6 INTRODUCTION 
that our philosophy will be pessimistic, but even so it will enter 
the lists to contend with those of different cast, and the attain- 
ment of truth, if this is a rational universe, must be the ultimate 
outcome, and with truth, increased well-being. A second justi- 
fication for such an investigation is thus to provide a critique of 
current social theories and of schemes for social regeneration. 
Social philosophy has a third function. Advance in science is 
dependent very largely on the possession of a scientific imagina- 
tion, — the power to jump at conclusions which become working 
hypotheses to be verified, repudiated or corrected in the light of 
inductive study. The western world is interested today as never 
before in the increase of human well-being. But social ameliora- 
tion is as truly a science as physics or geology though infinitely 
more complex. Sane advance in this science must be guided by 
sane philosophy. The latter will furnish the background for the 
formulation of laws and methods of social advance and these 
should prove far more workable than unsophisticated guesses. 
Spencer in his Study of Sociology says that if you give a man 
who does not understand metal work a sheet of metal with a dint 
in it and ask him to flatten it out, he will take a hammer and 
knock the dint flat only to find that it has appeared elsewhere. 
He tries to flatten these other dints but with like result.1_ Thus it 
is with much social legislation not based on the laws of social 
change. 
A final justification is analogous to Comte’s praise of the crude 
beliefs of primitive times. As those common beliefs in spirits 
that animated and controlled the phenomena of nature provided 
a unity of thought as the necessary background for unity of 
action, so a generally accepted theory of social progress would 
provide an educational aim that could be put into practice; a 
common principle of legislation that would make enforcement 
easy; a common goal of endeavor which might make possible a 
social reconstruction in the interest both of the group as a whole 
and of the constituent members. 
Comte claimed this virtue for his system but the vagaries of 
his Polity did much to retard the spread of his theory. Since 
? Quoted by Hobhouse, Social Evolution and Political Theory, p. 5. 
