THE HUMAN SCIENCES 47 



effort of the reformer be directed upon raising the level 

 of the people's character ? The answers usually given are 

 as follows : 



1 . Change the outer conditions of life, equalise property, 

 or abolish property so far as it is private, give to every 

 one opportunities of service and reward him according 

 to his needs, take away the occasion for greed, com- 

 petition and the collision of private wills, and all will go 

 well. 



2. Do all these things and more, pull down the rookeries, 

 give their denizens clean homes and clear air, place them in 

 palaces, provide them with work they will turn the palaces 

 into hovels and styes, they will refuse to work, and be 

 greedy only for its rewards. The change must come from 

 within, for the determining element is there. Their 

 environment will take care of itself if you teach them 

 industry, sobriety, and thrift, and make them lovers of 

 what is fair. 



Such is the controversy waged on every occasion of 

 social reform. It divides reformers on every social 

 problem, such as charity, temperance, housing, and so 

 forth ; the one school desiring, the other deprecating, the 

 extension of state or municipal action both from the best 

 motives. Solution is sought by compromise, the com- 

 promise being contingent on the counting of heads. Social 

 reform stumbles along the rough road of blind experiment, 

 and we "muddle through." 



Is there no better way of solving our social difficulties? 

 None, I should answer, on the usual lines of thought ; for 

 we are dealing with a problem whose conditions are falsely 

 stated. We are seeking a solution in terms of merely 

 natural causation where merely natural cause does not exist. 



