ALLEGED FAILURE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE n 



in doing more than this. Mr. Kidd, again, whose Book i 

 work on Social Evolution, if not valuable for the 

 conclusions he himself desires to substantiate, is 

 curiously significant as an example of contemporary 

 sociological reasoning, repeats Professor Marshall's 

 complaint, and gives yet more definite point to it. 

 Having observed that "despite the great advance 

 which science has made in almost every other direc- 

 tion, there is, it must be confessed, no science of human 

 society, properly so called" he justifies this observa- 

 tion by insisting on what is an undoubted fact, that 

 "so little practical light has even Mr. Herbert Spencer 

 succeeded in throwing on the nature of the social 

 problems of our time, that his investigations and 

 conclusions are, according as they are dealt with by 

 one side or the other, held to lead up to the opinions 

 of the two diametrically opposite camps of individual- 

 ists and collectivists, into which society is rapidly 

 becoming organised" 



Now what is the reason of this? Here is the what can the 

 question that confronts us. That the methods 

 adopted by the scientist in the domain of physics 

 are applicable to social phenomena, just as they are 

 to physical, has been not only established in a 

 broad and general way, but demonstrated by a mass 

 of minute and elaborately co-ordinated facts. Why, 

 then, when we find them in the sphere of physics 

 solving one problem after another with a truly 

 surprising accuracy, do they yield us such vague 

 and often contradictory results when we apply them 

 to the solution of the practical problems of society ? 



