442 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



But the traditions of the past must be neglected, except in so 

 far as they may constitute an element of invincible resistance 

 which condemns a social reform project a priori. The realities 

 of the present, the condition of the balance of power among the 

 different elements of the society, must occupy the first place in 

 the mind of the legislator. Neglect of this condition leads to 

 the making of impossible laws which take no account of the 

 trend of social evolution. The prohibitive duty on com passed 

 in England in 1815 by a Parliament representing abnost ex- 

 clusively the aristocracy and country gentry is an example of 

 this neglect of the actual conditions of social evolution. Here 

 was England, already with a highly-developed industry m which 

 hundreds of thousands of working men were employed, placing 

 a duty on foreign corn which rendered bread weUnigh unpurchas- 

 able for the great masses of the people in the interests of a small 

 minority of landowners. The agrarian policy of the German 

 Government to-day is very similar ; for here also we see an essen- 

 tially industrial coimtry taxed to the uttermost in the interests 

 of the landed proprietors east of the Elbe. The policy of the 

 French Convention relative to the Church is another instance of 

 this neglect to take the potential factors of the present into 

 consideration ; and the result was that, less than twenty years 

 later, Napoleon was compelled to conclude a new treaty with 

 the Papal See. Whether the policy of the French Government 

 at the present time towards the Church does not constitute a 

 similar instance of ignorance of the real relations between the 

 divers factors in the balance of social power remains to be seen. 



All these, and innumerable others, are instances of what we 

 may call Utopian legislation— that is to say, legislation under- 

 taken without any knowledge of the precise relations existing 

 between the different elements of the social organism, and 

 which is at once futile in the present, as far as its purposes are 

 concerned, and eminently productive of harm in the future. 

 The duty of sociology is to demonstrate the paramount necessity 



