1 4 ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Booki existence is limited to lives of a few particular 

 generations. Now between these two sets of 

 couriered as phenomena, as thus far described, the most ob- 

 vious difference is, no doubt, the difference in their 

 magnitude. This difference, however, is altogether 

 accidental, and does nothing to explain those curiously 

 contrasted results which the study of one set and 

 the other has yielded to the modern sociologist. 

 The difference, which will explain these, is of quite 

 another kind, and may briefly be stated thus. The 

 larger social phenomena those which interest the 

 speculative philosopher, and with which sociology 

 has dealt successfully, are phenomena of social 

 aggregates, or masses of men regarded as single 

 bodies ; the smaller phenomena those which in- 

 terest the practical man, and with which sociology 

 has dealt unsuccessfully are essentially the pheno- 

 mena not of social aggregates, but of various parts 

 of aggregates. 



Let us illustrate the matter provisionally by two 

 rudimentary examples. As an example of the larger 

 phenomena let us take the advance of man from the 

 age of stone to the ages of bronze and iron. Of the 

 smaller, we may take the phenomena referred to by 

 Mr. Kidd namely, the appearance in the modern 

 world of the socialist or collectivist party, and the 

 antagonism between it and the party of private pro- 

 perty and individualism. Now the first of these two 

 sets of phenomena the use by men of stone imple- 

 ments, and the subsequent use of metal implements 

 consist of phenomena which, so far as the socio- 



