EVOLUTION AND THE PRESENT AGE 279 
characterize the scientific mind when untrained in 
modern methods and results. 
Now the“past generation has seen the method of 
treating history quite revolutionized. In the study of 
political institutions and economic conditions we are 
endeavouring to understand the cumulative action of 
minute but incessant causes such as we see in opera- 
tion around us. We endeavour to carry to the inter- 
pretation of past ages the experience derived from our 
own; and knowing that nothing is more treacherous 
than hasty generalizations from analogy, we devote to 
the institutions and conditions of past ages and our 
own a study of most exacting and microscopic minute- 
ness, in order that we may guard against error in our 
conclusions. 
The result is a very considerable revolution in our 
opinions of the past and our feelings toward it, while 
an enormous mass of facts that our grandfathers 
would have called insufferably tedious have be- 
come invested for us with absorbing interest. Or, to 
cite something more immediately practical, if you 
consider the projects which men have in various 
ages entertained for reforming society, you will find 
that along with inexperience goes a naive faith that 
some sovereign decree or some act of parliament or 
some cunningly devised constitution or some happily 
planned referendum will at once accomplish the 
desired result. But cold, hard experience soon shows - 
that sovereign edicts may be neglected, that it is far 
easier to make statutes than to enforce them, and that 
in such a delicate and complex structure as that of 
society the operation of laws and constitutions is liable 
to differ very widely from what was anticipated. The 
