1152 REPORT— 1885. 
with which our present social world is pregnant—it is not needful, I say, to show 
that the science which gave this foresight would be of the highest value to astatesman, 
and would absorb or dominate our present political economy. What has to be proved 
is that this supremely important knowledge is within our grasp ; that the sociology 
which professes this prevision is really an established science. To deny this may 
perhaps seem presumptuous, in view of the voluminous works that we possess on 
the subject, which it would be quite out of place for me to attempt to criticise 
methodically on the present occasion. Fortunately, however, such methodical 
criticism is not required to justify my negative conclusion: since there are two 
simple tests of the real establishment of a science—emphatically recognised by 
Comte in his discussion of this very subject—which can be quickly and decisively 
applied to the claims of existing sociology. These tests may be characterised as 
(1) Consensus or Continuity and (2) Prevision. The former I will explain in 
Comte’s own words:—‘ When we find that recent works, instead of being the 
result and development of what has gone before, have a character as personal as 
that of their authors, and bring the most fundamental ideas into question ’—then, 
says Comte, we may be sure we are not dealing with any doctrine deserving the 
name of positive science. Now, if we compare the most elaborate and ambitious 
treatises on sociology, of which there happens to be one in each of the three lead- 
ing scientific languages—Comte’s ‘ Politique Positive,’ Spencer's ‘Sociology,’ and 
Schiffle’s ‘Bau und Leben des socialen Kérpers,’/—we see at once that they exhibit 
the most complete and conspicuous absence of agreement or continuity in their 
treatment of the fundamental questions of social evolution. 
Take, for example, the question of the future of religion. No thoughtful person 
can overlook the importance of religion as an element of man’s social existence ; 
nor do the sociologists to whom I have referred fail to recognise it. But if we 
inquire after the characteristics of the religion of which their science leads them to 
foresee the coming prevalence, they give with nearly equal confidence answers as 
divergent as can be conceived. Schiiffle cannot comprehend that the place of the 
great Christian Churches can be taken by anything but a purified form of Chris- 
tianity ; Spencer contemplates complacently the reduction of religious thought and 
sentiment to a perfectly indefinite consciousness of an Unknowable and the emotion 
that accompanies this peculiar intellectual exercise ; while Comte has no doubt that 
the whole history of religion—which, as he says, ‘should resume the entire history 
ef human development ’—has been leading up to the worship of the Great Being, 
Humanity, personified domestically for each normal male individual by his nearest 
female relatives. It would certainly seem that the science which allows these 
discrepancies in its chief expositors must he still in its infancy. And when we go 
on to ask how these divergent forecasts of the future are scientifically deduced 
from the study of the past evolution of mankind, we are irresistibly reminded of 
the old epigram as to the relation of certain theological controversialists to the 
Bible : 
Hic liber est in quo querit sua dogmata quisque, 
Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua. 
I do not doubt that our sociologists are sincere in setting before us their con- 
ception of the coming social state as the last term of a series of which the law has 
been discovered by patient historical study ; but when we look closely into their 
work it becomes only too evident that each philosopher has constructed on the 
basis of personal feeling and experience his ideal future in which our present social 
deficiencies are to be remedied and that the process by which history is arranged 
in steps pointing towards his Utopia bears not the faintest resemblance to a scientific 
demonstration. 
This is equally evident when we turn from religion to industry, and examine 
the forecasts of industrial development offered to the statesman in the name of 
scientific sociology as a substitute for the discarded calculations of the mere 
economist. With equal confidence, history is represented as leading up, now to 
the naive and unqualified individualism of Spencer, now to the carefully guarded 
and elaborated socialism of Schiiffle, now to Comte’s dream of securing seven-roomed 
houses for all working men—with other comforts to correspond—solely by the im- 
