend with facts concerning the intellectual and moral 

 relations of men to each other and to the aspects of nature 

 by which they are surrounded, making up a problem of such 

 manifold complexity that it may well have long been deemed 

 incapable of satisfactory solution. The fit ground for wonder 

 is, indeed, not that we are as yet unable to arrive at accurate 

 prevision amid such a diversified throng of phenomena, but 

 tnat, considering the meagreness of our knowledge in many 

 other departments, we should have been able to detect any 

 uniformity whatever in human affairs, and having detected 

 .t, to explain it upon trustworthy scientific principles. 



There is but one way to conduct such an intricate investiga 

 tion, securely to its final issue ; and that is, to make extensive 



