OF SOCIETY. 545 



tion of science on the one side and the growth of what 

 we may term the popular spirit on the other ; the 

 interest taken in the life, the government, and the 

 organisation of the masses. In most countries, not 

 only in Europe but also in America and in the East, 

 population has greatly increased, giving rise to dis- 

 cussions started in the beginning of the century by 

 Malthus in his ' Theory of Population,' In all civ- 

 ilised countries, without exception, the progress of 

 science and its application to the Arts and Industries 

 has greatly changed the occupations of the masses, 

 creating a large and increasing industrial, in the 

 place of the agricultural, population which was pre- 

 dominant in former centuries. Society in consequence 

 has acquired quite new and distinct features which 

 either did not exist or were not conspicuous in forme*" 

 ages. Of all objects of research, of all natural phe- 

 nomena, society is therefore the least stable. The new 

 science of sociology, which professes to deal with its 

 subject in the same way as other sciences have dealt 

 with their subjects, is confronted by a difficulty which 

 is quite peculiar to it. We need only name the sub- 

 jects of the other sciences most nearly related to 

 sociology, such as psychology and biology, in order to 

 recognise that the latter have the advantage of dealing 

 with organisms and phenomena which — at least during 

 historic ages of which we possess written records — have 

 not materially changed. They can accordingly point 

 to some average standard, some mean around which 

 individual variations, be they normal or pathologi- 

 cal, oscillate. Such a normal mean or average 

 VOL. IV. 2 m 



