INTRODUCTION. 



V 



having its uses and applications in an order of things 

 higher than material interests in philosophy, criticism, 

 ethics, politics, education, and even, in union with phy- 

 siology, in the preservation of health and the conduct 

 of life. 



It is chiefly in the sphere of society that the dis- 

 covery of settled laws becomes difficult, and the worth of 

 those discovered questionable. For how, it is asked, can 

 we reduce social phenomena to any permanent laws, 

 when, as history clearly teaches, the appearance of a 

 single great spirit, of a religious founder like Buddha, or 

 even of a conqueror like Csesar, might greatly modify 

 them ; and when the rise and spread of a new religious 

 faith, or the growth of a new social system, might almost 

 wholly dissolve them ? The objection has weight ; and 

 we shall see reasons of a different sort for objecting to 

 any science of society which would appear to bind man's 

 power of social or political initiative in the fetters of 

 necessity in the shape of scientific laws, social or eco- 

 nomic, few or none of which are true for all ages and all 

 societies. Sociological and even Economic laws, it may 

 be said, unlike physical laws, are revocable. They are 

 made by the will of men, and the will of men can 

 unmake them. They are made possible only by the 

 consent of men, which can be revoked if it suits the 

 general interest and convenience to do so. In short, 

 the struggle of classes to enfranchise or to better them- 

 selves, the general movement of modern society to greater 

 social equality and justice, the whole of what we call 

 social progress, tend to make many sociological and 

 economic laws merely temporary expressions of social 

 facts, and the quicker the progress, the less durable all 

 such laws. The notion of social evolution, and still 

 more of revolution, is incompatible with permanent laws 



