THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



DECEMBER, 1873. 



KADICALISM, CONSEKYATISM, AND THE TRANSI- 

 TION OF INSTITUTIONS. 1 



By HERBERT SPENCER. 



OF readers who have accompanied me thus far, probably some think 

 that the contents of these papers go beyond the limits implied 

 by their title. Under the head Study of Sociology, so many sociolo- 

 gical questions have been incidentally discussed, that the science itself 

 has been in a measure dealt with while dealing with the study of it. 

 Admitting this criticism, my excuse must be that the fault, if it is one, 

 has been scarcely avoidable. Nothing to much purpose can be said 

 about the study of any science without saying a good deal about the 

 general and special truths it includes, or what the expositor holds to 

 be truths. To write an essay on the study of astronomy, in which 

 there should be no direct or implied conviction respecting the Coper- 

 nican theory of the solar system, nor any such recognition of the law 

 of gravitation as involved acceptance or rejection of it, would be a 

 task difficult to execute, and, when executed, probably of little value. 

 Similarly with Sociology — it is next to impossible for the writer who 

 points out the way toward its truths to exclude all tacit or avowed 

 expressions of opinion about those truths, and, were it possible to ex- 

 clude such expressions of opinion, it would be at the cost of those illus- 

 trations needed to make his exposition effective. 



Such must be, in part, my defense for having set down many 

 thoughts which the title of this work does not cover. Especially have 

 I found myself obliged thus to transgress, by representing the study 

 of sociology as the study of evolution in its most complex form. It is 

 clear that, to one who considers the facts societies exhibit as having 

 had their origin in supernatural interpositions, or in the wills of 

 individual ruling men, the study of these facts will have an aspect 

 wholly unlike that which it has to one who contemplates them as gen- 



1 Concluding article of the series on the " Study of Sociology." 

 vol. iv. — 9 



