how, and the whence of man and society are but preliminaries to the whither. To this question the tenth chapter of the Sketch is, may we not say, the first answer of the nascent and (then) nameless science of sociology.

In estimating its value we must think, not of its present use, but of its past services. That it was a real contribution of cardinal value to the science of sociology is proved alike by its qualities and by its defects. Some of its fallacies survive, if not in sociology, yet in its subsciences; witness the idea of the linear evolution of the hunter into the shepherd, and of the shepherd into the peasant—a hypothesis of Condorcet, but, since the advent of Darwinism, a dogma in anthropology and speculative politics. To innumerable workers in many departments of social science the Sketch has served, consciously or unconsciously, as a convenient framework within which to collect and to arrange facts which otherwise might have passed unobserved, or at least have remained outside of the ordered data of social science. In this way the Sketch has been the means of greatly enlarging the social experience accumulated by and for sociologists. There is probably no student of sociology who may not derive benefit from a reading of the first chapter (on method) and the last (on future progress). But the rest are of merely historical value, and to be read only by those possessed of an adequate power of historical perspective. The naturalist, the psychological and social sciences were in the eighteenth century only beginning as scientific specialisms; biology, history, and geography were only beginning as great synthetic scientific studies. And even such resources as these then afforded were imperfectly at the command of Condorcet. Judged even by the standard of his own time, he was imperfectly trained in biology, in psychology, and in those studies which were then growing into a science of comparative religion. In all these respects Condorcet fell short of what an eighteenthcentury sociologist should and might have been.

The circumstances under which the Sketch was written are usually tendered as an excuse for its defects and mistakes. To be sure, the daily, even hourly, expectation of the executioner cannot conduce to that mental composure which is needful for

calm contemplation. But in a type of character such as Condorcet's, where lofty spirituality is fortified by invincible courage, this overhanging fate might well be stimulating to thought rather than inhibitory. In respect to his being cut off from books and other external sources of knowledge, is not that, to a writer of original powers, a source of added strength? At least three other of the great classics in the history of sociology were written in spiritual isolation. It was enforced isolation in one case — that of Campanella's City of the Sun, written during his imprisonment for a political offense, like Condorcet's an offense intended by its perpetrator to be a service to those who persecuted him. In the other cases: Comte, we know, in writing the Positive Polity made it a deliberate policy to refrain rigidly from all books, journals, and newspapers, whether for reading or for reference. And to a somewhat similar practice of Hobbes we owe probably not a little of the originality and forcefulness of the Leviathan. It is said to have been a favorite saying of Hobbes: "If I had read as much as other people, I should be as stupid."

Among the founders of sociology must always be counted Leibnitz, if only for his reiterated insistence on two great ideas which are parts of one still greater idea—the idea of social evolution. The first is the conception that the historic past is always with us here and now; it survives both in archæological fossils and, what is of vastly greater sociological import, it survives also as active elements guiding and conditioning our daily life. The second is the conception that what we think and feel, what we do and say, here and now, are the great factors in determining the character of the succeeding phases of human and social life. The two conceptions are summed up in what Leibnitz called the "law of historic continuity," and which he expressed in the oftquoted phrase: "The present is charged with the past and big with the future.'

وو

The life of Condorcet is one of those creative moments in the history of sociology in which the student may see the unity of the science and feel the inspiration of its practical stimulus. Seen by the random observer at his stationary point of view, the objective and subjective sociologists, the historical ones, and the

utopists, all seem to be merely exponents of rival schools of thought, united only as a group whose interests are theoretical, in opposition to the group of statesmen and ecclesiastical organizers, philanthropists, and educationists whose one bond of union again is apt to be merely that their interests are practical. It is the privilege of him who is a student both of sociological history and of historical sociology to see that rival schools and opposing parties are not in the long run isolated bodies of doctrine, or antagonistic sects, but different ways of approaching the great problem-how to live. In Condorcet we see a man with a passion for righteous action, but convinced that action cannot be righteous unless it is based on the fullest knowledge which contemporary science and history can yield. Like Kant, he knew and realized that action without theory is blind, and theory without action is empty. We see him therefore assiduously exploring all the accessible avenues of approach to sociology. How deep a habit it must have become with him to alternate and combine thought and action, theory and practice, we realize when we see him capable of dispassionate sociological reflection in the very crisis of his life. He alone, said Comte, continued in the storm of the Revolution regenerative meditation.

That is tantamount to saying that he combined and fused in his personality a real and living unification of the science of sociology and the art of social practice.

LONDON.

VICTOR BRANFORD.

DISCUSSION.

[In the absence of Mr. Branford, the foregoing lecture was read by the chairman of the club. The discussion that followed was stenographically reported. Students of social psychology and of advanced pedagogy will certainly find the report worth reading. It is accordingly appended. It contains instructive evidence about the reaction of middle-class Englishmen, above the median line in education, upon a discussion which sociologists would regard as quite free from technicalities, and unusually direct and lucid in style.-EDITORS.]

A: I think all our feelings must be sympathetic toward the chairman, who has made such a gallant effort in our behalf; and I think a little sympathy is due to ourselves, for, without saying anything against the merits of the paper - and they are many yet I think the effect of it upon our minds must have been

something like that of a biograph too rapidly worked, in which the objects represented flit past us with such astonishing rapidity that it is impossible to see anything clearly. We have had many characters rushing past us like figures on the living picture" that is being turned too fast, and our minds have not been able to assimilate everything that has been said. I do not wish to say anything in disparagement of the author. I think that we should recognize that Mr. Branford is himself a typical sociologist. [Hear, hear!] He is a man who is applying the scientific method to the consideration of the problems of social life and civilization. He is not merely a scientific man and nothing else; he is not a mere dry-as-dust man; he has a notion of something beyond that; and he is trying to teach us that there is something a little ahead of the merely logical and scientific.

Sociological" is a hybrid word, half Greek and half Latin. It means the science of human affairs, of men in communities. The question is whether the scientific method is really the right method, is the fullest and most proper method of pursuing it. The writer has included all sorts and conditions of reformers and theologians as sociologists. He includes Plato and Aristotle. Of course, sociology was not invented until a hundred and fifty years ago. It is quite a modern word, and it implies the scientific way of looking at social things. those who have effected great changes have done them, not from the operation of the intellect, but through the spirit of man. I always think there is something about the cold method of science that is unproductive. We have to take part in affairs, and conduct our own lives and live them well, and do the best we can for the community in which we live.

But

Again, the study of sociology is one that can be taken up by any nation. It is treated as if it were chemistry, which deals with the laws and properties and qualities of matter, or physics; and it omits a most important thing, and that is the national aspect of things. A Frenchman might write a pamphlet on social phenomena, and an Englishman might do the same, and they might arrive at certain conclusions; but the true way of progress might be missed by both, because each is a believer in certain national ideals. I am a believer in my own country, and see that it has the germs of progress that other countries do not possess in the same degree. Therefore, I object to sociology itself as a raise of the studies. It is a useful thing to go hand in hand with the spiritual conception. As was said by a gentleman at the last meeting: a great nation, or a development of a great nation, does not rise spontaneously by taking thought. You cannot add a cubit to your stature; but unless there is a certain spirit which accomplishes the thing, the whole would be useless. If you see a burglar coming into your house, you may say to yourself, "I will arrest the man;" and you forthwith describe the arrangement of muscles, nerves, joints, by which you will outstretch your hand and arrest him. But another man, who knows nothing about all this, arrests the burglar. The person who describes it all scientifically is the typical sociologist. He looks at life as a 66 'living picture " in which he takes an interest, and from which he gets intellectual amusement. But the men who have effected reforms are the men who have done the thing without knowing why.

Take a man like Cromwell, or take the French Revolution. The French have not the intuitive power of the Germans or the English, but they are great scientific people and great logicians. Yet that Revolution was accomplished by one very astonishing fact, and it is this: that in the Revolution men were ready to die for an idea in order to make it a fact in the face of Europe, and in the face of the world. And this you will find to be true, if you examine history. These men may be cailed atheists, and they did not believe in a future life; but they were prepared to die for their ideal. The spirit was in that nation of France, of frivolous people; they had been touched in some way, and they were prepared to die rushed forth to the battlefield to make good that ideal that had somehow touched the soul of humanity.

It is the teaching of the soul that is important; not merely the survey of the history, not recounting the achievements and writings of these learned men, but the actual doing of the thing by the man who is touched by the spirit, the tran

scendent spirit. And that is why I rather object to this six-syllabled word sociological." And I think if any good is to be done, there must be a spirit which is quite apart from the cold, calculating, scientific spirit, and takes account of the fact that man is an infinite being, environed by mystery, and the child of God.

B (the secretary): I think all the members of the society will join with me in regretting Mr. Branford is not here, because we cannot ask him any questions. It is a highly specialized paper. It is not sufficiently broad and controversial for a good debate to follow.

I wish to refer to three points:

One is: Under the subsection of the writers who have an evolutionary and progressive tendency he mentions Plato and Augustine. Now, Augustine is an example of the reactionary tendency; there is nothing progressive; he is a regular Christian Father.

Secondly, it is not quite clear from the paper what value the life of Condorcet has in a paper which deals with "The Founders of Sociology." We have little else but the life of Condorcet, as if he were the one person we were indebted to. I expected to hear a great deal of the life of Spencer, of Comte, of Schopenhauer; for everyone reads Schopenhauer nowadays which must have had a tremendous influence in the formation of people's ideas.

Thirdly, I think the scientific people of today are making the world, and in ə hundred years' time they will have all the power in their own hands. The religious people will be relegated to the back seat.

C: In some respects I do not know that I am altogether sorry that Mr. Branford is not here, because I should not have liked to say anything that might have hurt his feelings, and as he is not here, I am at liberty to give vent to my own. We had a paper read which purported to deal with The Founders of Sociology." I think the chairman had to read for half an hour a vague disquisition as to our being sociologists before we got a mention of any of them, and then he read a long list of eminent men in every branch of thought and claimed them as sociologists. There are men I should class as sociologists in a truer sense than many of those mentioned. I do not know why Moses was not a great sociologist, taking the traditional account as true. King David was another. He was one of the first men to take a census, and he was treated most unfairly by Jehovah for having done so. He was given the choice of several punishments, and he chose that which fell on his people instead of on himself.

I see Mr. Branford has M.A. after his name. If that is the kind of science that enables a man to get a university degree, it does not speak highly for universities. I never heard a paper that professes to deal with a scientific subject Idealt with in such an unscientific manner.

The science of sociology is perhaps of too wide an extent to be dealt with by any one individual. I think it is more properly a name for a number of sciences, and it is more profitable to study social matters in their various aspects. We can study economics, ethics, politics, man, from various aspects, but to group all these together and form one comprehensive science I am afraid won't take us very far. Not even Herbert Spencer is able to grapple with human nature in that wholesale way. We must specialize.

A previous speaker has said that sociologists have not been the great reformers. It is perfectly true. They have not been the men who have carried into effect the great reforms. But I think they have contributed indirectly to all the great reforms that have ever taken place, while they have not had the executive powers. I should like to say that our practical reformers have not been men of science, for there is not any reform which does not carry out almost as much harm as good. It is carried on, not on its own merits, but because of the generous emotions in the breasts of the people, carried against the face of reason, which generally leads it to dash its head against a wall. All sorts of reform are based on a very inadequate study of the question. I hardly know any great reform that has not been based on a scientific study of a question, and this is what we want when a practical reformer comes along and feels that he can arouse public opinion to carry out a reform. He should know what he is doing, and have the facts and