TRADITION AND PROGRESS 445 



point which cannot be surpassed — as in the case of France in 

 the eighteenth century, when the poUty of the ancien regime 

 finally reached a climax which rendered its further continuance 

 impossible, owing to its total incompatibihty with the real needs 

 of the people — then the violent antagonism between the two 

 threatens to result in a social catastrophe which menaces the 

 very foundations of society ; and which, in its turn, necessarily 

 implies a terrible weakening of the social organism, a terrible 

 wastage of social force. The task of sociology is therefore a 

 high one, although most difficult — namely, the reconcihation 

 between social poUty and social reality, so to speak ; or, in other 

 words, the adaptation of the poHty of a society to the needs of 

 that society. 



We have said that the traditions of the past must only be taken 

 into consideration by the legislator in so far as they are also 

 elements of resistance to reform in the present. But by this we 

 are not to be taken as implying that the traditions of the past 

 have no value in themselves. As Bagehot excellently remarks : 

 " In 1789, when the great men of the Constituent Assembly 

 looked on the long past, they hardly saw anything in it which 

 could be praised or admired or imitated ; all seemed a blunder — 

 a complex error to be got rid of as soon as might be. But that 

 error had made themselves. On their very physical organisation 

 the hereditary mark of old times was fixed ; their brains were 

 hardened, and their nerves were steadied by the transmitted 

 results of tedious usages. The ages of monotony had their use, 

 for they trained men for ages when they need not be mono- 

 tonous."^ Social evolution in the present must be directed with 

 regard to the historical development of the society as well as to 

 the needs of the moment. What we mean is that an insti- 

 tution is not necessarily suited to the realities of the present 

 because it has rendered inestimable service in the past. We 

 yield to none in our admiration and love of the great past, of the 

 1 Physics and Politics, p. 30. 



