2 3 o SOCIAL AND INDIVIDUAL 



public thought the pulpit, the platform and the press 

 are eloquent with this theme. Many of these problems 

 are old, although even these are propounded to us in a 

 new way by our own times : but some of them are the 

 products of conditions that never existed before. All of 

 them alike have become more urgent, for we have become 

 more sensitive to them ; so that we cannot avoid them ; 

 we cannot even postpone them. It will be well if we can 

 attenrptjtheir solution in that spirit of serene and patient 

 impersonality_which springs from a conviction of ^he^ 

 sovereignty of simple truth, and which has so distinguished 

 the pursuit of knowledge in the natural sphere. The need 

 of that spirit is more imperative here than in any other 

 realm of inquiry ; for the facts are more complex, the 

 personal equation is much more difficult to strike, the value 

 of pure unimpassioned truth is higher, and error brings 

 more immediate and more irremediable penalties. 



It is well for us that, as a rule, the times which set the 

 problem generally contribute something to the solution as 

 well. And if the social problem has in our day become 

 more acute in many important respects than it ever was 

 before, the intellectual and moral conditions under which 

 the answer may be sought have also become more favour- 

 able. The influence of natural science is itself very sig- 

 nificant, and may be expected to affect the inquiry into 

 the nature of the social order. Not that the methods of 

 natural science can, as is even yet sometimes thought, be 

 immediately applied to social problems. To every material 

 we must bring the appropriate categories ; to every lock 

 its own key ; and we cannot discover the nature of man 

 and of human society if we begin by ignoring the qualities 

 which distinguish them from natural things. Neverthe- 



