THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 



many other departments, we should have been 

 able to detect any uniformity whatever in human 

 affairs, and having detected it, to explain it upon 

 trustworthy scientific principles. 



There is but one way to conduct such an in- 

 tricate investigation securely to its final issue ; 

 and that is, to make extensive use of elimina- 

 tion as it is employed in the simpler sciences. 

 " If without any previous investigation of the 

 properties of terrestrial matter, Newton had pro- 

 ceeded at once to study the dynamics of the uni- 

 verse, and after years spent with the telescope 

 in ascertaining the distances, sizes, times of re- 

 volution, inclinations of axes, forms of orbits, 

 perturbations, etc., of the celestial bodies, had 

 set himself to tabulate this accumulated mass of 

 observations, and to educe from them the fun- 

 damental laws of planetary and stellar equili- 

 brium, he might have cogitated to all eternity 

 without arriving at a result." This lucid illus- 

 tration, which I have cited from the introduc- 

 tion to Mr. Spencer's " Social Statics," suggests 

 the proper method of approaching the inves- 

 tigation of complex phenomena. Minor per- 

 turbing elements must for a time be left out of 

 consideration, just as the inequalities of motion 

 resulting from the mutual attractions of the 

 planets were at first passed over in the search 

 for the general formula of gravitation. The dis- 

 cussion of endless minute historical details must 

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