SOCIOLOGY. 
203 
occasion of the farewell banquet, Mr. Herbert Spencer wisely says:— 
“ In brief I may say that we have bad somewhat too much of the 
gospel of work. It is time to preach the gospel of relaxation.” 
I have to express our warmest thanks to those who have taken 
an interest in the new Section, and especially I would mention the 
support we have received from distant localities, notably Wolver¬ 
hampton, a most important town, possessing many of the charac¬ 
teristics belonging to Birmingham, and yet differing from it in some 
respects. 
A few words of caution may be necessary for us in our progress, and 
here again I must quote from Mr. Herbert Spencer. “ It is (he says) 
always the tendency of discipleship to magnify the effect of the 
master’s teachings; and to credit the master with all the doctrines he 
teaches.”* * * § And further—“ The advocates of a cause usually overstate 
their case.” One of the chief teachings of “ The Study of Sociology” 
is to eliminate the various forms of bias that affect accurate Sociolo¬ 
gical generalizations. To members of this Section, the mere mention 
of these aphorisms of the Author of the Synthetic Philosophy—on 
whose rich stores I have drawn so largely—will suffice, for they, 
happily, do not come within the category of those of whom Mr. 
Herbert Spencer says that “only by varied iteration can alien 
conception be forced on reluctant minds.” f 
Of the Doctrine of Evolution as set forth in Mr. Herbert Spencer’s 
writings, and in the works of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Ernst 
Haeckel, and others, I need say nothing to an assembly of Naturalists. 
So far back as 1873 the late Sir Wyville Thomson, whose name will 
ever be associated with the origin and development of the “Challenger” 
work, wrote, “ I do not think that lam speaking too strongly when I say 
that there is now scarcely a single competent general Naturalist who 
is not prepared to accept some form of the doctrine of evolution.”! 
Able writers, such as the late Mr. Walter Bagehot in his “ Physics 
and Politics,” have applied it in other directions, and others are following 
the example. 
Its most bright, encouraging, impressive, hopeful, and even sublime 
aspect is that the “ process of modification upon modification which 
has brought life to its present height must raise it still higher,”§ and 
that the most particular ways “in which this moving equilibrium, this 
further evolution, this higher life, this greater co-ordination of actions, 
may be expected to show itself, will be in intelligence and morality.” 
Regarding intelligence, Mr. Herbert Spencer says : “ There is ample 
room for advance in this direction, and ample demand for it. Our 
lives are universally shortened by our ignorance. In attaining com¬ 
plete knowledge of our own natures and of the natures of surrounding 
things—in ascertaining the conditions of existence to which we must 
* “ The Data of Ethics," by Herbert Spencer, 1879, p. 6. 
+ “ Essays," 2nd series, page 60. 
X “ The Depths of the Sea,” by C. Wyville Thomson, F.R.S., 1873, p.9. 
§ Herbert Spencer. ‘ Postscript to American Address.’ “ Contemporary 
Review,” January, 1883, 
