II 



THE MISUSE OF METAPHORS IN THE 

 HUMAN SCIENCES 



IN my last article I tried to show that the social reformer 

 must have faith in the world as it is, if he is to make it 

 better. His ideals will prove impracticable unless they 

 are implicit in the facts he would change. The world 

 must " tend" towards the reformer's ends. His efficiency 

 as a reformer is measured by his power to apprehend and 

 use this tendency, which, like an unconscious purpose, is 

 the essential significance of his facts. 



But it is not easy to discern it. Even in the case of a 

 simple life we cannot predict ; we must wait and observe 

 how its interaction with circumstances brings forth its 

 characters one by one. But the social organism is incom- 

 parably complex, and it has many forms, all of them unique 

 in fundamental ways. There has been no other society or 

 State quite like our own ; and in every age of its history 

 it reveals new features as well as confronts new tasks. 

 The laws of social growth on which we might rely in 

 trying to discover its future possibilities are very general ; 

 and the conditions of its growth are very intricate, for 

 social life consists in the complex interaction of many 

 mutually implicated human wills. 



