Feb., 1891 . 
THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY. 
27 
that mighty system of human intercourse, which now talks 
of the “ brotherhood ” of man and the federation of the 
whole world. 
We must trace the history of the marriage relation 
from its early incoherent indefiniteness to the present 
stage of its progress towards the more equal and perfect 
monogamy which future development will bring. We shall 
see how this relation affects, and is affected by, all other 
social relations, more especially the closely allied parental 
and filial relations. In connection, too, with the mutual 
relations of men and women we shall trace the gradual 
growth of that principle of sexual equality, which is, as 
yet, fully developed only among the highest individuals of 
the highest type of our latest civilisations. The emancipation 
of one half of humanity from the servitude to which a 
greater degree of physical weakness condemned it in the 
savage life ; the establishment of woman’s right to the full 
and free development of her whole nature—physical and 
mental, as well as emotional—suggest problems as to the 
future which only a knowledge of the past can solve. The 
tendency of things, visible through all the confusion of 
modern thought on the subject, seems to be towards the 
recognition of a perfect equality of worth, based on the 
essential difference of work and function. To the Sociologist 
there is no fear that the agitation for securing an improve¬ 
ment in the present condition of women will prove as 
disastrous as its opponents claim. The untrained enthusiast 
may look for an immediate revolution of position; the 
scientist, who knows how slowly great and permanent 
changes in human life are effected, finds a brighter hope and 
a higher ideal in the gradual evolution of character. 
Indeed, the attainable ideal to which Sociology points is 
the development of the whole possibilities latent in humanity. 
The physical, moral, and intellectual may culminate in the 
unknown powers whose existence is dimly guessed as the 
result of hypnotic and kindred experiments ; but the develop¬ 
ment of old and new is contemporaneous. It is an assurance 
of progress that the higher powers of human life, called into 
existence by improved environment and new wants, bear 
buds of fair promise even before the lower nature has ripened 
its fruit to perfection. “ The mills of God grind slowly,” 
but they never cease their grinding, and the result is sure. 
As a result of the aggregation of allied families we find the 
tribe, and this we trace until it develops into the state, 
which presents such varied forms in the different social types 
—nomadic and settled, military and industrial. Of these 
