56 
THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY. 
Mar., 1890. 
I have not time even to summarise the problems discussed 
in the important work which this section is about to study, 
and indeed I do not feel it either necessary or desirable that 
I should attempt the task. The section will read and com¬ 
ment for itself, and a running commentary is much better 
than a preliminary lecture. So I will only make a few sug¬ 
gestions as to the mode of study. 
When reading on any great subject it is always well to 
make our text book a central point, from which lines of 
thought, and possibly of action, may radiate. But to find 
points of attachment for these lines we must go outside the 
text book, and seek in various quarters for facts, ideas, and 
arguments which bear upon its teachings. Confirmatory or 
contradictory, all must be taken into account, and we must 
never shrink from submitting to this test our most favourite 
theories, or the opinions of those masters of thought whom 
we respect most highly. This necessity has been duly recog¬ 
nised in the list of books appended to the circular announcing 
this meeting. In addition I may venture to suggest Professor 
Max Muller’s Gifford Lectures published under the title of 
“ Natural Religion,” which contains his latest statement of 
that hypothesis which Mr. Spencer so powerfully combats. 
Then the “ Asiatic Studies” of Sir Alfred Lyall, who is or 
has been a correspondent of Mr. Spencer, and has furnished 
him with not a few of his data, is worthy of careful perusal. 
It is well also to note the curious sociological facts which 
we may often cull from newspapers and magazines, or meet 
with in the course of our general reading. For instance, I 
cut from the Times the other day a paragraph which might 
very well form a note to Mr. Spencer’s chapter on the “ Status 
of Women.” 
“ The Status of Woman according to the Chinese Classics. —In a 
missionary periodical published in Shanghai, Dr. Faber, a well-known 
scholar, publishes a paper on the status of women in China. He refers 
especially to the theoretical position assigned to women by the classics. 
These lay down the following dogmas on the subject :—(1) Women 
are as different in nature from man as earth is from heaven. (2) 
Dualism, not only in body form, but in the very essence of nature, is 
indicated and proclaimed by Chinese moralists of all times and creeds. 
The male belongs to yang, the female to yin. (3) Death and all other 
evils have their origin in the yin , or female principle ; life and pros¬ 
perity come from its subjection to the yang, or male principle, and it 
is therefore regarded as a law of nature that women should be kept 
under the control of men and not allowed any will of their own. (4) 
Women, indeed, are human beings, but they are of a lower state than 
men, and never can attain to full equality with them. (5) The aim of 
female education, therefore, is perfect submission, not cultivation and 
development of mind. (G) Women cannot have any happiness of their 
own ; they have to live and work for men. (7) Only as the mother of 
