Introduction 



for our grandfathers, whether they were at Eton 

 or in the slums, that the only clear meaning they 

 appear generally to have attached to " Science " 

 was proficiency in batsmanship or pugilism. As 

 the simplicity and strength of this conviction failed, 

 the popular prestige of science diminished also ; 

 so that, for the mid-Victorian age, natural philo- 

 sophy became at best a fashionable entertainment, 

 with experiments at the Royal Institution ; while 

 " Biology " commonly stood for mesmeric char- 

 latanism, and " Evolution," of course, was rank 

 blasphemy. Our recent volume on the " Ideals 

 of Science and Faith," already referred to, may 

 serve as witness of how fully if not how far these 

 days are past and gone ; yet the recent foundation 

 of a Sociological Society in the country of Adam 

 Smith and Herbert Spencer has only too often 

 brought out the fact that there are still many good 

 people, not otherwise crassly ignorant, who con- 

 fuse and ban Sociology with Socialism, exactly as 

 H.M. the Sultan is said lately to have insisted on 

 prohibiting the importation of " dynamos," since 

 these to him came obviously under the category 

 of "dynamite." That the reasoned anarchism of 

 a Reclus or Kropotkin is to be considered and 

 treated simply as an appeal to vulgar violence 

 will doubtless still remain for some time the 

 initial difficulty in the press man's or politician's 

 endeavours to cope with it ; but surely the 

 scholar is but a belated one, who, after fifty 

 years of naturalisation in all European languages, 

 hears words like " Sociology " or " Altruism " and 



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