28 
THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY. 
Feb., 1891 . 
types the latest, which is settled and industrial, is the highest. 
Within a period of time which, to the scientist, is very small, 
it has passed through many phases; and the form which it 
will ultimately take is the most pressing of our modern 
problems. We have to consider also all the machinery of civil 
government, and all the work it does, as well as the constantly 
changing relations between the governing and the governed. 
We shall trace the slow downward filtration of power from 
the one to the many; the gradual change from the despotism 
of the autocrat to the despotism of the democracy; and in 
relation to this development we shall examine the uses and 
fright limits of all governing institutions, finding the indi¬ 
vidualistic and socialistic sharply contrasted in the data 
from which we draw our conclusions. 
Side by side with these political structures and functions, 
and often almost indistinguishable from them, there sprang up 
the ecclesiastical and ceremonial institutions, whose gradual 
differentiation from the civil government, and separate work 
and character must be studied. The fear of the living 
caused them to be propitiated by ceremonies and sacrifices 
greatly resembling those offered to the dead. Those powerful 
among the living are naturally believed to be powerful also 
among the dead; it is only as the “ long result of time” 
that king and priest, church and state, became ever more 
divergent and distinct. 
In addition, we have to consider the way in which the 
ecclesiastical structure gave rise to a code of religious cere¬ 
monial, and to a distinct code of morality; and always 
whatever may be the phenomena with which we are dealing, 
we shall consider their relation to the mental nature of our 
social units, and how the action and reaction of the two 
mutually modify each other. In this later development we 
shall find not only that the church and state—the religious 
and the legal—become more and more distinct, but that 
morality outgrows the ideals of the religion which claims to 
be inseparably connected with it, and becomes more and more 
divorced from orthodox faith. In tracing the development of 
the idea of divinity, from the untutored ignorance which 
natural appearances impressed with a belief in duality; and 
which knowledge of oppression and tyranny, suffered from 
the living representatives of power, filled with awe and terror 
of the unknown dead, to our most advanced knowledge, we 
see incidentally how man’s physical needs and surroundings 
have developed conscience and the moral sense. 
(To be continued.) 
