LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 CAL'FOr.NIA 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 HK 
 vc\

 
 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL 
 PROGRESS
 
 A PHILOSOPHY 
 
 OF 
 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 E. J. URWICK, M.A. (Oxon.) 
 
 DIRECTOR OF THE SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY, LONDON 
 
 TOOKE PROFESSOR OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE, KING'S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 
 PRESIDENT OF MORLEV MEMORIAL COLLEGE, LONDON 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 REVISED 
 
 METHUEN & GO. LTD. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W. C. 
 
 LONDON
 
 First Published . . . March, 1912 
 
 Second Edition Revised . .
 
 NOTE TO THE SECOND 
 EDITION 
 
 t ^HIS book was originally written with a double 
 purpose. On the one hand, I wished to introduce 
 M students to a conception of a social philosophy 
 which should be definitely linked to modern sociology, 
 and not be treated as a mere outgrowth of the older 
 political philosophy. On the other hand, I hoped to 
 establish a new position in regard to the philosophical 
 conception of social change a position in opposition to 
 that usually assumed both by the sociologist and by the 
 philosopher. 
 
 With regard to the first aim, there is now abundant 
 evidence that social philosophy is freeing itself from the 
 rather narrow limits within which it was previously con- 
 fined. The recent works of Professors Hobhouse, Muir- 
 head and Hetherington are excellent illustrations of this 
 advance. And though the academic interest in political 
 philosophy, and (in this country) the comparative lack of 
 interest in sociology, may still tend to narrow the field, 
 it is unlikely that the subject will again be confined within 
 the limits originally assigned to it. 
 
 With regard to the second aim, there is no evidence at 
 all that my main contention has been admitted either by 
 sociologists or by philosophers. Nor was this to be 
 expected, since the contention itself amounts to a flat 
 denial of many of the claims of scientific sociology, and 
 to a less degree of those of the intellectualism upon 
 which philosophy usually depends. I have tried to show
 
 vi A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 that social science, or the science of social phenomena, 
 cannot be regarded as a science in the same sense as the 
 sciences of natural phenomena ; and that prevision of 
 social change is therefore impossible. And part of the 
 argument urged in support of this position involves a 
 denial of the paramount importance of intellect as the 
 directing faculty in human affairs. My contention, very 
 briefly stated, amounts to this : that, apart altogether 
 from the peculiar subtlety of social facts, whose signifi- 
 cance is, for us, coloured by the elements of unanalysed 
 bias which we perforce introduce into our most impartial 
 survey of them, every change in those facts is dependent 
 upon impulses in the individual and the group, whose 
 origin is to be sought in an equipment of feelings and 
 conations which are never fully presented to conscious- 
 ness, and are neither inspired by nor directed by intellect. 
 These impulses are, I maintain, the life-motives in the 
 individual and the group, and determine action at all the 
 critical moments of life ; and their force and direction 
 can neither be calculated nor foretold. This position 
 resembles in part the pragmatic position of Bergson's 
 philosophy. But only in part ; for I contend further 
 that the life-impulse upon which, from moment to moment, 
 society's ' choices ' depend, is itself dependent upon the 
 spiritual element which every individual must be assumed 
 to possess. This spiritual element I regard as the reality 
 of the individual, and the clue if only we could read it 
 to each individual's character. The determination of 
 individual conduct, and of society's conduct also, depends 
 therefore upon the combination of three factors, two of 
 which are always unknown, acting in the presence of cir- 
 cumstances which are never more than partially known ; 
 and the three factors are, first, the vital impulses express- 
 ing partly-conscious response to new needs ; secondly, 
 the conscious purpose in which intelligence does its best 
 to sum up its solution of that part of the problem which 
 it can grasp and analyse ; and thirdly, the promptings
 
 NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION vii 
 
 of a much deeper faculty whose influence we could only 
 know if we had complete knowledge of each individual 
 concerned. 
 
 It follows from this contention that the province of 
 our intellect in its treatment of social phenomena is 
 definitely limited. I am far from arguing that science is 
 impossible in relation to social facts ; it is of course 
 obvious that there is scientific knowledge of large fields 
 of phenomena which underlie social life, influencing its 
 changes at every moment ; and this scientific knowledge 
 is, equally obviously, of paramount importance to the 
 social philosopher. But since social phenomena, as such, 
 are for us sharply differentiated from natural phenomena 
 by the simple fact that we cannot observe them as they 
 are, but only as our bias presents them that, in short, 
 they are never neutral but always marked and classified 
 by the unconscious action of the observer's own social 
 prejudices it follows that the human intellect is not 
 competent to treat them as it treats the phenomena of 
 nature. There may be a real science of social life but 
 it is not for us. Only to an impartial observer not of 
 this human world could it be unfolded. 
 
 It follows, further, that if we venture now or at any 
 future time to predict the direction of social change, we 
 must do so, not scientifically but speculatively. In other 
 words, whoever is bold enough to be a prophet in regard 
 to the future of society must call himself a social philoso- 
 pher, not a scientist. As a philosopher, he may conceiv- 
 ably be right in his general forecast of the course of pro- 
 gress, basing this upon his analysis of the values of human 
 life and of the purposes of human societies. But as a 
 scientist he cannot advance at all beyond the natural 
 background of social events ; and the range of happenings 
 beyond that background is infinite. 
 
 I have said that this position has not been accepted, 
 and is not likely to be. The lure of scientific power is 
 even stronger to-day than it was a century ago in Comte's
 
 viii A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 day, and the sociologist will probably continue to claim 
 the impossible for some time to come. But the events of 
 the past few years have been strongly corroborative of 
 my contention. The social development of the world 
 has been upheaved, for good or evil, as a consequence of 
 definitely non-rational impulses, whose power and opera- 
 tion none foresaw or could foresee. At the beginning of 
 the war most intellectualists, as well as ordinary citizens, 
 found themselves impelled to action quite irrationally, 
 yet firmly believing they were right as they very likely 
 were. The few who stood firm to their principles 
 deplored " the stampede of intellectualism " and claimed 
 that they alone were right because they alone held to the 
 clear road of reason. It is beside the point to discuss 
 whether part of their claim was correct or not. What 
 matters is that society brushed them on one side and 
 followed its own "unreasonable " impulses. To say that 
 society was right in so doing would be meaningless : 
 society was doing the only thing it could do, the thing it 
 always does and must do in any moment of crisis or of 
 change. And the fact that it did so is not only in full 
 conformity with my contention, but is also a sign that 
 society itself holds the same view. In the great crises 
 we realize the fact equally valid in all moments of small 
 and unnoticed change that we do not know what to do 
 nor what we are doing, but we do what we feel we must 
 do, believing or hoping that it is also best. 
 
 E. J. U. 
 March, 1920.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION v 
 
 I SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS : THE REFORMER'S 
 INTEREST AND THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHER'S 
 INTEREST. THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHER'S POSITION 
 EXPLAINED i 
 
 II SOCIETY CONSIDERED AS SUBJECT TO THE FORCES 
 
 AND LAWS OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD . . 26 
 
 III SOCIETY CONSIDERED AS SUBJECT TO THE FORCES 
 
 AND LAWS OF ORGANIC LIFE .... 46 
 
 IV SOCIETY CONSIDERED AS SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF 
 
 MIND 80 
 
 V SOCIETY CONSIDERED AS SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF 
 
 MIND (continued) ...... 105 
 
 VI SOCIETY CONSIDERED AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE : 
 
 A UNITY DEPENDENT UPON PURPOSE . . 122 
 
 VII THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP, AND THE RIGHTS 
 
 AND DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN .... 146 
 
 VIII THE SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN SOCIAL PROGRESS, AND 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE TRUE INDIVIDUAL . . 171 
 
 IX THE REAL PURPOSE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS ; AND 
 THE TESTS OF THE REFORMER'S AlMS AND 
 METHODS ....... 197 
 
 X THE FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS . 216 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 241 
 
 INDEX 243 
 
 IX
 
 A PHILOSOPHY 
 OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS : THE REFORMER'S 
 INTEREST AND THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHER'S 
 INTEREST. THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHER'S POSITION 
 EXPLAINED 
 
 MODERN sociologists, and still more social 
 philosophers, are not yet quite free from an 
 inherited tendency to walk with their heads in 
 the clouds, and deal with great matters rather far removed 
 from our immediate social interests. But a reaction is 
 setting in. Just as the economist of to-day is paying 
 far more attention to actual unemployment and under- 
 payment than to the economic harmonies and abstrac- 
 tions which interested his predecessors, so the social 
 scientist is taking up one by one the concrete problems 
 of poverty, and applying his science to the practical 
 elucidation of their cause and cure. The reaction is to 
 be welcomed, and I gladly range myself on the side of 
 the new tendency but with one warning. There is 
 a danger of assuming that the social problem has its 
 existence wholly in the lower strata of our society ; that 
 it is simply a problem of poverty, a problem of the 
 slum, a problem of the submerged tenth ; and that we 
 may be satisfied to confine our investigations to those 
 parts of the social whole in which the evil is most 
 l 1
 
 2 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 obvious. This assumption is entirely misleading. Every 
 social evil runs right through society from end to end 
 only with this difference, that the sharp end of it 
 is usually found at the bottom, where the resistance is 
 weakest and the suffering greatest. It is there, no 
 doubt among the under-paid, the under-fed, the under- 
 housed, the under-cared-for that treatment is most 
 urgently called for ; but it is not always there that the 
 chief causes will be found. And if our investigations 
 are to be worth anything, we must consider our society 
 as a single unity, not as a bundle of segments which can 
 be examined separately. We are not confining our 
 attention to problems of destitution ; our aim is to 
 understand something of the problems of social evil and 
 the ways in which these may be changed. But, with 
 this proviso, we will gladly fall in with the modern 
 tendency, and take our starting-point from the quarter 
 in which the pressure of difficulties is hardest and the 
 manifestation of evils most obvious. In other words, we 
 will begin with the city slum. 
 
 Let us walk down a mean street together you, 
 a kindly citizen, and I, a would-be social philosopher. 
 To the eyes of both of us there appear the sordid sights 
 inseparable from the life of the poorest strata of a 
 civilization which does not know what to do with its 
 dregs. A horde of ill-clad children, some pinched and 
 ill, all falling short of full health and vigour, as of the 
 cleanliness which is one condition of health ; their 
 mothers, lounging wearily about the doorways, or talk- 
 ing shrilly to each other about their husbands' eternal 
 misdemeanours or their neighbours' equally flagrant 
 delinquencies, poor overburdened mothers, whose lives 
 have little room for rest, little scope for joy ; here and 
 there a loafing man, workless through his own or his 
 betters' fault ; at each corner the keystone of satis- 
 factory British life the beer-house, whose patrons 
 hail from almost every tenement in the street, often
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 3 
 
 spending their last shillings in support of our staple 
 industry ; over all the strange, heavy, listless thickness 
 which, even on the sunniest day or in the liveliest hour 
 of Saturday night, seems to hang over the meanest of 
 our city streets. Such are some characteristics of the 
 scene which meets us you, the kindly citizen, and me, 
 the would-be social philosopher as we pass down any 
 one of the overcrowded, forgotten blind alleys of our 
 modern city life. And if we assume that you are not 
 only kindly but also unaccustomed to the scene and 
 observant of any new thing, then it is quite certain that 
 you will turn to me and ask me why, in heaven's name, 
 we do not sweep all this reproach away ; why we do not 
 feed and clothe those children, give the people space 
 and air and clean homes to live in, leisure and oppor- 
 tunity to use and enjoy something better than the 
 public-house ; why we do not stop their habits of squab- 
 bling and sordid scandal-mongering, the laziness of 
 the loafers, the drunkenness of the sots, the gambling 
 of the fools, and a thousand other very obvious and 
 detestable evils. Why do we not alter it all, as resolute 
 people could, and as honest people would, if only they 
 saw and felt it vividly enough ? 
 
 And then I, as a humble social philosopher, will give 
 you the answer which every thoughtful student of 
 social life is bound to give (though how far the answer 
 is very important we need not settle now). These 
 people and all about them all their life, with its good 
 and bad are results of complex processes which began 
 far back in the past and certainly will not stop to-morrow, 
 which ramify through all our national life, forming part 
 of the vast social process in which and by which human- 
 ity lives. To put it quite simply : They are the results, 
 first of all, of forty million people on a small island, 
 getting a living in dirty ways from coal pits and iron 
 mines and resulting steam factories, in a given stage 
 of civilization by which is meant the power to make
 
 4 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 natural forces yield us what we want. In other words, 
 they are subject to certain laws of pressure, certain con- 
 ditions of nature and contrivance, certain limitations 
 of space and material, from which no existing thing 
 can escape. Hence, in part, the dirt and poverty and 
 overcrowding and want of leisure which you deplore. 
 
 Further, they are, like all living beings, subject to 
 certain laws of increase of population, of struggle, of 
 selection of fitter or stronger, of survival of individuals 
 and types, and also to the laws of growth and change 
 to which all living things must conform. Hence, in 
 part at least, these teeming thousands of children, this 
 continual dying off and suffering of many, this survival 
 of strange, unpleasant, self-assertive types (savages often, 
 fitted for a savage life), side by side with pleasanter, 
 gentler types ; hence, too, much of the want and sick- 
 ness among the weaklings. 
 
 Again, unlike other living beings, they are subject 
 to the special conditions of feeling and thought which 
 belong to human beings with their strong spontaneous 
 loves and hates, ideas and reasonings, together with their 
 power of communication, of self-criticism and other 
 criticism, of purposing, planning and achieving, and many 
 other attributes which mark the group of primates which 
 naturalists call hominidae. And to these psychical 
 attributes of humanity are to be traced, in part at 
 least, many puzzling characteristics of conduct and feel- 
 ing, of passion and sympathy, of desire, aversion, and 
 impulse, of cunning self-seeking and of kindly gener- 
 osity. 
 
 Yet again, they are all part of a living, organic unity, 
 with grades of service and enjoyment, of hard work and 
 leisure, with necessary functions to perform in necessary 
 ways, some pleasant and some unpleasant. And this 
 unity, which we call social life, imposes upon them 
 innumerable other conditions forms of social control, 
 ranging from custom or fashion or prevailing opinion,
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 5 
 
 to codes of law and of punishment, and a host of subtler 
 influences drawn from the fact of ordered social contact. 
 Hence, in part, this strange patchwork of life this 
 street of overworked factory operatives close beside 
 a street of professional or business men with leisure 
 and opportunity to live cleanly ; and the still stranger 
 fact of our general acceptance of such incongruities. 
 Hence also, in part, all these modes of behaviour in each 
 grade, from the habits of drink and blasphemy of the 
 few to the patient endurance of many, from the institu- 
 tion of the gin-shop to that of the school and church, 
 and a thousand other items of the tissue and fabric of 
 social life. 
 
 And finally, unlike any creatures we know, these 
 people have souls, and know it. They are related to 
 unknown realities and powers, dimly conceived and in 
 strange forms, but always conceived in some form or 
 other ; they are conscious too (dimly again) of a pur- 
 pose, duty, destiny, of a possible upward path, a pos- 
 sible better state of themselves, a possible heaven. 
 And hence their fits of remorse, their resolves to be 
 different and do differently, their individual and col- 
 lective strivings after something better than they yet 
 know, their visions of an ideal which shall some day be 
 made real. 
 
 Here, then, is your problem. You ask for a quick 
 change of all this squalor and degradation, this neglect, 
 apathy and injustice ; and heaven knows change is 
 needed quickly. But first learn what it is you are deal- 
 ing with, what is the material on which we are to set 
 to work. 
 
 The people whose lot we are to alter and we, who 
 are really inseparable from them are all members, as 
 it were, of five different universes, each with its own 
 conditions of existence. In all five universes we live 
 our lives, subject at every moment to the laws of each, 
 to the limitations and powers, the helps and hindrances,
 
 6 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 which the conditions of each universe impose or grant. 
 First, and least important, there is the material universe 
 of which we are a part, with its conditions of force and 
 energy by which our powers are circumscribed, and 
 also, by right use, enlarged. Secondly, there is the 
 universe of living things, with its laws of life and growth, 
 of health and disease, of birth, development, decay and 
 death, from none of which we can escape, and all of 
 which must be learned and obeyed. Thirdly, there is 
 the universe of human minds, with its special laws of 
 feeling and thought, sympathy and repulsion, planning 
 and achieving. Fourthly and very closely connected 
 with the third there is the universe of social units, in 
 which are brought to bear all the laws governing the 
 life of a homogeneous, co-operative, organic society, of 
 whose tissue and structure we all form part, in a mutual 
 dependence from which there is no escape, each affecting 
 all others by every action, each drawing from the whole 
 much of the stuff that makes our conscious life, much of 
 the significance that makes our life worth while. And 
 lastly, though far the first in importance, we are all part 
 of a spiritual universe, to whose laws of soul-growth our 
 souls are subject, from which we draw all that is best in 
 our resolves or aspirations, our living faiths and our 
 determinations to find the good. 
 
 Perhaps these characteristics of our complex nature, 
 this complexity of the material with which every re- 
 former has to deal, may be summed up by describing 
 ourselves as spiritual, social, human, living beings each 
 word standing, though in reverse order, for one of the 
 five universes to which we belong. 
 
 And now we may define the social philosopher's 
 point of view. The true social philosopher is he who 
 sees, behind every social problem, the necessary condi- 
 tionings and possible opportunities derived from each 
 of the five universes in which our life is set ; and who 
 applies himself to the task of learning all that he can
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 7 
 
 discover of the forces and laws of each universe. I call 
 him the social philosopher, rather than the sociologist, 
 because he alone can take into account all the conditions, 
 and so grasp the significance of the whole process which 
 we call social life. The sociologist (rightly, as a man 
 of science) confines his attention to four only of the five 
 universes, omitting the spiritual as beyond his scope. 
 The social philosopher goes hand in hand with him so 
 far, glad to learn from him the knowable conditions of 
 change ; but passes beyond his range for the final under- 
 standing of the meaning and aim of the process. But 
 both are alike in this, that in every social problem 
 whether of the. slum or the factory, of the sweated 
 worker or the rich waster, of ill-health, or injustice, or 
 criminality they see a many-sided problem in which 
 very different elements are combined, all acting and re- 
 acting on one another in unsuspected ways ; they see 
 also that in dealing with every problem certain fixed 
 conditions are set, within which alone the problem can be 
 attacked. Both believe, too, that many of these condi- 
 tions are knowable ; that they can be discovered by 
 the methods which science follows ; and, therefore, that 
 reform can, to some small extent at least, have the 
 sureness which scientific knowledge gives. But, perhaps, 
 most of all are they both alive to the complexity of 
 every problem. Every reformer comes armed with a 
 besom to sweep away a particular abomination the 
 filth of the slum, the demoralization of the public-house, 
 the degeneration of neglected children, the cruelty of 
 sweating, overwork and under-employment, and a host 
 of other obviously preventible curses. But you cannot 
 sweep away any one thing without upsetting innumer- 
 able other things, good, bad, and indifferent. You can- 
 not get your besom of cleanliness into the slum, or of 
 temperance into the public-house, without also disturb- 
 ing some of those old social habits which we call vested 
 interests, rights of property, and other more or less
 
 8 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 excellent things. You cannot improve the health of 
 the children without altering in strange ways the tissue 
 of family life, the accepted duties of parenthood, per- 
 haps the sacred institution of marriage as now main- 
 tained, to say nothing of a less sacred wage-system. 
 Perhaps it is good that any reformer's broom should 
 disarrange much of his neighbours' houses without his 
 intending it in the least : we may always need more 
 disturbance than any single reform contemplates. But, 
 at any rate, it is as well that we should realize, as far as 
 we can, that at every step this and that and the other 
 reaction will probably follow ; and it is the province of 
 the sociologist and the social philosopher to teach us a 
 little of this. It may be that they cannot teach us very 
 much ; whatever we do we shall have to take on trust 
 numberless items of unknown effects as we have to do 
 in every step of our individual lives. When we get 
 married, or choose a new house, or change our diet, we 
 take a big leap in the dark ; but we are uncommonly 
 foolish if we do not focus upon the action all the glim- 
 mers of light which experience of life or the sciences 
 of medicine and sanitation may offer. So with our 
 social ventures. The light of a little knowledge is held 
 out to us in separate rays by various observers and 
 sifters of experience, such as the economist, the eugenist, 
 the biologist, the true historian (not the court story- 
 teller), the political scientist (but not the politician), the 
 jurist, the moralist, the psychologist, the educationalist, 
 and others. It is the business of the sociologist to 
 focus as many of these rays as he can upon this or that 
 problem considered as a whole, and upon the general 
 process of social life and change. In doing so, he 
 increases our illumination, not only by the act of 
 focussing the rays, but by drawing new light from 
 observations of his own. We are fools if we do not use 
 the light he offers. But this does not mean that we are 
 to look to him for full guidance ; and the foolishness is
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 9 
 
 his if he expect that we shall ever wait until we have 
 complete illumination, or ever be persuaded that he is 
 or ever will be able to light up all the path we have to 
 tread. For all his help, we must still blunder along, 
 sometimes in defiance of what he thinks is made clear ; 
 but we will gratefully look with care at all he has to 
 point out, and avoid the manifest pitfalls which he really 
 is able to discover for us. 
 
 And this marks the point at which the social philo- 
 sopher parts company from the sociologist. To the 
 former, the explanation of every process, the resolu- 
 tion of every difficulty, the justification for every step 
 onward, are matters demanding something more than 
 scientific knowledge for the very simple reason that 
 the elements of our life include (as the most important 
 factors) something which is not subject for scientific 
 analysis or inquiry at all in the sense in which science 
 understands them. The man of science may attack, 
 with greater and greater success, four of the five worlds 
 by which our life is conditioned ; but when he treats 
 them, as the sociologist must, as a single complex con- 
 ditioning whole, it is clear that his knowledge of the 
 conditions will be too partial for such dogmatizing. 
 And the fifth world eludes him altogether, for its con- 
 ditions are neither physical, nor vital, nor psychical, nor 
 social and, therefore, do not fall within the purview of 
 science as now understood. Yet it is they these con- 
 ditions and forces of a spiritual universe by which the 
 whole of human life, even in its physical and vital 
 aspects, is modified and controlled. 
 
 Enough has now been said to explain in outline the 
 points of view of the sociologist and the social philo- 
 sopher. But the reformer is probably dissatisfied. No 
 doubt it is an excellent thing to be alive to the com- 
 plexity of every social problem, to realize that every 
 social situation, present or to come, depends upon 
 innumerable forces, in this world and beyond it, some
 
 io A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 obvious and some latent and unsuspected. But what 
 use in knowing this, if we can never learn enough about 
 the causes of social good and evil to enable us to act 
 surely and decisively ? Why not be content to register 
 the fact that full scientific knowledge of social pro- 
 cesses is beyond our grasp and then go on to do our 
 best under the guidance of common-sense and conscience 
 and brotherliness ? Sociology, it would seem, is but a 
 rush-light, of little use to guide us through the dark 
 forest of social and industrial tangles in which we are 
 enmeshed. Our plain duty is to cut our way through 
 as best we can, bold in the confidence of good inten- 
 tions and the belief that all honest effort brings 
 progress somehow. But your sociological considerations 
 are not only of little positive value, but will operate 
 negatively as a check upon strenuous endeavour. Where 
 zeal for reform is urgently needed, they do but induce 
 a kind of paralysis, an attitude of " non possumus," 
 which are the very worst enemies of improvement and 
 the safest props of selfish privilege. You admit that 
 you cannot, as sociologist, tell us plainly what to do to 
 stop the abominable miseries which form so deep a 
 fringe round the many-coloured garment of our civiliza- 
 tion. Yet you bid us pause before we act, and consider 
 the situation in all its bearings. If you cannot tell a 
 man in a burning house how he may safely make his 
 escape, at least do not urge him to sit still and " con- 
 sider the situation in all its bearings." Let him shut 
 his eyes and 'jump with all the boldness he can command 
 even if he does break a leg. And let us reformers 
 take our leaps in the dark boldly too, since confidence is 
 the condition of success. 
 
 The reformer has a strong case : may his daring never 
 grow less ! He will find, perhaps, that his robust 
 views are not in the least at variance with the philo- 
 sophy of social progress, whatever some social scientists 
 may say. But for the moment we are concerned to
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS n 
 
 justify the reasonable sociologist ; and it is not really 
 difficult. 
 
 Science is not valueless, because it cannot cover all 
 the field of life. In all groups of phenomena, however 
 complex, it is found that certain big causes stand out 
 clearly, producing certain big effects. These effects may 
 be modified, of course, in countless ways by the inter- 
 action of other causes ; but, whatever the modification 
 may be, they will always be present if their known 
 causes are present. This is the basis of all science ; it 
 is this fact which gives value to the discovery of any 
 " law." Fire burns and heavy things fall to earth, and 
 these are laws of transcendent importance although I 
 may not be able to tell whether the fire you are now 
 trying to light will burn up or fizzle out, nor whether 
 the picture you are now hanging will fall or stay firm. 
 And in some of the groups of phenomena which form 
 the setting of our social life, and the obvious condition- 
 ing of many of our activities, the same fact holds good. 
 Certain big and constantly recurring causes stand out, 
 always producing certain big effects ; and by knowledge 
 of these " laws " we can safeguard our actions to some 
 extent at least. We know, for instance, that good 
 drains will lessen certain diseases whatever else 
 happens and make a population so far healthier. We 
 do not, therefore, know whether the population so pro- 
 tected will be more or less virtuous, more or less ener- 
 getic, or anaemic, or gouty, or prosperous. We just 
 know that it will suffer less from typhus, cholera, and a 
 few other dangerous diseases. 
 
 We know, again, that long hours and low pay are 
 causes of, and will usually produce, inefficient workers 
 whatever else happens. We do not, therefore, know 
 whether a more leisured and better paid working class 
 will be more contented or more revolutionary, or more 
 less pious, and a thousand other important things. We 
 merely know that they will exhibit less of a definite
 
 12 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 kind of inefficiency which results from the discovered 
 causes of overwork and a low standard of living. 
 
 We know, again, that healthy parents produce 
 children with healthy bodies, and that unhealthy parents, 
 as a rule, do not. But we do not know whether the 
 children produced under strict eugenic conditions will 
 be gentler, kinder, wiser, or the reverse. 
 
 Now, all these are simple examples of sociological 
 knowledge, or science ; and this knowledge is always of 
 some use to us in our actions. We are glad that it is 
 available, glad to learn as much of it as we can, glad 
 that it should increase. If it acts as a check upon some 
 of our enterprises, we are grateful for the check or 
 ought to be. Yet it does not determine our actions : it 
 only safeguards them against definite dangers, circum- 
 scribes them within limits of comparative safety. 
 
 Within these limits we have still to choose our aim, 
 and determine for ourselves the direction in which we 
 shall move. But here, too, the social scientist may 
 claim some right of dictation. We know as the result 
 of long experience and observation that certain forms 
 of choice and willing are disastrous, and that other 
 forms are more salutary, if not actually necessary to 
 any sort of welfare. This is the foundation of all mor- 
 ality ; and, though it is not easy to find a scientific 
 basis for ethics, resembling, let us say, the scientific 
 basis of mechanics, we may at least assert that one 
 general law of social action is scientifically established 
 which w r e may call the law of benevolence. And by 
 this means we are able to establish a kind of touchstone, 
 or test of effort and of direction, by which we can 
 approve or condemn certain tendencies. Thus we may 
 be said to have scientific grounds for preferring 
 co-operation and brotherliness (as methods of social 
 behaviour) to self-centred struggle and aggressive 
 competition ; peaceable activities to warlike ; altruistic 
 to egoistic ; and so on.
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 13 
 
 But this addition to our scientific equipment does 
 not carry us far ; does not, in fact, do more than define 
 a very little further the limits within which our search- 
 ings and strivings after the good life shall be made. 
 All the science we have, all that we can ever hope to 
 command, will do no more than rule out of court certain 
 methods of behaviour, and establish certain conditions 
 for the attainment of this or that partial aim or end. 
 The determination of the general social aim, of the 
 direction in which, moment by moment, we shall col- 
 lectively choose to move this is not subject for science. 
 This determination depends always upon the whole com- 
 plex of forces which together form the vital impulse 
 of any society, and of these forces, physical, vital, psy- 
 chical, social, and spiritual, one set at any rate the 
 last is beyond the reach of science. The wise social 
 philosopher knows that the spiritual forces, which lie 
 behind the reforming impulses and determinations, 
 and which are of the essence of the will to reach out to 
 and attain an ideal, are far mightier than any of the 
 natural forces with which science has to deal very 
 much as the really religious man knows that faith can 
 remove mountains, though .the engineer doesn't believe 
 it, or at any rate does not take the fact into account. 
 
 But we need not dwell now upon this aspect of the 
 sociologist's limitations. The latter may, and probably 
 will, deny the fundamental assumption I have intro- 
 duced ; it is safer therefore at this stage to meet him on 
 his own ground. And the point which I am labouring 
 is this : that sociological science (including every 
 ancillary science which can possibly be brought to its 
 aid) can never be in a position to say to us : " This you 
 must do," or " This is best for you to do." And one of 
 the reasons is now clear. Scientific knowledge is de- 
 cisive and authoritative in regard to action when the 
 end in view is definitely known and capable of clear 
 definition. For the man who wants to build a bridge or
 
 i 4 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 cure a squint the science of the mechanician or of the 
 doctor is rightly dictatorial. But for the individual who 
 wants to improve his lot, or for the society which wants 
 to reach a better social state, there is no such science. 
 In social life there are no definite, limited, clearly 
 definable ends, for all ends or aims, even those which 
 seem most obvious and certain, are relative to the 
 indefinable and ever-changing general ideals by which 
 we are animated, and derive their qualities and their 
 significance from these. 
 
 For the benefit of the impatient sociologist, and the 
 no less impatient reformer, let me explain this rather 
 obscure matter a little more concretely. The reformer, 
 I imagine, is prepared to tell me that it is sheer quibbling 
 to assert that there are no clearly definable ends or aims 
 to which our efforts may be confidently directed. The 
 slum which we passed through together proclaims aloud 
 a dozen desirable ends healthy and well-fed children, 
 a city of homes in place of a city of dirty lairs, a re- 
 formed public-house, a shorter working day, and so on. 
 Surely there is nothing indefinite or qualified about such 
 ends as these ? The social scientist, too, has his instances 
 ready, whether as eugenist or economist or medico- 
 sociologist or what not. Are not health and abundance 
 and a vigorous race very definite and certain good things ? 
 If we know the conditions upon which these depend, 
 can there be any reason at all (apart from crass obstinacy) 
 why we should not go straight ahead and get them, without 
 stopping to talk vaguely about a general social ideal or 
 unknown spiritual impulses ? 
 
 A strong case, my friends but on the surface only. 
 I grant you that we are very certain about some items 
 in our aim, and about the conditions of insuring the 
 attainment of those items. We not only know that 
 sound drains and sanitation lessen typhus, but we are 
 all very sure that we want typhus to be abolished. We 
 may take it, therefore, that the abolition of typhus is
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 15 
 
 a quite definite element a negative element in any 
 general well-being or any social end at which we may 
 be aiming. But we cannot say this of any of the larger 
 and more positive elements of well-being to which we 
 give such apparently definite names as health or wealth 
 or security. Social well-being is made up of innumer- 
 able ingredients, each of which is dependent upon all 
 the others for its quality of value as part of the good 
 end. We delude ourselves when we think that we can 
 separate and define apart any one of the ingredients. 
 This is the constant error of the dogmatic social scien- 
 tist especially of the economist and the eugenist. 
 We want wealth, it is true ; but qualified by what other 
 conditions ? in what setting of other elements of a social 
 state ? We do not want wealth side by side with more 
 worldliness, more worship of mammon, more concen- 
 tration upon material satisfactions. Nor do we want 
 increased wealth accompanied by diminished sym- 
 pathy, gentleness, patience ; nor wealth in a setting 
 of deadening security. We want health, also all of 
 us ; but again, how qualified, and with what concomi- 
 tants ? To be more robust, more vigorous, more immune 
 from pain and disease this is all good ; but not perhaps 
 at the cost of many subtle intuitions and feelings, or of 
 many aesthetic appreciations and powers, or of moral 
 aspirations, or of what, for want of a better term, we 
 call spirituality. Is it not clear that, to the simple 
 question, "Do we want health, wealth, comfort, secur- 
 ity ? " we are bound to answer both yes and no ? We 
 want them all but not on these or those terms, not 
 in this or that setting, not with this or that qualification. 
 And so even our most obvious separate ends turn out to 
 be, by themselves, indeterminate, elusive only defin- 
 able in their full relation to a complete and complex social 
 good. 
 
 A fortiori this general social end or good, to which 
 we give the name of happiness or well-being, is indeter-
 
 16 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 minate and indefinite too. It is one of the conditions of 
 humanity's growth to be always defining and re-defining 
 the good at which it aims, always giving new content 
 to its vague conception of a better social state. And the 
 process by which it does this is partly an instinctive pro- 
 cess of vital change, partly a semi-rational process of 
 purposive progress, partly a process of idealizing which 
 whatever else it is is certainly not scientific. And the 
 whole process (at least in the higher human stages) is 
 conditioned by all the forces of the five orders which we 
 have provisionally distinguished as the physical, vital, 
 psychical, social, and spiritual. 
 
 We have now cleared the ground of some miscon- 
 ceptions and illusory hopes. We will not expect too 
 much of sociology. It is not a science of social life, for 
 there cannot be such a science ; but it is a growing 
 body of scientific knowledge concerning some of the 
 conditions under which social life is lived. We will not 
 expect too much of any separate social sciences. They 
 cannot be determining sciences of separate departments 
 of social life and activity, for social life has no separate 
 department or ends, but is a single complex whole, 
 related to a single complex aim, in which all separate 
 parts and aims are qualified by relation to all other 
 parts and aims. But each separate social science is a 
 growing body of knowledge concerning some of the 
 conditions under which particular and definable ele- 
 ments of a social state may be obtained such elements 
 being only desirable if accompanied by numerous other 
 elements lying outside the view of the separate social 
 science considered. And finally, in order to get, not 
 full explanation and guidance, for both are impossible, 
 but a rather less incomplete explanation of the forces at 
 work in our social life, and of the significance of those 
 forces and of the processes which result from them, we 
 must pass "beyond sociology to a philosophy of social 
 progress, in which, at any rate, all the factors
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 17 
 
 may be gathered into a single scheme or system. 
 
 Enough has been said for the present about the 
 value and the limitations of social science and the 
 separate social sciences. But a little must be added 
 to make clearer the aim and interest of the social 
 philosopher, as contrasted with those of the practical 
 reformer on the one hand and those of the social scien- 
 tist on the other ; and also about the special elements 
 of social life upon which his attention is chiefly fixed. 
 
 The reformer finds himself face to face with a fact 
 any fact of the slum upon which he has seized let us 
 say, the under-feeding of the children. He sees this fact 
 in close causal relation to other facts, such as under- 
 employment or drink or parental neglect or the com- 
 munity's apathy ; and he is concerned to alter one or 
 more of these causal facts as quickly as possible, in 
 order to alter the dependent fact of under-feeding. 
 
 The special social scientist is face to face with a 
 complex process of causation and development con- 
 nected with the particular group of facts which he has 
 taken for his province. The social economist, for 
 example, sees the fact of under-feeding in relation to a 
 complex process of work and wage, of production and 
 exchange ; in relation also to an equally complex 
 structure which he calls the industrial system, whose 
 growth and changes condition all our under or over- 
 satisfactions. The medico-sociologist, again, sees the 
 same fact in relation to complex processes of organic 
 life, dependent upon numerous social conditions of 
 hygiene, protection and care of the young, etc. To 
 each of these any proposed change or remedy opens 
 out at once very far-reaching issues, involving long 
 chains of cause and effect within the limits imposed by 
 the special subject-matter of their sciences. Within 
 these limits, each has quite enough to think about ; and 
 the questions raised by the suggestion of change take 
 the form : How will the step affect this or that special
 
 i8 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 process, this or that special habit of action, this or that 
 institution, this or that relationship ? 
 
 The general sociologist and the social philosopher 
 have no such limits to their field of phenomena, and 
 each must try to regard the fact of under-feeding in its 
 relation to all social processes, habits, institutions, and 
 relationships, whether economic or vital or political or 
 legal or educational or any other kind that may be 
 named or unnamed. In other words, they have to 
 consider the effect of any proposed change upon the 
 whole structure and tissue and process of society upon 
 all kinds of activities, institutions, and relationships, in 
 which the movement of our social life is expressed. 
 Clearly, then, it is necessary for us to give a definite 
 meaning to the terms by which we vaguely describe 
 this subject-matter of the philosophy of social life. 
 
 Let us begin by defining society. In the simplest 
 sense, we mean some kind of group, held together in 
 some way for some purpose, whose members are 
 somehow related to one another with reference to that 
 common purpose. But this vague description would 
 include both a pack of wolves and a board of directors 
 of a trust or combine. Let us add, therefore, that the 
 group must be more or less permanent or stable, as 
 well as human. This might still include the board of 
 directors, at any rate in a country like China, where 
 such offices would probably be hereditary. Yet they 
 would not be a society or complete social group because 
 the bond between them is only a partial one, and an 
 artificial one. It would not necessarily have any effect, 
 for instance, upon the family life or the citizen life of 
 the members. We need in some way to express the 
 fact that the membership of the true social group 
 affects or tends to affect the whole social life of the 
 members ; or, in other words, tends to affect all their 
 relations to one another. Consequently, in order to 
 make our definition of society or a society complete, we
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 19 
 
 must re-state it in this form : Any stable human group 
 which possesses a common end or purpose, and the 
 membership of which affects or tends to affect all the 
 relations of the members to one another. 
 
 Within such a group an infinity of events is con- 
 tinually taking place, events of action, feeling, and 
 thought ; as well as events of external nature, producing 
 constantly changes of structure, of relationship of the 
 members to each other, of custom and habit, of feeling, 
 attitude, idea, and tendency. This vast process of 
 events is the social process ; and the events themselves, 
 with all their consequences, whether quite transitory or 
 crystallized into more or less permanent things such as 
 social institutions, are the social phenomena whose signi- 
 ficance the social philosopher seeks to discover. But 
 not every event occurring within the group is a social 
 phenomenon. Every phenomenon has many aspects ; 
 and we are concerned only with the social aspects. An 
 earthquake or a toothache are not social events in 
 themselves ; but some aspects of them may be social. 
 An earthquake in Manchester and a toothache in the 
 Cabinet during a political crisis are emphatically social 
 events, having a very decided social significance. And 
 we may define a social phenomenon as any fact or aspect 
 of a fact which cannot be explained or described without 
 reference to the action of group members upon one 
 another, or without reference to social relationships. 
 
 But in order to explain more clearly what is meant 
 by social relationships and social institutions, it is neces- 
 sary to go more in detail into our account of social life. 
 
 Everybody stands in very numerous relations to 
 other people as brother or sister or parent, as neigh- 
 bour, friend, fellow-citizen, fellow- workman, and so on. 
 Some of these relationships are more important and 
 more universal than others, and can be divided off into 
 separate classes. Thus there is a very distinct and 
 important group of relationships based upon the facts of
 
 20 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 birth and growth, which may be called our vital rela- 
 tions ; another group based upon our everyday work 
 and business our industrial and economic relations ; 
 another derived from the constitution and government 
 of our State our political relations ; a fourth based 
 upon religious belief and worship ; and numerous others 
 which may or may not have distinct names. And in 
 addition, there are a few relationships based upon 
 omnipresent factors or processes of social life, which 
 cannot be divided off into departments though they 
 may be considered separately ; such are the moral 
 relationships based upon the fundamental facts of neigh- 
 bourhood and social contiguity ; and the psychical 
 relations inseparable from a community of minds in 
 close contact. 
 
 Further, in each distinct group of relations the 
 individual appears in a special aspect as father, 
 mother, son, or daughter ; as employer or employee, 
 wage-earner, buyer, seller ; as ruler, elector, councillor, 
 tax-payer ; as member of a church or mission or sect ; 
 and so on. 
 
 Thirdly, to each group of relationships there corre- 
 sponds a more or less distinct set of social activities in 
 which each member takes part, such as the family or 
 clan activities ; the economic activities ; political activi- 
 ties ; activities as members of a church ; and the like. 
 
 Fourthly, to almost every distinct class of relation- 
 ships there corresponds a more or less distinct class of 
 institutions. Thus we have the institution of the family 
 and of marriage ; the market and the wage system ; 
 the constitution, the Government, Parliament, Local 
 Government ; a national Church and an established 
 religion ; and so on. And this, perhaps, makes clear 
 the meaning of the rather puzzling term " social institu- 
 tion." It may be taken to mean any recognized and 
 established embodiment, whether concrete or abstract, 
 of some system of relationships or some method of
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 21 
 
 social activities. We say " whether concrete or abstract " 
 because some institutions appear to us or are thought 
 of as concrete, while others are plainly abstract. But 
 in reality every social institution is abstract, just as a 
 system of relations is abstract ; in other words, its 
 abstract meaning is the real essence of it, not the con- 
 crete form it may take. Thus it is not the market or 
 the law court as something concrete, but the implied 
 system of ideas and principles which is the real institu- 
 tion we call by the name ; it is not the Parliament or 
 the Church or the school or the family regarded as a 
 number of people related to one another for some 
 special purpose, but the system of government or 
 religious life or of education or of vital social grouping 
 which is the essence of the institution in each case. 
 
 Here, then, is our subject-matter : society, with all 
 its processes and phenomena, with all its structure of 
 institutions and relationships, with all its members and 
 their activities. All the institutions, relationships, and 
 activities are capable of being regarded in separate 
 groups or in special aspects, and each group may form 
 the subject of some special social science. Several such 
 groups and aspects have already been set apart in this 
 way, and special social sciences formed to investigate 
 them, because they have seemed to be of pre-eminent 
 importance. But any number of such divisions might 
 be made, for there is no limit to the social activities or 
 relationships or institutions. Sociology, as the general 
 social science, is bound to take as its field the whole of 
 social life, and to attempt to explain the whole social 
 process ; but, as we have seen, this explanation can 
 never be given scientifically, partly because the forces 
 and conditions to be taken into account are unlimited 
 and never fully known ; partly because the whole 
 process is related to an end or aim which is never 
 determined or defined, and never can be. 
 
 Social philosophy boldly takes the same unlimited
 
 22 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 field for its province, and, without pretending to explain 
 scientifically the causal processes at work in our social 
 life, endeavours to present the whole of that life as a 
 single process, whose significance is derived from its 
 relation to some end or coherent system of ends ; 
 endeavours also to make clear the significance and 
 value of every group of activities, relations, or institu- 
 tions, as part of a single system of activities, relations, 
 and institutions, which can and must be conceived as 
 having a definable meaning for all of us. It distinguishes 
 also between the scientifically known and the unknown, 
 between knowledge and faith, between processes de- 
 pendent upon reasonable calculation and processes de- 
 pendent upon impulse ; and, above all, it gives the only 
 possible justification for the numerous bold leaps which 
 we shall never cease to take, in spite of any number of 
 scientific dogmatizers. 
 
 Or we may explain the aim of a social philosophy 
 in this way. Social science is compelled, in so far as 
 it is to be scientific, to isolate the group or groups of 
 phenomena, relationships, institutions, activities, and 
 forces, which it intends to investigate. But these are, 
 of course, separable only in thought, not in reality. 
 The social relationships are all intertwined with one 
 another ; the aspects of the social individual are merely 
 aspects ; the activities are all interconnected ; the in- 
 stitutions are all interdependent ; the forces are all 
 working together. The same man enters into, lives 
 in, is occupied with and influenced by them all. The 
 business man is also a citizen, a neighbour, a family 
 man, and so on. His activities in each set of relations 
 may, indeed, be treated separately with considerable 
 advantage, for the sake of simplicity and clearness 
 just as we may treat any thing separately, in its num- 
 erical, its chemical, its mechanical relations, in order 
 to increase our scientific knowledge of it. But we have 
 always to remind ourselves that the special aspect or
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 23 
 
 set of relations we are considering is only one bit of a 
 complex whole. Unfortunately, this is exactly what 
 we are all prone to forget when we specialize in social 
 science. Nine-tenths of the mistakes of the economist 
 are due to the fact that he has been tempted to consider 
 the " economic man " out of relation to the moral man, 
 the family man, the citizen ; or to consider the market 
 and the system of business apart from the school, the 
 State, and the system of morals. Nor is it only the 
 student of a special social science who is exposed to 
 this danger. All of us, in our practice, tend to make 
 the same mistake. The practice of charity and relief 
 affords a good example. The Poor Law guardian or 
 the benevolent person who only regards applicants from 
 the two points of view that of the relations of depend- 
 ence or independence, and that of the economic func- 
 tions may go quite as far astray as the clergyman 
 who considers them only in the two relations of church- 
 membership and neighbourhood. A really enlightened 
 charity is bound to do its best to see the poor and 
 needy in all their relations the vital, organic, and psy- 
 chical, as well as the economic, legal, and moral a 
 difficult task, no doubt, but to be attempted, if the 
 treatment is to be part of a really sure social remedy. 
 It follows, further, from this complexity and inter- 
 dependence of social facts that the separate social 
 sciences which belong to each group are not really 
 separate but closely connected. We may therefore 
 make short work of the time-honoured question : Can 
 you treat economic questions apart from moral con- 
 siderations ? Of course you can, just as you can treat 
 hydrostatics or hydrodynamics apart from the chemis- 
 try of water. In each case you work out your laws 
 or truths really important laws and truths in ab- 
 straction or isolation from other considerations. But 
 the moment you try to apply them, or deductions from 
 them, to the complex social man and society without
 
 24 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 reference to the laws and truths of all other social 
 sciences, you attempt to do what is quite as dangerous 
 as furnishing the water-supply of a city in accordance 
 with the physical or mechanical laws of the action of 
 water, without taking into account the chemistry or 
 physiology of the water. In the former case you run a 
 risk of poisoning the life of your society, just as in the 
 latter you run a risk of poisoning the bodies of your 
 citizens. Clearly you need in each case to co-ordinate 
 and consider together all the important and pertinent 
 laws or truths. And in the case of water you can do 
 this, for the important and pertinent laws are not un- 
 limited. But unfortunately you cannot do it in dealing 
 with society, for in social life everything is important 
 and pertinent ; there are innumerable forces whose laws 
 ought to be taken into account, innumerable facts whose 
 order ought to be known and we cannot be omniscient. 
 We may make ourselves masters of every social science 
 yet invented and still be quite unable to do more than 
 guess at the cure for a simple evil such as hunger among 
 the children. We may write Sociology with the biggest 
 capital S we can find, and call it all manner of flattering 
 names a General, Co-ordinating, Synthetizing Science, 
 or any other soothing title ; but it certainly will not 
 co-ordinate more than a very tiny fraction of all we 
 need to know, if we are to proceed scientifically. What 
 then ? Can a social philosophy perform the impossible 
 for us, though science must fail ? By no means ; but 
 what it can do is just this : It can take the socius or 
 citizen, and explain what is involved in his membership 
 of the whole social group or any part of it, in his rela- 
 tions to other members, in his connexion with each 
 of the institutions which help to give meaning to his 
 actions ; will also take each known process of change 
 and each known or expected effect, and explain what 
 is involved in the fact of its being a part of a far vaster 
 process, an effect conditioned by an infinite sum of
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS 25 
 
 effects ; will take finally each end or aim, and show how 
 its worth must be judged by its relation to the whole 
 system of things worth having, which forms the moving 
 ideal of human society. 
 
 A social philosophy cannot tell us what to do, but it 
 can tell us very clearly where social duty lies, and how 
 attached to social facts ; it can never tell us how to be 
 happy or well-off cannot, indeed, define the content of 
 the end to which we give the name of happiness or well- 
 being ; but it can render explicit the general conditions 
 upon which any valid ideal must rest. It cannot say to 
 us, in reference to any known evil, " This is how the 
 misery can be cured " ; but it will say positively upon 
 what group of motives, impulses, and beliefs the cure 
 depends. And it is in this way that it can reveal some 
 of the significance of the structure and the process 
 which we call society and its life.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SOCIETY CONSIDERED AS SUBJECT TO 
 THE FORCES AND LAWS OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD 
 
 WE have now to undertake the first part of our 
 task : the consideration, under the sociologist's 
 guidance, of the various ways in which our 
 society with its social life is affected by the forces of 
 external physical nature, and of the extent to which, as 
 a part of the physical universe, it is conditioned by the 
 laws of that universe. 
 
 But two preliminary explanations are still needed. In 
 the first place, we must note that the sociologist's attitude 
 to the question differs from that of the social philosopher. 
 It is natural that most sociologists should be chiefly 
 interested in society as the all-important thing to be 
 explained ; and they therefore approach their task with 
 the implication that, when the inquiry is completed, they 
 will have reached an adequate explanation of the nature 
 and activities of the social units human beings. But 
 this is not the philosopher's attitude. He is not specially 
 interested in the nature of society and the social group 
 as such, but rather in the nature and life and powers of 
 the units composing the group. We will discuss later 
 the full relation of the individual to society ; at present 
 we may be content to say that we want to understand 
 society as something which conditions our life, as a very 
 definite environment in which our life is set very much 
 as we might want to understand our physical bodies as 
 
 26
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO PHYSICAL FORCES 27 
 
 conditions of our activities, and as a definite ever-present 
 environment of our individual life. In this latter case, 
 we should try to discover how the body is affected and 
 made what it is by the forces of nature which constantly 
 impinge upon it (as well, of course, as by the processes of 
 growth) ; we should be interested to find out how the 
 external environment such as climate, geographical con- 
 ditions, food supply, and so on reacts directly upon our 
 physical form upon stature, strength, and health, for 
 instance or indirectly, by influencing the activities in 
 which we engage. Just in the same way we are interested 
 to discover how the external physical conditions react upon 
 our social environment upon society regarded as our 
 greater body, so to speak. And the reason of this view is 
 this : We call society our constant environment rightly, 
 because, as social beings, we never escape from it and 
 its influences. But, just as we refuse to allow that we 
 are merely social beings, or that our social nature is the 
 clue to the truest part of us or to the highest form of our 
 activities, so we refuse to allow that the social explana- 
 tion, however complete, can explain all our life and 
 activities. The nature of the. social group is not co- 
 extensive with our nature ; the former does not fully 
 explain the latter. 
 
 And further, the social group or society the larger 
 body by which my activities are conditioned is never 
 a single definite unit like my physical body. It is a thing 
 among things, a group among other groups just as is a 
 forest, or a star-cluster, or an ant-hill ; but it is not an 
 organism, in spite of having organic characteristics, nor is 
 it the seat of a feeling or thinking mind, in spite of having 
 a mental side a side of increasing importance. Nor am 
 I confined within it, nor compelled to live subject entirely 
 to its conditions. The particular social conditions of my 
 society become less and less the sole determinative 
 influences in my life as that life opens out. A baby or 
 young child lives altogether in its nursery-group of
 
 28 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 mother, nurse, and brothers and sisters. But, as it 
 grows older, it emerges into wider and less coherent 
 groups, until at last, perhaps, it lives much of its signifi- 
 cant life beyond the society of which it is still a part, 
 and even, perhaps, beyond any social conditions though 
 it is still subject to all the limitations of social existence. 
 Some of my friends, undoubtedly, live part of their lives 
 among the ancient Hindoos or Greeks or Jews, not as stu- 
 dents, but as thinkers, idealizers, and even as practical 
 men and women ; others, especially the vain ones, are 
 almost as much among the French as among their fellow 
 English, although they may never cross the Channel ; 
 some of us, perhaps, at dark moments of our lives, live like 
 the prodigal son among the swine at a pig-trough ; and a 
 very few walk, like Enoch, with God, and pass some of 
 their life in heaven. Clearly these people and their 
 activities are not merely a part and product of their 
 society. Nor, to go a step further, are they merely the 
 product of any society or combination of social conditions 
 a fact which is involved in our original assertion 
 that they are all spiritual beings. But the sociologist 
 who takes the social group or social phenomena as his 
 starting-point is usually driven to explain our life and 
 activities wholly by reference to it, and as products of 
 its working. He would argue, for example, that every 
 element entering into our life has a social origin (apart, of 
 course, from the elements which are purely physical or 
 organic) ; and that the social explanation will cover 
 satisfactorily, not only the philosophies of Greece and 
 India, and the art and taste of France, but also the 
 particular pig-trough in which some sinners wallow, the 
 particular God which some saints worship, the particular 
 heaven which they imagine they find. This is the 
 position which at the outset I have denied ; and I em- 
 phasize the antagonism of view by taking the individual 
 as my centre of interest, and considering him as subject 
 to social conditions, as to a form of environment which
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO PHYSICAL FORCES 29 
 
 is itself only to be explained by reference to his nature 
 instead of beginning with society and the social con- 
 ditions, and then explaining the individual by reference 
 to them. And the result of this different attitude is 
 that it enables us to take the view whose importance 
 will appear subsequently that social conditions come to 
 matter less, as formative influences, as the individual and 
 the race develop ; and that the supra-social powers of the 
 individual come to matter more and more as the formative 
 factors to which the changes of social condition are due. 
 
 In the second place, the questions which we have 
 to consider in what way society and social life are 
 affected by various sets of forces have a fuller content 
 than appears at first sight. We may amplify them in 
 this form : The social life in which we are all merged 
 has all kinds of characteristics and elements; how are 
 they determined ? From what causes do they spring ? 
 Why have we the particular kind of family which we 
 have ? Why these laws ? Why this city or village, 
 with its arrangements and order (or disorder), its con- 
 trivances and government ? Whence these customs 
 and ways of doing things ? Why these class distinc- 
 tions and differences of power and opportunity ? Why 
 these poor and needy ? Whence these (occasional) 
 feelings of sympathy, and this much commoner apathy ? 
 Whence also these achievements ? This knowledge, 
 art, literature ? These railways, factories, buildings ? 
 These policies and political parties ? Whence all these 
 forms of religious belief, worship, superstition, or un- 
 belief ? These conceptions of property, duty, crime ? 
 Whence, in a word, all this social setting into which we 
 are born here in England ? It is very different from 
 that of the ancient Aztecs, or the more modern Greeks 
 and Romans, or the present-day South Sea Islanders, or 
 Russians, or Americans. Very different too from that 
 of our own society of a hundred or fifty years ago. How 
 explain the changes ?
 
 30 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Let it be remembered, also, that the questions in- 
 clude innumerable small matters, as well as big. Why 
 does a man take off his hat to a woman, and not vice 
 versa ? Or why do men wear detachable hats, and 
 women not ? Why is the dog the most popular domes- 
 tic animal ? And why are the most useless, or the most 
 delicate, or the ugliest dogs the favourite pets to-day ? 
 Our discovered causes of social development must 
 at least point the way to an answer to such questions 
 as these ; for all these things form part of the social 
 state in which we live, and none of them is without its 
 significance. And it is this entire complex of them all 
 which we denote by the phrase " society and social con- 
 ditions," not the particular bits which the ordinary 
 citizen (perhaps rightly) dwells upon most, such as the 
 slum and its poverty, the laws and their effect, the Govern- 
 ment and its influence. 
 
 Moreover, the social philosopher is supremely inter- 
 ested in all the answers which sociology can give him ; 
 for the question : " What lies behind all this stuff which 
 forms my social conditioning ? " must be answered as 
 fully as possible before I can go on to ask, " What does 
 it all mean for me ? How can I use it best ? How 
 can I make it better ? " Right use and real improve- 
 ment depend upon something more than the causes 
 which science can lay bare ; but neither the use nor the 
 improvement will be what they might be unless these 
 causes are known. The analogy of our bodies is 
 entirely to the point here. I will not admit that the 
 development of my character is wholly a result of 
 physical, vital, and social conditionings ; but I will 
 admit that each of these has an important effect upon 
 it. An east wind or a business worry affects my liver, 
 it may be, and this reacts upon my whole nervous 
 system, and so upon my power of self-control. That, 
 however, is not the whole explanation of my surly 
 temper ; but it is an important part. It is the part
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO PHYSICAL FORCES 31 
 
 which the doctor discovers, and to which he confines 
 himself ; and I am interested in it, not because I care 
 much about the internal processes of my body, but 
 because I am glad to know how this or that hindrance 
 or help to my moral and spiritual progress is produced 
 by environmental causes. For, after all, however high 
 in the scale any human being may be let us say one 
 whose spiritual life overshadows all else he never 
 ceases to be a centre towards which the forces of the 
 inorganic world converge, a being in whom the forces 
 of organic life are at work and a feeling and thinking 
 mind whose operations are subject to psychological and 
 social laws. In other words, whatever else he may be, 
 he still remains a thing among things, an animal among 
 animals, a mind among minds, and a social unit among 
 social units, subject to all the laws of things, animals, 
 minds, and society. 
 
 And the attitude of the social philosopher to the 
 discoveries of the sociologist is very similar to my 
 attitude to the discovered conditionings of my physical 
 body. It is not that he expects to find in them the 
 whole clue to this or that social evil or this or that 
 social remedy ; but he knows that they will reveal 
 an ever-present part of the conditions. He knows, 
 too, that the " natural " causes of this part of the 
 conditions do not form a separate process which can 
 be taken for granted any more than the operation of 
 the east wind or worry form a separate process or work 
 on a separate plane, distinct from the working of my 
 will and spirit. There is not one chain of causation 
 which ends in a social state with which we, as struggling 
 spirits, are left face to face, and which we then proceed 
 to attack with the special forces at our command ; 
 on the contrary, the process of causation is a single one 
 from beginning to end, and in that process our wills are 
 working side by side with all the other forces to produce 
 whatever social state now is or ever will be. Then with
 
 32 A 
 
 what other forces have our wills to combine or contend ? 
 And what is the mode of their action ? These are 
 the questions we ask the sociologist to answer for us. 
 
 Consequently, in order to get at the meaning of 
 social life, we set ourselves first to examine social 
 groups, their members, their relationships, their institu- 
 tions, and their activities, as influenced by physical, vital, 
 and psychical forces ; and we begin with the modifica- 
 tions impressed upon society by its subordination to the 
 external forces and the laws of the physical world. 
 
 We may glance briefly at some of the sociological 
 generalizations falling under this head, which are now 
 rightly regarded as rather suggestive than trustworthy. 
 
 Society has been brought directly under the laws of 
 matter and force by virtue of the fact that its develop- 
 ment appears to follow always the order of cosmic 
 evolution. Every society exhibits the universal process 
 of progression from a small, loosely connected aggregate 
 with very simple structure and great sameness of parts, 
 but an increasingly large and compact aggregate with 
 constantly increasing complexity of structure and 
 heterogeneity among the component parts. Such a 
 generalization is of little use to us ; but we may at least 
 register the fact that we may expect, in accordance 
 with the laws of cosmic evolution, to find our society 
 and its parts and its activities becoming ever more 
 complicated and diverse, though not less interdependent, 
 as time goes on. 
 
 Again, society has been brought under the cosmic 
 law of energy, and the principle of the conservation, 
 limitation and transmutation of energy has been applied 
 to explain many of the phenomena of social change. In 
 early times the limited amount of energy available in 
 any social group is seen to be directed now to one form 
 of activity, now to another, but never to many forms at 
 once. At one stage all energy seems to be absorbed 
 in fighting, and very little internal progress takes place.
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO PHYSICAL FORCES 33 
 
 Consolidation and strengthening of the social group go 
 on, but very little development of differentiated structure. 
 With peace comes greater internal activity, quicker 
 growth of social institutions, together with criticism and 
 discussion and yet further change of internal processes. 
 In later civilizations, it is true, we find energy distributed 
 in apparently innumerable channels ; but it still seems 
 definitely limited. Concentration upon any one big 
 thing necessarily stops or checks the internal growth 
 and change. There is little internal progress during a 
 great war. Also, special attention paid to any one set 
 of activities tends to starve other activities. Rapid 
 economic progress and wealth-making go side by side 
 with diminished spiritual progress ; and marked develop- 
 ment and use of the powers of thought and feeling in 
 any form are accompanied by diminution of physical 
 advance marked either by less robust health or a 
 declining birthrate or less output of energy. Such 
 fluctuations and transpositions of energy are universal, 
 and are often vaguely illustrated from history. The 
 extraordinary outburst of literary, artistic, and philo- 
 sophic activity among the Athenians of the end of the 
 fifth century synchronized with the decline of their 
 fighting powers ; Rome's ability to conquer, organize, 
 and govern, waned as soon as energy was oliverted to 
 intrigue and pleasure. The Jews have been many 
 astonishing things, from examples of religious intensity 
 to marvels of commercial enterprise and success ; but 
 seldom more than one thing at a time. When merchan- 
 dise and money are in the ascendant, the Talmud and 
 the Bund are on the wane. So in our society. Our 
 spiritual activities sink to a low ebb when industrial 
 pursuits are made the centre of the nation's activity ; 
 we are rightly called materialistic during the period 
 of greatest commercial expansion. In America, also, 
 you may find many small ideal experiments going on, 
 without much success ; and much material success 
 
 3
 
 34 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 with correspondingly little idealism. And in Germany, 
 as Fichte and others have sorrowfully admitted, the 
 thoughtful, introspective, poetical, and philosophic 
 activities of seventy years ago seem to be disappearing 
 in face of the outer, pushing, progressive activities of 
 to-day. 
 
 So, again, with more special phenomena within any 
 society. The birthrate declines among the intellectuals ; 
 why ? It is not merely a matter of preference : E. A. 
 Ross is only partially right in saying that the Americans 
 now prefer to " take out their success in upholstery 
 rather than in babies." It is truer, perhaps, to say (as 
 some one has crudely put it), that a thinking woman 
 cannot also act the part of a constant child-bearer. 
 Among our poorer population, on the other hand, 
 energy is so much absorbed in the primary struggles of 
 work or the rearing of children, that little room is left 
 for intellectual activity a fact which is at the root of 
 the present disheartening difficulties of working-class 
 adult education. 
 
 These generalizations are mentioned for what they 
 are worth which is very little indeed. As in the case 
 of the law of cosmic evolution, it is perhaps worth our 
 while to register the fact that the laws of energy must be 
 borne in mind when dealing with changes of social 
 phenomena, although attempts to explain any of the 
 phenomena by reference chiefly to this law are crude in 
 the extreme. And further though this belongs to a 
 later stage of our discussion the laws of energy pro- 
 bably require to be re-stated before they can be applied 
 to human society ; for it is at least possible that for all 
 spiritual beings there exist sources of energy to be 
 drawn upon which are outside the calculation of the 
 cosmic philosopher. 
 
 Another group of generalizations demands a moment's 
 notice. It was at one time fashionable to refer to 
 differences of geographical formation and of climate for
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO PHYSICAL FORCES 35 
 
 an explanation of differences of national character. 
 Historians and philosophers of history would fall back 
 upon such causes in order to explain the difference 
 between the versatile Athenians and the stolid Boeotians, 
 the energetic Norsemen and the indolent South Sea 
 Islanders, the conquering and colonizing British and the 
 peaceable Hindus. But such generalizations are rightly 
 discredited nowadays, and have no place at all in socio- 
 logy. Like many generalizations of history, they are 
 valueless, for the simple reason that they mass together 
 a vast number of complicated influences (without analy- 
 sis) under the single head of " land " or " climate," and 
 a still greater and much more complicated collection of 
 social elements under the head of " national character," 
 and then link the two together without analysing the 
 connexions. Not in this way can any true causal rela- 
 tions between external influences and the elements of 
 social life be established. Those influences do not act 
 directly as one mass upon another ; but in subtle, indirect 
 ways make their mark upon the tissue of society, and 
 the conduct of its members. 
 
 We turn, therefore, to very much more refined state- 
 ments of the action of the external world upon society. 
 Sociologists are now generally agreed that natural con- 
 ditions, such as climate, geographical position, the flora 
 and fauna of a district, do produce a constant modifica- 
 tion of all social activities and institutions, by operating 
 through the economic necessities of the social units. 
 In its extremest form this theory was elaborated by 
 Karl Marx. His position may be summarized thus : 
 The lines of development of everything around us are 
 determined by the conditions of the natural environment. 
 This is clear, whether we consider the structure of the 
 rocks, the growth of the trees, or the organs of all living 
 things. Why should not the same causes explain the 
 structure of human society and the organs of society, 
 such as its industrial organs, its governmental organs,
 
 36 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 and so on ? It can easily be shown that this is really 
 the case. If we look at an animal society say, a 
 colony of beavers we find that everything about it, 
 from the houses that compose its framework to the habits 
 and teeth and limbs of the members, is the result of the 
 natural environment reacting in particular ways upon the 
 needs of the beavers. So, too, with human society : 
 nature, working through man's needs, causes the plough 
 and the mill, the farm and the farm-house, the steam 
 factory and the railway ; the slave system and the wage 
 system ; feudal government, and then democratic govern- 
 ment with all its " free " institutions all alike subordin- 
 ated at every stage to nature's directions, which make 
 themselves felt through the tools and machines and 
 methods and organizations of industry necessitated by 
 economic needs working in a particular environment. 
 
 But where Marx generalized wildly, a much more 
 genuine sociologist set to work to establish a rather 
 similar but saner position by careful observation and 
 scientific inquiry. Frederick Le Play, a French engineer, 
 spent some twenty-six years in the collection of elaborate 
 details concerning the influences of place upon work, 
 and of work upon the family and social organization of 
 societies ; and in consequence of his and his followers' 
 researches it is possible to state with confidence the mode 
 and extent of nature's influence upon our social life. 
 
 Examination of the characteristics of early or primi- 
 tive groups shows that the kind of country they inhabit 
 determines the kind of occupation to which they are 
 compelled to devote themselves. On a bare sea-coast 
 they must needs fish to get a living ; in a forest country 
 they must hunt in small groups ; on the prairie they 
 must hunt also, but in larger groups ; on land like 
 the steppes of Central Asia, or the Tundras of Northern 
 Asia and Europe, they can only get a living by herding 
 horses or reindeer ; in a fertile valley they can and 
 usually must till the ground and grow corn. Now the
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO PHYSICAL FORCES 37 
 
 important result of this is that the kind of occupation 
 thus forced upon the people tends to determine not only 
 the size of the group, but the constitution and organiza- 
 tion of the society, the relations of the members to one 
 another, the feelings and disposition of the people, their 
 customs and ideas. No part of their life is unaffected ; 
 and the different effects are traceable to this single set 
 of causes the external conditions imposed by nature. 
 Nothing could be more marked than the difference 
 between a primitive fishing folk or forest hunting group, 
 and a pastoral folk. The small, unstable families of the 
 former are contrasted with the large, well-organized, and 
 stable patriarchal families of the latter ; callous indif- 
 ference to the claims of parents and elders among the 
 former are opposed to religious veneration for the head 
 of the family on the part of the latter ; in place of 
 thriftlessness and inability to look beyond the present 
 hour, there appear careful provision for the future and 
 capacity to think not only of this life but of the next as 
 well. Institutions and ideas differ also. Among the 
 former peoples, the instinct of private property leads 
 little further than the recognition of the right of a man 
 to own the weapons he has made or stolen and the 
 game he has killed and the wife he has caught ; but 
 among the latter, ideas of both private and communal 
 property are well developed, rules of inheritance are 
 recognized, and the social order that depends upon 
 property is established. And all these differences are 
 due to the fact that the manner of living, or rather of 
 getting a living, is so different ; and this in turn is due 
 to the compulsion of natural surroundings. 
 
 The differences, again, between the moving pastoral 
 peoples and the fixed village communities of agricultural 
 folk, are no less marked, and might be traced through- 
 out all the departments of their social life. And for the 
 causes of these differences again, we must go back, 
 always and chiefly, if not entirely, to the natural con-
 
 38 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ditions which have forced this or that kind of occupation 
 upon the different groups. 
 
 When we pass to the more advanced groups which 
 we usually call civilized societies, we find the same 
 forces at work in the same ways, though the processes 
 and results are, of course, more complex and difficult to 
 trace. But there can be little doubt that this one 
 influence of place upon work is a vera causa to which 
 constant attention must be paid whenever we are trying 
 to explain the elements of social life, even in the most 
 advanced societies. The actual physical conditions of 
 the territory occupied by any society or group is, and 
 will probably always be, a clue to many of the activities 
 in which the members are engaged ; these in turn react 
 upon their relations to one another in countless ways, 
 and so affect their social organization, their institutions, 
 their prevailing ideas and ideals. This fact has been 
 expressed in the formula that " place determines work, 
 and work determines social organization " ; and upon 
 the basis of this formula the sociologists who form the 
 Le Play school have built up a very considerable body 
 of sociological knowledge. 
 
 It is, however, necessary to enter a warning against 
 a too exclusive attention to the one set of causes which 
 we have been considering. Without belittling the 
 labours and discoveries of any school of sociologists, 
 the social philosopher is bound to insist on the need for 
 constant modifications of statement necessitated by the 
 complexity of the material and the different orders of 
 forces at work. And perhaps the most reasonable view 
 to take is this : land, climate, and food-supply, the 
 resulting modes of work or industry, these factors domin- 
 ate the whole social life of early societies, and are 
 never without their effect upon every department of 
 the life of more advanced or civilized societies. But their 
 influence tends to be increasingly modified by the very 
 different internal influences which we have provisionally
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO PHYSICAL FORCES 39 
 
 called the vital forces and the mind forces ; and most of 
 all by the growing consciousness of purposes and aims 
 on the part of society and its members. In the early 
 stages nature compels and dictates ; it drives and 
 pushes and forces social life into this or that channel 
 and form. At a later stage the compulsion becomes 
 less, as man's power and conscious purpose grow ; but 
 the nature influence remains as an influence always 
 present, if not always fully realized. At a still later 
 stage, the influence will perhaps become more easily 
 modifiable still, until it may be quite secondary to other 
 factors of our development ; until at last the social 
 beings who at the first were made what they were by 
 their physical conditions, may end by making their 
 physical conditions for themselves in accordance with 
 their own aims. We may conceivably be within reach 
 of the time when we shall make our own climate, our 
 scenery, our soil and our food-supply what we want 
 them to be, instead of just accepting them from the 
 hand of an all-dominating nature. 
 
 This diminution of the importance of the physical 
 forces, as society lives its way into a fuller life, is an 
 obvious but very significant fact. Society doubtless 
 follows the order of development expounded by Herbert 
 Spencer, but it follows other orders too. In the early 
 stages, it is like a mere thing, such as a crystal ; and 
 the physical forces count for everything. Its structure 
 and institutions and aims (if we can so call the ends 
 towards which it is pushed) reflect the characteristics of 
 a physical-force period. Toughness, cohesion, compact- 
 ness, are the first needs ; force-institutions are the 
 earliest institutions ; the war-chief or strong man is the 
 first form of ruler ; external force or necessity is the one 
 explanation of everything. Later on, the organic nature 
 asserts its power more, as it were ; and the vital forces 
 emerge into more obvious importance. The ends of 
 society now become more clearly the ends of a growing
 
 40 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 thing increase of size, differentiation of structure, 
 adaptability. The institutions are no longer mere force- 
 institutions, but growth-institutions. They are what 
 they are because they have grown to that form, and 
 because growth has required them to be so. Custom 
 the evidence of long-continued growth is the basis 
 upon which they rest. The strong man leader gives 
 place to the tribal chief patriarch, or oldest father. 
 
 Still later, the psychical or mind-forces and the 
 spiritual or soul-forces begin to show themselves as 
 rivals to the growth-forces ; the partly conscious influ- 
 ence of reason and soul appears. Now the ends of 
 the society may indeed be called purposes or aims, 
 though at first hardly presented to consciousness or 
 explicitly recognized in any way. Still, the new motive 
 power is there. A just and well-ordered community, 
 pleasing to God and to man's reason, is the general aim ; 
 a new basis appears for all institutions, for law, govern- 
 ment, family life, and the rest. And it may be de- 
 scribed as consonance with this aim a basis in which 
 reason and religion combine. The institutions are now 
 those of purpose, resting in some measure upon thought 
 and agreement ; first perhaps upon the dictated or 
 assumed reason and thought of God, then upon the 
 discovered and justified reason of man. First a priest 
 ruler a judge or priest or pope ; then the God-appointed 
 king ; then the constitutional monarch ; and finally the 
 assemblage of minds ruling themselves. Custom gives 
 place to the reason why ; the basis and justification of 
 every institution begin to be found in the fact not that 
 it is and has been and must be so, and has endured as 
 long as can be remembered, or has grown into what it 
 is but in the fact that it commends itself to reason, is 
 accepted by reasonable people, is agreed upon as best 
 and wisest. 
 
 It is convenient to talk of stages ; but it is incorrect 
 and misleading, except in the sense of stages in which
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO PHYSICAL FORCES 41 
 
 this or that set of forces is predominant, without any 
 sort of implication that all the other forces are not still 
 at work. In the earliest known stage of human society, 
 there is a glimmer of conscious purpose, and the growth 
 impulses are of course operative. And in the latest 
 stage we can ever hope to reach the physical forces 
 will be still at work inevitably ; for so long as society 
 is conditioned by the necessities of a physical universe, 
 so long those forces will affect it. In other words, how- 
 ever much we grow in thought and knowledge and 
 power and purpose becoming more and more minds 
 and spirits we do not cease to be also bodies, nor do 
 we cease to be things. The social units can never cease 
 to be things and animals as well as minds and souls ; 
 but they may hope to become more decidedly mind and 
 soul than thing and animal. 
 
 In another way the predominant elements of the 
 earlier stages may be said to survive in later societies ; 
 in the form, I mean, of strata of population at different 
 levels of development. Some groups of primitive 
 savages are to be found in every society ; yet larger 
 numbers representing the simple growth stage. The 
 former are motived or moved almost only by external 
 force. To the question, Why do they do this or that ? 
 the only intelligible answer seems to be, Because they 
 have to. The latter, on the other hand, are moved 
 by the impulses of their natural life and growth, and by 
 the elements which embody the past elements of that 
 growth. They too, are pushed from behind though the 
 force is one within them or within their group. Why 
 do they do this or that ? Or approve of this or that ? 
 Is it because they have thought it out, and found it in 
 harmony with their rational system of life the man- 
 made guide which leads the philosopher on into the 
 future ? Or is it because of an ideal which they draw, 
 as an inspiration, from they know not whence ? Not in 
 the least ; it is because the inherited structure of their
 
 42 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 social life dictates it ; because the custom or convention 
 or rule, which has its origin and sanction in past responses 
 to felt vital needs, prompts them to do or approve this, 
 to avoid or disapprove that. 
 
 It follows that we shall expect to find, and do find, 
 the physical forces (pressures and necessities of external 
 nature) not only acting unevenly upon the strata of 
 modern societies, but in so far as society is one 
 acting in strange and complex ways. Their influence 
 can still be traced ; but not now directly or simply. 
 No longer the direct effect of climate or food-supply or 
 habitat compelling a particular mode of life and form of 
 social organization ; instead, we find these causes working 
 through many steps of intermediate cause in which 
 other forces are combined. Strange, half-thought-out 
 devices of industry and social arrangement such as 
 capital, legal regulation of work and hours and wage, 
 communal protection and provision have come between 
 us and the simple forces behind us, modifying their 
 action in countless ways. And at most we can say that 
 our mode of life is determined by these physical forces 
 in unanalysed combination with totally different ones. 
 
 This chapter has, at any rate, a negative value. It 
 explains the danger of what is known as the economic 
 or physical interpretation of history and social life. We 
 are not yet in a position to condemn such interpre- 
 tations on the ground that they are essentially mate- 
 rialistic, though they always are this, and so deserve 
 the name of economic determinism. Nor can we yet 
 prove that they are wrong because they make all our 
 ideals and aspirations subordinate to physical pressures. 
 But we can at once object to their one-sidedness, as 
 applied to the explanation of the complex social life of 
 a civilized community. The factors which now count 
 for most in the formation and changes of our social 
 state are the purposes and aims and impulses of a partly 
 rational society. The direction in which these lead us,
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO PHYSICAL FORCES 43 
 
 and the limits within which they work, may have been 
 almost wholly determined in the distant past by phy- 
 sical conditions, and are partly so determined still. But 
 their influence now is misrepresented if they are regarded 
 as following rather than leading. Even their physical 
 origin (if that is the true account) does not imply a 
 physical determination in their more developed stages. 
 
 The economic interpretation has been pressed too 
 hard the usual result of the discovery of a real influ- 
 ence previously neglected. We accept it as far as 
 it can take us. If we are trying to explain the Cru- 
 sades, we will take into account the neglected causes 
 of the pressure of population and the scarcity of food ; 
 but we will not exalt these into the all-important motives. 
 If we are trying to explain a modern phenomenon such 
 as a millionaire or a missionary or a trust, we will 
 include among our causes the pressure of industrial 
 needs and circumstances ; but we will include these 
 side by side with elements of desire and aim and 
 even individual ideals, as < well as of faith and religious 
 conception of life, or want of faith and non-religious 
 conception. And we will regard these others as belong- 
 ing, now at any rate, to distinct orders of forces. 
 
 But has the chapter any positive value too ? Does 
 it mean anything to the reformer ? Does it really help 
 us to explain the slum and its evils, and so to remedy 
 them ? A little, certainly. In any colliery village, or 
 cotton town, or sea-port, or commercial centre, many 
 characteristics of the people and their habits 
 and their family life and their views are only 
 explicable by reference to the environmental pressures 
 working through their economic needs. This is true 
 also of any complete society and its structure. Our 
 House of Lords, our conception of property, our class 
 distinctions, our city life, our policies, none of these can 
 be understood apart from the significant facts that an 
 agricultural economy has recently been superseded by
 
 44 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 a manufacturing economy each the outcome of physical 
 causes plus sundry accidents of conquest and discovery. 
 Well and good ; but let us come to closer quarters with 
 the matter. Here is an East London riverside street. 
 The physical interpretation explains part of its popula- 
 tion and its life. An island, sea-faring people are 
 bound to be traders ; trade requires ports ; ports must 
 have docks ; docks demand dockers ; and the irregu- 
 larities of wind and tide compel irregular dock work. 
 Hence our street of casual dock-labourers, watermen, 
 lightermen, stevedores, and so on. 
 
 Not so, the reformer may retort, with just vehemence. 
 All this sequence of compulsion involves no compulsion 
 for us. The result of them all is not a street presenting a 
 set of conditions which must be so, but a set of conditions 
 upon which our wills and our reforming zeal have to work. 
 We have hitherto left the conditions very much what the 
 physical pressures have made them ; neither the wills 
 of the dwellers in the street, nor the wills of all other 
 citizens have yet tackled the situation as we should 
 and could and must do. Compelling nature makes all 
 sorts of conditions, I grant you ; and they ramify 
 through the whole of our life if we let them. Some 
 are perhaps unalterable : nature does set fixed limits to 
 our activities. We cannot very well be a fisher folk or 
 have an Admiralty if we live in Central Asia ; we cannot 
 have a really successful Alpine Club if we inhabit a 
 perfectly flat country. This is common-sense. We 
 must also have docks and dockers ; but we need not 
 have casual dockers or half-starved dockers. And 
 this is just where nature's dictation ends. Limits are 
 set within which our activities and our life are confined. 
 But limits are not set to the improvement of the quality 
 of the life so confined. The only important lesson to be 
 learned from all this discovery of physical causation is 
 this : that if this street of casual labourers is to be 
 changed, then the change will and must run back
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO PHYSICAL FORCES 45 
 
 through all the chain of causes which have helped to 
 produce it the system of dock labour, the management 
 of the docks and port, the methods of our commerce 
 and trade. And the changes may come about in two 
 ways. Either we, as a community, may go to work and 
 alter the system and the methods, and so save the 
 dockers ; or just possibly the dockers may take 
 their salvation in hand themselves, and, by altering 
 their lives, compel alterations in the system of their 
 employment and the methods of trade which produce it. 
 The reformer is right. There is no more to be said.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SOCIETY CONSIDERED AS SUBJECT TO THE FORCES 
 AND LAWS OF ORGANIC LIFE 
 
 SOCIETY lives ; social phenomena are phenomena 
 of life. What have the laws of life to teach us 
 about them ? 
 
 In explaining the life of anything there are always 
 three sets of facts or laws to be taken into account : the 
 facts of organic structure ; the facts of organic growth ; 
 and the facts of organic evolution. 
 
 The facts of organic structure may be expressed in 
 this way : Everything that lives has some sort of 
 structure which is what it is because of the function, or 
 work, or purpose for which it exists. This is best ex- 
 pressed by likening it to a machine or tool (an " organon ") 
 which is what it is by reason of the work it has to do. 
 And all the parts of a machine its structure, in other 
 words have a meaning, or are to be explained only by 
 reference to this work or function. The word " organic" 
 therefore implies, at any rate, this : the possession of 
 structure or definite arrangement of parts, dependent 
 upon function, and deriving its meaning from its pur- 
 pose or function. And an organism is a living structure 
 whose meaning or significance depends upon its func- 
 tions. The structure is composed of parts, called separate 
 organs, each with a function also ; and the parts are 
 composed of cells, each of which, again, has a function to 
 perform. These cells are the ultimate component 
 
 46
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 47 
 
 elements of the organism so far, at least, as we need 
 analyse it here. 
 
 This possession of structure, consisting of organs 
 composed of groups of cells, all related to the vital 
 purposes, is the first fact of importance to be noted. It 
 may be added that increased complexity of structure 
 implies advance in organic life, for the simple reason 
 that increased differentiation of organs and parts implies 
 more numerous functions and purposes, and therefore 
 more manifold activities on the part of the organism, as 
 well as greater adaptation to different kinds of work. 
 
 It is clear that the facts of society correspond to a 
 great extent to the facts of an organism. Its structure, 
 and the relation of that structure to function, are both 
 obvious. Every society possesses organs, which are 
 what they are because of the work they have to do a 
 directing or governing part, for instance ; a producing 
 or food-obtaining part ; a distributing or circulating 
 part ; a protecting part, and so on. It is clear, too, 
 that the whole structure and its parts are made up of 
 cells, though it is less clear how exactly we should 
 define those cells. From the point of view of the organs 
 and their functions, we must regard the individual 
 citizens as the cells ; but in relation to the general life 
 and growth of society as a whole we would more properly 
 call the family the cell. But the family is not the unit 
 which is of importance in making up the different struc- 
 tures of society. For these individual men (and some 
 women) are the important units or component cells ; 
 and the family may be regarded as a kind of enveloping 
 cell-substance which exists in order to preserve and 
 reproduce the functioning cells which are required to 
 form the organs of the society. 
 
 Again, like every organism, the " social organism " 
 as a whole may be said to have a general vital function 
 to which its entire structure is related. The general 
 function or purpose of every organism is the satisfactory
 
 48 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 preservation of the life of the organism under the con- 
 ditions which nature happens to have imposed. So 
 with society. Whatever else we may have to say about 
 the ends for v which society exists, this, at least, is true, 
 that its most obvious and necessary function is to keep 
 itself alive, in a satisfactory way, in the circumstances 
 in which it happens to find itself. 
 
 And, lastly, the dependence of structure upon func- 
 tion, and the interdependence of all the parts and 
 functions upon one another, are organic characteristics 
 which may certainly be predicated of society. All the 
 organs are what they are and perform the functions 
 which they perform and continue to be so and do so 
 because of their connexion with the whole organism and 
 its vital function and with one another ; and the same 
 may be said of the cells, in part, at least. And this 
 interdependence is perhaps the most significant fact 
 which the " organic analogy " emphasizes for us. Social 
 life from beginning to end presents, at least, this char- 
 acteristic of an organism, and we rightly use the terms 
 which imply organic nature such as structure, organs, 
 tissue. For every bit of it is incessantly reacting 
 upon every other bit ; nothing can be dealt with 
 separately ; no part can exist without modifying the 
 condition of every other part. This is so obvious and 
 so much a truism that we need continually to be re- 
 minded that it is also true. If the slum is neglected 
 it cannot possibly be well with Mayfair or Suburbia. If 
 Mayfair is extravagant or luxurious then the poor must 
 suffer. If religion is neglected, not only morality but 
 business enterprise and physical fitness will be affected 
 somehow. If neighbours are neglected the relations of 
 employer to employee, of friend to friend, of brother to 
 sister, will be altered for the worse. The effects may be 
 slow and obscure and unexpected, but the effects are as 
 certain and inevitable as are the similar results which flow 
 from the organic connexions within our physical bodies.
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 49 
 
 Society is not one, as Plato would have made it, in such 
 a way that every injury to any insignificant part of it is 
 felt at once through all the parts. But society is one, if 
 not in feeling, at any rate in fact ; and probably 
 humanity also, so far as its different groups and members 
 are socially related at all. For every social relation is 
 an " organic " relation in this sense, that it involves the 
 necessary organic reactions indicated by the word 
 " interdependence." All our treatment of the natives 
 of India or of Africa, all the actions we perform or 
 countenance, all the omissions for which we are respon- 
 sible, throw their effects back through the whole 
 tissue of our social life, insensibly perhaps, but surely. 
 
 So far we find that the analogy holds good, and 
 suggests numerous considerations which it is well that 
 the social philosopher should take into account. But 
 the analogy (even when we confine our view to social 
 structure and function) cannot be stretched far ; society 
 resembles an organism in many characteristics, but the 
 points of difference are more numerous and more 
 important than the points of resemblance. One or two 
 obvious differences may be noted here ; the most 
 important of all will be dealt with later. In the first 
 place, the cells out of which the organs of society are 
 built up are never wholly fixed or specialized as a com- 
 ponent part of a single organ. Every normal indivi- 
 dual is a component part of many organs. A bishop 
 is not merely a Church functionary, a soldier does not 
 exist solely to fight, and most workmen do many other 
 things besides their day's work. And, as we shall notice 
 later, these other things are of more importance in giving 
 significance to the cell than its ostensible social function. 
 
 Similarly, all the organs or structural parts of society 
 are plastic and even interchangeable in ways unknown 
 among organisms. A sect or a Church or a group of 
 traders may become an army of fighters ; while an army 
 may be dissolved at a moment's notice, and convert 
 4
 
 50 A 
 
 itself into a body of peaceable farmers or tradesmen. 
 In no organism, even of the lowest type, do we find any 
 phenomenon really resembling the turning of swords 
 into pruning-hooks. 
 
 Again, society has no organs whatever for certain 
 important functions, such as feeling and thinking. Does 
 that merely mean that it is so low in the scale of organic 
 life that it neither feels nor thinks, and so requires neither 
 a sensorium nor a brain ? As will appear later, the 
 difficulty cannot be resolved so easily ; social feeling is 
 a reality, though no organ exists for it. 
 
 We pass on to the second set of facts which must be 
 considered : the facts of organic growth and change. 
 These may be stated, for our purpose, in this way : 
 First, that change is always going on in every part of 
 the organism ; secondly, that the changes are all deter- 
 mined from within by the life-characteristics of the 
 organism and its special needs, as well as by the environ- 
 ment in which it lives ; and thirdly, that all the changes 
 which belong to organic growth and change follow invari- 
 ably a definite cycle of development, maturity, decay and 
 death. 
 
 Of these facts, the first undoubtedly finds illustration 
 in the life of every society. It is of the utmost im- 
 portance to realize that no single institution, no relation- 
 ship, no social habit or custom or attitude or view, no 
 belief or creed or conception, is ever stationary, ever the 
 same two days running. The Church of to-day is never 
 the Church of yesterday ; our constitution and laws are 
 undergoing alteration even when Parliament is not 
 sitting ; the institution of private property is changing 
 little by little every day and will so change, in spite 
 of all the property defence leagues in the world ; the 
 full definition of the family which fits our family now 
 will not fit it next year. It does not follow that all or 
 any of these changes are " progressive " in the sense of
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 51 
 
 being movements to some better state. It may be so ; 
 or the change may be only an advance in old-fogeyism, 
 or a movement from greater to less usefulness, or from 
 comparative stability to great instability. 
 
 But the second fact is not applicable to society. The 
 determination of the incessant change of an organism 
 from within, and not merely from without, is one of the 
 very obvious characteristics of any living thing. That 
 is to say, every organism begins as a group of fixed 
 potentialities, which determine absolutely the lines of 
 its developmental changes. An acorn must grow into 
 an oak tree, and a baby into a human adult if they 
 grow at all ; and from birth to death all the changes 
 which belong to the organic life of each are determined 
 in their kind by the fundamental oak-nature or human 
 nature. Of society we cannot say this. We may, indeed, 
 insist that all its changes are determined from within, 
 by movements of feeling, impulse, and felt need ; but 
 there is no fixed group of nature-potentialities to which 
 all the changes are relative, as is the case with every 
 organism. 
 
 And thirdly, society has no predetermined cycle of 
 change by which it is compelled to pass through the 
 fixed stages of growth, maturity, old age, decay and 
 death. It is one of the shallowest of social generaliza- 
 tions to predicate old age or decrepitude of any society^ 
 Historians may speak figuratively of the decay and death 
 of an empire of the decline and fall of Rome or Baby- 
 lon, of the possible decline of the British Empire. But 
 the sociologist is forced to deny that societies have 
 any term of life or vigour, or need ever die or decay. 
 The life must be constantly renewed and is so renewed 
 indefinitely. But any society may live (with probable 
 fluctuations of power and achievement) for any number 
 of centuries ; and any institution such as a Church 
 may live on indefinitely too changing incessantly in 
 subtle ways, but without any break in the thread of its life.
 
 52 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 When we turn to the third set of facts the facts of 
 organic evolution we find that the analogy of society 
 to an organism breaks down almost entirely. But, as 
 we are now dealing with a thoroughly dangerous word, 
 a preliminary explanation is necessary. Evolution may 
 be taken in its literal meaning of " unrolling " or " un- 
 folding " ; and in this sense it may be applied to any 
 living thing whatever, from a bud or a flower to society 
 and its life. But organic evolution is now generally 
 understood to imply a definite process by which types 
 and species of living organisms and their organs are 
 evolved ; and unfortunately it is in this sense that the 
 word is often applied to society and social institutions. 
 Now the facts of organic evolution of this kind are as 
 follows : First, that the organisms multiply their kind 
 and die and are succeeded by descendants of the same 
 type, but slightly differing from the parents ; secondly, 
 that between organisms and types of organisms there is 
 a constant struggle to survive, or competition for the 
 means of subsistence ; thirdly, that the individuals and 
 types best fitted for the existing environment tend to 
 survive, and so the variation of type best fitted for 
 survival does actually tend to endure. And these facts 
 form the basis of what are known as the laws of heredity, 
 variation of type, natural selection, and survival of the 
 fittest. 
 
 Now none of these facts or laws can be applied to 
 society and its institutions except in a very figurative 
 and peculiar way. The succession of individuals, one 
 generation constantly taking the place of its prede- 
 cessor, is a necessary condition of heredity and varia- 
 tion. But societies do not die and leave offspring to 
 succeed them ; institutions such as Churches, armies, 
 or legal systems do not produce other institutions to 
 continue their kind. Variation, it is true, is always 
 taking place ; but it is not this sort of variation. There 
 is no break in the life-thread ; the incessant change
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VltAL FORCES 53 
 
 which we have asserted of everything social is accom- 
 panied by indefinite continuity of the life of the society 
 or the institution. It is true, also, that we apply the 
 conception of heredity to social life, speaking of the 
 heritage of each age, or of our social inheritance. But 
 the use of the word is wholly figurative ; the Church of 
 to-day inherits what the Church of yesterday has handed 
 down to it, very much in the sense in which a man of 
 fifty inherits what his youth has bequeathed to him. 
 
 The conceptions of struggle, selection, and survival 
 are similarly inapplicable. There is struggle between 
 societies and between institutions and types of organs 
 within them ; there is also selection and survival of types. 
 But again, it is not at all the struggle, selection, or 
 survival which organic evolution requires. We speak, 
 for example, of the competition and struggle between 
 our industrial system and that of Germany ; but the 
 process and result are both peculiar, consisting in a 
 constant series of reactions of one system upon the 
 other, leading not to the disappearance of one and the 
 survival of the other but to endless modifications of 
 both by means of imitation of method and purposed 
 changes of organization and device. 
 
 The facts which we have been considering, of organic 
 structure, growth and change, and evolution, do, of 
 course, apply to the individual units the human beings 
 of whom society is built up. For we, the units, are 
 living organisms, and therefore subject to all the laws of 
 organic life. But it is important to note here that, since 
 we are also human, social, spiritual beings, the laws of 
 organic life work upon us subject to all the controls 
 imposed by the conditions of these other sides of our 
 nature ; and the effect of their working which is, of 
 course, never absent is merged in a very complicated 
 sum of effects which, as a whole, is very different from 
 the effects found among all other organisms. Thus, the 
 forces of heredity and the natural agents of selection
 
 54 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 (such as disease and war) are always at work among us 
 exactly as among all existing living things. But we 
 may combine the forces of heredity with the forces of 
 our aims and purposes in such a way as to produce 
 types which nature would never have produced, or to 
 give a very long lease of life to other types which nature 
 would have killed off long ago. And in the same way 
 we may, and certainly do, complicate the effects of natural 
 selection and survival by the interaction of what we 
 may call, according to our prejudice, the vice of humani- 
 tarian sentimentality or the virtue of humane sympathy ; 
 and the total result is something very different from 
 what would have appeared if the forces of nature and 
 organic life had been left to work alone. But however 
 far this process of our meddling may go, it does not in 
 the least alter the fact that, throughout our individual 
 lives, and throughout the life of the race or the species, 
 the laws of the organism apply every whit as much as 
 to any other section of the organic universe. The biolo- 
 gist or the biological sociologist is only wrong when he 
 finds fault with our meddling, and asks us either to allow 
 the natural forces to produce their natural effects with- 
 out the distortions due to our designs, or else to combine 
 with them only the forces (the purposes and aims) which 
 he thinks good. For then he passes beyond his pro- 
 vince ; the social aims are not more his business than the 
 business of any other citizen. As well might he exhort 
 an Indian fakir, who insists upon holding his arms straight 
 out for an indefinite time, to allow the forces of gravita- 
 tion to have their natural effect in drawing them down 
 to his side again as would happen with any ordinary 
 mortal. If the fakir chooses to combine with gravity 
 the force of his own will and purpose, and so produce a 
 very unusual result, what is that to do with the man of 
 science ? And if the latter urges that the result will be 
 deleterious and will probably cause atrophy of the 
 muscles (and he very properly might urge this), even so
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 55 
 
 his argument is not in the least conclusive. The fakir 
 has another aim than physical fitness ; if atrophy is the 
 price he has to pay for the attainment of this aim, well 
 and good. The man of science may call him an out- 
 rageous fool ; but his arguments are not pertinent. 
 And in something of the same way (though the analogy 
 is an extreme one) the biologist may call society foolish 
 or mad for aiming at results very different from those 
 which nature tends to bring about unaided or un- 
 hindered. He may rightly warn society of this or that 
 atrophy or other consequence, and the social units must 
 take heed to the warning. But the argument is not 
 conclusive ; if we still insist upon giving play to our 
 sympathy or sentiment, in accordance with some aim of 
 our own, that is an end of the matter. We may be 
 extraordinarily foolish, like the fakir, in the eyes of 
 the man of science. But only the far-off result can 
 prove that. 
 
 One or two points suggested in the foregoing dis- 
 cussion call for fuller consideration. We noticed that 
 the units or cells of society could not be regarded as 
 really analogous to the cells of an organism, by reason 
 of the fact that they are not specialized and fixed in 
 relation to a particular organ or the performance of a 
 particular set of functions ; and that the organs are also 
 peculiar in consequence of their plasticity or power of 
 changing their work or function. The cells do all 
 manner of things in the course of a single day, and in 
 connexion with other organs ; their individual activities 
 are far more numerous than those involved in their one 
 defined function ; no one is entirely a component part of 
 a single organ, absorbed in its work, as are the specialized 
 cells of an organism, such as the nerve cells, bone cells, 
 hair cells, and so on. Each social unit may have one 
 chief function from which his usual description is 
 derived as workman, policeman, postman, or member 
 of Parliament. But this by no means exhausts his
 
 56 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 meaning ; and a much more serious matter is often 
 far from indicating the most important part of his social 
 significance. Similarly every organ performs many 
 functions, or at least has many activities ; though, again, 
 each has some chief function from which it derives its 
 name, as a factory, or an army, or a prison system. But 
 in this case, also, the real social significance of the organ 
 goes beyond this beyond, indeed, any possible definition 
 of its functions and activities. 
 
 Now the functions and activities of an organ or cell 
 of our physical bodies are doubtless often more diverse 
 than we know, and our definitions of them are far from 
 complete. This is probably true of all living matter. 
 We can define accurately and completely the function 
 of a watch or a hammer as such. But we have pro- 
 bably not got to the bottom of the activities of the heart 
 or the phagocyte cells or any other part of our organic 
 bodies. We know and define each by reference to some 
 functions only ; but then we know in these cases that 
 the activities which we have discovered and included in 
 our definition are the important and significant ones in 
 relation to the structure and the growth and welfare of 
 the organism, as it interests us. The heart is the organ 
 which pumps the blood, and the phagocyte cells are the 
 blood's scavengers ; and that is what we chiefly want to 
 know about them. It is possible that every cell has 
 a life of its own with far more complex and interesting 
 activities ; it may conceivably have its loves and hates, 
 its feelings and prejudices, very much as every human 
 social unit has. But these do not appear to matter in 
 relation to our bodies ; they produce no serious changes 
 in our health or physical condition. A disappointment 
 in love or a change of creed on the part of any or every 
 phagocyte cell in my body does not make me feverish 
 or alter my organic structure and functioning. So long 
 as they do their scavenging work, I need not care what 
 they feel or think. But in the case of the organs and
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 57 
 
 cells of the human society, it is just these undefined, 
 obscure, internal activities which are important and 
 significant in relation to all social changes in relation to 
 all that we call progress. We classify individuals and 
 define institutions in accordance with some observed 
 functions which they undoubtedly perform ; but the 
 elements which really matter the most are found to 
 elude our categories. 
 
 One or two examples will perhaps make this, clear. 
 If we take any normal citizen, we may define his social 
 activities as fully as we can, designating each group by 
 the name we give, calling him a workman, a father, a 
 neighbour, a local councillor, and so on. The due 
 performance of function in each case is of great social 
 importance, undoubtedly ; but it often happens that the 
 undefinable activities of the man are much more impor- 
 tant, as affecting the quality of social life and progress. 
 Does he drink much ? Does he spend his leisure in 
 gambling or in street preaching ? What does he think 
 and feel about all kinds of things ? What ideals does 
 he dwell upon ? How much does he cultivate his spirit- 
 ual nature ? These are the kinds of questions we 
 want to answer if we are to estimate his influence on 
 society and its changes. And the answer cannot be 
 summarized in any definitions of functions, however 
 elaborate. Mr. Charles Booth's detailed account of the 
 life and labour of Londoners is very valuable to the 
 social philosopher ; it even includes an estimate of the 
 religious " organs " at work, and their effects. But even 
 though such an account were carried into seventy times 
 seventeen volumes, we should still be all at sea about 
 the real potentialities of improvement latent in the 
 population of London. Close contact and intimate 
 knowledge will reveal a few inhering in a few individuals ; 
 here is a porter who is fired by strange artistic ideals ; 
 here a coal-whipper, whose life and therefore much of 
 his influence is that of a religious mystic ; here a
 
 5 8 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 boot-maker who lives, not for his boot-making, but for 
 the spread of red-hot socialism ; here a dock-labourer, 
 who, like the Jonathan Pinchbeck described by Mr. 
 Thomas Holmes, would have made the finest naturalist- 
 collector of the century if only he had had the oppor- 
 tunity. These are the things which we need to know 
 about the units of our society if we are to answer the 
 question : Of what is that society capable ? What 
 changes is it prepared for ? What forces lie hidden 
 within it ? 
 
 With institutions the difficulty is very similar. The 
 army is one of the most definite and easily defined 
 organs of the State. But when every fact about its 
 organization, its fitness for the performance of its func- 
 tions, and the nature of those functions, is known, we 
 have still to ask : What of all the other activities con- 
 nected with it ? What of the by-products of its 
 functioning ? What does the soldier learn to think and 
 feel by his term of service ? What kind of citizen-ideal 
 does the army generate, both among its members and in 
 the community at large ? And once more, these are 
 the matters on which we need enlightenment if we are 
 to estimate the significance of the army as a factor of 
 social progress. 
 
 Now if the organic analogy held good, if the porters 
 and coal-whippers and Jonathan Pinchbecks were the 
 cells of such an organic body, then all the other activities 
 of then* lives which we have indicated would be important 
 to them as individuals, but would not be important as 
 affecting social changes or conditions ; and if the organs 
 of society were really organs, then, too, the obscure 
 activities connected with them would be negligible, so 
 long as their organic function was performed properly. 
 But the reverse is the case. The real significance of 
 social life the true causes of its being what it is and 
 becoming what it will be, the essential elements which 
 give it value all these things depend primarily upon
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 59 
 
 those activities of units and organs which lie outside 
 their ostensible functions, are not included in any 
 definition of functions, and are for the most part never 
 definable because never fully known. 
 
 Another point connected with the unknown potenti- 
 alities of social development calls for careful explana- 
 tion. We noted that society differed from an organism 
 in the mode of determination of growth and change. In 
 every natural organism the growth or development is 
 pre-determined along all important lines. As the po- 
 tentialities of the seed or the embryo, so the growth 
 subject only to a more or less, a better or worse, in 
 the manifestation of its necessary qualities, due always to 
 the influences of environment. Beginnings of new 
 qualities may indeed appear slight variations in the type 
 whose origin is at present obscure, though certainly 
 conditioned by some elements in the past parentage of 
 the organism or some new elements in the environment. 
 And these beginnings of variation may in succeeding 
 generations become the basis of a new type. 
 
 In any social group or human being, the same law 
 of growth holds good as to part of its manifestation of 
 life and characteristics. The germs of its future state 
 are to be found in the present and the past ; and that 
 future state is the natural sequence or development of 
 the potentialities now existing. In a general sense this 
 is, of course, true of every conceivable change ; nothing 
 whatever can happen to-morrow of which the causes are 
 not in existence somewhere to-day. But organic growth 
 and change mean something more definite than this. 
 They mean that the determining causes of change are to 
 be found (if the analysis is made finely enough) in the 
 existing structure of the organism and this is true of part 
 only of social changes such as changes of st ructure 
 but not of the changes which are of most interest to us. 
 The existing monogamous family has a definite structure
 
 60 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 and characteristics which undoubtedly determine to a 
 considerable extent what our family will be like a genera- 
 tion hence ; and so with all social institutions. There 
 will be numerous slight modifications, such as alterations 
 of the laws of divorce, or of the rights and duties of 
 parents and children ; and accretions of these modifica- 
 tions will in time perhaps produce a new type of family 
 which cannot be classed as the same species as our 
 present monogamous family. This kind of change very 
 closely resembles organic development ; and it is 
 important, and has very far-reaching consequences. 
 But this is not the kind of change that interests and 
 affects us most ; and this is not the mode of causation 
 by which the most significant changes are brought about. 
 While the slow organic change is going on, there may 
 come, at any moment, quickly or slowly, a change of a 
 different order superimposing, as it were, of a new 
 quality of the life contained within the structure of 
 the monogamous family, giving a new meaning to the 
 whole nature and structure and process of the family. 
 This kind of change we may, if we like, call " developed," 
 and the potentiality is doubtless present beforehand ; 
 only it exists, not in the natural body of the group, 
 but in the whole stream of life or energy in which 
 the life of the group is merged, and from which (and 
 not from any germs of change within itself) it draws its 
 motive impulse. 
 
 And as with groups, so with individuals. Many 
 changes in their lives are organic, in the true sense that 
 they result from the ordinary processes of development 
 and decay. But the kind of change which we describe 
 as, let us say, the " conversion " of an individual has no 
 analogue in the organic world,* any more than has a 
 
 * I am aware that this statement might be flatly contradicted 
 by those scientists who hold that even the most startling conver- 
 sions (such, for example, as those described by Mr. Harold Begbie 
 in his " Broken Earthenware ") are only extreme instances of
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 61 
 
 group or organ with a changed ideal or spirit animating 
 it ; and it is this kind of change which is by far the 
 most interesting and significant to us, and not the 
 organically determined changes. Moreover, changes of 
 this sort cannot, without confusion, be called natural, 
 except in the sense that they result from causes which 
 might be discovered and described if only we could see 
 deep enough ; but they are not natural in the stricter 
 sense, by which we imply that they reside, as potenti- 
 alities, either in the nature and structure of the organism, 
 or in the enveloping conditions of external nature, or 
 both. They must be sought in the subtler conditions of 
 thought, purpose, will, and aspiration, which form the 
 super-organic nature of society and its members. 
 
 So far we have dealt chiefly with generalities about 
 the organic nature of society. This treatment is never 
 satisfactory. The practical reformer and the ordinary 
 citizen, quite properly, want to know what all the 
 biological and sociological jargon means in relation to 
 the hard facts of social life and the glaring needs of 
 improvement. Does it mean anything useful ? Has it 
 any concrete application to our problems of poverty and 
 suffering, our proposals for reform ? Let us therefore go 
 back once more to the slum, and consider the organic 
 analogy in its bearing upon it and its needs which is 
 tantamount to saying that we will consider it in relation 
 to very necessary changes. 
 
 We have seen that social life, or any bit of it, has 
 certain definite organic characteristics, far the most 
 
 revulsions of feeling and desire, of impulse and habit, which are 
 met with in many forms of organic life. This contradiction is 
 based on a difference of first principles. I need only point out that 
 I am at present assuming the existence of causal factors in human 
 life which are not met with (as far as we know) in other forms of 
 organic life, and this fundamental assumption rests for its justifica- 
 tion on the fact (to be made clear later) that without it we reach 
 no satisfactory interpretation of the whole process of social and 
 individual development.
 
 62 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 important being that of " interdependence." This 
 characteristic holds good not only of the structure of 
 society, but also of its development, or growth, and 
 change. In this sense, at least, these are organic that 
 they are always intimately connected with the nature 
 and life of the social body as a whole. We admit that 
 nothing human grows quite naturally, because man 
 thinks about its growth, is discontented with it, and 
 insists upon trying to improve it by meddling with it. 
 But he never escapes from some of the conditions of 
 growth, any more than he escapes from some of the 
 conditions of physical pressure ; and so his meddling is 
 fettered to some extent by the laws of life and growth. 
 Exactly how far these limitations extend is the most 
 difficult of all things to determine. If we could ever 
 learn enough to say with certainty : So much must be 
 left to growth, and so much may be done by our devis- 
 ing, we should have settled once and for all the un- 
 answerable question : " How far shall we be conserva- 
 tive and how far progressive ? " This, of course, we can 
 never hope to do ; and yet we can, without the least 
 hesitation, assert that some part of the field must be left 
 to growth, and may indicate roughly how the boundaries 
 of that part may be recognized. 
 
 Let us take first our meddling in relation to society 
 as a whole, and the organic groups and institutions 
 within it, deferring till later the discussion of the im- 
 provement of individuals. We have now a double 
 set of facts to bear in mind : the undoubted facts of 
 growth in the structure and tissue of society, and the 
 equally undoubted facts of meddlesome ingenuity and 
 purpose in ourselves. If we forget the former, the 
 improvements prompted by the latter are likely to be 
 disappointing (there is no fear of our forgetting the 
 latter) ; and yet, just because we are so ingenious and so 
 purposeful, we are always forgetting the conditions of 
 our material.
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 63 
 
 Now the facts to be remembered are these : 
 
 1. That all organic change must be related somehow 
 to the inner life and capacities of the organism. 
 
 2. That there is no standard of mechanical simplicity 
 or logical consistency which we can apply to alterations 
 of a living thing as we can to alterations of a mechanism. 
 
 3. That all organic change is relatively slow. 
 
 4. (Underlying all the rest and forming the basis on 
 which they stand.) That organic change, because it is 
 organic, involves corresponding changes all through the 
 organism. 
 
 Now when we deal with any natural organism we 
 are compelled to recognize these conditions, and to re- 
 strain our ingenuity and purposes accordingly. No 
 sane person tries to change an oak tree into a poplar, or 
 to make a dog eat like a horse. We see, too, that our 
 ideas of what is simplest, best, fittest, easiest, and most 
 logical do not apply at all ; for nature has only one 
 standard everywhere for all these things namely, 
 ability to exist and survive. What is is good ; what is 
 able to go on being, is best ; and that is nature's final 
 word in the matter. Consequently we refrain from 
 saying that it is absurd to let an oak tree spread its 
 branches in the way which imposes just the greatest 
 possible strain on them ; or to let the bee-hive waste its 
 substance on five thousand drones just in order to keep 
 one alive ; or to let the codfish lay three million eggs 
 for the sake of having two or three surviving children. 
 Of course we could improve upon all this kind of thing. 
 We know so much about simplicity, least resistance, 
 mechanical improvements, labour-saving devices, and 
 the like. But we know very well that any direct 
 attempts on these lines to " improve " the oak tree, 
 or reform the bee-hive, or lighten the cod's monstrous 
 parental labours, would result in all sorts of unexpected 
 failure, and probably in the destruction of the organism 
 so " improved." We do undoubtedly attempt daring
 
 64 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 experiments, and" improve "upon nature as gardeners, 
 for example, or as breeders of animals ; but we, at 
 least, " follow nature " in such cases by working grad- 
 ually and upon the basis of the organic nature, allow- 
 ing each organism to adapt itself to each step of the 
 change. And all this we remember to do, because we 
 know that all the changes are really organic. 
 
 I have already protested enough against the practice 
 of regarding society as organic in too literal a sense. If 
 it were really an organism, then all our political and 
 social measures would be horribly dangerous. Even the 
 mildest suggestion of change allowed by the House of 
 Lords in its most conservative mood would deserve to 
 be stigmatized as revolutionary radicalism. And it is 
 noteworthy that just in proportion as any people do 
 over-emphasize the " growth " side of our life, so they 
 also tend to be over-cautious and opposed to reform. 
 The people who are always defending institutions be- 
 cause they are what they have come to be, and have 
 worked fairly well for a long time, the people whose 
 ideas and standards are " customary " or conventional, 
 these are the people who are unconsciously exaggerating 
 the " organic nature " and organic growth of social 
 life. 
 
 But the tendency to forget it altogether is equally 
 marked and equally dangerous. Some intelligent ob- 
 server rushes home from Germany to tell us of the ex- 
 cellent system of relief or insurance which he has found 
 there ; and urges us to adopt it without delay just 
 as we would adopt a new piece of machinery. Now 
 the particular system works well in Germany because it 
 fits in with the German life and thought. But will it fit 
 in with ours ? Our institutions for the relief of need are 
 very imperfect ; but they have at least three centuries 
 of growth behind them, and are organically connected 
 with our temper and ways of doing things. This is no 
 argument against change ; it is an argument against
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 65 
 
 adopting a particular change just because it has been 
 found a success in a different society. Many of us have 
 been puzzled for years to understand why several of the 
 States in America have not long ago followed our ex- 
 ample in the matter of protection of children by means 
 of Factory Acts. We forget that their whole attitude 
 to industrial control and oversight has been different 
 from ours, and this difference is an organic characteristic 
 to which all their labour laws must conform. In all 
 such matters the question of the social aptitude of the 
 society concerned has to be taken into account. Imi- 
 tation of other societies' discoveries is good but always 
 subject to the limits of organic adaptability involved 
 in the whole structure and way of life of the imitating 
 nation or group. 
 
 Again, most of us are impressed at times by the 
 grotesque absurdities inherent in our constitution. 
 Our House of Lords is a queer feudal survival ; our 
 system of Church government is an even worse ana- 
 chronism ; our education system is a bundle of incon- 
 gruities ; our industrial system contradicts much of 
 our moral code, just as our military system conflicts 
 with much of our religion. Why not at once correct 
 these anomalies ? Our nearest neighbour among the 
 nations sets us an excellent example of greater con- 
 sistency and the application of more rigorous logic in 
 the arrangement of the State. Very true ; but then 
 it is even truer and much more important that 
 simplicity and logical consistency are not guiding prin- 
 ciples for organic life especially not for the life of 
 Englishmen. It is our character to be illogical and in- 
 consistent ; we are miserable if we are not. And the 
 various anachronisms and survivals which make up our 
 peculiar constitution and methods of administration are 
 at least adapted to this character, and in part the out- 
 come of it. It is possibly true that the greater the 
 strength and energy, the less the liking for simplicity of 
 
 5
 
 66 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 consistency : it is not merely an unfortunate accident 
 that the oak and the cedar spread their branches 
 horizontally. 
 
 Incidentally we may note here the fallacy of the 
 argument about the " thin end of the wedge." Wedges 
 are never driven home in an organism whose character it 
 is to bristle with contradictions and thrive upon them ; 
 and in a healthy organism wedges are not absorbed 
 further than adaptation allows. 
 
 Another fact of importance, far too often forgotten, 
 follows from the considerations we are now dealing 
 with. No method or device adopted by any country 
 from another ever works in the same way in the adopt- 
 ing country as in that from which it was imitated. A 
 Gothenburg system of temperance reform or an Elber- 
 feld system of relief would, in England, quickly be 
 modified into something very different, by reason of the 
 organic reactions of other elements of our social life. 
 Even human ingenuity cannot graft a grape on to a thistle 
 without subjecting the former to numerous modifications 
 due to the influence of the latter's nature. 
 
 Again, we are compelled to remind the reformer 
 that his schemes of betterment, however carefully 
 thought out, can never be pushed in and made a part of 
 society's life in the way he usually desires. Robert Owen 
 had some really magnificent schemes ; they were all 
 failures, and were bound to be. The slow processes of 
 growth and adaptation and organic reaction were not 
 allowed for ; the panaceas, like all panaceas, could not 
 but lead to unexpected and disappointing results. It is 
 significant that nearly all successful improvements have 
 grown from very small and often uncertain or tentative 
 beginnings ; the Co-operative movement, the Friendly 
 Societies, the hospital system, democratic education, are 
 all instances in point. We cannot help elaborating 
 beautiful paper schemes ; the tendency is an inveterate 
 one, and perhaps ineradicable now, so great is the en-
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 67 
 
 couragement it has received from our successes in dealing 
 with the forces of inorganic nature by means of elaborate 
 calculation, which, in that field, are entirely justified. 
 And so we find every one, from individual faddists to 
 sober county councils and even Governments, preparing 
 all kinds of schemes of wholesale improvement in the 
 firm belief that they will " work." But they never 
 work. They may grow into a valuable part of the 
 social tissue ; or they may die away after causing some 
 temporary discomfort. The only quite certain thing is 
 that they will not act as a well-devised piece of mechan- 
 ism would : they will operate in ways and produce 
 effects unexpected and unforeseen by their inventors. 
 Most of all will this be the case if, as so often happens, 
 the reformer or the reforming agency has left out of 
 account the preparedness of the organic society for the 
 improvements contemplated. This is the special pitfall 
 of the rich benefactor or millionaire reformer, who 
 knows what he wants his workpeople or the public to 
 do or to have, but does not know what these intended 
 beneficiaries want to be or to do themselves, or are fit 
 to be or do. But this leads us into a wider field, which 
 is best left for later treatment. 
 
 The objection may be raised that we do make sweep- 
 ing changes and reforms quite successfully in many cases. 
 I am not anxious to deny this ; but I would qualify 
 the statement a little. In the first place, such changes 
 are never made as suddenly as we imagine. One of 
 the least noticed but most certain facts of social life 
 is the fact that society very seldom wakes to the exist- 
 ence of an evil while that evil is at its worst, but some 
 time afterwards, when the evil is already in process of 
 healing itself. The " bitter cry " of suffering follows 
 the crisis usually by many years ; and the ostensible 
 measures of reform, which result from the arousal of 
 public interest or sympathy, come in to assist, not to 
 begin, the amelioration. Most new evils, in other words,
 
 68 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 are old evils growing better. Nor are the reforms 
 always new ones, so much as elaborations of processes 
 which have begun to operate without any special " move- 
 ment " to initiate them. Students of recent social 
 history must be familiar with this. Society began to 
 think seriously about outcast London when the out- 
 casts were already beginning to struggle up from the 
 abyss. It turned its attention to the over-crowding of 
 the slum, when that over-crowding had already begun 
 to diminish decade by decade. We awake now to the 
 evil of sweating long after the worst days of sweated 
 labour are past, even as in America the North awoke to 
 the horrors of slavery in the South when that slavery 
 was probably less horrid than it had ever been. We 
 have recently made a new discovery of the awful fact 
 that one-third of our population is living below the 
 " poverty line " of a guinea a week income per family. 
 Is it a new thing ? The poverty of the population has 
 been decreasing for many years ; and the only new fact 
 in the situation is that fewer families are without a pos- 
 sible livelihood than at any time for several generations 
 past. The clamour for temperance reform becomes 
 most insistent just when the members of the commun- 
 ity are beginning to show real signs of becoming rather 
 more temperate, and not when they are drinking their 
 hardest. 
 
 All the evils are great enough still, in all conscience ; 
 but they are not at their worst when the effort to remedy 
 them is seriously undertaken. There are some excep- 
 tions, of course ; but these are mostly of a special class, 
 connected with the increase of bodily disorders such as 
 cancer and nervous breakdown. The rule applies, with 
 but few exceptions, to the general ailments of the kind 
 with which the social reformer is most concerned. 
 
 Now there is no simple explanation of this pheno- 
 menon. It is connected in obscure ways with the fact 
 that (possibly by some instinct of self-preservation) we
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 69 
 
 seem to be prevented from thinking too much about any 
 suffering or evil, until the time is near at hand when 
 that suffering or evil can be dealt with successfully. 
 Society can seldom be induced to bother itself about 
 any suffering, the removal of which requires really 
 revolutionary treatment. It only becomes sensitive, 
 sympathetic, and eager for reform, when reform is 
 possible without too great an upheaval of its settled 
 ways of life. But the point upon which I am insisting 
 is quite clear, namely, that we must qualify the assertion 
 that great social reforms can be and are successfully 
 carried out with little regard to the organic growth of 
 society, by the counter assertion that very few reforms 
 are either as new or sudden as they appear to be. 
 
 We must qualify the assertion in another way. Few 
 reforms are ever as successful as they are expected to 
 be. And this for two reasons. Modern society, thanks 
 to our " meddling," is always suffering from the^strain 
 of unequal progress or change. There is nearly always an 
 unregenerate sediment, which the reform ought to carry 
 along with it, and quicken into new life, but does not. 
 We reform an overcrowded slum area, or an over-drunken 
 section of the population, or an over-casualized class of 
 labourers. But of the social units and groups concerned, 
 not all are altered ; many slip through the meshes of 
 reform, either refusing to change their ways, or perhaps 
 more usually unable to change them owing to too long 
 habituation. And in proportion to its growing humanity 
 or sentiment, society becomes less and less able or will- 
 ing to shed its accumulations of waste matter. The 
 result is that the evil " reformed " re-appears in smaller 
 patches elsewhere. Bits of a new and very unregenerate 
 slum crop up in Tottenham or Edmonton, after the 
 cleansing of Shoreditch or Bethnal Green ; insidious 
 forms of intoxication appear in place of the drunkenness 
 drastically dealt with ; a new type of casual labourer 
 creates a new problem after the old type has been
 
 70 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 abolished. This does not mean that there has not been 
 improvement, and often a very great improvement ; but 
 only that the evil is not all done away with. Nor do I 
 mean to imply that the partial failure of the remedy is 
 wholly due to want of organic adaptation of the part of 
 the society as a whole. Much of the difficulty is due to 
 want of moral adaptability on the part of the human 
 units ; and some kinds of moral evil are very like some 
 kinds of dirt you cannot alter them, or annihilate them, 
 but can only move them from one place to another. 
 Yet in all cases the cure is hindered by the single fact 
 that the organism is not prepared beforehand through- 
 out its tissue for the reforming change. 
 
 One other fact is to be borne in mind. No drastic 
 reform or social remedy ever fails to produce a number 
 of unexpected and often very disconcerting effects ; and 
 the more drastic it is, the more disconcerting are the 
 consequences. We know what has often happened as 
 a result of drastic dealing with drink, such as total 
 prohibition before a population is ready for it. The 
 actual drinking may be diminished ; but swindling de- 
 ceptions and dishonesties have been increased, as well 
 as new forms of drug-poisoning. It is for this reason 
 that the success of great reforms is so often called in 
 question, usually by rather pessimistic people. They 
 point to new evils which have raised their heads in 
 consequence of the disappearance of old ones. Was 
 the emancipation of the negroes in America all a good 
 thing ? Not only in the old slave States of the South, 
 but all through the United States the very serious " new 
 problems " resulting from this one reform seem to be 
 uppermost in men's minds. The society was not ready 
 for the absorption of a huge alien mass of a particular 
 kind and is not ready yet ; and the results of that 
 unpreparedness of the organism are obvious everywhere. 
 In this respect, at any rate, society is very like our 
 physical bodies. There are some drastic cures for some
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 71 
 
 of our ailments which are quite effective in dispelling 
 the particular trouble of which we are conscious. A 
 " one day cure " for a cold or a " one hour cure " for a 
 headache is quite likely to produce the cure promised. 
 But it is more than probable that the sufferer will soon 
 discover that an unpleasant pain in the limbs has taken 
 the place of the vanished cold, or that the headache has 
 been exchanged for a disturbed digestion. The organism 
 will not be hurried out of one state into another with- 
 out protesting. 
 
 I have urged these considerations in order to show 
 that we cannot, by quoting the success of sweeping 
 reforms, brush aside the necessity of taking growth 
 and organic adaptation into account. All reforms, if 
 scrutinized closely, illustrate rather than contradict the 
 principle that heed must be paid to the measure of 
 preparedness and of adaptability of an organic social 
 structure and tissue, of which the laws of growth do to 
 a great extent hold good. Both the order in which 
 reforms come, and the results of those reforms, are 
 illustrations of the fact that much slow preparation of 
 the " social organism " is necessary before the remedy 
 for any evil can be applied. Society is not an inorganic 
 mass into which this or that improvement can be intro- 
 duced without much thought about the effects which 
 will follow by reason of the natural reactions of the 
 whole. 
 
 And yet I am still on the side of the reformer, and 
 not on that of the do-nothing doubter. And for this 
 reason : The limits of social adaptability are not by 
 any means fixed as rigorously as in the case of a true 
 organism of a high order ; and the processes of adapta- 
 tion can be enormously hastened. Upon this fact the 
 reformer may properly insist. For the adaptation is not 
 that of a physical organism, but that of a life in which 
 mental forces count for much more than in any organic 
 body we know ; and the processes of mental adaptation
 
 72 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 are far more rapid than those of vital organic adaptation. 
 The habits of human society can be changed more 
 easily than the habits of the cells and tissues and nerves 
 of the body. And, more important still, the subordina- 
 tion of the simpler social processes to the forces which 
 we have called spiritual, makes possible even more rapid 
 changes than are prepared for by alterations of habit 
 and attitude. But of these qualifications, more will be 
 said in later chapters. 
 
 Let us turn our attention now to the laws of growth 
 as they affect the reform of the individual members 
 of society. This is probably a more interesting matter 
 to most of us than the reform of groups or institu- 
 tions or society as a whole ; for we are neither Robert 
 Owens nor millionaires nor dictators, but ordinary 
 citizens who may be quite content to improve ourselves 
 and the condition of a few individuals with whom we 
 may be brought into contact. Now there is, of course, 
 no doubt about the organic nature of every individual, 
 with its natural limits of adaptability and its necessary 
 processes of gradual adaptation to change. We are not 
 in much danger of leaving this out of account, in its 
 obvious meaning ; nor are we likely to neglect the 
 differences of natural ability to respond to this or that 
 treatment. We do not try to make a cripple into a 
 navvy, nor a very stupid child into an electrical engineer. 
 Indeed, in a crude way we sometimes make too much 
 of the individual differences, especially when we group 
 people roughly into classes or types according to their 
 supposed natural fitness for particular occupations or 
 duties or functions. Class and caste prejudices, and 
 probably race prejudices too, are responsible for many 
 errors of this kind. Under the influence of some stupid 
 generalization or dictum, such as Aristotle's assertion that 
 slaves are naturally adapted for nothing better than a 
 slave life, or the half-feudal belief that there are only 
 three generations from the soil to the soil, many societies
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 73 
 
 have denied, and even deny to-day, the fitness for any- 
 thing but a very humble kind of activity of large sec- 
 tions of their populations. The disbelief in the desira- 
 bility of advanced education for the working classes is 
 one result of this due to a very erroneous idea that 
 their natural adaptability is definitely limited in a way 
 in which that of the more fortunate classes is not ; and 
 we are hardly yet alive to the fact that there are no 
 such differences between classes, so far as the individual 
 potentialities of many of the members of each class are 
 concerned ; and that to act upon the opposite assump- 
 tion involves a disastrous waste of good material. 
 
 But in other and truer ways we do not recognize 
 enough the individual differences of capacity to respond 
 to treatment. We universalize treatment as though no 
 such differences existed. We build up systems of edu- 
 cation for all, and run whole masses of individuals 
 into the same mould ; we devise some scheme of im- 
 provement or help, and apply it to all the members of 
 a given class or neighbourhood ; we hit upon a good 
 idea or method, and try to make it do for many diverse 
 individuals. And then we discover, when the results are 
 less satisfactory than we hoped, that our teaching of the 
 children, or our reformation of the unemployed, or our 
 relief of the poor, are all marred by defective classi- 
 fication a very natural consequence of the method of 
 treatment adopted. 
 
 But we are now running up against very thorny 
 questions, with which we need not deal at present. It 
 is clear that we must have general treatment and general 
 schemes of betterment of all kinds if we are to do any- 
 thing at all collectively. No one but the most anarchical 
 individualist would now deny this. And the justifica- 
 tion lies in the fact that human nature is pretty much 
 the same in all individuals, up to a point. There is, for 
 instance, a measure of education and training suited for 
 the great majority of normal children, just as there is
 
 74 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 a particular kind of food best suited for all normal 
 infants. The need for more careful discrimination 
 comes in after a certain stage has been reached, and 
 after the development of the individual potentialities 
 has proceeded some way. Most of all is the need appar- 
 ent when the complex growth of the life, with its in- 
 cessant reactions of potentialities upon environment and 
 of environment upon potentialities, has produced those 
 tremendous differences which really individualize every 
 grown man or woman, separating by great gulfs the 
 next-door neighbours in a slum or the brothers in a single 
 family. 
 
 And this brings us to the real difficulty in all our 
 reforming treatment. Our chief danger is that of 
 forgetting that whatever change is introduced must be 
 complete, not partial ; must harmonize with the whole 
 individual life, and not only with a bit of it. And this 
 means, not merely that the whole individual character 
 must be considered, though that is important enough ; 
 but that the organic life of the individual as a whole 
 must be taken into account. That is to say, we have to 
 consider the whole social setting and environment, as 
 well as the individual potentialities the soil as well as 
 the soul, the social medium as well as the social character 
 of the individual. When we were dealing with society 
 as an " organic " whole, we had little need to pay atten- 
 tion to the conditioning environment, for every big 
 society largely constitutes its own social environment. But 
 when we turn to the individual members, we find that 
 we cannot regard them as subject to the laws of growth, 
 without remembering that there are two great factors 
 in that growth the organism, with its possibilities, 
 and the soil, with its possibilities ; and that the two cannot 
 be separated. It is not enough, when we contemplate 
 some treatment, to consider carefully John Smith's 
 character and capacities ; to think how these will react 
 to the change, how far they are capable of adaptation.
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 75 
 
 We must also bring into view John Smith's social set- 
 ting his street and home and family, his work and pay, 
 his friends and neighbours, and their attitudes and stan- 
 dards and customs and consider the probable reactions 
 of all this setting to the change which we desire. Now 
 I do not intend here to raise the old controversy about 
 character and circumstances, nor to ask which is most 
 important, or should be thought of most. When we are 
 dealing with the social unit, they are inseparable ; mis- 
 takes begin when we leave either out of account. In- 
 dividualists, or people who insist that character is far 
 the most important, may urge, if they like, that if you 
 alter the character enough, the circumstances will be 
 altered too. No doubt ; if the alteration is complete 
 enough. By the really converted soul, the environment 
 is converted too. For the really reformed drunkard, the 
 corner public-house is immaterial, or even a help as 
 the bottle of gin was to Tennyson's Northern Cobbler. For 
 the really reformed gambler, the abundance of street bookies 
 is of no consequence. For the really repentant thief or 
 blasphemer, an atmosphere of dishonesty and blasphemy 
 contains no temptations. So, possibly, for the really 
 clean housewife, the sooty atmosphere of the city is even 
 a stimulus ; and for the really thrifty man, intermittent 
 earnings the usual condition of unthrift act as an 
 incentive rather than a hindrance, That is to say, if all 
 of us were really reformed in character, the then environ- 
 ment would be reformed too, automatically, for its quality 
 as a reagent its power of affecting us would be totally 
 changed. But, unfortunately, most of our efforts stop 
 short of this high goal ; and therefore we need to remem- 
 ber the whole of the life of each individual soul and 
 soil alike and work in reference to that. Gradually 
 this necessity is being realized, at any rate so far as the 
 immediate family environment of any individual is 
 concerned. We do not now expect to effect great 
 improvement by getting a boy or girl into what is called
 
 76 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 decent occupation if the family life is left indecent, any 
 more than we expect to reform a girl who is falling into 
 bad ways if we leave her at home with a mother who is 
 a prostitute and a father who is a scoundrel. But it is 
 to be feared that a vast amount of effort is still being 
 wasted owing to neglect of the larger elements of growth. 
 We try to teach thrift, when the general scheme of life 
 is necessarily unthrifty ; we try to teach temperance, 
 and leave the public-house the only bright spot in the 
 street, and " standing a drink " the only easy mode of 
 showing friendliness or hospitality. And in so doing 
 we are neglecting the conditions of the growth of a habit, 
 and of the true organic adaptability for reform. 
 
 Yet, it may be objected, our work is necessarily 
 piecemeal. So be it ; but in that case there is all the 
 more need of a co-operation of effort which may make 
 it possible for the whole life to be considered at once. 
 And at present all social endeavour is robbed of much 
 more than half of its due effect because it is both piece- 
 meal and partial ; the thousands of would-be reformers 
 are working away at -odds and ends and fragments of 
 their material, not even uniting in order that at least 
 several fragments may be treated harmoniously and 
 together. 
 
 I have a strong suspicion that very little of all this 
 talk about the organic nature of society and the neces- 
 sary processes of growth will have any impression 
 whatever upon the reformer who finds himself face to 
 face with the problems of the slum. He is not likely 
 to abate one jot or tittle of his reforming zeal and his 
 meddlesome interference ; and it is by no means 
 certain that he should. Not until we have considered 
 all the forces at work shall we be in a position to assess 
 the due importance of each kind. Then, but only then, 
 we may be able to say how far our non-natural meddling 
 is justified. 
 
 But of the vital processes generally, as applied to
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 77 
 
 social life, a final word may be added here. We have 
 not considered them all : the processes of struggle and 
 selection among the social units have been purposely 
 left for consideration at a later stage. But we may 
 anticipate our conclusions by suggesting that the 
 biological sociologist, who is almost always at daggers 
 drawn with society's meddlings and reforming tenden- 
 cies, often finds himself in an untenable position, through 
 the exaggeration of his biological point of view. It is 
 quite certain that no natural processes are allowed 
 to produce their appropriate effects in the social life we 
 live to-day. Wholesale interference is the rule and, 
 let us admit, usually blind, ignorant interference. We 
 are thwarting nature at every turn ; and the biological 
 extremist is commonly reduced to a state of pessimism 
 exceeding even the gloom of Herbert Spencer in his 
 bitterest moods. His position has been well put by Mr. 
 E. A. Ross, in a passage which I would willingly quote, 
 but must be content to summarize here. 
 
 We need nature's processes of struggle, selection, 
 and elimination of the unfit. Society is becoming 
 clogged with its unfit, whom we insist upon keeping 
 alive by checking every natural agent of selection. The 
 life-struggle is nowhere allowed to do its work by killing 
 off the useless and worse than useless people : we have 
 confined it within walls of humanitarian sentiment and 
 vicious contrivance, in order that it may kill no one 
 and maim as few as possible. Disease, once the 
 mightiest of all nature's selective agents, now has its 
 talons cut by hospitals and homes and cures, which are 
 incessantly engaged in patching up its proper victims. 
 War an almost equally potent agent used to kill off 
 the weak and cowardly, and leave the strong and brave 
 to survive. Now we have so arranged it that it kills the 
 strong, and leaves the weak at home to multiply. The 
 economic struggle, the struggle for the means of living, 
 is not what it once was. By laws of property and
 
 78 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 inheritance on the one hand, by devices of charity and 
 relief on the other, we keep alive the lazy and unfit at 
 both ends of the social scale. Sexual selection is 
 similarly interfered with, both by our monogamous 
 institutions and still more by the economic hindrances 
 which prevent the mating of the fittest with the fittest. 
 Selection (that is, destruction) by the natural conse- 
 quences of our own vices is also prevented. We do not 
 allow the drunkards to be weeded out by their drunken- 
 ness, but half cure the dipsomaniac and defend the 
 would-be drink-suicide by all sorts of temperance 
 reforms. 
 
 True, our movements of " progress " do kill off a few 
 people ; but almost invariably the wrong ones. We 
 have always burnt our heretics and crucified our Christs, 
 and now in the fiercest political struggles we see to it 
 that the revolutionaries who are killed are the strongest, 
 the most energetic, the most vital. Moreover, all our 
 civilization is a huge system of meddling. Our stan- 
 dards of every sort, from those of decency and com- 
 fort to those of humanity and morals, set up, between us 
 and the natural processes, barriers of every kind, from 
 clothes and houses to laws and institutions. And the 
 influence of religion is the worst of all. In its highest 
 form, it sterilizes the best members of society by the 
 celibacy imposed upon the men and women who are 
 admittedly holiest ; in all its forms it saves the unfit 
 from destruction by insisting upon mercy and pity, and, 
 by teaching charity, supports the feeble and the failures. 
 
 What is the net result of it all ? The multiplication 
 of degenerates at the expense of those who are not 
 degenerate. And the further our progress advances the 
 worse the effects become. We even shrink now from 
 the killing of our murderers and the permanent segrega- 
 tion of our worst criminals. We try to stop every kind 
 of suffering, just because it is suffering without stopping 
 to ask whether it is not also salutary. No wonder we
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO VITAL FORCES 79 
 
 have problems heaped upon problems, when the root 
 evil of degeneracy is so wantonly fostered ! 
 
 We shall consider in a later chapter how far the 
 warnings of the biologist ought to be allowed to check 
 our wilful interferences. But in reference to the ex- 
 tremists among the biological sociologists this at least 
 is clear : either they have got their premises very 
 wrong indeed, or else all society's reforming purposes 
 are marks of its decay, all its ideals are will-o'-the-wisps 
 designed to lure it on to destruction, and its so-called 
 upward path a road leading downward to death. If we 
 intend to keep company with the reformer any longer, 
 we must be prepared to subordinate the biological 
 considerations to others of a very different kind, not 
 to exalt them into the supreme guides of social progress.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WE have now considered social change from two 
 points of view : first, as a result of external 
 pressures ; secondly, as a form of organic adap- 
 tation to changing conditions. In both cases the changes 
 would appear to be necessarily slow ; and in so far as the 
 influences indicated have been dominant, the correspond- 
 ing social changes have been very slow indeed. The 
 patriarchal family, for example, with its institutions and 
 life, and the village community, with its institutions and 
 life, took many centuries to form ; the adjustment of an 
 " organic society " to the conditions of city life requires 
 many generations to complete. But innumerable changes 
 take place far more rapidly than this ; and in modern 
 society change is hastened along every line with a rapidity 
 to which " natural " processes show no parallel. The last 
 chapter brought into view two of the conditions of these 
 quicker changes. We noted that preparedness for change 
 on the part of society depends much more upon mental 
 adaptations of a thinking being than upon the slow organic 
 adaptations of a living being ; and that the forces which 
 now produce change most obviously, were human purposes 
 and aims, rather than the natural forces of environmental 
 pressure or the natural ends of organic growth and develop- 
 ment. Society is certainly pushed along its path ; society 
 also undoubtedly grows into this or that new state. But 
 society, as we know it, still more certainly feels and 
 
 80
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND Si 
 
 thinks its way into new conditions of itself, and guides 
 its course by its own purposes and self-evolved ends. 
 It remains for us, therefore, to consider first the mental 
 life of society, and secondly the purposes of society and 
 their origin and significance ; and in the present chapter 
 we will discuss the mental life of society. 
 
 Perhaps the transition from what we may call the 
 biology of society to the psychology of social life may 
 be made in this way. In all the higher forms of life, 
 activities are largely controlled by the two factors of 
 instinct and habit. These may be regarded as being 
 mid-way between the simple life-processes and the mind 
 or thought-processes. Each implies some special modi- 
 fication of cells and nerves and organs ; each also implies 
 at least some mental element in the form of feeling. In 
 instinct, the feeling has become, as it were, automatic, 
 and thought does not enter in at all. In habit, the special 
 connexions in the mind are formed by degrees, more or less 
 consciously at first, and often with thought (at any rate 
 on the part of animals that do think). It is instinct in a 
 dog to lap water or turn round before lying down ; or 
 in a chicken to peck at anything ; or in a young human 
 being to close its fingers on everything it touches. 
 It is habit in the dog to jump up at a door, or go to his 
 particular corner, or to perform a laboriously acquired 
 trick ; it is habit also which governs about three-quarters 
 of our actions throughout our waking life, from our dress- 
 ing in the morning to our walking upstairs and going to 
 bed at night. The value of instinct lies in the fact that 
 it supplies the animal organism with sets of reactions 
 necessary to its life, which its mind (if it has one) could 
 not possibly evolve or produce in time. The value of 
 habit is that it makes automatic and easy many processes 
 which would otherwise require much conscious effort 
 and perhaps thought. If we regard instinct as a printed 
 list of instructions given by our ancestors, then we may 
 regard habit as a kind of shorthand of mental life, compiled 
 6
 
 82 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 by the individual, saving both time and labour. But 
 each may be said to have its peculiar dangers. Too much 
 instinct fills up life with automatic processes, at the expense 
 of the growth of consciousness and variation, and so 
 hinders development of the species. Too much habit fills 
 up life with processes which become almost automatic, 
 and at any rate unconscious, and so hinders the growth of 
 intelligence and the progress of the individual. As a 
 general principle, it may be said that the value of instinct 
 diminishes as intelligence grows ; and that the value of 
 habit, as applied to all simple and necessary actions, 
 increases as intelligence finds more to do. But habit also 
 becomes more dangerous (exactly as shorthand does on 
 the part of a lecture audience) if it is allowed to usurp 
 the place of thought as applied to the higher processes 
 of life. In human life, instinct is of diminishing value, 
 and habit of increasing value ; but there is always a 
 danger of retardation of progress resulting from habits 
 of mind or thought, that is, from habitual ways of think- 
 ing about things, or mental processes which have been 
 allowed to become automatic and only partly conscious. 
 Without the help of habit, the philosopher would have no 
 time to think at all, but would find his entire day occupied 
 with the troublesome activities of dressing, eating, walk- 
 ing, and other trivial matters. But too much habit is 
 equally inimical to thinking ; for the habits of thought 
 which save our intelligence the trouble of criticizing and 
 thinking things out are the most certain causes of mental 
 stagnation and old-fogeyism. 
 
 All this is, of course, very familiar ; but as applied to 
 society it is not quite so obvious. Here we may, of 
 course, leave instinct out of account. The existence oi 
 instinct depends upon the gradual modification of cells 
 and structure which is handed down from parent to 
 offspring ; but as society is not an individual in a chain of 
 individuals, instinct is inapplicable to it. But habit is a 
 very important factor in the life of society, just as in the
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 83 
 
 life of every human individual. And, if we regard it 
 on its mental side, that is, as certain habitual connexions 
 of feeling or idea, it is found to be an almost exact counter- 
 part to the individual's habit. In both cases, habits are 
 acquired in very much the same way. As individuals, 
 we acquire our habits both unconsciously and with more 
 or less conscious effort. In the former case, they are 
 either forced upon us by nurses or parents ; or we grow 
 into them by natural unconscious processes. In the latter 
 case, we acquire them by more or less conscious imitation ; 
 or by devising and thinking out ways of doing things, and 
 then letting these ways become habitual. So, too, with 
 society. Many habits are acquired unconsciously. In 
 all early societies we find habitual modes of action govern- 
 ing most of the life. No one knows why ; the habits 
 have no reason behind them ; they have never been 
 thought out. Sometimes they have been forced upon the 
 tribe or group. In one primitive group, we find that need, 
 in the shape of a limited supply of food, has produced a 
 habit of infanticide ; in another group, that necessity of 
 a different kind has produced an equally unpleasant 
 habit of destroying all middle-aged parents. Some- 
 times the habits have just grown up, as habits will, 
 by accident. Fixed ways of doing all manner of things, 
 from conducting a fight to conducting the trial of a sus- 
 pected criminal, appear as the habitual modes of reaction 
 to the appropriate stimulus in all early societies ; and in 
 few cases are the reasons known to the members of the 
 society. We may see the reason for the particular habit 
 now ; anthropologists can explain why and how this or 
 that extraordinary habit arose ; but not so the agents 
 themselves. Their understanding of the purpose of their 
 habitual actions is often limited to the knowledge that 
 some infants were killed by their parents, and parents of 
 forty-five solemnly slain by their eldest son, because it 
 was the proper and usual thing to do. 
 
 But in later days, as societies have become more
 
 84 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 reflective and thoughtful, we find them first imitating 
 the habits of other societies, then devising ways of 
 doing things with a purpose, and then allowing these 
 ways to become habitual. And in this latter case, at 
 all events, they do know the reason why, to some extent 
 at least, and the habits are the result of conscious 
 processes of thought though both the thought and 
 consciousness of purpose tend to disappear in proportion 
 as the habit becomes fixed. To this class belong our 
 social habits of action in numerous recurrent situations, 
 such as our proceedings in the discovery, trial, and 
 punishment of crimes, our appropriate conduct of funerals 
 or marriages, our customary methods of ratifying a 
 bargain or paying a call, and a host of other matters. 
 And they resemble the individual's habits, such as a 
 butler's habitual way of laying a dinner table or a house- 
 maid's habitual mode of making (or mismaking) a fire, 
 both in the fact that the processes contain some element 
 of thought and purpose in the first instance, and in the 
 further fact that the thought tends more and more to drop 
 out of them as the habit becomes more and more fixed. 
 And, as with individuals so with societies, the habit varies 
 with the particular idiosyncrasies of each. Just as no 
 two men have quite the same habit of shaving, so no two 
 societies have quite the same habit of conducting a trial. 
 But the mode of action is habitual for each individual or 
 society. 
 
 Now in the individual the habit is, as it were, partly 
 embedded in the tissue of the organism in subtle modifi- 
 cations of nerve and muscle and structure. But it has 
 also, in all cases, a mental counterpart ; it is connected 
 with some modification of feeling or thought ; it has a 
 particular mode of the mind belonging to it. My habits 
 of shaving or running upstairs or playing an air on the 
 piano are all in my fingers or feet, and the nerves and 
 muscles connected with them ; but they are also in my 
 mind, in so far as they consist also in connexions of feel-
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 85 
 
 ing and idea which are a part of my mind. But where 
 are we to look for the habits of society ? The analogy 
 still holds good : they are embedded in the " organism," 
 in the institutions of police or law or what not to which 
 the actions belong ; but not only that. To stop at this 
 point in the search would be like stopping short of the 
 explanation of piano-playing by saying it resides merely 
 in the fingers of the person who can play without think- 
 ing about it. But that is never more than partly true, 
 The moment you strike a false note, you will find that 
 however much you may have been playing uncon- 
 sciously, your mind was really doing or superintending 
 the work in the background subconsciously. So with 
 all social habits. They too have their mental counter- 
 part, and are to be found in the mind of society. And 
 this is the clue to the social mind in its simplest form 
 namely, the subconscious mind which lies behind all the 
 habitual processes of social behaviour. 
 
 In its early stages, this mind of society, or mental 
 element in social life, is called tradition, and the cor- 
 responding habits are usually called customs. And 
 tradition may be said to include the whole body of 
 connected feelings and ideas (such as they are), which 
 represent the mental side of all habitual or customary 
 modes of social procedure. The entire mass of tradition 
 belonging to any society is greater than the content 
 of any individual mind, and, in a real sense, independent 
 of any individual minds. It outlives the latter ; it 
 dominates all new minds as they appear, and supplies 
 them with an outfit of social feelings and ideas. It is 
 the simplest form of the mental heritage of each genera- 
 tion: the simplest form of what is known as social 
 heredity. Through it, the mental life of society is made 
 continuous, and its purposes and aims made lasting. 
 
 We need not trouble ourselves with the question 
 Where is the social mind to be found ? further than to 
 insist that it does not merely exist in the minds of the
 
 86 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 individual members of society, any more, perhaps, than 
 our human minds exist merely in the changing cells of 
 the brain cortex. This, at least, does not express what 
 needs to be expressed about it. For the social mind is 
 as coherent as the mind of an individual ; it is greater 
 than any single mind ; and from it each one of the very 
 diverse units of society takes very much of his mental 
 content. It is at least truer to say that the social mind 
 makes the individual minds, than to say that it consists 
 solely of those individual minds. 
 
 It is to be noted that the laws of habit apply very 
 closely to the habits and tradition-mind of society, 
 especially in the matter of their value, dangers, and 
 mode of formation. Like the individual mind, the 
 social mind is nearly all habit at the first ; and very 
 rightly, for this is the great condition of social safety. 
 Too much thought or reflection or criticism those 
 chief solvents of mental habit would be destructive. 
 At all times, also, social habit, and its mental counter- 
 part, tradition, are invaluable forms of economy of 
 effort ; but they are also a very grave danger, not only 
 by perpetuating bad ways, but by checking progress, 
 through the deadening of mind-life. A progressive 
 society is one whose mind is more than tradition ready 
 to criticize and overhaul all social habits, and modify 
 them to suit new purposes. For tradition only represents 
 a simple and rather primitive form of mind largely sub- 
 conscious, and inclined to be stagnant. 
 
 But when we ask the question What is meant by a 
 social mind which is more than tradition ? it is not 
 easy to frame a simple answer. Perhaps the difficulty 
 may be lessened if we approach the subject from another 
 side. All institutions and established ways of doing 
 things are, in the early stages of social life, the external 
 side of social habits of mind embodiments of tradition 
 in the different structures and parts of the social " or- 
 ganism." But at later stages, when society becomes more
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 87 
 
 a conscious, thinking, progressive being, they are more 
 than this. They are a reflection or embodiment, to some 
 extent at least, of systematic thought and purpose. Now 
 the distinction between habitual, customary, traditional 
 ideas and feelings, and systematic thought and purpose, 
 is the clue to the distinction between social tradition, or 
 the social mind in its earlier form, and social thought, or 
 the social mind in its later form. This distinction is 
 familiar in the psychology of the individual, in which it 
 appears as the difference between an association of ideas 
 and a system of ideas. The former consists in a mass of 
 feelings and ideas which are connected together by a kind 
 of accidental contact, in the order in which they have been 
 given by experience. The latter consists in a really 
 coherent scheme of ideas and thoughts, connected to- 
 gether, not accidentally, but by design, selected and 
 worked up into a scheme or system because of their 
 significance in relation to a single purpose. The former 
 is usually planless and purposeless so far as any con- 
 scious guiding purpose is concerned. The latter is 
 always consciously purposeful, and its whole plan is 
 arranged in virtue of the purpose which it is designed to 
 serve. Now all the feelings and ideas which belong to 
 habit and tradition as such are merely associations ; 
 and simple association of feeling and idea is enough to 
 carry on habit and tradition, and enough to explain 
 traditional institutions in social life. For example, the 
 institution of funerals, with all their extravagant demon- 
 strations of mourning among most semi-civilized peoples, 
 and with their hardly less extravagant display of black 
 clothing among the poorer classes everywhere in our 
 society, is an illustration of a traditional institution 
 resting on association of ideas. The ideas of death, 
 respect, extra food and drink, and large quantities of 
 crape, are associated in the minds of the people ; and 
 this association is, for them, habitual but quite accidental. 
 The institution and corresponding mode of customary
 
 88 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 behaviour with its underlying mass of feeling and idea, 
 may have had a meaning and a reason once, or we may 
 nowadays be able to read a meaning into it. But this 
 is not always so ; nor does it affect the fact that for the 
 people concerned the association of ideas has no real 
 meaning or reason, except the customary one that it has 
 always been so, and is therefore right and proper. If 
 asked why they do not put on bright clothes and mani- 
 fest their joy at the release of a soul from the burden of 
 the flesh, they will be very puzzled and angry. It will 
 not occur to many of them to reply that it is their own 
 loss which they are demonstrating, combined with an 
 assertion of a belief in a very crude sort of immortality ; 
 and that the funeral customs of black dress, a feast for 
 the mourners, and perhaps a preceding wake, rest upon 
 an odd combination of ideas and beliefs which are now 
 hardly remembered more than the idea underlying the 
 practice of leading an officer's horse behind his bier. 
 
 The inevitable tendency of all associations of ideas 
 is to end in mental habit ; and they never lead beyond 
 this. But a system of ideas or thoughts is very different. 
 The difference is as great as that between a proposition 
 of Euclid intelligently understood, and the same pro- 
 position learned by heart by a dull schoolboy. In the 
 latter case it is a mere jingle of associated words, lead- 
 ing nowhere, incapable of further application. In the 
 former it is an intelligent scheme of ideas, leading on to 
 new truths and new applications of knowledge. And the 
 essence of a system of ideas is that it is ordered and 
 governed throughout by a ruling principle or purpose or 
 aim. 
 
 All our minds (on the intellectual side) are made up, 
 in varying proportions, of mere associations of feeling 
 and idea, and of systems of thought, the one represent- 
 ing the habitual element, the other the purposeful and 
 progressive element. And in the social mind and its 
 manifestations the same combination exists. We have
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 89 
 
 seen how, up to a certain point, the habits (and habitual 
 institutions) of society are the reflection and embodi- 
 ment of tradition-mind. But if we look closer, nowadays, 
 we shall find that all our institutions to some extent, 
 and a few to a very great extent, reflect and embody a 
 higher form of social mind the form which we identify 
 with systems of ideas and thoughts. We have no special 
 name for the higher form ; we may be content to call it 
 simply social thought. But we may regard it as being 
 just as real as the tradition-mind of society, just as much 
 independent of our individual minds, just as much greater 
 and completer than they. Every institution which really 
 means something is an embodiment of mind-systems far 
 greater than can be found in any single individual's mind. 
 The thought-systems and purposes embodied in an army or 
 a school, for example, are more numerous and more com- 
 plex than are contained in any one person's mind though 
 every intelligent citizen's mind contains some of them. 
 And the whole scheme of thoughts and purposes embodied 
 in all our institutions we call the higher mind of our 
 society. And, from this point of view, we regard each 
 member of society not merely as a unit in a social aggre- 
 gate or a cell in a social organism, but as a part of a vast 
 mind-system from which each is perpetually drawing his 
 thoughts and purposes, and to which each is perpetually 
 contributing new thought and purpose in so far, of course, 
 as he thinks about society at all. 
 
 Let us for a moment pause to take stock of the posi- 
 tion which we have reached. We have considered 
 society, with its grouping, relationships, institutions and 
 activities, from three points of view : first, as subject to 
 the conditions of an external physical universe, with 
 forces and pressures moulding and limiting it ; secondly, 
 as subject to the conditions of an organic nature, with 
 natural potentialities and necessary organic reactions 
 and adaptations to changing environment ; and, thirdly, 
 as subject to the conditions of mind, with its associations
 
 90 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of feeling and idea gradually leading on to systems of 
 thought and purpose. We are tempted to regard these 
 three kinds of subordination as the marks of three suc- 
 cessive stages through which society has passed, and to 
 mark off a physical-pressure stage for the early days of 
 primitive society, a growth stage for the rather later 
 periods, and finally a thought-and-purpose stage for the 
 social life of our own day. But any such division would 
 be very misleading, as well as unduly flattering to ourselves 
 and our present society. The most we can say is that the 
 different sets of conditions are of varying importance at 
 different stages of social development. The external, 
 physical forces seemed to predominate before the dawn 
 of history, and the social formation of primitive peoples 
 shows most clearly the result of such pressures. The 
 social structures and characteristics of the cave-dwellers, 
 the forest hunters, the nomad tribes of the desert, the 
 herders of the plains and steppes, all alike show the 
 influence of the conditions which dominated their life, 
 producing, according to the differences of those conditions, 
 social groupings, differing so widely from one another as 
 to be hardly recognizable as members of the same species. 
 It is difficult to believe that a family of Fuegans and 
 Jacob's household can belong to the same order. But then 
 none of the groups was merely the result of the one set 
 of conditions. The life-forces and conditions of organic 
 growth were always at work ; and from the very first 
 the influence of mind, if only in its simplest forms, was 
 making itself felt. 
 
 So, too, when we turn to later stages of development 
 in which subordination to the conditions of growth seems 
 the most prominent fact. Here we find everywhere the 
 life pushing outwards along much the same lines 
 drawing the isolated family group into a larger group, 
 with accompanying complexity of structure and dif- 
 ferentiation of functions, leading on eventually to the 
 organic goal of social life the nation. And now the
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 91 
 
 resulting groups are much more easily recognizable as 
 belonging to a single species, the same growth leading 
 to the same goal in China as in England, in Ancient 
 Babylon as in modern London. But for all that, the 
 superficial sameness is not that of growing organisms of 
 the same kind ; differences of physical pressures still 
 lead to wide differences of internal organization, and 
 differences of mental habit and attitude and idea modify 
 the quality of the life in countless ways. 
 
 A still later stage, in which the conditions of mind 
 shall be the chief determinants of progress, must be left 
 to the imagination, for it certainly does not yet exist. 
 But it is conceivable that some day, when we think of 
 societies, we shall see them chiefly as vast mind-systems, 
 full of conscious significance in every part, each organ 
 and relationship designed to serve a purpose, incessantly 
 worked upon and improved by the ceaseless effort of 
 the society to think out and realize a veritable City of 
 God. But in this stage, too, the effects of physical 
 pressures will still be noticeable, and the limitations of 
 organic growth will not have disappeared. But the 
 dominance of mind will be the chief agent in all change. 
 
 Now, in considering social change, our great difficulty 
 is to keep in view all the sets of conditions we have so far 
 indicated ; and most of all is it hard to understand the 
 interactions of them all, and to estimate the force of each 
 in any given society at any given time. This estimate, 
 indeed, we can only guess at ; but at least we can try to 
 remember that all are at work together. Unfortunately 
 this is just what we seldom do, and for this cause every 
 sociologist, and still more every social practitioner, 
 suffers from a kind of myopia, by which his field of vision 
 is narrowed down to one or perhaps two sets of conditions 
 which he treats as all-important. Moreover, there can 
 be little doubt that the conditions which have hitherto 
 been most neglected or least understood have been those 
 which we have called mental. Social theory has been
 
 92 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 largely in the hands of the economist and the biologist, 
 and neither the economic nor the biological interpretation 
 of society is likely to give much consideration to society 
 regarded as a system of thought and idea. Social 
 practice, on the other hand, is not inclined to wait for 
 careful analysis ; and though, in the conflict of rival 
 schools, it is possible to distinguish two generally opposing 
 factions those who pin their faith to alterations of 
 environment on the one side, and on the other, those who 
 believe that changes of mind and character are of first 
 importance it cannot be said that the latter have in any 
 way realized what is implied in the assertion, not only 
 that " the mind is the man," but also that society is 
 mind, and mind-systems the clue to the real significance of 
 most of our present social life. We have good reason, 
 therefore, to elaborate more fully the implications of the 
 " social mind." 
 
 Let us first emphasize the fact that the mental ele- 
 ments underlying any social institution or relation- 
 ship may and do range from a mass of simple feeling 
 and idea, with its accompanying characteristic of custom 
 or use-and-wont, up to a system of pure thought and 
 reason, ordered in harmony with consistent, conscious 
 purposes, and marked by enlightenment and freedom 
 from all prejudices. In even the most advanced society 
 (by which we usually mean our own), every institution 
 and relationship has behind it a mixture of elements of 
 every grade except the highest. That is to say, analysis 
 of the mental elements underlying any of our institutions 
 even the newest and most consciously and thoughtfully 
 established will bring to light a certain quantity of 
 simple association of feeling and idea, with a good 
 deal of prejudice or bias connected with it, side by side 
 with a certain quantity of thought and purpose and 
 harmony with the general scheme of our life. We 
 never get away from the masses of unanalysed feeling 
 and bias, however thoughtful and critical we are ; and
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 93 
 
 at the same time, we never fail to find some element of 
 thought and conscious purpose connected with even the 
 most hoary and venerable and stupid institutions, how- 
 ever much we have just taken these on trust from our 
 ancestors. 
 
 Now the possibilities of change in any society or with 
 regard to any social institution, depend in part upon the 
 degree in which the masses of feeling and associations of 
 ideas are really tempered by thought and conscious 
 purpose, are in process of being analysed by criticism and 
 harmonized with a coherent scheme of social purposes. 
 For this is the real test of part of the preparedness for 
 change, of readiness for re-formed social conduct. If any 
 society has so far advanced as to have, as its guide in life, 
 a fairly coherent system of thoughts and a fairly har- 
 monious scheme of purposes, then that society is prepared 
 to undergo, with comparative safety, changes which would 
 quite demoralize a society less advanced. This point, 
 and its implications, will be elaborated more fully later. 
 At present it will be enough to illustrate the bearing of 
 what has been said upon some current suggestions of 
 reform. 
 
 Let us take one of our most important institutions, 
 that of monogamous marriage. We are all conscious of 
 the general purposes for which it exists. As is often 
 the case with old and very important institutions, it is 
 not only sanctioned by religion, but its purposes are 
 also, in a general way, defined for us by religion (as in 
 the marriage service), and it is hedged in within certain 
 limits both by religion and law (as by the table of 
 prohibited degrees of relationship). For many centuries 
 we have accepted the institution so defined and limited 
 with very little thought or criticism. The institution 
 has become a habit, in fact, and it has not occurred to 
 most people to ask how far its purposes are in con- 
 sonance with any new elements in the general aims of 
 society. We refrain from falling in love with our aunts
 
 94 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 or great-uncles, as a matter of course ; but subject to 
 such accepted restrictions, we follow our inclination in 
 love and marriage, choosing as husband or wife whoever 
 takes our fancy most for any reason or jumble of reasons. 
 The whole institution and the activities connected with 
 it rest upon a deep bed of tradition, made peculiarly 
 firm (happily for us) both by centuries of religious feeling 
 and also by an unconscious or half-conscious instinct of 
 race-safety. 
 
 But in the ferment of thought and criticism which 
 characterizes a " progressive " age, certain discoveries are 
 made. In the first place, it is found, by the pioneers of 
 a new science the science of race-culture or eugenics 
 that the institution, as now established and used, does 
 not harmonize with the ends of a healthy society. As 
 more comes to be known about the conditions of health, 
 and especially about the conditions of inherited health 
 and vigour, it is inevitable that this end namely, the 
 production of a healthy and vigorous stock for our 
 population should be elevated into a position of very 
 great importance among the conscious ends of social 
 life, especially by those people who have made most 
 study of the conditions referred to. Among these, there 
 are some extremists who maintain that the whole in- 
 stitution of monogamy conflicts with the attainment of 
 these ends. With their proposals we need not concern 
 ourselves here. But a more moderate party of reformers, 
 led by Mr. Galton, find fault with the customary, habitual, 
 accepted ways in which any kind of person, weak or 
 strong, marries and is allowed to marry any other sort of 
 person ; since the result in many cases is that children 
 are born who are a sure source of weakness and ill-health in 
 the society. All this is quite undeniably true ; but now 
 mark the difficulties. Mr. Galton would like to break the 
 old social habits, with their background of religious sanc- 
 tion, by which thousands of people are permitted every 
 year to make " unfit " marriages. Can this be done ?
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 95 
 
 In some individual cases, perhaps in a few very reasonable 
 groups of society, it is possible that a full realization of the 
 importance of the ends which marriage ought to serve 
 may restrain people from falling in love unsuitably, or 
 marrying " unfit " mates, or marrying at all if they them- 
 selves are "unfit." But all such people would have 
 transcended habit, and would be guiding their action by 
 motives of conscious thought and purpose. But the 
 majority of the population is not ready to transcend habit 
 in this way, or to act " reasonably," especially as their 
 habitual mode of action has on its side not only the religious 
 sanction and the feelings connected with it, but also the 
 more powerful feelings of sex-impulse and " love." These 
 feelings are only kept in check and forced to move on 
 orderly lines, for most people, by very strong custom and 
 very strong religious fear or respect. The great mass of 
 the members of society will certainly not change their 
 habits in the matter of falling in love and marrying just 
 in order to promote the reasonable end of a more vigorous 
 and healthy race, nor even to attain the quite personal 
 aim of having strong and vigorous children themselves. 
 Recognizing this difficulty, Mr. Galton urges that we 
 should grow a new habit, with new religious sanction 
 and feeling behind it, to take the place of the old. But 
 this is not the way in which a progressive change can 
 take place. Firmly fixed social habits, with their deep 
 accretions of feeling, can be altered in two ways by 
 force, or by enlightenment. Force, in the shape of the 
 imposed will of a determined section of society, might 
 restrain the habit within certain bounds ; or society as a 
 whole might come to realize clearly the necessity of 
 subordinating individual preferences to the social pur- 
 poses of health and strength. In the latter case, some 
 of the habitual elements connected with the institution of 
 marriage would be altered, and elements of conscious 
 thought and purpose substituted. The latter would 
 probably become habitual too in the course of time,
 
 96 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 but, on the assumption that society is really becoming 
 more thoughtful and purposeful, never so habitual as the 
 old elements which had been displaced. And most 
 emphatically, the oldest habits of all our habitual 
 feelings of religious veneration cannot be changed into a 
 new set of similar habits. The feelings which we wish to 
 produce feelings of respect for the race and for posterity 
 will not be religious in the same sense, nor habitual in 
 any sense ; they will spring from a new soil, the conscious 
 realization of new purpose and aim ; and though they 
 may become strong and fixed, their strength or fixity 
 will never be the same as that which is derived from 
 centuries of unquestioned tradition and established custom. 
 In other words, the social habit must give place to a social 
 thought-system, with its consciousness of purposes to 
 be served ; and the resulting social behaviour will be 
 upon a different level, motived by conscious recognition 
 of some social ends ; and although on this level, as on 
 all levels of life, behaviour will tend to become habitual 
 if undisturbed too long, the fixity of the habits will be 
 conditioned by new influences, and will not repose upon 
 the old factors of the traditional, the accepted, and the 
 customary. 
 
 Another set of reformers, among whom may be reckoned 
 some socialists, would alter the institutions of both 
 marriage and the family. They argue that the old tradi- 
 tion-feelings connected with both are now dissolving ; 
 and that the traditional purposes served are not now those 
 of which society is or ought to be most fully conscious. 
 The religious and semi-religious feelings connected with 
 family life are now decaying fast so it is said ; among 
 the middle classes of society Mr. H. G. Wells has dis- 
 covered that they are no more than " clotted cant and 
 habituation to things as they are." Certainly, if it is 
 true that respect for the marriage tie is disappearing, 
 if respect for parents or " filial piety " is a worn-out and 
 effete virtue, if respect for and love of the home is only
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 97 
 
 a pretence, then it is not impossible that change is immi- 
 nent, and probably necessary. And further, if it is true 
 that many of the best women flatly refuse the traditional 
 view of matrimony as their right and proper profession, 
 and a few of the best men chafe under the traditional 
 assumption of their " overlordship," then again some 
 change is imminent, and probably necessary. Of this 
 we shall have more to say in a later chapter. But let it 
 be noted here that both the need for change and the 
 possibility of change depend upon the extent to which 
 the social habit and tradition are really undermined by 
 the solvents of thought and criticism and conception of 
 new ends and aims. If this process has proceeded far 
 and spread widely through society, then we may at 
 least assert that the society is partly prepared for 
 reformation of the institutions upon a new basis. 
 
 I say " partly prepared," for so far we have only 
 considered the mental preparedness of society on its 
 negative side. We have yet to make clear what is the 
 positive condition of change if that change is to be 
 safe or salutary. Returning for a moment to the in- 
 dividual, we may note that, as old habits are dissolved 
 or undermined by thought, there ensues a period of 
 danger. The swept and garnished chamber is open to 
 the very unpleasant devils of riotous variety and in- 
 stability. Some modern progressive individuals illustrate 
 this danger by their very quick changes of principle 
 and practice in both small things and great, from diet 
 to religious belief. In social life there is the same danger. 
 A period of instability is a very likely sequel to decaying 
 habits and conventions, as to decaying faiths ; and society 
 may become like a ship without its sheet anchor, at the 
 mercy of numerous cross-currents, causing movements 
 which may be mistaken for progress but are certainly 
 not progressive. Now there is only one condition of com- 
 parative safety at such a time. The sheet anchors of 
 habit and tradition may be loosened with impunity if the 
 7
 
 9 8 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ship of society has both a clear consciousness of the course 
 it wishes to steer, and also motive power enough to carry 
 it in the desired direction. Or, putting metaphor aside, 
 society or any part of it may, like individuals, face the 
 dangers of instability and too great variety without much 
 fear, provided that, when it passes out of the influence of 
 tradition and its associations of feeling and idea, it 
 passes into mental systems of thought and purpose which 
 will steady it and keep it within bounds on the higher 
 level. And this is the positive condition of preparedness 
 for change in modern social life ; the traditional stage of 
 institutions and activities may be superseded if and when 
 mental systems exist, strong enough, coherent enough, 
 and widespread enough, to act surely as forces of social 
 control and social guidance. 
 
 In any society in which this condition obtains, the 
 dissolution of the traditional basis of any institution will 
 not be followed by anarchy, for the -simple reason that 
 such a society will not emerge from associations of 
 feeling and idea into empty space, but will pass on at 
 once into the thought-systems ready to take their place. 
 Nor will these thought-systems form a dangerous basis, 
 if we assume as we may that they are the result of 
 the collective thought of the society, based upon its 
 experience of life, and in harmony with its deliberately 
 chosen ends. In such a society the traditional institu- 
 tion of property r the family or anything else, 
 might be altered in numerous ways without producing 
 the chaos which would follow in a society less advanced ; 
 the social members would, as a whole, be reflective and 
 reasonable enough to guide their conduct by the motives 
 of accepted purpose and understood reasons, instead of 
 the old control of habit and tradition. 
 
 Does any such society yet exist ? Obviously not, 
 though some groups in every civilized society may have 
 reached the required level. But every society now 
 existing is made up of individual units of whom the
 
 99 
 
 great majority are not yet " reasonable," but are very 
 largely slaves of use-and-wont. They are not prepared 
 for the control and guidance of thought-systems. Nor 
 are there any such systems, thought-out and agreed 
 upon, ready for them : the social mind, as a whole, is 
 still in the tradition stage. Now it is very certain that, 
 in the development of ordinary individuals, limits are 
 set by the stage reached by their surrounding group as 
 a whole family, friends, neighbours, and fellow-citizens, 
 with whom contact is felt. In a civilized community or 
 group, the normal child passes, in its mental education, 
 from very simple systems of thought to more and more 
 complicated ones, from fairy tale and myth, to rule of 
 three, and eventually to elaborate systems of causation 
 which form the body of every science ; and in its moral 
 education, in the same way, it passes from stage to stage, 
 from simple submission to necessity to obedience to 
 accepted (though perhaps resented) authority ; from that 
 to the stage of guidance by tradition and respect for what 
 is established ; then to the stage of moral sense and con- 
 science ; and finally (in a few cases) to the stage of willing 
 subordination to an intelligently grasped system of moral 
 law. Not so the child of a backward or primitive group. 
 For it, no succession of mental systems is ready to lead 
 the mind on from the simple to the very complex ; possibly 
 it never even learns to count beyond five, never reaches 
 any conception of causation more advanced than a 
 theory of nature spirits and general " cussedness." And 
 its moral progress is similarly limited by the fact that 
 the highest standard of the tribe is blind obedience to 
 ancient custom, tradition at its deadest ; and the child's 
 moral high-water mark is reached when it learns to 
 capture a wife in the approved way by violence and 
 torture suspected wrong-doers with all the appropriate 
 ceremonies. We are not justified in saying that the 
 savage child is incapable of quicker progress ; we can 
 only say that progress is barred for it by the absence
 
 loo A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of more advanced conceptions or mental systems or 
 standards from the social group in which it grows up. 
 
 Now the most civilized society of to-day is made up 
 of patches of every sort, ranging from extreme backward- 
 ness to moderate intelligence and obedience to reasonable 
 standards of life and conduct. The members of each 
 patch are, as a whole, limited in their development 
 by the content and atmosphere of that patch, not, of 
 course, as decidedly limited as is the savage in a group 
 removed from all direct contact with more advanced 
 groups, but limited nevertheless, in spite of the near 
 neighbourhood of groups on a higher level, and in spite 
 of the permeation of ideas and thoughts and standards 
 which goes on throughout every civilized society. In- 
 dividual members of a backward group may, and some- 
 times do, pass on to the highest stage existing in the 
 society ; and individual members of any group may, and 
 sometimes do, pass beyond the limits set by the existing 
 stages of their society, thus becoming the pioneers of a 
 new stage, or the inventors of new systems of thought 
 and purpose. But of the masses composing all groups 
 it is safe to assert that their individual adaptability, 
 both mental and moral, will tend to become fixed by the 
 time they are adult citizens ; and their collective adapt- 
 ability will not be such as to enable them to pass easily 
 beyond the limits of their group. 
 
 Translating all this into the concrete, it means that 
 for the more ignorant and less reflective strata of society, 
 whether rich or poor, high or low, the door is not open 
 to those rational systems of thought and purpose which 
 many reformers would like to introduce. Their lives 
 are still in the stage of habitual conduct and traditional 
 motive. As adult individuals, they are not adapted for 
 a life in which deliberate thought and purpose take the 
 place of unanalysed feeling and accepted rules of action. 
 As groups, they are not adapted for a life which would 
 be comparatively easy to people among whom criticism, 

 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 101 
 
 reflection, and thoughtful ordering of means and ends 
 had become a matter of course, forming a sort of at- 
 mosphere to which all were accustomed. Both as 
 individuals and as groups, their mental equipment 
 consists chiefly in masses of feeling and prejudice, and 
 these supply the rule and guidance of their actions. 
 They have their thought-systems, doubtless ; but, like 
 their favourite literature, these are usually of the " tit- 
 bit " kind, disconnected and disordered, lacking both the 
 consistency and the coherence necessary to any true 
 system of thought and purpose which shall serve ade- 
 quately the ends of life. 
 
 NOTE ON THE PART PLAYED BY INSTINCT IN 
 INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ACTION 
 
 It is necessary to guard against one or more mis- 
 understandings which may arise in connexion with the 
 use of the word " instinct " in this and other chapters. 
 I have asserted that the value or importance of pure 
 instinct diminishes as intelligence increases, meaning by 
 this that the specific instinctive process, in its simple 
 form, is less and less the complete determinant of action 
 as intelligence becomes more active and the thought- 
 processes more complex and important. But this does 
 not mean that there ceases to be, at any stage, in any 
 life, an instinctive element in most actions ; indeed my 
 whole contention is that the conative element of instinct 
 at all events always lies behind our " willings " or de- 
 cisions or choices of action, however thoughtful we may 
 become. The process of instinct involves three elements 
 of perception, of feeling, and of conation or impulse 
 towards the appropriate action or end. Increase of thought 
 and reflection modifies the character of the first two 
 elements in all sorts of ways ; the element of impulse is 
 also modified, but less so. But all three elements persist 
 and are involved in many of the actions of every thoughtful 
 grown-up man or woman. For example, when a man falls
 
 102 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 in love and gets married, his course of action can only be 
 explained by reference to a specific instinctive process 
 (or processes), the capacity for which and the mode of its 
 operation are inherited from his ancestors. But the 
 elements of perception and feeling are enormously modi- 
 fied in the case of every educated, civilized man ; the 
 element of conati9n or impulse the motive force is far 
 less modified, though of course, it may be checked by 
 various conscious processes. 
 
 Throughout my argument I have thought it advis- 
 able to use the word impulse, rather than instinct, to 
 designate that motive force which continually works in 
 us. But my contention throughout is that this motive 
 force, the clue to so many of our actions, very closely 
 resembles instinct, and is probably closely connected 
 with it, though the processes through which it works are 
 very far removed from pure instinct, in which the 
 elements are unmodified by conscious reflection or experi- 
 ence or the conditions of social life. 
 
 As to society, it will be seen that I trace all social 
 decisions to the very similar motive force which I call 
 the social impulse. But this cannot be called instinctive 
 except in a figurative way. Instinct is always something 
 specific, due to the past life of the species, and derived 
 from ancestors. Therefore the term is inapplicable to 
 any social impulse. I confess, however, that it is difficult 
 to avoid the use of the word to describe many of those 
 combinations of perception, feeling, and impulse which 
 operate in a society at certain crises. We may speak 
 loosely of the instinct of self-preservation in the case of 
 a society or group ; and in the case of some social groups, 
 such as a hive of bees, it is quite arguable that the appro- 
 priate behaviour in certain circumstances of danger is 
 really instinctive. In the case of human societies, I 
 would rather say that the instincts of the individual 
 members, complicated by all sorts of other individual 
 and social elements, give rise to a social impulse towards
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 103 
 
 a particular course of action. This impulse is usually 
 mistaken for something reasonable : or rather, the 
 mistake is made of thinking that the decision might and 
 should be reasonable especially by those people who 
 think that a society ought to be guided by the reason of 
 its " wise " or educated members, instead of by the 
 instinctive op^ai of all its real citizens. If I could help 
 to dispel this fallacy by using the word " instinctive," 
 I would gladly do so. But I hope the term " impulsive " 
 will serve the same purpose, while undoubtedly being 
 more accurate. 
 
 I would, however, protest against the extravagant 
 extension of the " instinct-explanation of motives " 
 which seems to be becoming popular. It may be true 
 that, in all our individual actions from the cradle to 
 the grave, the motive force is traceable to that inherited 
 equipment of native impulses which is part of the essence 
 of instinct. There is, no doubt, behind all our complex 
 economic activities the push of the hunger-impulse, of 
 the instinct of self-assertion, and of a few other primary 
 instincts. Doubtless, also, all our ambitions and desires 
 which prompt us to work for our own or others' good 
 have their roots in the native impulses which belong 
 to the instincts of our species. But to explain the motive 
 force of the conduct of a thoughtful moral man by reference 
 to these instincts is no more explanatory than is, let us say, 
 the explanation of a man's failures or mistakes by re- 
 ference to original sin. Most of all does the explanation 
 miss the point in the case of our actions in new situations 
 under the influence of new conceptions of an end or ideal. 
 And -in the movements of social life, the situations and 
 
 
 
 conceptions are usually new ; the motive which deter- 
 mines the particular course of action chosen is impulse 
 modified and directed by new ideas ; and it is this con- 
 stantly new modification of impulse which has to be 
 explained. For example, our national action to-day in 
 regard to a possible danger of war with some other power
 
 104 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 is motived generally by the instinct of fear which is strong 
 in all the members of our (and other) species. But, when 
 that is admitted, we are really no nearer an explanation of 
 the particular action which is taken by the nation or 
 various groups or parties within it.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SOCIETY CONSIDERED AS SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF 
 MIND (continued) 
 
 IN the last chapter we have confined our attention 
 to the conditions of mental preparedness for change 
 in any society ; on the one hand, the negative condi- 
 tions of readiness on the part of individuals and groups to 
 revise and break up old and customary association-masses 
 connected with any institution or practice ; and on the 
 other hand, the positive condition of the existence within 
 easy reach of thought-systems capable of taking the place 
 of the masses of feeling and idea thus discarded. But a 
 host of further questions at once present themselves. 
 How do people become ready to revise their old beliefs ? 
 What causes them to take it into their heads to be critical ? 
 How comes it that new idea-systems arise within a 
 society ? Who or what is responsible for them ? How 
 do they become attractive enough to displace old ideas ? 
 How do they spread ? 
 
 These queries raise two very different questions : one 
 concerning the process by which change of idea or atti- 
 tude or aim tends to occur among social beings ; the 
 other concerning the origin of the idea or ideas which 
 determine the direction of change. The latter question 
 must be put on one side for the present ; we are not yet 
 in a position to answer it. But the former may be 
 answered in part at least. It is a question of simple social 
 psychology, or the science of the mental processes which
 
 io6 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 go on in any human society. And the answer may be 
 found by considering some of the influences which the 
 life of the group brings to bear upon the individual's 
 mind, and the counter-influences exercised by the ideas 
 of other groups or of the individuals belonging to them. 
 Our normal growth in any society tends, during youth, 
 to establish in us associations of feeling and idea by a 
 process of unconscious imitation. Within the family the 
 child is incessantly absorbing the customary views, 
 beliefs, attitudes, standards, and methods belonging to 
 the family. It is taking in and making its own the family 
 inheritance a mental inheritance, quite as important a 
 thing as the physical inheritance which it acquires before 
 birth. To the process by which it does this the term 
 imitation is applied ; but this does not imply that the 
 child is consciously imitating anything. The process is 
 usually unconscious ; and it is the process which is para- 
 mount in our moral and social education during our youth 
 certainly, and probably all through our life if any develop- 
 ment is going on at all. In this process of education the 
 family group is by far the most important. Every normal 
 family has its own inheritance to give, and gives it 
 naturally. But the process soon becomes something 
 more than that of unconsciously absorbing associations of 
 feeling and idea, or imitating habits and ways of doing 
 things or of thinking thoughts. It is also a process into 
 which, as the children grow, conscious selection and 
 criticism enter increasingly. And these elements are 
 encouraged by the simple fact that the family has nor- 
 mally two parents, not one ; for just as in physical heredity 
 this duality is the chief condition of progress, so it is in 
 mental heredity also. The child has, or ought to have, 
 two parents to imitate, differing, of course, in their ways 
 and thoughts. If each parent possesses equal prestige, 
 the child will be led to compare and select from two sets 
 of equally attractive examples, thus acquiring an inherit- 
 ance which is never the same for two generations or even
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 107 
 
 two individuals, but is peculiarly open to variations ; 
 and also learning the valuable habit of comparison and 
 criticism. 
 
 It is easy to see that the dominance of one of the 
 parents will act as a conservative force ; and it is a fact 
 that the dominance of the father as a sort of patriarch is 
 always one of the great conditions of conservatism or 
 fixity in a society. The equality or independence of 
 the mother is a progressive factor, simply because it 
 opens out two alternative sources of mental heredity 
 instead of one, and also leads to constant comparison 
 on the part of the children. 
 
 The same process of imitation, modified in varying 
 degree by selection and criticism, continues to operate 
 in the wider groups into which the children are thrown 
 as their education proceeds. The least stimulating group 
 is usually the one which is most homogeneous, or composed 
 of persons of the same sex and class and age. Such a 
 group is not likely to predispose its members to compari- 
 son and criticism and other conditions of innovating 
 thought. We are justified in regarding the monastic 
 system of school education, as exemplified in the tradi- 
 tional British Public School, as a strong conservative 
 force. The boy is brought into close contact with 
 members of his own sex only, the vast majority of whom 
 closely resemble him in class and caste tradition. This 
 contact supplies the minimum of stimulus to his thought : 
 there is little challenge offered to his critical faculties ; 
 and the admitted virtue of the system is that it makes 
 strong an esprit de corps and a code of honour which are 
 largely a caste-feeling and a class-code. The school 
 group becomes less conservative in proportion as the 
 members belong to different classes as often in America, 
 and in some of the most progressive countries in Europe, 
 such as Norway and Sweden and Denmark. It is least 
 conservative when both sexes are equally mixed in it. 
 The co-educational system is necessarily more stimulat-
 
 io8 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ing to new ideas, since difference of sex introduces innate 
 differences of attitude and estimate. It is therefore more 
 progressive, or dangerous (we may choose which word we 
 prefer according to our bias), than the system of the separ- 
 ate education of the sexes. In Plato's ideal republic (if 
 we regard it as a serious social ideal) by far the most 
 dangerous element is the co-education of the sexes ; for 
 this would certainly lead to very unexpected changes of 
 view and standard, unless checked by exceedingly strong 
 tradition and custom and the iron hand of repressive 
 guardians. 
 
 Again, when we come to adult life, the tendency to 
 innovation, to the formation of new social aims and 
 impulses, is largely conditioned by the comparative 
 homogeneity or heterogeneity of grouping. In all our 
 big cities there is a fairly sharp separation between a 
 West End and an East End, the rich quarter and the 
 poor quarter. This is, of course, a natural result of the 
 perfectly excusable distaste which most of us feel for 
 many of the sights and sounds and smells associated 
 with poverty and squalor. We prefer to live away from 
 them, if we can. Social reformers sometimes upbraid us 
 for doing so, and deplore the resulting separation of 
 classes, with its accompanying lack of sympathy on the 
 part of the rich with the sufferings of the poor and 
 their ignorance of the way in which " the other half" 
 lives. But there is another result which is usually 
 unnoticed or unconfessed. The separation is quite an 
 important factor in the production of what some people 
 will call social stability, others social unprogressiveness ; 
 in other words, it is a very strong conservative influence. 
 So far as the rich are concerned, it makes it possible for 
 the idols of class to be kept free from much criticism on 
 the part of the members of the class concerned. Dis- 
 quieting thoughts are not suggested by their environ- 
 ment to most of the comfortable denizens of Mayfair ; 
 whereas constant contact with Poplar and West Ham
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 109 
 
 would certainly inspire quite a number of well-to-do 
 people with rather revolutionary views.* 
 
 So, too, the infusion of a small proportion of labour 
 members into the national Parliament is an event of 
 importance rather on account of its indirect effects than 
 because of any startling influence upon legislation. The 
 mere presence of a group of members of a different class, 
 carrying with it a constant suggestion of different views, 
 will tend to alter and complicate the thought-systems of 
 all other members. 
 
 We may safely assert, then, that the process by which 
 social change takes place is closely connected with the 
 two opposite processes of imitation and criticism of 
 ideas ; imitation predominating undisturbed as a con- 
 serving influence in proportion as the group is homo- 
 geneous ; critical selection predominating as an inno- 
 vating factor in proportion as the group is heterogeneous, 
 or as close contact with other groups increases. 
 
 But the process which prepares the way for change 
 is really much more complex than this. It is possible 
 for numerous new ideas to be presented to some or many 
 members of a group without producing any positive 
 effect. They are not absorbed ; nobody takes them up 
 or imitates them ; they remain inoperative, or even give 
 rise to conscious antagonism. On the other hand, it may 
 
 * I hope I shall not be blamed for considering only what the 
 richer classes gain and lose from the separation. I am heretical 
 enough to doubt whether it would be any gain at all to the poorer 
 classes of East London, for example, if the more comfortable 
 West-Enders settled among them in any numbers. We, who are 
 better off, are seldom capable of doing more good than harm to 
 the poor by our examples the only form of influence which counts 
 for much in the matter ; while the poor gain enormously in strength 
 and virtue by the fact that their grouping is, on the whole, homo- 
 geneous. It is a gain of stability for them, without a doubt, and 
 not a loss of " progressiveness." Witness the significant fact that 
 the mixed patches of poverty in the midst of the West End are 
 really inferior in morale to the general level of the East End.
 
 no A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 happen that a new idea becomes unexpectedly powerful ; 
 thousands of people open their arms to it and make it 
 their own ; and it becomes the keynote of a new move- 
 ment or a new policy. How is this difference to be 
 explained ? 
 
 The success of a new idea depends upon one or both 
 of two conditions : either it must be reasonable, or else 
 it must come to us armed with considerable prestige. 
 To the word " reasonable " here (as always when applied 
 to social suggestions), a rather peculiar meaning must 
 be given. It does not imply that the idea or suggestion 
 is a really wise one, but merely that it seems to us to be 
 good in relation to some actual or imagined need. In 
 this sense the suggestion of food seems reasonable to me 
 when I feel hungry. Yet it may often happen that my 
 " hunger " is only false hunger due to indigestion, and 
 the suggestion of food is quite treasonable. What I 
 really need is something very different. So with all 
 suggestions of social change. We are never in a position 
 to say that they are really wise or good. We cannot, 
 for example (apart from blinding partisanship), assert 
 that Tariff Reform is a wiser or truer suggestion than 
 Free Trade, or more reasonable in relation to truth or 
 to the actual needs of the nation, any more than we can 
 assert that the leaders of one party or the exponents of 
 one policy are really wiser or more reasonable than 
 those of the other. But each policy is accepted as 
 eminently reasonable by its own advocates, just in the 
 sense that it seems to them best calculated to meet 
 a need which they believe exists in this or that form. 
 And any proposal or new idea tends to be powerful in 
 proportion as it seems likely to meet a need which 
 many people feel, or think they feel. It then commends 
 itself to them as " reasonable." 
 
 The other great factor which makes an idea successful 
 is the prestige with which it comes to us. This is tanta- 
 mount to saying that it must come from an acceptable
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND in 
 
 source, backed by the authority of people whom we re- 
 spect. Unless this condition is fulfilled, the difficulties in 
 the way of the spread of any idea are enormously 
 increased, however reasonable it may be in itself. This 
 is, of course, obvious ; but the underlying cause is not so 
 obvious. The difficulty is almost entirely due to the 
 natural inertia of established ideas in any social group, 
 this in turn depending upon the homogeneity of the group, 
 and the conservative influence which every homogeneous 
 group brings to bear upon all its members by reason of 
 the astounding control it exercises over their minds. This 
 control is strong in proportion as the consciousness of 
 homogeneity is strong. When the members of a group 
 not only think very much alike, but know that they do so, 
 and know also that they think rather differently from 
 people outside their group, then every established idea in 
 the minds of each of them acquires a natural prestige due 
 to the simple fact that all the other members hold it ; 
 and the whole mass of the ideas of the group forms a 
 solid barrier against the intrusion of anything new. No 
 alien idea has a chance of winning its way in unless it is 
 backed by a prestige even greater than that of the group. 
 Schoolmasters are familiar with the difficulty of inducing 
 boys to change their ideas for the better ; no amount 
 of preaching will give a new moral idea currency among 
 them, unless (as very seldom happens among boys) 
 the master possesses a prestige greater than that of 
 the boys who set the tone. So, too, in some " sporting " 
 sets among men ; the ideas which the group has accepted 
 and made its own have a cogency far exceeding that of 
 the ideas embodied in the generally accepted social 
 morality ; there have been " sportsmen " who would 
 rather die than shoot a bird sitting, yet would commit 
 adultery without any scruple at all. Or, to take a rather 
 higher example, a group of college dons, meeting evening 
 after evening in the same common-room, and discussing 
 the affairs of the universe with the refined moderation
 
 H2 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 which often becomes habitual among scholarly people 
 who are a little withdrawn from the world, tends to grow 
 proof against any ideas which seem in the least revolu- 
 tionary. It is not that the group forms a kind of mutual 
 admiration society that is not necessary ; but merely 
 that the members, resembling each other in certain 
 marked characteristics, grow into a sameness of attitude 
 based more upon custom than anything else ; and any 
 other attitude jars upon them as savouring of offence 
 against the customary and accepted canons of good 
 form. 
 
 Here the influence of homogeneity operates in the 
 direction of giving great prestige to the accepted ideas 
 of the group. Quite naturally, of course ; for who can 
 be more entitled to respect than the people who most 
 closely agree with and resemble ourselves ? And the 
 result is that society comes to be filled with barriers 
 which offer a strong resistance to the invasion of new 
 ideas, unless these come with great prestige, or else happen 
 to suggest a way of meeting a new need for which the 
 accepted ideas of the group furnish no remedy. 
 
 The opposition to the entrance of a new idea is of 
 course strengthened in all cases by the self-interest of 
 the groups and their members. This is worth noting 
 merely in order to notice the further fact that such self- 
 interest is not necessarily at all enlightened. It forms 
 often as blind a barrier as the mass of accepted or 
 inherited ideas referred to above ; it is never reasonable 
 in the true sense, though often shrewd enough to be 
 really protective, exactly as masses of blind prejudice 
 are often a very useful and salutary form of protective 
 armour. Its chief characteristic is that it is instinctive, 
 and works instinctively ; and this is the outstanding 
 fact in connexion with all social changes or reforms. 
 The opposition to the suggestion of change is due through- 
 out to feelings connected with various forms of a general 
 instinct of self-preservation ; the attractiveness of
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 113 
 
 an idea also depends upon its relation to instincts or 
 impulses on the part of the social members who are the 
 determining factors of change. We think, argue, or 
 reason about the suggested idea ; we accept it or reject 
 it after due consideration ; we even " prove " its truth 
 or falsity, so we imagine. But all the while the vital 
 impulses within us and within our group or society are 
 quietly deciding the question for us, without waiting 
 for any process of logical proof, sometimes even without 
 any show of real reasoning. This superiority of the 
 vital impulse to any logical proof is most obviously 
 illustrated by what older people are inclined to call the 
 perversity of young enthusiasts. " I have proved to her 
 that socialism "is false," says a mother in reference to 
 her daughter in one of Mr. Shaw's plays. " Ah, my 
 dear madam," replies her friend, "it is just by proving 
 that that I have lost all my young disciples." But the 
 perversity is not peculiar to youth or enthusiasm. It is 
 at least as strong in the old or middle-aged. The only 
 difference is that the young do not trouble to wait for 
 or respect any proof, while older people have the greatest 
 respect for their own proofs and their " logical " conclu- 
 sions, and are only perverse in reference to any one 
 else's. 
 
 One very important point must be explained. Change 
 or progress or reform in any " progressive " age depends 
 upon another fact totally different from those already 
 noticed. Given a new idea, endowed with some kind of 
 prestige, and recognized as " reasonable " or fitted to 
 meet a felt need, even so, with all these conditions 
 fulfilled, change would still be a far slower process than it 
 is, were it not for the fact that many new ideas exercise 
 a kind of hypnotic influence upon their originators and 
 upon many of their followers. The originators not only 
 fall in love with the idea, but often become possessed by 
 it. It becomes for them the infallible key to many closed 
 locks ; they can see no defects in it, but only amazing
 
 ii4 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 powers for good.* And this hypnotic influence spreads to 
 their followers, especially to the younger and more ener- 
 getic among them ; for it is a natural attribute of any 
 ingenious new idea that it can attract and appeal to the 
 young and energetic with far greater force than any old- 
 established idea can, though the latter may be far better 
 and saner, and have far more " stuff " in it, to say nothing 
 of having stood the test of time as a proof of its validity. 
 In this way the new idea, whether a new policy or a 
 new creed, is exalted into a reforming faith, with energy 
 behind it ; and it is likely to displace the old ideas 
 rapidly, provided only it proves that it possesses some 
 reasonableness. 
 
 But this tendency must not be exaggerated. It does 
 not mean that, in a changeable age, any plausible idea 
 will probably drive out better ideas which happen to be 
 established. By saying that the new idea must first be 
 proved reasonable, we imply two things : first that it 
 must be (as explained above) really fitted to meet a 
 need ; secondly, that this need is pressing, and is not 
 adequately met by the old ideas. Even young and 
 energetic and rebellious people are not often so foolish as 
 to rush after any change just because it is change. None 
 of us become zealous reformers just for the sake of 
 taking up a new cause. When we do so, it is a sure sign 
 that we are dissatisfied with the way in which the new 
 needs of which we are conscious are being met by the 
 existing scheme of thought and action ; in other words, 
 the very appearance of a band of ardent reformers is 
 
 * How far this hypnotic influence of an idea over its originators 
 or other people is due to constant repetition of the idea in some 
 form or other, we need not here consider. But it must be 
 remembered that repetition of a suggestion is one of the most 
 important causes of its " success." The commercial value of 
 advertising rests chiefly upon this fact. Only tell people often 
 enough that they want something of which they have never 
 previously heard, and they will end by " wanting " it quite badly, 
 and perhaps thereafter be unable to get on at all without it.
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 115 
 
 good evidence of the failure of the established ideas to 
 do their work properly. And if this failure is felt strongly 
 only by the young, we cannot therefore conclude that the 
 failure is more imaginary than real. Possibly the need 
 which has to be met is young also ; the older generation 
 may not be fully conscious of it, and therefore is unable 
 to perceive the failure which is so keenly felt by the 
 younger generation. 
 
 Have we still kept the reformer in our company ? 
 Or has he long ago turned away in disgust ? If he has 
 not been wearied with the abstract nature of the dis- 
 cussion, I fear he may have been offended by the tone 
 of the " superior and cultured person " which has crept 
 into it. But this has been inevitable ; for many of those 
 who are most busily urging reforms of our old institu- 
 tions and ways of life are superior to the mass of their 
 fellow-citizens not in their moral worth, perhaps, but 
 in the fact that they have reached a much higher level 
 of thought and conscious purpose than is common in 
 their society. And of this superiority they need to be 
 reminded very frequently, lest they forget altogether 
 the " difficulties of adaptation," which, presenting little 
 difficulty to them, form insuperable obstacles in the way 
 of quick reform of the masses who are in a different 
 stage of mental development. 
 
 But I will try to catch again the attention of the 
 practical reformer by giving some definite applications of 
 the principles outlined in this and the preceding chapter. 
 First, it is obvious that, whatever we may be doing 
 as reformers, our chief contribution to progress is made 
 through our influence as minds. Whether we are trying 
 to re-house a slum population, or to devise a better way 
 of filling the stomachs of the children, or to lessen the 
 number of public-houses, or to teach people to be more 
 thrifty or sober in all these efforts, however much 
 some of them seem to aim merely at a re-arrangement 
 of an external environment, what we are really doing
 
 n6 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 is the same. We are bringing our systems of thought 
 and purpose to others, and calling upon them to leave 
 their own " habitual " ones, and enter those we offer in 
 exchange. For it is not the external re-adjustment of 
 means to ends by improved building or machinery or 
 conditions, which is the true reform ; but the internal 
 re-adjustment of thoughts and purposes involved in 
 every reform. Just as in every institution, relationship, 
 or method of action, it is not the structure and organiz- 
 ation which matter so much, but always the meaning 
 and purpose underlying these ; so in every reform, it is 
 not the improved structure or mechanism which is of 
 most importance, but the improvement of the under- 
 lying scheme of thoughts and motives. And of all this, 
 the application is two-fold. First, we are always work- 
 ing in relation to the mental content of the people, both 
 individuals and groups. Do we know that content ? 
 Do we realize the operative systems into which our 
 suggestions or schemes are to be received ? The com- 
 parative failure of much reforming effort seems to show 
 that we do not. Just as many missions to " heathen," 
 both at home and abroad, meet with little success be- 
 cause the missionaries have not really entered into 
 the mind-life of those " heathen," so also much of the 
 energy with which we try to " improve " the poorer 
 classes is wasted because we do not understand the 
 mind-systems of the people who belong to a different 
 group and live in a different atmosphere from our own. 
 I am afraid it has to be said, at the risk of great offence, . 
 that only a very few of the army of " social workers " in 
 every city have any idea how the poor among whom 
 they work are interpreting their environment ; what 
 the conditions of their life mean to them ; what are the 
 receptive systems into which the suggestions from the 
 environment or the suggestions of change are absorbed, 
 and in which they produce their effects ; what are the 
 feelings by which they are chiefly motived ; what is the
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 117 
 
 strength of the standards current among them. More 
 often than not we under-estimate the quality of the 
 mental systems of the poor, insulting them with treat- 
 ment suited only for children or savages ; occasionally 
 we over-estimate them and expect them to respond to 
 suggestions which, to them, are really meaningless. 
 
 Equally important, and much less obvious, is the 
 necessity of relating our schemes or suggestions of re- 
 form to the general scheme of the social life of our day. 
 Once more, neglect of this necessity leads to waste of 
 effort. Some of us hug old schemes, resting on antiquated 
 tradition or custom, and try to apply them to the new 
 life of to-day, little modified by the new thoughts and 
 purposes of our time. We become backwater reformers 
 or retrograde progressives ; we fail to see, for instance, 
 that it is as senseless to cling to an old scheme of turning 
 all the respectable daughters of the poor into domestic 
 servants, in a world in which the ideas of work and service 
 have partly outgrown the feudal age, as it is to attempt 
 to apprentice every intelligent boy to a skilled trade, in 
 a world in which the conditions of industry have outgrown 
 the apprenticeship system, and superseded the old 
 distinction between skilled and unskilled work. 
 
 In our " charities " most of all do we fail to recognize 
 the change of life-scheme and attitude which often is, 
 and always ought to be, operative among the members 
 of every section of our industrial community. For 
 nearly a century past we have in England striven to 
 found our social and industrial life upon a basis of con- 
 scious independence, laying the duty of full self-support 
 and family-support upon every normal citizen, and so 
 attempting to abolish the necessity for any patronage of 
 the poor by the rich, or indeed of any gifts or bounties 
 or charities of the old kind except in cases of exceptional 
 and unforeseen distress. This underlying theory of a 
 society of independent citizens has not yet been fully 
 realized in fact ; but the important point to note is that
 
 n8 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the ideas belonging to it have been far more completely 
 assimilated by the better grades of working men than by 
 the richer classes. The former have learned to detest 
 patronage : it offends their newly developed sense of 
 independence. The latter are still fond of it : it gratifies 
 their natural sense of superiority, as well as their ele- 
 mentary sentiment of pity. Even among the very poor 
 many have learned to say to the rich, " Curse your 
 charity ! " though the cry may not always be taken as an 
 index to a very real spirit of independence. But very few 
 of the rich have yet learned to be ashamed of the charity 
 thus execrated, or to substitute for the old-time duty of 
 gifts and doles the far harder duties which the complexities 
 of modern life really impose upon the more fortunate 
 classes. The result is a continual clashing of aims, a 
 continual frustrating of good-will. The poor are called 
 ungrateful : there never was a worse libel. The rich 
 are called much harder names : and some of these are also 
 undeserved. It would be a matter for grave uneasiness 
 if the poor showed much gratitude for many of the 
 proffered forms of help which still are popular. Why 
 should any of us be grateful for what is thoroughly bad 
 for us ? It is not a matter for any uneasiness that the 
 rich and those who act as their charitable proxies 
 are so often disappointed, or that their schemes and 
 devices do not produce the well-being and contentment 
 hoped for. We do not want our workers to remain in 
 the quasi-serfdom of a past age ; we want them to be 
 free to manage their own lives and meet their own diffi- 
 culties in their own ways, without any meddling from 
 above. If we must meddle, just because our attitude is 
 antiquated, then it is not a calamity that the meddling 
 is often a failure. And if we want to help the people in 
 reality, then it is not beyond our power to take a harder 
 and longer road to social service than that of charitable 
 short-cuts to this or that partial remedy. 
 A more practical moral may be drawn from the later
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 119 
 
 sections of this chapter. We may leave the reader to 
 moralize for himself or herself over the very obvious 
 applications of the principles of suggestion and imita- 
 tion. But for any would-be reformer or more humble 
 social worker there is one point which needs emphasizing. 
 If in our attempts to help the poor we want the new 
 ideas we bring to have force and to prevail, then it is 
 clear that we cannot afford to discard any handles of 
 prestige within our reach. These handles are of two 
 kinds within us and without. The external ones are 
 the least important, and they are not always within our 
 control. We cannot easily make ourselves more attract- 
 ive or imposing than we are ; we cannot endow our- 
 selves with the external attributes of beings from a loftier 
 sphere ; and indeed we may be content to leave that 
 particular kind of prestige to be exercised by the occasional 
 visitants who appear in a poor neighbourhood at election 
 times. Nevertheless, the district visitor who dresses 
 with unnecessary dowdiness is very foolish : she sacrifices 
 a source of prestige which may be childish but is undeni- 
 ably real. And the man who becomes slovenly because 
 it does not matter what he looks like in a slum is 
 also foolish : what he says and does loses something in 
 consequence of the neglect. 
 
 But there is an internal source of prestige or of power 
 which is within the reach of every one ; and that is the 
 power which comes from confidence, not in oneself only 
 but in others. That faith begets faith is a common- 
 place ; yet there are some workers who not only fail to 
 believe in themselves a pardonable mistake but fail 
 also to believe in the people with whom they are dealing 
 a quite unpardonable defect. For we all tend to act 
 up or down to the standard which is confidently ex- 
 pected of us ; it is therefore hardly possible to have too 
 much faith in the potential goodness of any one. More- 
 over, the people deserve this faith. Experience usually 
 leads to the conviction that it is impossible to expect
 
 120 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 too much of them ; the standard can never be pitched 
 too high either for their capacity to act or their ability 
 to understand. And their respect for us is often pro- 
 portionate to our faith in them and to our expectation 
 of them. It is not an exaggeration to say that a con- 
 siderable increase of faith in the actual and possible 
 goodness of the least promising people would be a surer 
 step towards radical social reform than the carrying out 
 of any programme at present put forward. 
 
 There is one other matter to which attention must be 
 directed here. In an earlier paragraph I asserted that 
 change of a social habit might be made in two ways 
 by force, or by enlightenment. Of these alternatives, I 
 have considered only the latter ; and there is a tempta- 
 tion to dismiss the former as hardly worthy of notice. 
 Of course, any section of society can be dragooned into 
 better ways ; but that is not what we mean by progress. 
 It is like trying to make people virtuous by Act of Par- 
 liament a proceeding which each political party, when 
 in opposition, assures us is quite futile. But unfortunately 
 the matter is not at all so simple. A large amount of 
 real social progress is brought about by what may be 
 much more accurately described as force-change than as 
 change of heart. In every society, about two-thirds of 
 the members are continually being pushed or pulled 
 along by the remaining one-third ; the latter do not stop to 
 convert the former, or to educate them into wider thought- 
 systems, but just insist upon what they think best, and 
 leave the others to adjust themselves to it as best they can. 
 And the method is anything but futile, for this reason. 
 Compulsory modifications of habit, induced by changes of 
 opportunity or stimulus offered by the environment, do 
 undoubtedly (if not very much resented), bring about 
 gradual modifications of taste or desire or purpose among 
 the majority of the people concerned and so lead them on to 
 new ranges of motive. Nor is it merely a kind of habitual 
 virtuousness which may thus result from Acts of Par-
 
 SOCIETY SUBJECT TO LAWS OF MIND 121 
 
 liament or acts of a determined minority of reformers. 
 The reform insisted upon has implicit within it new 
 purpose and aim, and is connected with a scheme of life 
 which (as planned and conceived by the reformers) is 
 not habitual at all. These elements are gradually 
 transferred to the mass of people who live under the 
 influence of the reform, and tend to become part of their 
 mental and moral equipment, so introducing them to 
 some sort of new and real scheme of purposes in place 
 of the habits of action and thought which have been 
 compulsorily checked. We may say, if we like, that this 
 is not the best kind of virtue. We would prefer dirty 
 people to become cleaner by learning to hate dirt, not 
 by being drilled and harried into cleaner ways, and then 
 gradually coming to like them. We would prefer in- 
 temperate people to become sober by voluntary self- 
 restraint, not by being shut out of saloons and bars 
 exactly as we would prefer our own moral progress to 
 come about by a continual rising of the good will and 
 pure heart within us, and not ( as is more common) by 
 the succession of shocks and warnings and compulsions 
 of environment which so oddly educate our wills. But 
 the ways of progress are not all of the strait and narrow 
 kind : even the broad road of compulsion does lead 
 upward for the majority of people. And the reformer 
 who makes it his short-cut to a social goal is not there- 
 fore to be put out of court. He too may be furthering, 
 even when he seems to neglect, that process of mental 
 adaptation upon the necessity of which I have insisted. 
 But we will consider the conditions of his success when 
 we have discussed more fully the relation of the individual 
 will to the external environment and to the social 
 atmosphere.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SOCIETY CONSIDERED AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 
 A UNITY DEPENDENT UPON PURPOSE 
 
 WE are now prepared to consider society as an 
 organic whole, of which every cell is a mind 
 (as well as a body), every organ a mental system, 
 and the whole structure a scheme of thoughts and pur- 
 poses. In this way we express part of what we mean when 
 we say that human society has a higher life than an 
 animal society such as a hive of bees or a colony of ants. 
 But only part ; for probably bees and ants have minds, and 
 it is difficult to believe that the structure of their societies 
 and the organization of their social activities are not the 
 expression of thought and purpose. Indeed it may very 
 plausibly be urged that their minds, considered as social 
 units, are far more perfect than ours, just as the scheme 
 of thought and purpose underlying their social organization 
 is far more harmonious. Every feeling and idea by which 
 the bee's social activities are motived appear to be in 
 complete harmony with the mental system of the whole 
 society ; and this mental system must be very perfectly 
 harmonized with the purposes and ends for which the whole 
 social life exists. Either our human social life is of a lower 
 order, with all its disharmonies and cross-purposes and 
 most imperfect relation of individual minds to the general 
 system ; or else it belongs to a totally different order, 
 which hardly admits of comparison. Or we may say 
 that it is both : as a social life, designed to serve a 
 limited, natural end, it is immeasurably inferior to the 
 
 122
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 123 
 
 social life of bees or ants or wasps ; but as a social life 
 designed to serve different ends from those of the bees 
 or ants or wasps, it belongs to a different world altogether. 
 By making clear this difference we shall bring out more 
 clearly the real significance of our human social life. 
 
 In a previous chapter we noted the very obvious 
 fact that, in everything organic, organs and structure 
 are what they are because of their function. Applied 
 to the mental side of organic society, we translate the 
 same fact into the statement that the thought-systems 
 underlying any organization of activities and relation- 
 ships are what they are because of their purpose. Now 
 a bee-hive, like every natural organism, exists for a 
 purpose or purposes not really its own, but given and 
 idetermined by nature. And this is true of every part of 
 it. In the bee-hive, for example, the working bees and 
 the drones and the queen-bee are what they are and do 
 what they do in subordination to the purpose or aim of 
 the whole, which is settled for them by nature. Up to 
 a certain point, this is true also of us and our society 
 especially of some of our workers and many of our drones. 
 They might almost as well be functionaries in a bee-hive : 
 they would then probably be better workers and better 
 drones. But it is only a small part of the truth. And the 
 reason why our society, as a society, is so shockingly 
 inferior to a society of bees, or any animal society, is just 
 that it is not all subordinated to nature's purpose, but has 
 a purpose of its own ; and all its members have purposes of 
 their own too. The significance of our society, the signi- 
 ficance of every part and every function and every activity, 
 the social significance of every member, lies in its relation 
 to this purpose or these purposes. The significance of the 
 bees' society and of their individual activities is fixed 
 and simple, since all are related to the nature-given 
 purpose ; the significance of our society and our activities 
 is extraordinarily complicated, since they are related to 
 our own complex and shifting purposes.
 
 124 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Again, closely connected with this difference of pur- 
 pose, there is a difference in the kind of unity of a human 
 society. We try to think of our society as one : so it is. 
 But it possesses much less unity than a living body, and 
 much less also than a good insect society. The latter has 
 its unity supplied to it by nature : it forms a changing 
 unity, of course as does every living thing ; but it is 
 a unity, despite the continual adjustments to a changing 
 environment. But in our life, social as well as individual, 
 a different kind of unity appears an ideal unity which 
 means that our life is made one by our thought-out 
 scheme or plan, by which all the elements are connected 
 and held together, in spite of constant adjustments to 
 changing purposes. This may best be illustrated from 
 the individual life. There is, first, the natural unity of the 
 physical, organic body. There is, next, a very imperfect 
 unity of feelings and experiences, made one by memory and 
 anticipation. There is, thirdly, a still more imperfect 
 unity of purposes, by which some parts of our lives and 
 actions are ordered and harmonized. And, finally, 
 there would be, in a perfect individual, the complete 
 unity of a life in which all thoughts and actions would 
 be ordered in relation to a single plan and aim a plan 
 in which everything connected with us would have its 
 place, and would draw its significance from its place ; 
 and this plan would be a fully worked-out system of 
 thinkings and doings, all related to a single end. 
 
 This is perhaps a difficult conception. But it is im- 
 portant to remember that human society (like every 
 conscious individual) is really struggling towards such a 
 unity, or unified system of its life ; and it is necessary 
 to conceive of our imperfect present society as a partial 
 unity of this kind. 
 
 For the present, however, we will be content to dwell 
 upon the idea of purpose as determining the significance 
 of society and its parts and functions only remember- 
 ing that society is a kind of unity in consequence of the
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 125 
 
 system into which all its purposes are worked, and by 
 which they are all connected. For it is this idea of 
 purpose or aim which gives the meaning to the word 
 ethical as we shall use it. We want to explain society 
 and its parts and activities as expressions of purpose, 
 and therefore forming an ethical structure in which we all 
 have our place. We want to discover the ethical signi- 
 ficance of the relationships in which we find ourselves, 
 of the institutions with which we are connected, and 
 of the social activities in which we are engaged. In 
 other words, we want to make clear to ourselves the 
 true aims for the attainment of which our complicated 
 social structure and organization exist. Only thus can 
 we estimate the value of any institution, since its social 
 (and therefore also moral) value depends wholly upon 
 the relation of its special aim or purpose to the scheme 
 of aims and purposes which the whole social structure 
 expresses or is meant to express. 
 
 We must guard here against the inclination to con- 
 sider our social life as too consciously purposive. No 
 society, and no social individual, ever is or ever will be 
 conscious of all the aims which give significance and 
 value to the social structure. We speak of society as 
 becoming increasingly purposive, and quite correctly ; 
 but its various organs still embody, and will always 
 embody, numerous elements of purpose which are not in 
 any sense the creation of its own choice and will ; are 
 not, in fact, its purpose at all. Just as the structure of 
 any individual's body and mind (even the philosopher's) 
 has most of its growth determined by nature's purposes, 
 of which the individual is largely unconscious, so too the 
 structure of the social body and mind. Nature's purposes, 
 and the resulting structure, form the foundation upon 
 which, as we become consciously purposive, we build 
 our modifications of structure. And by the term 
 " nature's purposes " we mean no more than those direc- 
 tions of development which are dictated by the demands
 
 126 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of a changing environment working upon a group of 
 undefined, and mostly unknown, potentialities. So that 
 when we speak of any structure or organ, social or 
 individual, being what it is because of its purpose or 
 aim, we do not mean its conscious purpose or aim, but 
 only at best a group of purposes some of which are 
 known and consciously chosen by us, some of which are 
 known but not consciously chosen, and most of which 
 are neither known nor chosen. And it does not matter 
 what our conception of nature is in this connexion. 
 We may, if we like, identify nature with God. In the 
 old Hindu philosophy it is often said that all structure 
 is determined by desire. The desire to see has created 
 the eye ; the desire to hear has brought ears into exist- 
 ence. This theory, of course, involves the assumption 
 that all evolution is a process by which the universal 
 intelligence gradually wakes itself up to a realization of 
 its various powers, and unfolds the channels of its possible 
 experience. This is only another way of saying that all 
 nature's purposes are God's purposes. But it still re- 
 mains true that His ways are hidden from us ; and that 
 therefore the distinction between the unknown evolution- 
 ary purposes and our conscious aims, either as individual 
 agents or as social persons, has to be maintained. 
 
 Now, if we take any old institution, we find that it 
 appears to have passed through different stages marked 
 by different kinds of purpose. The oldest institution we 
 know the family affords the most interesting illus- 
 tration. In its earliest stage, the family appears as a 
 group of persons, related to one another in certain ways, 
 for the creation and preservation of the new and young 
 life ; in a word, its purpose is to carry on the life of the 
 human species. This we may call the stage of the 
 natural family, resting always on nature's " practical 
 syllogism" of father, mother, and child. So far it re- 
 sembles closely the family among monkeys, wolves, or 
 cattle with all of whom humanity has much in common.
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 127 
 
 But the human family soon appears as an institution 
 with a rather more complex purpose as a group related 
 together in certain ways for the development and pre- 
 servation of certain feelings. And this purpose may be 
 said to be of two kinds : the social purpose of the 
 development of feelings necessary to social life, such as 
 affection and friendliness, or what the Romans called 
 " consuetudo " ; and the individual purpose of the 
 development of feelings very valuable to the individual, 
 of which the highest form is love. These purposes are 
 not consciously present to the members of the family in 
 this stage ; but they characterize the stage as the un- 
 conscious purposes which have been added to the natural 
 purpose of carrying on the life of the species. At a 
 later stage, we see that the family very definitely 
 serves yet other purposes. It appears as a group related 
 together in certain ways for the development of certain 
 combinations of feeling and idea, and for the realization 
 of certain social aims. It serves the purpose of teaching 
 respect for authority and order ; of inculcating habits of 
 co-operation ; of educating the young in the virtues 
 which are required of them as adult citizens. The 
 highest form which the family reaches in this stage is 
 the patriarchal family, performing innumerable social 
 services because the family is society. At a later stage 
 still, we find that some of these prior purposes seem to 
 pass into the background, and the family appears as a 
 group related together in certain ways for the conscious 
 realization of feelings and thoughts and modes of ac- 
 tivity of the best kind a group now with a conscious 
 ideal before it, to which everything is subordinate ; a 
 group in which every member has his or her place and 
 accepts it willingly, recognizing his duties and recog- 
 nizing the rights of the others ; in which, moreover, the 
 chief motive is never necessity or fear at all, or even 
 affection or love only, but devotion to the common end 
 the good of all. And to this we give the name of the
 
 128 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ethical family. It is the highest form of the family- 
 of any other institution ; it is very certainly a form 
 which is seldom realized yet. And its distinguishing 
 marks are : conscious recognition of an accepted aim 
 or ideal ; harmonious systems of relationships and 
 activities, all the members being related to one another 
 and acting in accordance with the requirements of the 
 common aim ; complete agreement as to place and 
 duties ; and unselfishness of motive, in the sense that 
 the desires of each self include the known wants of all 
 the others. 
 
 We are, most of us, very far from the true ethical 
 family at present. And yet it is the stage which we 
 are trying to reach ; it represents the basis on which we 
 wish to rest the family ; no other basis will satisfy us. 
 The other, the earlier and simpler, bases, are not and 
 never will be superseded or left behind in the sense of 
 having been dropped out ; they are still there, but they 
 are not the bases which we wish to emphasize, or wish 
 to have uppermost in our thoughts in the formation of a 
 family or in the defence of the family as an institution. 
 All the earlier purposes persist ; but in the ethical stage 
 they will be taken for granted, and the gist of the mean- 
 ing of the family will lie in the newer elements of con- 
 scious purpose and will and agreement which the name 
 ethical is intended to imply. 
 
 Of all our social institutions a rather similar account 
 might be given, though perhaps we are even further 
 from the ethical stage in regard to most of them. But 
 it is, nevertheless, true that we are at least trying now 
 to realize the ethical basis and to make all our institu- 
 tions ethical, instead of compulsory or natural or habitual. 
 And it is clear that what will now interest us most is not 
 the form or the structure of the institutions their natural 
 history, as it were but always the spirit and idea con- 
 nected with them. These are now the important things 
 about any institution and the secret of its significant
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 129 
 
 changes. For in this stage, too, every institution is 
 incessantly changing, though its natural structure may 
 seem to remain the same ; and the essence of its change 
 lies in two factors : on the one hand its own changing 
 purpose ; on the other, its relation to the purposes of all 
 other institutions, and to those of society as a whole. 
 In a purely natural society, such as a hive of bees, no such 
 change as this takes place, though change is always going 
 on. But the process is automatic, and in response solely 
 to changing pressures of environment, and changing vital 
 processes on the part of the units or cells. In a human 
 society which has reached, or rather is trying to reach, the 
 level we are now considering, change is of a different kind, 
 conditioned by elements of feeling, idea, and will, by 
 which alone the ethical stage is made possible. 
 
 The significance of the form of change now under 
 consideration appears when we turn to existing institu- 
 tions. In the case of every one, it is a change of purpose 
 and of relation to other purposes which we have in mind 
 when we contemplate any reform. As a piece of social 
 structure, or as an organ of society, or as a mode of 
 control of our activities, or as a definition and limitation 
 of our relationships, the institutions may usually be left 
 alone. We do not want to abolish them just because 
 they are clumsy pieces of structure which get in our 
 way, or because they limit our free activities ; we only 
 want to alter their aim and tendency, because these 
 conflict with the scheme of aims and tendencies which 
 we are striving to realize. No one but an anarchist really 
 wants to abolish private property* or the family or the 
 
 * Some Socialists and all Communists may take exception to 
 this statement. But their aim, so far as it is thought out at all, is 
 really to change the institution or abolish it in its present form. 
 An ordered society, of the kind to which we are accustomed, could 
 not exist without the institution of private property in the sense of 
 an established and accepted regulation of the limits of meum and 
 tuutn. 
 
 9
 
 130 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 penal system or the Government or the policeman. It 
 is noteworthy that few people, even among ardent 
 reformers, care very much about the abolition of the 
 monarchy or the Church or even the House of Lords, 
 But very many people are intensely interested in chang- 
 ing the purpose and aim of several of these institutions. 
 An institution like property, for instance, has passed 
 through the usual sequence of functions, ranging from the 
 necessary, nature-given purpose of making possible some 
 kind of social order and progress, to a partly conscious 
 combination of purposes, in which self-aggrandizement and 
 satisfaction of selfish desires are mingled with the known 
 needs of industry and the felt requirements of individual 
 self-development. Many of us would like to purify this 
 combination of purposes, and make it more consistent with 
 a worthy social idea. In the same way, the institution 
 of punishment has passed through the successive stages 
 of merely natural vindictiveness, then a half-conscious 
 stage of retribution-purpose and deterrent aim, and finally 
 to a stage in which the fully conscious desire to reform the 
 wrong-doer begins to overshadow the other purposes. And 
 again, many of us would like to see much more of this 
 latter purpose read into the institution in harmony with 
 the more reasonable and more hopeful ideal which we 
 have set before us. Similarly again, I suppose there is 
 no thinking citizen who would not like to see every 
 army changed finally from an organ for making war into 
 an organ for keeping peace, and every Government 
 changed from a body which legislates partly for sectional 
 interests into a body which legislates solely for the 
 interests of all. And the same fact, of course, holds 
 good, even more obviously, in regard to newer and more 
 simply purposive institutions. We do not (most of us) 
 want to abolish a Poor-Law system or a hospital system 
 or a society for repressing mendicity and organizing 
 charitable relief ; but we may be very eager to change the 
 purpose and tendency and methods of each in relation to
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 131 
 
 the general aims of society. As at present interpreted, 
 each of these may be thought to conflict with some 
 element in the social health, or some quality in the social 
 character which we would like to see realized with the 
 true self-respect and dignity of the poor, for example, or 
 the true sympathy and self-denial of the rich. 
 
 But it is necessary here to make a distinction, and 
 also to emphasize a fact which is often lost sight of. 
 Most of our older institutions have a natural origin in 
 the necessities of life or of social life, and an unconscious 
 growth following that origin, with a gradual and ever- 
 increasing infusion of partly conscious purpose. But, 
 however nearly they may approach to the ethical stage, 
 they never lose their natural basis, and seldom lose the 
 accretions of other purposes which have been added in 
 the process of their growth. The most perfect ethical 
 family will still keep among its purposes the nature- 
 given end of the continuation of the species ; the most 
 perfect and considerate government will still have its 
 roots fixed in the primal necessity of preserving social 
 order ; the most tenderly reformative punishment 
 system will not shed all traces of its origin in the animal 
 instinct to defend oneself against aggression ; the most 
 perfectly socialized institution of property will still be 
 connected with the original necessities of an elementary 
 social progress. None of the elements of function and 
 purpose are ever quite lost, though some of them may be 
 forgotten by us when we think of the institutions and of 
 what they mean to us. And this fact has a very important 
 consequence. Different members of any society, and the 
 same members at different times, are chiefly conscious 
 of different elements of purpose in connexion with every 
 institution. For instance, what I mean by the family, 
 when I think or argue about it, is quite different from what 
 my neighbour means ; each of us concentrates attention 
 upon some two or three of the numerous purposes em- 
 bodied in the institution, to the exclusion probably of
 
 132 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the rest ; and the purposes which we unconsciously over- 
 emphasize are not likely to be the same, unless we happen 
 to be very much alike both in our mental and moral and 
 social development, and in the circumstances of our 
 lives. Similarly, each one of us means different things 
 by the family at different times in our lives. In my 
 youth, the family meant to me chiefly a system of con- 
 trols, most of which I resented ; only at a later stage 
 did I realize at all that the family also stands for much 
 better and deeper purposes. And, further, both our 
 selection of the purposes upon which our attention is 
 fixed, and our estimates of those purposes, are deter- 
 mined by very complex and changing conditions of 
 experience and feeling and bias which are never the 
 same in any two individuals. This is the secret of the 
 appalling confusion which invariably results whenever 
 people begin to argue about any old institution such as 
 the family or property. It is impossible for them not 
 to mean very different things and to jump from one 
 meaning to another, without knowing it in every dis- 
 cussion. The bearing of this upon the processes of social 
 change will become obvious at a later stage. 
 
 But all institutions are not old, and the newer ones 
 are less complex, and carry their purposes on their faces, 
 as it were, since they have come into being ^quite de- 
 finitely in order to serve a particular purpose, or in 
 conscious subordination to some general purpose of 
 society. They have thus no natural basis, in the ordinary 
 sense. There is something natural about a City Corpora- 
 tion or a House of Lords ; but not about a Censor of 
 Plays or a Stock Exchange. And yet these also have 
 their accretions of purposes and meanings the older ones 
 seldom shed, the newer ones not always proclaimed. 
 The Censor of Plays, for example, is an institution designed 
 to protect public morality from the dangers of indecent 
 plays. Many people would now affirm that it exists solely 
 for the purpose of suppressing a few playwrights whose
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 133 
 
 plays happen to have more than the usual strength and 
 meaning, expressed with more than the usual vividness 
 and vigour. Yet it must not be supposed that all recently 
 formed institutions rest throughout upon conscious, de- 
 signed purposes. Many of them rest upon no basis of 
 conscious purpose at all, but have just grown up naturally 
 as the easiest mode of response to new needs. The 
 modern wage-system is an example of this. Some 
 established method of rewarding labourers was needed 
 when slavery and serfdom had disappeared ; and the 
 wage-system grew up to meet the need. The con- 
 sequence is that it now rests upon a very confused and 
 obscure collection of purposes which have never been 
 disentangled. Among these there are still to be found 
 the purpose of keeping the labourer alive and just able to 
 perpetuate his kind for the benefit of future industry, 
 side by side with the purpose of distributing wealth 
 equitably among its producers. But the purposes 
 conflict, and have never been harmonized ; and the 
 result is that, as we become more consciously purposive, 
 we find that the institution cannot be made to fit the 
 various purposes which we now insist upon. It cannot, 
 for instance, be brought into harmony with the growing 
 purpose of fairness to women even in their capacity as 
 workers ; nor can it be harmonized with the growing 
 demands for a population whose health and strength 
 and intelligence shall reach a high standard. Hence 
 the continual outcry against the institution in its present 
 form ; and one does not need to be a Socialist to per- 
 ceive that very far-reaching changes are called for if it 
 is to serve the various purposes which we are more and 
 more reading into our conception of social welfare. 
 
 Another difficulty in the way of our understanding 
 the true purposes of any institution lies in the fact that 
 each of us is related to it in different ways. We may 
 distinguish two chief divisions of the kinds of contact 
 with institutions. First, there are differences of relation-
 
 134 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ships based upon our actual membership or non-member 
 ship, and upon our direct or only indirect interest. 
 These may be called differences of simple contact ; and 
 the effect of them hardly needs illustration. The family 
 can never mean the same to a bachelor as to a family 
 man ; women's franchise cannot have the same signi- 
 ficance to a man as to a woman. So, too, the law and the 
 penal system have one aspect for the thief or the prisoner, 
 but quite another for the ordinary law-abiding citizen ; 
 and a charitable society has one set of purposes in the eyes 
 of applicants for relief, but a different set in the eyes of the 
 managers. And in the second place, there are differences 
 of another kind, dependent upon the relation of the pur- 
 poses of the institution (as conceived by us) to our purposes, 
 whatever these may^be. These differences, which we may 
 call ^differences* of thought-contact, have also effects 
 which are obvious but very important. More even than 
 the differences of simple contact with institutions, they 
 modify our conception of the whole meaning and quality 
 of the institution considered. What could be more 
 marked, for example, than the difference in the views of the 
 Roman Church as seen by a Kensitite and by a very 
 High Churchman ? Or in the conception of a medical 
 school, as viewed by a member of a research defence society 
 and by an anti-vivisectionist ? Or in the interpretation 
 of private property as given by Mr. St. Loe Strachey on 
 the one hand, and by Mr. Hyndman on the other ? In 
 each case, the sections or individuals do not see or think 
 of the same thing at all ; they are thinking of the relation 
 of a set of purposes, which may or may not really belong 
 to the institution, to another set of purposes, belonging 
 to their own particular ideals, which may or may not be 
 valuable or vital. Hence once more the extraordinary 
 confusions which appear when we begin to argue about 
 institutions. It very seldom happens that we can approach 
 them from the same standpoint ; and our arguments are 
 concerned with different things covered by the same name.
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 135 
 
 I would note too that, as social life proceeds, these 
 difficulties and complexities increase enormously. In 
 the first place, as institutions increase in number, and as 
 our activities become more diverse, so, necessarily, 
 individual differences of contact and relation multiply, 
 until in a modern society these differences have become 
 quite infinite ; and in the second place, as we become 
 more thoughtful, so we constantly read new purpose 
 into all institutions, and at the same time increase the 
 diversity of our own ideal schemes and purposes. The 
 marvel, of course, is that we ever agree at all ; and as a 
 plain matter of fact, we never really do. But we reach 
 a rough, working agreement by forgetting our differences 
 a process in which we are aided by the devices of 
 political party, religious sect, or any similar grouping by 
 which we are brought into a general agreement with a 
 number of other people. And the power of forgetting 
 differences comfortably is the qualification of a useful, 
 practical citizen, who makes a good party politician, a 
 good Churchman, or what not ; while the power of 
 remembering some differences very tenaciously is the 
 qualification of an effective social reformer or innovator, 
 who is very seldom a good follower of any party, but 
 must needs be a founder or leader of a party of his own. 
 
 These considerations, however, bear upon a question 
 which we have not yet reached, I mean the question of 
 the process by which purposive change of institutions 
 takes place. We must therefore pass on to notice one 
 other set of facts about any institutions considered separ- 
 ately. We have seen that each is an embodiment of 
 purposes or accretions of purposes which appear to be 
 more or less distinct from one another ; and in most insti- 
 tutions, certainly in the older ones, the various accretions 
 of purposes have been, as it were, put on in layers, the 
 top layers being always more closely related to our 
 present conscious aims than the deeper layers. Now in 
 a reasonable society we should, I suppose, approach
 
 136 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 each institution reasonably, and attach ourselves to it 
 for the sake of the conscious purposes which harmonized 
 best with our present life. But, actually, we find that 
 different people enter into and belong to this or that 
 institution at very different levels, becoming attached to 
 different layers of purpose. Thus in our analysis of the 
 family, we see that four obvious layers may be dis- 
 tinguished, to the purposes of which we may perhaps 
 give the names of nature-need fulfilment, feeling-need 
 fulfilment, social-need fulfilment, and finally, the higher 
 individual-need fulfilment. So in the case of property, 
 we find layers of purpose, among which we distinguished 
 sheer social necessity at the bottom, then the need of 
 progressive satisfactions of all sorts mostly selfish ones, 
 then the desire to make possible fuller individual 
 activities ; and finally a desire to promote the oppor- 
 tunities of all. Now it is obviously true that many 
 people are related to such institutions only in the lower 
 layers of purpose. Just as very few people have yet 
 reached the ethical stage of the family, so very few 
 people have got beyond the second or third layer of the 
 purposes of property ; and as, in regard to these lower 
 layers of purpose, the institution has become the habitual 
 mode of meeting the need, so we may say that many 
 people are only attached to the institution by habit. 
 In this fact lies the partial justification for the assertion 
 that, in a Christian country, most people are Christians 
 by habit ; that most Conservatives and Liberals belong 
 to a Conservative or Liberal party by habit, and that 
 most people enter into and accept the family and the 
 system of private property by habit. They accept the 
 institutions because they are the established habits of 
 their society. We may go further than Professor James 
 when he says, of our relation to beliefs, that most of us 
 jump into them with both feet, and stand there. The 
 process is even less thoughtful than this. In the case of 
 institutions, at any rate, it is truer to say that most people
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 137 
 
 awake to find themselves standing in them, and at once 
 assume that this is their proper station. So no doubt it 
 is, in a sense ; for stability is the great condition of 
 order, and, perhaps at all times, a pre-requisite of progress. 
 But the consequences are often disconcerting and 
 irritating. If you attempt to argue dispassionately about 
 the Church or the family or property with any one who 
 is only habitually attached to them he will not defend them 
 on the ground of their higher purposes or ideals. Possibly 
 he will not defend them at all, but will only splutter 
 with indignation at the thought that they should be 
 attacked ; for they are habits to him, quite accepted 
 ways by which quite accepted ends are to be attained. 
 The fact that he splutters makes argument difficult 
 which is of little consequence. But it also indicates the 
 fact that the man is stuck in a really deep layer of ancient 
 purpose, possibly a very solid and important layer, 
 even if rather antiquated ; and reasonable argument 
 is not the process by which he is likely to be moved. 
 Moreover, if no one were so stuck, if we could all discuss 
 institutions as reasonably as an Ibsen or a Nietszche or a 
 Bernard Shaw, we should suffer from the discomfort of 
 almost daily revolutions, or at any rate, from a condition 
 of social instability which would seriously impede our 
 individual activities. 
 
 But we must pass on from the consideration of the 
 complexity of the purposes crystallized in our institu- 
 tions to examine the unity which we predicated of society 
 and its life. By this assertion of unity we chiefly desire 
 to indicate the fact that all institutions, all groupings, all 
 relationships, and all the social activities of individuals, 
 are subordinate to the general aims and purposes of 
 society ; and that therefore social life is to be regarded 
 as the Great Institution to whose purposes all particular 
 purposes are relative. 
 
 Now there appears to be a growing difficulty in the
 
 138 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 way of this conception of unity. Every civilized society 
 seems to be much less a unity than the societies of the 
 past, not because it becomes less self-contained, but 
 because the constant addition of conscious purposes to 
 every institution and relationship and group tend more 
 and more to individualize the institution, relationship 
 or group, and make it, as it were, an end in itself. And 
 further, this process of diminishing unity seems bound to 
 go on, in proportion as the individuals with their activities 
 become more and more occupied with their own purposes, 
 specializing, as it were, upon their own ends as individuals 
 and not as social units. This difficulty we must examine. 
 There is certainly something much more organic about 
 the life of most early societies than about our own. 
 In the primitive tribal group, in the patriarchal family, 
 in the Greek city-State, there was much more " oneness," 
 and more subordination of all the members to this 
 oneness, than we are now accustomed to. Every 
 member was wholly a member ; he was lost, a hopeless 
 outcast, if he forfeited his membership. And his activities 
 belonged to the society in a way in which most of ours 
 do not : the unity of his society made itself felt through- 
 out all his doings. In the medieval Church-State, also, 
 a similar unity appears. Industry, art, civic interests, 
 and the national interests, were all held together by their 
 common subordination to the ideal of a spiritual power. 
 The craftsman was ennobled by his service of a larger 
 cause ; civic life was unified by the bond which was 
 symbolized by the Church as the centre of every civic 
 group ; the cathedral was the art synthesis of its age, as 
 well as the synthesis of all the available resources of 
 science and culture ; temporal powers held their prero- 
 gatives as a trust for God and His Church ; and the Holy 
 See was supreme over all. This at jgast was the ideal, 
 partly realized for a time ; an ideal of unity to which we 
 are sadly unaccustomed. But society as we know it to- 
 day, since the great assertion of individuality at the
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 139 
 
 Reformation, and the explosion of individualism towards 
 the close of the eighteenth century, has lost all such unity, 
 whether tribal or family or civic or religious. The social 
 or national unity we know is of a lower order, it would 
 seem, for the logical outcome of individualism has been 
 the attempt to establish union on a basis of self-interest, 
 with materialism as the guiding principle, and incessant 
 struggle, conflict of interests, and dis-harmony as the 
 results. Not only do we eagerly separate Church from 
 State, cathedral house from city council ; but every set 
 of our activities artistic, scientific, industrial, educa- 
 tional shake themselves free as vigorously as they 
 can from any kind of subordination to a dominating 
 social unity. Business must be kept quite distinct 
 from religion ; economics must not be confused by the 
 dictation of ethics. The intrusion of a Ruskin or an 
 over-zealous bishop is resented as a matter of course, 
 even as the forbidding of usury and a moral control of 
 trade-practices were accepted as a matter of course in an 
 earlier age. Politics and the pulpit are kept at arm's 
 length ; the Church and even the Bible are to be ex- 
 cluded from the school ; science long ago won its battle 
 over religious authority ; art has its own ends, with which 
 government must have nothing to do ; commerce and 
 industry are " free " freed successfully from the inter- 
 ference of kings or grand-motherly statesmen. Each 
 department of activities has its own aims and purposes, 
 quite consciously present in some form to the people 
 engaged in each. And they are not unified by any 
 subordination to any clear end or purpose or principle 
 of society as a whole. 
 
 If this were a true account of our present society, it 
 would be useless to talk of the essential unity of social 
 life. Still less could we urge that the unity is really 
 increasing, not diminishing, and gives continually more 
 meaning to our life and activities. We should be com- 
 pelled to look for some other explanation of the purposes
 
 140 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of this or that institution or relationship : we should have 
 to be content with sectional interpretations, and regard 
 each set of purposes as distinct, each forming a separate 
 end in itself, loosely related to a general good, no doubt, 
 but possessing importance and significance without refer- 
 ence to any such unifying principle. 
 
 But the account is not a true one, though perhaps it 
 may fairly describe a short phase in the social develop- 
 ment a negative phase, preparatory to something 
 more positive than has gone before. In the life of an 
 individual we are all familiar with such a phase, which 
 marks the passage from one kind of unity to a higher 
 kind, in the case of most people who really reach a 
 progressive mental, moral, and spiritual life. At some 
 stage in their history the dissolution of the habitual 
 subordination to custom, tradition and authority is 
 succeeded by a period of something very like anarchy, 
 when the various interests and pursuits are disconnected, 
 each set followed for its own sake in turn, each valued 
 and enjoyed for its own sake, all or most of them 
 independent of any one strong, compelling, over-ruling 
 purpose. This rather anarchical stage usually appears 
 at the time of entrance to full manhood, when most of 
 the customary and accepted bonds are cut loose, and 
 the youth is left to order his own life independently. 
 It is a period which naturally causes anxiety to parents 
 and guardians, whether it takes the crude form of a sowing 
 of wild oats, or only a general restlessness and change- 
 ableness; but it is, or may be, the period of transition 
 to a new order of a conscious, purposive, self-determined 
 life ; and, unless the development is distorted, or checked 
 by a return to habit, it leads on to a much truer unity 
 than that of the externally ordered life which preceded 
 it. For through the whole succeeding life of the in- 
 dividual there runs a constant effort to harmonize all 
 activities in subordination to some chosen end and 
 ruling principle. The end may be vague and ill-defined,
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 141 
 
 and even subject to change ; the principle may not be 
 the highest, nor even a very worthy one. Success, 
 wealth, fame, achievement, or the attainment of any 
 object of ambition may be the dominant end in view ; 
 some odd, home-made rule of conduct, lacking in spirit- 
 uality and loftiness, may supply the principle. But the 
 conscious striving after unity is there, whatever the 
 motive may be, however incomplete the harmony at- 
 tained ; and this is the really significant fact of the life. 
 Now the same phase necessarily appears in social 
 life ; we may assert this without any fear of straining 
 the analogy between the individual and society. For 
 social life is bound to pass through the same awakening 
 from the unconscious or partly conscious habituation to 
 accepted custom, tradition, and authority ; and the 
 awakening is similarly marked by the lawlessness which 
 characterizes the extreme stage of " individualism," the 
 misinterpreted freedom of individual activities leading 
 possibly to licence rather than to liberty. Consequently 
 we will modify the very gloomy account given of the 
 present unharmonized, disordered, and sectional activities 
 of society by asserting that they represent a temporary 
 stage, natural and inevitable for any society which has so 
 recently shaken itself free from the old trammels of 
 authority in all departments of thought and activity. 
 And we will assert further that this stage is really pre- 
 paratory to a higher unity ; and that society is bound to 
 struggle after such a unity, and is even now struggling. 
 It is easy to discern the signs of the effort on all hands to 
 find and apply some unifying principle. Everything 
 disconnected and disorderly is beginning to order itself 
 into some kind of system, and relate itself to other 
 systems. We see, for example, that trade and industry 
 are beginning to be related in a truer way than ever 
 before^to the ends of health and welfare and individual 
 good ; and to submit themselves willingly to new forms 
 of social control in obedience to the requirements of
 
 142 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 social well-being. The economic theories which have 
 hitherto justified the lawlessness of industry are also 
 showing signs (as Ruskin long ago declared they must) 
 of alterations due to the necessity of taking social ethics 
 into account, and of adjusting all theories of industrial 
 activity to the general theory of social progress. Does 
 this mean that " freedom " of labour and trade will be 
 lost ? Certainly not ; though there is, of course, a 
 danger that unnecessary and harmful fetters may be put 
 upon them. But the essential freedom of industrial 
 activities has been won, and will not now be lost ; it 
 remains for us, however, to realize that no activities can 
 be free without being also orderly, nor really orderly 
 without being also free. Social control of industry may 
 take some stupid forms ; but definite and regular sub- 
 ordination of industrial aims and methods to social ends is 
 a foregone conclusion. 
 
 The activities of science, again, both in the elabora- 
 tion of theories and in the application of theories to 
 practice, shows similar signs of nearer approach to a 
 general unity. Science no longer glories in its antagon- 
 ism to religion ; its best votaries are striving after some 
 true reconciliation. But here again there is no question 
 of a return to the submission of science to religious 
 authority. That issue was fought to a finish many years 
 ago. The problem now is to find a harmony which shall 
 embrace both the laboratory and the church, both the 
 scientific thought of the study and the unquestioning 
 belief of the cloister. And in their practice, the concep- 
 tion of a uniting social aim is present alike to the professor 
 and the priest ; each has before him in some way the 
 question : What are the social reactions of theory and 
 creed ? And more and more the two apparently irre- 
 concilable enemies of a couple of generations ago will be 
 found going hand in hand towards a common social goal. 
 Does this mean that science will have become less severely 
 scientific or religion less other-worldly and mystical ?
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 143 
 
 Certainly not ; but simply that both, despite increasing 
 " individualizing " or specializing, will of necessity be 
 drawn into closer harmony in the common unity of social 
 life. And by this I do not mean only that the High 
 Church parson is becoming more whole-heartedly a social 
 worker, and the man of science more obviously interested 
 in social applications of his knowledge such as eugenics 
 or social therapeutics ; nor again only that the religious 
 teacher is opening his arms to evolution theories, and the 
 scientific teacher responding graciously by showing him 
 how his dogmas may be made to fit them ; but rather 
 that each is being impelled, by the common conscious- 
 ness of a necessary dominating unity, to adjust differences 
 in order that society may be saved. 
 
 It is hardly needful to trace the growing unity in civic 
 and political activities. The opposition of party to party 
 may be as strongly marked as ever ; so it ought to be, 
 if the underlying feelings and impulses are healthy and 
 vigorous. And no party is yet free from sectional bias, 
 and a tendency to work for a part and not for the whole. 
 But all parties alike aim more consciously at the common 
 good, less consciously at the particular good of their 
 supporters ; and this impulse is felt in the increasing 
 sameness of the progressive efforts of all civic authorities 
 to improve the condition of the populations under their 
 care. So too with voluntary reformers. Many-sidedness 
 is and must be the rule, for ideas and ideals multiply 
 as our thoughts and activities become more diverse. 
 But what is vaguely called " co-operation of effort " is, 
 verbally at least, the accepted watchword ; association 
 of all workers is becoming the fashion in every town- 
 ship and borough. 
 
 And finally, the dawning recognition of a necessary 
 unity appears in the universal tendency to draw to- 
 gether into a common camp rival theories or sects or 
 sections without necessary loss of individuality. Union 
 of this kind is becoming the rule, from union of Free
 
 144 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Churches to union of labour interests all very partisan, 
 doubtless, but probably a step to the recognition of a 
 wider union of interests in which the interest of the whole 
 society will be the bond. In idea, this wider union is at 
 least proclaimed in the moderate Socialism which most 
 appeals to thinking people of every class and creed. This 
 may or may not be mistaken in economic principle, in 
 ethical basis, in social presupposition ; but at least its 
 general aim is true the aim at a harmony of many 
 conflicting interests in subordination to a common good. 
 We cannot define the coming principle of unity. All 
 we can say with certainty is that it is some common end, 
 some conception of a good believed to be the good of 
 all ; and from that conception must depend all the 
 particular conceptions of special purposes which give 
 meaning to the institutions, relations, and activities of 
 our social life. This is the conception of social unity to 
 which we refer for an explanation of the significance of 
 our social environment and our social behaviour. Each 
 department of that environment, and each separate set 
 of activities, can be treated separately and explained up 
 to a point by reference to its special purpose. Industry 
 may be dealt with as the means to wealth-production, 
 and so explained by the economist. The family may 
 be dealt with as the means to health-production, and so 
 explained by the eugenist. As such they are means to 
 an end which gives them a meaning. But this will not 
 satisfy us, for their real social meaning can only be found 
 through their relation to the whole existing social pur- 
 pose. Industry and the family are more than means to 
 particular ends, just as a man is more than a wealth- 
 producer or a father. And it is this something more 
 than the particular function that we want to reach. 
 How does the industrial system or the family system 
 harmonize with the general social end ? What is its 
 meaning in relation to that ? How does the wealth 
 producer or the father stand in relation to the same end ?
 
 SOCIETY AS AN ETHICAL STRUCTURE 145 
 
 What is his significance as a good or bad employer or 
 fellow- workman, as a good or bad father and head of a 
 family, as a good or bad citizen or general social mem- 
 ber ? To these questions we want the answer. But 
 the sectional interpretation cannot give us the true social 
 value of employer or workman or family member, any 
 more than it can give us the true value of the industrial 
 system or family or any other institution. The essence 
 of the ethical view is that it alone defines the place 
 and social quality of each institution and each social 
 functioner in relation to the whole scheme of agreed 
 purposes of the social life in which all have their place. 
 
 10
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP, AND THE RIGHTS 
 AND DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 
 
 WE have now reached the conception of society as 
 an ethical structure a more or less unified 
 system of purposes embodied in institutions and 
 in established relationships, all subordinated to a common 
 end, which, in theory at least, is agreed upon, chosen, 
 and willed by the society as a whole. In the light of 
 this conception, which will become clearer as we proceed, 
 we shall be able to explain part of the relation of the 
 individual members to their society, so far as this relation 
 is expressed in the word citizenship ; and also, in 
 part, the relation of separate institutions to the Great 
 Institution and to its general aim. 
 
 We have seen that in every form of society, and in 
 every stage of social development, the place and work, 
 the social value and significance, of all the members are 
 determined by the existing social structure and function. 
 This is not more true of the bees in a hive than of the 
 members of a patriarchal family-society, or the citizens 
 of a Greek city-State, or the members of a modern 
 nation. This determination, of course, involves a general 
 subordination of powers and prerogatives to the structure 
 and its objects ; and therefore also a consequent limita- 
 tion of activities. The subordination, with its accom- 
 panying limitation of activities, is the most obvious and 
 important fact about all social life ; it is also the most 
 permanent characteristic of it. But the kind of subor- 
 
 146
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 147 
 
 dination changes as society develops. We have traced 
 it through earlier forms of absolute, blind, complete 
 subordination to force and natural necessity ; of less 
 complete though still rigid and generally blind subor- 
 dination to custom and tradition ; of partly conscious 
 subordination to dimly perceived purposes ; until finally 
 we find it altered into a new kind of subordination 
 altogether far less complete, since spontaneous activi- 
 ties grow side by side with it ; far less rigid, for change 
 of determining structure and function is much more 
 frequent ; far less blind, since consciousness of purpose is 
 rapidly increasing ; but nevertheless limiting, and yet 
 unlimited, in its application to our activities as social 
 members. In other words, as the ethical stage begins 
 to be reached, the characteristic of subordination and 
 limitation re-appears, though in a new form. We translate 
 social structure into a system of chosen purposes ; we 
 translate function into accepted duty ; but the subor- 
 dination of ourselves as socii to the system with its duties 
 remains the obvious fact about our social life. Only with 
 this difference : so far as our society is really ethical, there 
 is a conscious recognition of the limitations as not only 
 necessary but also good, because due to the fact that each 
 of us is one among other persons or selves ; and there is 
 also a conscious recognition of the fact that all members 
 must participate in the common end, and that this 
 universal participation is the real reason for all the 
 limitations. 
 
 This may be expressed in another way by saying 
 that the ethical society or group is a system of duties and 
 rights, and that its purpose is the attainment of the 
 good end by all socii. And this essence of the group- 
 life, with its subordination of our activities and choosings 
 and willings at every turn, enters into all our social doings, 
 whatever particular end we may be trying to reach ; and 
 it enters in as a peculiar defining or limiting factor. The 
 peculiarity lies in the fact that, though it dominates the
 
 148 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 whole of our social life, it does so, not as force or compul- 
 sion, but as a chosen principle. All our individual pur- 
 poses and actions are subordinated to it : the limitations 
 imposed upon us are therefore far more numerous than 
 in any earlier stage of social life, just in proportion as our 
 purposes and actions are far more varied. But, for the 
 good citizen, at any rate, the limitations are in no sense 
 limitations of his freedom nor restrictions of his choice 
 nor fetters laid upon his activity ; they simply define for 
 him the necessary direction of the good-will which he 
 accepts and shares. 
 
 But let us examine in detail the system of duties and 
 rights. We must note first that, when we speak of the 
 citizen's rights, the positive side of his duties, we do not 
 mean either natural rights, or political and legal rights. 
 In the earlier political and social philosophy, especially 
 during the eighteenth century, it was customary to 
 imagine a state of nature which was taken as an ideal and 
 the word " natural " was applied in the sense of " that 
 which ought to be." The word was remarkably con- 
 venient, because of the air of authority which it seemed 
 to give to the philosopher's imaginings ; it implied that 
 his ideal had once existed " naturally " or by the decree 
 of nature. And this reference to a state of nature was 
 perhaps an excusable device, because, in an age in 
 which most arguments had to be based upon authority, 
 it was necessary to read a new ideal back into an imagined 
 past in order to link it with an authority which could 
 not be questioned. And, to make it more plausible, the 
 ethical idea of agreement was also imagined and introduced 
 in the form of an assumption of some very early compact, 
 into which our ancestors, who lived in a state of nature, 
 were supposed to have entered voluntarily, and so a basis 
 was found for new rights which could not very well be 
 explained as " natural." But at the present time we do 
 very wisely to avoid the word " natural " altogether in this 
 connexion ; it will be time enough to use it again when
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 149 
 
 we are able to distinguish what is natural from what is 
 the result of man's planning. 
 
 Again, the rights and duties which we are consider- 
 ing, are not those which are established by law, or 
 depend upon the existence of the State as a coercive 
 power. These can only define for us a small part of the 
 content of the system of duties and rights which is the 
 essence of our social life ; they are the definite social 
 assertion of this small part. What we really mean and 
 must mean by this content is the whole of the claims 
 which are allowed or enforced, upon us and upon all, by 
 the reflective opinion of our society, and by ourselves 
 as conscientious interpreters of the social purpose and 
 aim. 
 
 Now when we apply this to the meaning of social 
 membership or true citizenship, we are met by two 
 initial difficulties. In the first place, we find everywhere 
 a strangely narrow conception of citizenship and its 
 involved duties and rights ; in the second place, we find 
 that it is extremely difficult to state the conception and its 
 real content. Most of us habitually think of citizenship 
 as confined in some way to our relation to the State 
 that is, to the community as coercive and embodying a 
 force external to ourselves ; and we think, too, of the 
 common good as something very vague and thin, because 
 quite general or universal. Thus, I find myself thinking 
 chiefly about my duty to fight if ordered to, or to act on 
 a jury if summoned ; or of my responsibility for the general 
 policy of my country ; or of my right to vote, and to 
 claim the protection of the law. Now it is true that the 
 common good as formulated by the whole community, 
 or the general will expressed in the laws and edicts of 
 my State these alone have coercive power over me, 
 because these alone are paramount and really include all 
 other duties and rights. But we can hardly avoid think- 
 ing of them as a kind of outer framework or restricting 
 shell ; while for the basis of most of the duties and rights
 
 150 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of which we are conscious as social units we refer to the 
 relationships and groupings (with their purposes and aims) 
 which are parts of the whole. For example, a man does not 
 usually think of his duties as a husband or father as 
 essentially citizen duties, but as family duties, involved 
 in the existence of the family and its relationships ; nor 
 does he think of his duties as a workman or employer as 
 citizen duties, but as duties involved in his relation to an 
 industrial system on the one hand, and to his own and 
 other people's industrial purposes on the other. It is 
 true that, fortunately for us, most of our different sets of 
 duties are loosely held together in a single system by a 
 vague reference to morality and religion ; but the 
 definitely social side of all duties is apt to be lost sight of. 
 
 Again, we are never able to express, even in outline, 
 the full content of the conception of citizenship which 
 follows from our conception of society as an ethical 
 system. In one way, this is, of course, inevitable, for 
 the duties and rights are infinite ; yet it is equally 
 certain that every citizen ought to have a clear idea of 
 the general duties which full membership of a society 
 involves. This, however, very few of us have, and con- 
 sequently, in all our discussions of citizenship or the 
 extension of citizenship, we are hopelessly at sea. " A 
 citizen must serve in one or two definite capacities," it 
 is said ; or " Every citizen must be able to fight for his 
 country if called upon." Is that all ? It is not even 
 true, in so far as it means that every citizen must be able 
 to express, if need be, the force upon which the State 
 rests ; for this is not only contradicted by the facts, but 
 contradicts the true doctrine that will, and not force, is 
 the real basis of social life. 
 
 In order to get nearer to a true view, we must put 
 aside the false conception of a narrow citizenship which 
 has become common in a society in which the importance 
 of sectional interests has been over-emphasized, and 
 must concentrate our attention upon the necessary
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 151 
 
 implications of the ethical structure of duties and rights 
 as an all-embracing and dominating structure. And, in 
 doing so, we shall perhaps do wisely to consider only 
 the duties, since it is a defect of all citizens, very notice- 
 able at the present day, to think a great deal about rights, 
 and a very little about the correlative duties. 
 
 If we go back to the best Greek ideals, we may dis- 
 tinguish four simple divisions of citizen duties.* There 
 were first the duties connected with livelihood of self- 
 support, maintenance, and care of family, and so on. 
 There were next the duties connected with military 
 training and war, resting upon the principle that every 
 citizen held his life at the disposal of his community. 
 These were perhaps the most obvious duties, and were 
 certainly regarded as the first and also the ultimate duties 
 of a citizen. Thirdly, there was a general responsibility 
 for your country's policy. And, fourthly, a real respon- 
 sibility for its greatness its fame, prosperity, beauty, and 
 every other element which made it great. The principle 
 underlying this might be expressed by the assertion that 
 your distinction is your country's distinction ; and all 
 through the conception of the citizen duty there ran the 
 feeling that every one's success or failure in everything 
 he did or attempted was also his country's success or 
 failure. Consequently, we may say that the conception 
 was built up upon the principle that citizenship covered 
 all your life and all your activities. 
 
 Now this ideal conception was not an exaggeration 
 due to the peculiar circumstances of the little Greek 
 States, which resembled large families rather than 
 nations, though no doubt the completeness of the con- 
 ception was made easier by this fact. It was simply an 
 assertion of the principle which follows clearly from what 
 we have seen to be the necessary view of the unity of the 
 
 * I am indebted to one of Professor Bernard Bosanquet's essays 
 on citizenship for this account of the Greek conception.
 
 152 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 system of social life. In our modern national life, the 
 sense of unity is not realized, and the all-pervading duties 
 of citizenship are lost sight of in the wilderness of interests 
 of both individuals and groups. Our extraordinarily 
 complex life, our far too numerous activities, our strong 
 assertion of an individual freedom which we very im- 
 perfectly understand, and the assumed importance of our 
 occupations as self-seekers or self-developers all these 
 things help to drive the citizen idea into the background. 
 Yet, in theory and also in fact, it is still the necessary and 
 single basis of social duty and social morality. Perhaps 
 also the looseness of most social ties or bonds, the plas- 
 ticity and vagueness of most communal relations, make 
 it additionally hard for us to think of the great duties, 
 and easier to think of duties as those of the smaller, 
 inner circles, such as the family or the kvorkshop. And so 
 nowadays we have to search for the citizen duties under- 
 neath or behind these others just as we have to go out 
 and search for our neighbours to whom Samaritan 
 kindnesses are due. And for some people this search 
 is peculiarly difficult to single " unattached " women, 
 for example. The community is to them rather a path- 
 less desert than a well-marked territory in which the ways 
 of duty are clearly denned. No wonder many of them 
 ask to be made citizens in order that the content of their 
 social membership may be made more explicit ! 
 
 Now the first step towards a rehabilitation of the 
 true citizen conception is to regard and treat everything 
 in the light of a common good to which all sectional 
 aims are relative. This is equivalent to saying that we 
 must think of every little group of system, with its 
 bundle of duties, as part of a great whole, and sub- 
 ordinated to this, and deriving its importance from 
 this. When we think of our family or our employees or 
 our friends, we realize a fairly clear scheme of duties 
 connected with each, but we usually think of this as a 
 self-contained and separate scheme. But this is just
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 153 
 
 what it is not ; and only when each scheme is seen in 
 its true subordination to the greater scheme of social 
 duties can we grasp its full content. It may be noted 
 incidentally that this does not at all imply that the social 
 member who wishes to realize the citizen idea ought 
 therefore to neglect the more special duties and devote 
 himself or herself to the wider duties of social work or 
 public work. But it does imply that a deeper meaning 
 must be read into all the special schemes of duty in 
 consequence of their real dependence upon the wider 
 scheme and the greater good to which it is relative. 
 And this is the necessary social counterpart to the 
 injunction that we should do all to the glory of God. 
 
 This, however, is no mere exhortation. It is a simple 
 statement of what must happen and is happening. By 
 its own advance, society is forcing us all to realize the 
 citizen-conception in connexion with every institution 
 and every relationship and every kind of activity as will 
 appear when we deal with the gradual unification of the 
 purposes of all special groups and interests. But at this 
 point the important thing to realize is that citizenship 
 as the unifying whole of all social duties has been lost 
 sight of among the parts, and needs to be restored to its 
 place ; and that till it is restored, no real social policy, 
 no true moral advance, no sureness of dealing with any 
 difficulty, is possible. We are all squabbling sectionally 
 and vainly, not because we do not know the common good 
 or end, but because we do not really think about it. We 
 mistake the sectional interests or aims for the greater 
 good, and disagreement is becoming more and more acute. 
 For the moment also the result is an apparent loss of 
 all ideals, since (religion apart, and speaking only of 
 ordinary social activities) there can be no ideal which 
 is not also a social one, no completely good aim which 
 does not include all the good aims of all our community. 
 It is for this reason that education seems, for the time 
 being, to be ideal-less ; for its aim is individual dis-
 
 154 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 tinction, subject only to group or class interests. " Edu- 
 cation does not now mean, as it should, the victory 
 over idols of the class," in the interests of the good of 
 society which over-rides all classes. Industry and 
 occupation are ideal-less ; for each section is aiming at 
 its own good only, not as a group of citizens, but as 
 factions of competitors. Industry does not mean, as it 
 should, the victory over want, in order that all the social 
 members may pass on to higher interests than those of 
 the factory and the office, in a full co-operation from 
 which none are excluded. Family life no longer means 
 the nursery of citizens, but the life of a group with its 
 own separate interests, turning out individuals equipped 
 for their own advancement, or perhaps, at best, for the 
 advancement of the family. And even the Churches 
 seem to become antagonistic to the true civic sentiment, 
 multi-secting the community into rather hostile groups, 
 instead of " the Church " being for all of us the inten- 
 sification of all civic and social feeling. As we saw in 
 the last chapter, this is all in part the result of an in- 
 dividualism which reaches its culminating point in the 
 separatist interpretation of the principle that every 
 Englishman's home is his castle ; but as we also saw, it 
 is part of the process of widening out into a greater 
 citizenship a process of which the first steps are neces- 
 sarily individualistic, and therefore apparently socially 
 retrograde. 
 
 And finally, the sex difference seems to be coming 
 more into play, not as a form of diversity in unity, but 
 as a disintegrating difference a further sign of the fact 
 that the controlling conception of citizenship, or the 
 controlling influence of social unity, has been temporarily 
 submerged, and we therefore seem to have lost the clue 
 to the adjustment of duties and rights, since we have 
 no harmony in our thoughts to which to refer our 
 problems. 
 
 This principle of a dominating citizen-conception
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 155 
 
 may be illustrated in reference to the political question 
 in which the meaning of citizenship is most obviously 
 involved at the present day I mean, of course, the 
 question of extending the franchise to women. The 
 claim on the part of women to the right to share in 
 the control of their community's policies is usually met 
 by a denial of their ability to perform certain specific 
 duties. This denial, at any rate, is not pertinent. 
 Citizenship requires no sameness of specific duties ; and 
 the principle that the citizen's life is held at the dis- 
 posal of the society does not imply that no one can be 
 a citizen who cannot fight. But the claimants to the 
 right of citizenship seldom put their claim in a really 
 valid form. The form which it should, and sometimes 
 does, take is this : " In the duties which we perform as 
 our life's work we realize that we are working for the 
 common good. We are conscious of a true citizen re- 
 sponsibility in our lives : our motherhood and home 
 work, our industrial functions and social work, are all 
 part of the community's work ; and we are doing it all 
 not merely for ourselves and our families, but for all. 
 We ask that this responsibility shall be recognized and 
 ratified and increased. Our justification is that we are 
 no longer merely mothers, daughters, factory workers, 
 or servants, with our conceptions of duty limited to the 
 small circle of family or workroom ; but that we feel 
 the claims and needs of the great circle of fellow-citizens, 
 and are able to adjust our duties in relation to those 
 claims and needs." Such a claim, validly made, would 
 be undeniable, and would not be affected at all by any 
 counter-assertion that there are weaknesses or physical 
 or mental differences which make women less capable 
 than men of doing certain things or performing certain 
 duties. (The assertion of inability to form a judgment 
 on difficult questions of public policy has, of course, 
 nothing to do with the matter, even if in any sense true.) 
 But the claim might be validly met if it were possible
 
 156 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 for men to reply : " There are limitations (inherent or 
 traditional or due to necessary occupation) which prevent 
 you from seeing your duties and your actions in relation 
 to the larger whole. You are inevitably narrowed down 
 by the kind of life you lead or have been forced to lead, 
 and by the kind of work you do, or have been forced to do. 
 And you cannot be expected to see the citizen duty in and 
 behind your family duties or your industrial and social 
 duties." But, unfortunately, so far as this objection 
 is a true one, it applies to the majority of men with equal 
 force. 
 
 It is not my business to attempt to decide the rights 
 and wrongs of the question here. But this at least is 
 clear : if all duties are really citizen duties, set in limited 
 frames, then the inability of any one to perform some 
 special duty, such as fighting, is no argument against his 
 or her citizenship. Every one is competent for citizen- 
 ship who is capable of feeling and applying the citizen- 
 conception to his or her ordinary round of duties, whatever 
 these may be. For all duties are public, in so far as they 
 take us an unlimited distance beyond the ordinary self 
 and its interests ; it is a gross illusion to imagine that the 
 duties which deal with public matters are the only public 
 duties, or even the most important. 
 
 We have next to consider the application of the 
 citizen-conception to the interpretation of some of the 
 institutions of our social life, and also to the interpre- 
 tation of some of the necessary changes which are taking 
 place in the content of those institutions. By so doing, 
 we shall be able to justify the assertion already made 
 that society is being forced to bring its sectional activ- 
 ities and interests more and more under the domination 
 of the unifying scheme of purposes to which they are 
 all in reality subordinate. And we will take for illustra- 
 tion the two Institutions to which reference has so re- 
 peatedly been made in these pages, namely, the family 
 and private property ; partly because of the importance
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 157 
 
 of these two institutions, and partly because they are 
 peculiarly involved in the process of change of content 
 which we wish to consider. 
 
 The conception of the family, unlike that of citizen- 
 ship, has a full enough content for most people. The 
 duties and rights, the responsibilities and aims, belong- 
 ing to it may be very hazily presented to consciousness, 
 but at least they are felt to be very numerous and very 
 important. But much of this content especially the 
 object of the family, that for which it exists, its function 
 and its value is seldom thought of in relation to the 
 whole social purpose. There is a marked tendency, 
 even among the most thoughtful defenders of the insti- 
 tution, to regard it, and therefore to defend it, as an end 
 in itself. The history of the family partly explains this 
 tendency. Society really began in the family, and grew 
 out of it society, that is, as a system of common ties 
 of feeling and mutual support. Not only has the family 
 always been the nursery of social feelings and aptitudes, 
 but also all the ties which make a society one have their 
 early formation and growth in the family life. In most 
 early groups this development of society from the family 
 germ is quite clear : the progress is marked by the stages 
 of phratry, clan, gens, tribe, and so on. And, as we have 
 noted, in the most highly developed and stable form of 
 early social life the patriarchal form the family was 
 society, and society was the family. In this way the 
 family may be seen to be prior to society, and in a sense 
 more important than it. 
 
 But the movement towards a very large and very 
 complex national society, which we are trying to realize 
 to-day, alters all this. Not only is the dependence of 
 society upon the family lost sight of, and the fact of its 
 origin forgotten, but the family itself falls back into a 
 peculiar and almost isolated position. Some people 
 would even go so far as to say that it now resembles 
 the superseded originator of a great movement, who, so
 
 158 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 long as he survives, cannot very well be shelved, although 
 he is no longer of supreme importance, and may even 
 be a nuisance ; but has to have a special and rather 
 anomalous position found for him. And there is this 
 much of truth in the analogy, that the family does 
 appear to many of us as occupying a rather anomalous 
 place not exactly isolated, but rather disconnected, 
 wrapped up in its own doings and ends, not integrally 
 a part of the citizen system, but standing on a basis of 
 its own, and treated as an end in itself and usually 
 existing for its own private ends. Sometimes it even 
 seems to be anti-social, or at any rate opposed to the 
 growth of social unity an aspect which is illustrated 
 not only by the severe separateness of its shell, the 
 home, but also by the self-centredness of the parental 
 position, and of the usual family aims. By this I mean 
 that, in all classes, the common attitude of parents to 
 children may be called a narrow and self-regarding 
 attitude : the question which is uppermost is, What do 
 we want of the children or what do we want them to 
 be ? not at all, What does society want of them, and 
 what does society want them to be ? And further, the 
 family is expected to hang together for itself as against 
 other families to conserve its traditions, its property, 
 its blood and lineage ; even to keep itself pure and 
 uncontaminated by too much contact with other families 
 in other positions. 
 
 Now this " individualism " of the modern family is 
 ajreal difficulty. It is felt to be in conflict with the 
 social unity, whether this is regarded as a form of organic 
 unity, or as the ideal unity of a true citizenship. And 
 it is probable that the consciousness of this antagonism 
 lies behind most of the wild proposals for abolishing the 
 individualist family with which we are familiar. But the 
 point which we have to note is that the process of breaking 
 down the separatist character of the family is now going 
 on, and has been going on for nearly a century past, not
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 159 
 
 as a result of any definite attacks upon the family, but as 
 part of the inevitable process by which each particular 
 system of duties and rights and purposes is necessarily 
 subordinated to the social system even when we 
 least expect it. Thus we find that, on the one hand, the 
 absolutism of parental authority and power has been 
 very considerably lessened during the last hundred years. 
 The rights of the father have been curtailed, and in part 
 transferred to the State. New forms of industrial legis- 
 lation, new forms of legal protection of women and chil- 
 dren, have made it impossible for parents to follow entirely 
 their own interests and whims in the control and manage- 
 ment of their families. On the other hand, parental 
 duties and responsibilities have also been lessened, and 
 transferred to the State. To the latter, and not to the 
 parent, belongs now much of the responsibility for the 
 education and training, and even for the disciplining of 
 the children^ The duty of keeping them in health is now 
 definitely shared by State and parent ; it is possible that 
 the duty of clothing and feeding them will soon be 
 shared too. The process has gone on without much 
 direct consciousness of the direction in which it has 
 been leading. But it is now becoming conscious ; we 
 begin to realize clearly that it involves, on the surface of 
 it, a weakening or thinning of the content of the family- 
 system ; and many people are even hailing the process, 
 and urging it on, as the necessary step to " socializing " 
 the family, and so strengthening the social system. 
 Others deplore the tendency, looking with the gravest 
 alarm at any lessening of the content of rights and duties 
 belonging to the family-system, failing to see that the 
 process is, as it were, the Nemesis for our neglect of the 
 true citizen-conception lying behind the conception of the 
 family's purposes. 
 
 But to understand what the process really does and 
 may lead to, we must examine it a little more closely. 
 There is, first, the undoubted fact, already referred to,
 
 i6o A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 that the compact, small, self-centred family of modern 
 times had grown imperfect sometimes even selfishly 
 anti-social. It is also an undoubted fact that, in our 
 industrial age, the economic functions of the family 
 have been exaggerated. Thus, the very sound concep- 
 tion of the family as an economically independent or 
 self-supporting unit has been allowed, in the richer 
 classes, to degenerate into the conception of the family 
 as a property-accumulating unit ; and the obvious duty 
 of independent family maintenance has led in the poorer 
 classes to the use of all the members as useful wage- 
 earning instruments, to the grave detriment of their 
 development as useful citizens ; while in most classes 
 there has been a tendency to turn education into a 
 method of preparing the children for industrial com- 
 petition and success, instead of a means for preparing 
 them for life in a larger sense. The general concentra- 
 tion of attention upon economic ends has thrown too 
 much into the background the ends of health, morality, 
 and religion ; and the family has neglected its work as 
 the nursery of sane citizens equipped for a wholesome, 
 interested, and good life. Finally, the certainty that 
 some of the " nobler " objects of the family have been 
 submerged beneath the economic purposes induces the 
 reflection that these may perhaps emerge when part of 
 the weight of economic responsibilities is removed. The 
 limited conception of parental duty as consisting chiefly 
 in the duty of feeding and clothing the children may 
 then, it is thought, be widened, and so bring once more 
 into prominence the supreme duty of caring for the 
 children's characters and souls. 
 
 These considerations suggest that some change is 
 needed in the content of parental responsibility and 
 duty ; so far they seem to support the Socialist's pro- 
 posals for transferring various functions of the family 
 to the State. But it must be noted that they do not in the 
 least support any proposal to alter the essential relation-
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 161 
 
 ships within the family ; nor do they in the least sup- 
 port any attempt to socialize the family in the sense 
 of lessening the content of the family system. For the 
 most certain assertion which we can make about the 
 ethical stage of our life is this : that in it every relation- 
 ship will be fuller and richer, not emptier or poorer, 
 side by side with completer subordination to the 
 purposes of the whole society ; that the activities 
 connected with every little circle the range of feeling, 
 of thought, and of action open to its members must 
 increase concurrently with an increase of the activities 
 of the larger circle to which they are all related ; and 
 that there can be no advance towards the ethical stage 
 which does not bring with it a fuller individual life, and 
 a fuller family life, as well as a fuller social life. It may 
 have been wise in the past, and it may be wise in the 
 future we may say that it must be both wise and 
 necessary to transfer certain powers and activities from 
 family to State, for the sake of efficiency, economy of 
 effort, and the attainment of a recognized aim such 
 as better education or increased health ; it is certainly 
 necessary to do so if the family conception has become 
 one-sided and separatist in its tendency, in order to 
 ensure that subordination of particular purposes to 
 general purposes which we have seen to be essential. 
 But behind these objects lies the far more important 
 one of making possible an increased content of the 
 family life, a wider range of mutual ties, interests, and 
 sympathies. Only, all of these must be felt to be sub- 
 ordinate to the citizen idea and therefore to the common 
 ends of society ; the family system being felt to be an 
 integral part of the social system, each increasing in 
 content, the activities of the one being really activities 
 of the other in a specialized and more intimate 
 form. 
 
 Turning next to property, we find a different kind of 
 institution passing through the same process. The 
 11
 
 162 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 essence of private property is that it consists of certain 
 definite rights of ownership, enjoyment, and use, ratified 
 or allowed by society to its members. The institution 
 involves numerous and very complex undefined relation- 
 ships, and therefore also many undefined duties and pur- 
 poses. But, like the family, it is a good illustration of an 
 institution which ought to be, and must be, subordinated 
 to social ends, though it is not so subordinated at present. 
 It illustrates also the same movement towards restoring 
 the subordination ; the same extreme proposals for 
 " socializing " it, even to the extent of abolishing it 
 altogether ; and the same apparent Nemesis following 
 our neglect to realize the citizen-conception in our 
 treatment of the institution. 
 
 Private property was originally determined by need : 
 that is to say, in the early or " natural " stage, we find 
 that it was usually defined by, and rested upon a basis 
 of, collective need of a livelihood for the group, and 
 individual need of survival and efficiency in the struggle 
 for life. In both cases it served a natural purpose, 
 that of survival ; but there was also an element of con- 
 scious and selfish human purpose behind it, in the shape 
 of determination on the part of all who could to satisfy 
 their desires. At a later stage of social development, 
 private property is clearly seen to serve the purposes both 
 of social stability and of individual development, both 
 involving an increase of the extent of private property, 
 together with greater permanence. Private property is 
 now found to apply to land, the most permanent of all 
 possessions ; and fixed laws of inheritance increase its 
 permanence for the individual or family. But the 
 " natural " end of strengthening the strong still persists ; 
 while selfish individual purposes of satisfaction and aggran- 
 dizement appear in even greater force. When we reach 
 the much later stage of an industrial society (the stage 
 in which we are all living to-day), we find that all the 
 prior purposes continue, and form part of the basis upon
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 163 
 
 which the institution rests ; but that a new social pur- 
 pose, or at any rate a new development of purpose, has 
 brought about an enlargement of the extent of the 
 institution. In order to meet the requirements of a very 
 complicated industrial system, private property now 
 includes the ownership of enormous quantities of capital 
 wealth ; and though this cannot accurately be called 
 new, it possesses a new importance, and carries with it 
 new powers. In this stage the purely selfish purposes of 
 individuals are perhaps more obviously served by private 
 property than in any preceding stage ; and that fact, 
 coupled with the fact that the social effects of the institu- 
 tion as now existing are very imperfectly understood, 
 explains why its purposes seem so much out of harmony 
 with the general social aim. It is easy to see that both 
 the ends of individual development and the ends of social 
 well-being, might be better served by modified forms of the 
 right of ownership and use, exactly as it is easy to see 
 that a modification of the right of property which per- 
 mitted the ownership of human slaves a generation 
 or two ago was necessary in order to harmonize with 
 the aims and conceptions of a really progressive com- 
 munity. 
 
 This very imperfect outline of the development of 
 private property has been needed to show, in the first 
 place, that there has been a continual change of the 
 objects to which the right of private ownership has 
 attached, accompanying the progressive changes of pur- 
 pose underlying the institution ; and secondly, that 
 the property system was more clearly connected with 
 the requirements of the social system in early days than 
 it is now. The connexion seems almost to have been 
 lost nowadays ; private property is completely indi- 
 vidualized, although lip-homage is still paid to the 
 " duties " which are supposed to belong to it ; and the 
 institution is erroneously defended on the grounds of its 
 usefulness as a means of individual development (often
 
 164 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 resolvable into the excessive satisfaction of a few indi- 
 viduals), rather than as a means to the fuller develop- 
 ment of all and the direct furtherance of social wel- 
 fare. 
 
 But in order to understand on what grounds or in 
 what form we are to defend the institution, and what 
 combination of individual and social purposes we would 
 have it serve, we must examine it a little more closely. 
 Of private property regarded as a system of rights of 
 ownership, enjoyment, and use of things, two meanings 
 now stand out clearly. It signifies on the one hand the 
 right to possess certain means of satisfaction of wants, 
 desires, ambitions and aims on the part of individuals ; 
 in other words, the possession of the necessary stuff for 
 realizing the external side of a satisfactory life. On the 
 other hand, it signifies the possession of certain powers 
 of control, guidance, and compulsion over the activities 
 of other people ; in other words, the possession of the 
 power to modify the external side of other people's lives. 
 Of these two meanings, the former indicates something 
 quite necessary for individual life and development, at 
 any rate up to a point. For there must be the right to 
 possess some of the necessary stuff of a satisfactory life, 
 if we are to determine our own lives ourselves at all. 
 And there is no conflict here of individual with social 
 purposes, provided the right of ownership is kept within 
 limits. But a conflict may very soon appear, if rather 
 strict limits are passed. Nor can it be claimed that the 
 conduct of the best life requires the possession of private 
 property beyond very narrow limits : such an argument 
 is denied by all moral as well as by all religious teaching. 
 The true citizen duty in this matter is something more 
 than a vague responsibility for the tasteful or even the 
 considerate use of property. Any one who realized the 
 true conception of citizenship would instinctively shrink 
 from the possession or use of more than a very limited 
 amount of property of any kind. Such a feeling is not
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 165 
 
 common at present ; we are bound to admit that a new 
 development of social conscience is much needed before 
 we can be content to leave the institution alone. For an 
 obvious social danger exists in the insidious and apparently 
 inevitable growth of individual wants which are not the 
 needs of healthy development at all, but are more often 
 personal desires of a distinctly anti-social tendency. 
 
 The second meaning of private property is also a 
 necessary and permanent element in the institution 
 but only if the possession of power over others is taken 
 in a peculiar sense. Mutual and reciprocal influence and 
 guidance are necessary in any kind of co-operation of 
 effort. There must also be different degrees of powers 
 of influence and guidance in any complex and graded 
 co-operation ; and social life is certainly a very complex 
 form of co-operation with numerous grades of capacity 
 and function. But the true interest of society demands 
 that the mantle of power shall fall on the shoulders of 
 those who can best use it ; and there is clearly a conflict 
 with the social aims whenever the powers of control exceed 
 any individual's " excellence " as compared with that of 
 others. In other words, the good of property-power 
 depends entirely upon the " aristocracy " of the owner ; 
 or as Ruskin put it, property ought to signify the posses- 
 sion of valuable things by the valiant : that is, the 
 possession of power by those who are worthily powerful. 
 The necessary " excellence " or " aristocracy " or 
 " valour " used to be determined by inherited position, 
 carrying with it some degree of superior education, know- 
 ledge of affairs, capacity, and, above all, sense of re- 
 sponsibility. And the power attaching to the ownership 
 of property (usually in the form of landed estates) was 
 then often justified, not merely by the capacities of many 
 of the owners, but also by the accepted fixity of grade and 
 position and duty by which the exercise of the power of 
 property was made easier. But the conditions are now 
 changed. Property and excellence, possession and power
 
 166 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 to use wealth well, are not so naturally linked together ; 
 nor does the new social structure afford natural oppor- 
 tunities for the exercise of the power. And of even 
 greater importance is the fact that there is now no re- 
 cognized system of social duties belonging to the possession 
 of wealth. The conscientious rich man must usually find 
 or invent duties for himself generally with little chance 
 of inventing them with any real advantage to his com- 
 munity ; while the rich who are not so conscientious 
 illustrate the further danger of a plutocracy namely, 
 that in proportion as we value property for the personal 
 advantages which it brings to the owners, we tend to fail 
 to realize its social possibilities. 
 
 We thus see that there are both difficulties and dangers 
 inherent in the institution of private property in every 
 modern society. The owners of much property no longer 
 possess a natural status carrying with it an accepted 
 field for the exercise of power. Our society is no longer 
 graded into classes of natural protectors of the poor, 
 and their natural dependants ; the powers of control and 
 guidance, which cannot be separated from the possession 
 of wealth, do not naturally, as they once did, find tasks 
 ready to hand in complete harmony with the structure 
 and purposes of social life. The owners themselves are 
 no longer differentiated from others by an excellence which 
 equips them for the use of power ; nor have they the 
 conception of clearly defined duties which so often 
 justified the ownership of great estates in the past. There 
 is no " richesse oblige " to take the place of " noblesse 
 oblige " ; and even if there were, it would not be of much 
 use. For the enormously increased complexity of all 
 modern social and industrial activities and their reactions 
 makes it quite impossible for the rich man, with good will 
 and desire to use his wealth for the common good, to 
 discover ways of doing so which are not in direct antagon- 
 ism to some elements of the new social aims. 
 
 The institution of private property, as it now exists
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 167 
 
 in extent and in content, cannot long escape revision. 
 To assert this is not to advocate any wild socialism or 
 communism ; it is simply a statement of what must 
 happen, and of what is now happening to the institution. 
 For no year passes without some modification of the 
 institution, some curtailment of the powers that are 
 associated with it. Every Government in turn revises 
 the institution, limiting the rights and increasing the 
 duties of property owners by little or by much ; and 
 every tenable conception of the necessary unifying 
 of purposes in the ethical stage of social life shows that 
 this must be so. Defenders of the sacredness of either 
 family rights or property rights take their stand upon im- 
 possible ground if they seek to defend either institution 
 as it now is from any alterations or modifications. But 
 they can make their position very sure if they take their 
 stand upon the vital necessity, for the furtherance of 
 the true ends of society and of its individual members, 
 of the existence of both family and property, modified, 
 indeed, to harmonize with the ends of our changing social 
 life, but acquiring constantly a fuller, not a more meagre, 
 content, side by side with the growing content of the 
 social purposes. 
 
 Thus, in the case of both the institutions we have 
 examined, we see that a very similar process has been 
 passed through, leading from the stage of very close 
 connexion between the purposes of the institution and 
 those of society, to a stage of partial separation and 
 antagonism, the individual purposes eventually tending 
 to become anti-social. But this is probably only a 
 transition stage. Already there has begun a purposive 
 effort to rise to a higher stage, resembling the earlier 
 superficially only, in reality new, because marked by 
 willing subordination of individual purposes to social. 
 In the early stages the subordination resulted from natural 
 necessity and was maintained by the force of custom and 
 status, In the ethical stage, the subordination can only
 
 168 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 come by choice and will, and be maintained by agreement. 
 And whereas the content of the individual purposes in the 
 early stages was small, meagre, and unsatisfying, in the 
 ethical stage the content of each institution will be fuller 
 than ever before, and more satisfying to the individual 
 life, although combined with fuller content of the social 
 purposes. Family life will mean increase of the oppor- 
 tunities for mutual affection and interest within the most 
 vital circle which social life contains ; private property 
 will mean increased opportunities for individual develop- 
 ment, appreciation, and gratification of taste ; and in each 
 case the increase will result from modifications of the 
 institution in harmony with a truer citizen ideal ; and will 
 be consonant with increasing, but willing, subordination 
 of purpose to the social ends. 
 
 My argument in the latter part of this chapter is, of 
 course, very incomplete, and is open to easy distortion. 
 I am chiefly concerned to show that the specific rights 
 and duties which at any time are recognized as defining 
 the powers, opportunities, or requirements of any in- 
 stitution or relationship, do undergo continual change, 
 and must change as society becomes conscious of new 
 aims, or a fuller content is given to the conception of 
 the common good. I also maintain that this inevitable 
 change is likely to take obvious shape as a curtailment 
 of existing duties or rights belonging to the institution 
 or relationship ; but that nevertheless it may be in 
 spite of the curtailment, or it may be because of it the 
 powers, opportunities, and requirements connected with 
 the institution or relationship must, as a whole, increase. 
 This last point is not proved ; but it is involved in the 
 general position I have taken up, namely, that all the 
 really vital institutions and relationships, which make 
 up the structure of our social life, increase in usefulness 
 and in their capacity to serve our new and higher ends, 
 as we grow more capable of a better life ; that new and 
 higher purposes are read into them, as it were, and that
 
 THE IMPLICATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 169 
 
 they adapt themselves to these purposes. But other 
 and new institutions are continually being formed, some- 
 times to serve new ends, sometimes to serve old ends in 
 new ways ; and part of the change of the old institutions 
 consists in a transfer of part of their older purposes to 
 these new institutions. The old institution is in this way 
 pruned, in the confident hope that a fuller growth will 
 follow from the part of the branch which is left. There 
 is a strong probability that this result will follow, if the 
 old institution is healthy at core, if the branch is really 
 a vital part of the social tree, and if the pruning is neither 
 excessive nor foolish. I do not pretend to prove that this 
 or that particular pruning is either advisable or safe. 
 It is possible to maim or kill a branch by over-pruning ; 
 it is possible to maim an institution such as the family by 
 cutting out these or those duties. And, unless new shoots 
 of duty are appearing or are likely to appear, then all 
 pruning is dangerous. The conditions of comparative 
 safety are dealt with in a later chapter, and need not be 
 pursued here. 
 
 It would, of course, be a travesty of the argument to 
 assert that I am maintaining that the right way to in- 
 crease family affection is to diminish parental responsi- 
 bility, or that taking away the duty of feeding children 
 is a safe device for increasing the parents' care of the 
 children. As -well accuse me of saying that we have 
 only to add fresh taxes, and apply new restrictions to 
 powers of spending or investment, in order to make the 
 owners of property enjoy more and use better the rem- 
 nants of property left to them. One wishes this were so : 
 the path of progress would then be so easy. But I do 
 certainly maintain that all owners of property may, and 
 eventually will (in proportion to their good citizenship), 
 find it possible to get fuller good out of a property- 
 institution whose rights have been modified in numerous 
 ways ; and that all parents and children may, and 
 eventually will (in proportion to their good citizenship)
 
 170 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 find it possible to get fuller good out of a family life, 
 externally diminished by the withdrawal of this or that 
 old duty or right, but internally enriched by the growth 
 of new ties and interests.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN SOCIAL PROGRESS, AND 
 THE NATURE OF THE TRUE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 WE have now completed the preliminary task of 
 analysing the structure of society into certain 
 constituent elements, and of tracing the process 
 of social change to certain determining factors. As a 
 result we reach a conception of society as a complex organic 
 structure embodying a still more complex mental system, 
 possessing an ethical character in consequence of its 
 relation to an end or collection of ends ; and we conceive 
 of the social process as a constant push and pull of 
 diverse factors, all related to one another as factors in a 
 single movement directed to some end, which, though 
 always indefinite, we are nevertheless compelled to re- 
 gard as a moral end. And our treatment throughout 
 has been in accordance with the definition of social philo- 
 sophy first given, namely, an attempt to present social 
 phenomena as belonging to an orderly system, and the 
 changes of those phenomena as belonging to an orderly 
 process, both system and process being dominated by a 
 purpose or end from which the whole significance of each 
 is derived. 
 
 We have traced the various stages of this purpose or 
 end, from the " natural " up to the consciously purposive ; 
 from the stage of given need and natural necessity up 
 to that of the chosen aims of a reflective human con- 
 sciousness. And we have examined the characteristics 
 
 m
 
 172 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of social life and institutions in the stage which we are 
 now trying to reach the ethical. A grasp of the general 
 purpose and necessary unity of this stage helps us to 
 realize the probable form of further progress, and, in a 
 very general way, its direction. We see that, if there is 
 to be true progress, there must be an increasing effort 
 to harmonize conflicting purposes, a growing movement 
 towards greater unity of aim and effort, accompanied by 
 more, and more willing, subordination to the common 
 social good of all individual and sectional purposes. We 
 do not pretend to gain a clue to the details of progress. 
 These are beyond us ; we can merely guess at them. 
 Indeed, it is necessary to keep our conception of the 
 general purpose very vague and undefined nothing more 
 definite than a common good of which the actual content 
 is always changing. 
 
 We are, however, justified in saying that, just as the 
 ethical stage implies willing subordination of individual 
 aims to the accepted dominant purposes of any group to 
 which the individual belongs, so also the good citizen- 
 ship, which alone harmonizes with the ethical stage, 
 implies willing subordination of all social activities to 
 the conception of the common good. And this reacts 
 upon institutions of all kinds, such as family and pro- 
 perty, as a " socializing " force, altering the content of 
 each altering, that is, the duties and activities belonging 
 to each institution, in regard both to the way in which 
 they are done, and to the purpose for which they are 
 done. And the alteration follows the lines which are 
 dictated by an ever-growing realization of the partnership 
 of society in all our social concerns, of the interest of 
 society in all our interests, so far as these have a distinct 
 social bearing. 
 
 But we have not yet reached the goal towards which 
 our inquiry is directed. We have not yet grasped the 
 real significance of social life, nor have we discovered 
 any tests of progress. And it is easy to show that we
 
 THE SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN PROGRESS 173 
 
 cannot go further without a new and very difficult 
 analysis. 
 
 1. With reference to the subordination of individual 
 activities to the dominant social purpose, it is obvious 
 that, even when this purpose is defined in the vaguest 
 way as the common good, we cannot assert that any 
 individual is bound to subordinate his own will and 
 actions to any social good outside himself, that is, out- 
 side his own conception of what the common good is in 
 relation to himself. Of course he must, as a moral 
 being, bow to what he believes is the good of all ; but 
 this is merely a pious moral assertion which establishes 
 no rule and furnishes no positive guidance. It does 
 not follow that the good citizen ought to bow to the com- 
 mon good or the general social aim as declared and 
 asserted by his society, any more than it follows that 
 the misguided citizen will be led to bow to any good 
 except what he, mistakenly or selfishly, persuades him- 
 self is really the common good. We seem to be left with 
 the old difficulty of utilitarianism. We have at great 
 pains established a principle or criterion which turns out 
 to be only an ingenious arrangement of words or a high- 
 sounding formula possessing no guiding meaning at all. 
 If the good citizen is really good, he will, perhaps at all 
 times, feel so strongly that part of the declared social 
 aim is wrong that he will rather die than subordinate his 
 will to it. And, of course, rightly. He cannot and must 
 not sink his own ideal in deference to a worse one, even 
 though this worse one is backed by the convictions of all 
 his fellow-citizens. Clearly, then, before going further, 
 we must try to define the relation of the individual to 
 his society and social group, and discover whether there 
 is any principle by which the will of the one must be 
 limited by the authority of the other. 
 
 2. And we shall find that the issue is a far wider one. 
 It is also a question of the origin of the social purpose 
 which we have to examine. Hitherto we have been con-
 
 174 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 tent to accept the purposes operative in each stage of 
 social life as we found them. When or so far as social life 
 belongs to the physical or vital stages, there is no need 
 to ask why society bows to the push of necessity or the 
 impulse of natural need, any more than we need to ask 
 why a hunted animal runs away or a hungry child cries 
 for food. When, again, we considered the stage in which 
 the forces of mental activity and social contact are more 
 obviously operative, we still accepted purpose as some- 
 thing which arose naturally and worked as a social force 
 as a matter of course. But this easy avoidance of diffi- 
 culties will serve us no longer. In every stage of social 
 life very slightly in the earlier, very markedly in the 
 later aims and purposes are subject to a force which 
 appears always to be drawing them on to some goal in 
 front. Even the push of necessity and the impulse 
 of natural feeling are, in the most primitive human 
 societies, slightly modified by the pull of something 
 resembling an ideal ; and this pull seems to gather force 
 as mind becomes more directive and the effects of the 
 social interaction of minds become more marked. For 
 in the mental stage progress takes place by means of 
 inventions, using the word in the wide sense, which includes 
 new ideas as well as new contrivances. We are often 
 tempted to say that inventions are for the most part 
 accidental ; there seems to be no particular reason for 
 the invention, at some particular time, of a spinning jenny 
 or a steam engine or a new political or religious dogma. 
 But a little reflection shows that it is truer to say that 
 inventions are never accidental, but always appear in 
 response to felt needs and purposes. This is probably 
 true, even of mechanical contrivances ; much more cer- 
 tainly of idea-inventions. And when we trace the cause 
 of inventions to felt needs and purposes, we are falling 
 back once more, not upon given and discoverable pressures, 
 but, in part at least, upon the causal influence of the ideal 
 whose origin we have not yet discovered.
 
 THE SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN PROGRESS 175 
 
 So, again, when we consider the complication of 
 processes involved in all social life, or mental life lived 
 in close contact with other minds. Ideas or ideals 
 arise in society, no one knows how or whence. In re- 
 sponse to some need, we say, some need which is hardly 
 consciously felt. Recent history supplies innumerable 
 instances of this, from the idea of Free Trade a century 
 ago to the idea of Protection to-day ; from the ideas of 
 laissez-faire to ideas of general supervision and control. 
 And the process by which such ideas gather force seems 
 clear, too ; either the need is general and generally 
 felt (though perhaps not consciously), and so the idea 
 spreads naturally ; or else the universal and all-powerful 
 influence of suggestion carries it with compelling force 
 into the minds of the many. An entire political party 
 is converted to a new idea, hypnotized into accepting 
 a new policy, by the repeated suggestion of its connexion 
 with some known needs or accepted aims of party or of 
 nation. And, if only the suggestion comes with due 
 prestige, many others may be converted, even though 
 there is, for them, no connexion whatever with any felt 
 needs. So the process goes on naturally enough : first 
 a natural and spontaneous origin of an appropriate bit 
 of social ferment ; then a natural and inevitable infection 
 of most of the social mass by means of continued 
 suggestion. 
 
 But once again the explanation is obviously incom- 
 plete. For the process is unintelligible, both as regards 
 the origin of the idea, and its development as a force 
 of change, unless we assume the existence (in some minds, 
 at any rate) of the conception of an ideal future which 
 determines what ideas shall originate, and how far they 
 shall be allowed to grow in influence. Apart from this 
 "force beyond," the process in each stage is really 
 purposeless. It is only significant for us as thinkers and 
 as self-conscious beings in so far as the purpose derived 
 from some kind of ideal end enters into it.
 
 176 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Whence then the ideals ? And whence the will of 
 idealism ? To these questions we are inevitably led ; 
 and if it is asserted that these are only questions of 
 psychology, then we may retort that at least they are 
 questions of a kind of spiritual psychology, and raise 
 the issue of a spiritual force at work in our social life. 
 And this, whether we call it a psychological or a meta- 
 physical issue, is inseparable from the other question 
 which we have found ourselves compelled to raise, namely, 
 the relation of the individual to his society or social 
 group, and the limits of the authority of the latter. 
 With the consideration of these questions we will begin 
 the discussion of the final problem the problem which is 
 involved in our initial assumption of a spiritual back- 
 ground to the life of human society. And the questions 
 may be stated simply in this form : What is the individual ? 
 What is society to him ? What is the social person ? 
 Whence does he derive his equipment of feeling, impulse, 
 thought, will, and ideal ? 
 
 i. Taking first the individual in the ordinary sense, 
 we may describe him by reference to his most important 
 characteristic as essentially and always a self-seeker or 
 self ; and we may describe society as part of the sur- 
 rounding medium from which he has drawn much of the 
 normal equipment of the self, and through which alone 
 he can satisfy all the elaboration of desire and feeling of 
 which he is capable. As a separate self or natural man, 
 he owes to nature, working through his ancestry, an equip- 
 ment of feelings and impulses, some of them very neces- 
 sary, some salutary, and some dangerous. As a social 
 person, he owes it to society that this natural equipment 
 is converted into something very different an equipment 
 of progressive interests of all kinds, with far greater 
 opportunities for intenser feeling and fuller " realization." 
 For social life is a process by which much of the experience 
 of past humanity is brought to bear upon each individual 
 for his advantage ; a process of shutting off or pruning
 
 THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 177 
 
 down many impulses, of drawing out and encouraging 
 others, until the normal adult citizen is equipped with a 
 very serviceable outfit of desires and controls calculated 
 to give him (if he finds the opportunity) the maximum 
 of satisfaction compatible with the stage of culture 
 reached. 
 
 At the same time, his society is the medium in and 
 through which alone he can develop and use this equip- 
 ment. The carefully cultured powers of desire and 
 attainment are useless apart from the social life just 
 as they could not have come into existence without it. 
 In this way the relation of the individual to his society 
 and to social life is very analogous to the relation of the 
 ego to nature and the physical body. I cannot do 
 anything, / cannot manifest any power or satisfy myself 
 without the use of my body ; just so the social person 
 cannot in any way satisfy his developed self without the 
 use of society as a kind of larger body. 
 
 So far, the individual member of society may be 
 regarded as wholly a product of nature and the social 
 process, and entirely dependent upon nature and society 
 from first to last. And this is what the sociologist 
 means by the individual a social product individualized 
 into a separate unit, but necessarily subordinate to the 
 social unity, and inseparable from it. But to the social 
 philosopher such a conception is profoundly unsatisfying : 
 it fails to explain, or implicitly contradicts, the most 
 significant characteristic of the individual, namely, his 
 persistent antagonism to the society to which he belongs. 
 
 I use the phrase " persistent antagonism " advisedly, 
 in order to guard against confusion with a kind of antagon- 
 ism which may conceivably be regarded as a temporary 
 defect of the normal citizen as he now exists. We all 
 admit, of course, that each of us, as a separate self, is 
 opposed to our society, as a collection of selves. We 
 cannot help differing in aim ; some of the desires of 
 every individual self-seeker are sure to conflict with 
 12
 
 178 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 those of the social body ; and, though the good man may 
 subordinate his private aims to his society's purposes, 
 the subordination will be accompanied by conscious effort 
 and discomfort, and will only be achieved by a succession 
 of painful suppressions. But this kind of disharmony, 
 universal as it now is, is not the real difficulty. It may 
 conceivably be destined to disappear eventually ; and it 
 is arguable that it is due to the fact that human beings 
 are not yet completely " socialized," or that the social 
 process has not yet finished its work of converting the 
 natural man into the social person ; : only let the process 
 continue long enough, and society and its members will 
 really be "at one." 
 
 For the benefit of any one who cares to advance this 
 line of argument seriously, let us admit that it is the 
 great function of the social process to widen each separate 
 self so that it should become less and less wholly self- 
 centred. Every social relationship, every activity in 
 which social feeling plays a part, has a supreme moral 
 purpose to socialize selves by drawing them beyond 
 themselves, by compelling them to absorb others, as it 
 were, or to make other people in some way part of them- 
 selves. This widening process may be pictured as a kind 
 of education or drawing out of the self into ever-wider 
 circles, enlarging the range of sympathy, fellow-feeling, 
 altruism. But it must be noted that this is always a 
 circular process, and leads back to the self from which 
 it starts ; and it may therefore be objected that, however 
 completely it does its work however sympathetic or 
 altruistic or genuinely social we become we shall still 
 remain self-centred and, in a sense, selfish. For the 
 most altruistic person never acts except for the sake of 
 self-satisfaction in spite of the fact that his self embraces 
 many other people, or that he has been taught to link 
 others to himself. He works for them, he strives for their 
 good and not his own, because he has projected his self 
 into their lives, has made them part of himself, has carried
 
 THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 179 
 
 his feelings and desires outwards so as to include them 
 and so connect them very closely with himself. Even 
 in the case of such a completely socialized person as 
 this, the antagonism between himself and others still 
 remains, though never allowed to break into any sort of 
 actual discord. It lingers, at any rate, in the form of a 
 consciousness of separate self-hood, and therefore also a 
 consciousness that open antagonism of aim is Iways 
 possible. 
 
 This objection, however, would not trouble us much. 
 If we could believe that the social process would, of 
 itself, eventually produce a society of completely al- 
 truistic and fully socialized citizens, living and acting 
 throughout in frictionless harmony with all the purposes 
 of their society, we should not allow ourselves to be 
 troubled by the fact that within the breast of each there 
 still lurked a sense of separateness, a consciousness that it 
 might be pleasant to go one's own way some day. They 
 never would go their own way, any more than a good 
 bee or a good cell does ; the consciousness that they 
 might do so would merely be a harmless survival from 
 their old, imperfect, pre-socialized days. 
 
 Now, apart from the rather obvious weakness of the 
 argument here put forward in explanation of the antagon- 
 ism of every self to its fellows, we may at once discard 
 it on the simple ground that it does not explain the facts 
 which really call for explanation. The antagonism of the 
 individual as a self-seeker to his society as a group of 
 similar self-seekers, is only one form of the antagonism 
 to be explained. The real difficulty lies, not so much 
 in the present separateness of the self's desires, as in the 
 permanent separateness of the individual's aspirations. 
 We can imagine a perfectly socialized citizen, whose self 
 embraces all others, and whose desires are only directed 
 to the admitted good of all. But we cannot imagine such 
 a citizen freed from the antagonism which rises from the 
 continual springing up of new ideals, unless, indeed, we
 
 i8o A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 suppose him to have lost his individuality altogether. 
 And his social excellence will not save him from this kind 
 of antagonism ; on the contrary, his life will be a con- 
 stant example of the growing opposition of the better 
 to the good, and of the best to the better. All traces 
 of self and its antagonisms may have been purged out 
 of him ; his every desire and resulting social action 
 may be conditioned by the fact that he and his society 
 are one, in interest and in aim ; but his idealism the 
 out -push of new ideals which are his own will increase, 
 and will mark a new plane of separation between him 
 as an individual and his social life as a temporary condi- 
 tion of his activities. This is the fundamental antagon- 
 ism, from which no amount of perfecting by the social 
 process can deliver us an antagonism, not of a more or 
 less narrow self to other selves, but of an eternally distinct 
 individual to a society to which, as an individual, he is 
 eternally alien. 
 
 2. But we are now introducing a distinction which 
 requires a much more careful explanation. Hitherto 
 we have been dealing with the individual in the ordin- 
 ary sense, as a separate social unit, a joint product 
 of nature and social life, the only sense in which a 
 scientific sociology is entitled to regard him. We do 
 not, however, need a philosopher to tell us that this 
 account quite apart from the inexplicable antagonism 
 of such a unit to his social group is a very unsatis- 
 factory and imperfect description of what we really are. 
 In the making of me, in the motiving of many of my 
 actions, in the determining of my conduct, in the de- 
 ciding of my will, something else is at work, something 
 which neither nature nor the social process furnishes. 
 What is it ? 
 
 Let us, to avoid difficulties, call it the real or true 
 individual, or the individual in a very different sense 
 from that hitherto used the true individual, that is, 
 which lies behind the self or the person, and is far more
 
 THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 181 
 
 real than it. This we may describe negatively, by con- 
 trast with the personal self. First, he is not in any sense 
 a natural or social product. He does not owe his origin 
 or original equipment to nature ; he does not owe the 
 elaboration of his equipment to society or the social 
 process. He must, therefore, be regarded as both 
 supra-natural and supra-social ; he is the individual as a 
 datum, not of this life or world at all. Secondly, he is 
 not in any sense a self or a self-seeker ; and, by conse- 
 quence, he is not characterized by desire not even by 
 desire for the well-being of a widened or altruistic self. 
 This presents a difficulty to us, chiefly because our use of 
 terms leads us to identify desire with every conscious 
 impulse upwards or downwards ; we can hardly imagine 
 an individual striving, except under the influence of desire 
 of some sort. Eliminate all desire, and total cessation of 
 effort or activity seems to follow necessarily ; this is why 
 we cannot imagine Nirvana to be anything except (practic- 
 ally) a state of annihilation. Yet a different mode of 
 conception, based upon subtler analysis, presents this 
 state as one of intensest activity, although characterized 
 by complete loss of self and the desires of self. Perhaps 
 we can better understand the conception by saying 
 positively that the true individual is a soul and not a 
 self, that he aspires but does not desire, that he is a 
 God-seeker but not a self-seeker. And, whereas the 
 movements of the self are always circular following 
 interests which always return to the self from which 
 they start the movements of the soul are always away 
 from self, always onward, always directly God-ward, 
 never returning at all. Desire, with all the interests 
 of the self, is thus totally distinct from aspiration ; just 
 as even the highest form of altruism is distinct from 
 the religious love into which no element of self enters. 
 But here again our language leads to confusion ; for we 
 apply the same terms to the shadow and to the reality, 
 to the ordinary human and social manifestations of
 
 182 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 feeling, and to the supra-human and supra-social powers 
 and attributes. 
 
 Thus, to obtain a satisfactory account of what each 
 of us really is, we must combine with the natural and 
 social influences, which enter into the building up of the 
 self, the influences, however fitful and intermittent, of 
 this true individual, which, as it were, lies behind every 
 human personality. The self is thus the meeting ground 
 of three sets of qualities or elements the natural, with 
 all the propensities, desires, and aversions, and the 
 capacities for feeling and thought, which nature supplies ; 
 the social, with all the equipment of carefully pruned, 
 controlled, and educated feelings and tendencies which 
 ordered social life provides ; and finally the spiritual, 
 with its peculiar power of inspiring the personality 
 thus equipped and educated with aspirations which are 
 derived neither from nature nor from society. The human 
 selves who make up society manifest themselves as very 
 unequal combinations of these three elements. Some 
 seem to be all " natural " bundles of desire and pro- 
 pensity, self-centred, unsocial, and uninspired ; some 
 appear to be no more than social expressions of the 
 habitual and accepted aims and standards of the society 
 which has " moralized " them, and from which, chame- 
 leon-like, they take all their colour ; while in some few 
 the spiritual force of the true individual within them is 
 plainly at work, converting the natural and social product 
 into the selfless idealist or even the saint on earth. Yet 
 in every human being all the three elements are present, 
 whether plainly manifested or not ; and by the self, or 
 the individual in the ordinary sense, we mean the natural 
 and social shell which envelops a kernel of spiritual 
 power the whole manifested as a human agent, im- 
 perfect, unstable, and self-centred, so long as the shell 
 exists at all ; by the social person, we mean this same self 
 considered specially with reference to his social equip- 
 ment ; and by the true individual, we mean the spiritual 
 reality within.
 
 THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 183 
 
 The conception which I am here trying to explain 
 may perhaps be made clearer by comparison with the 
 conception outlined in Browning's poem, " A Death in 
 the Desert " : 
 
 " How diverse persons witness in each man 
 Three souls which make up one soul : first, to wit, 
 A soul of each and all the bodily parts, 
 Seated therein, which works, and is what Does, 
 And has the use of earth, and ends the man 
 Downward : but tending upward for advice, 
 Grows into, and again is grown into 
 By the next soul, which, seated in the brain, 
 Useth the first with its collected use, 
 And feeleth, thinketh, willeth, is what Knows : 
 Which, duly tending upward in its turn, 
 Grows into, and again is grown into 
 By the last soul, that useth both the first, 
 Subsisting whether they assist or no, 
 And, constituting man's self, is what Is 
 And leans upon the former, makes it play, 
 As that played off the first : and tending up, 
 Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man 
 Upward in that dread point of intercourse, 
 Nor needs a place, for it returns to Him, 
 What Does, what Knows, what Is ; three souls, one man." 
 
 But the three souls described by Browning do not, 
 of course, correspond with the three elements which I 
 have distinguished as the natural, the social, and the 
 spiritual ; although what Browning calls the last soul, 
 that which Is, may certainly be identified with the 
 spiritual element, or the true individual. It must be 
 noted, however, that, while Browning calls this " man's 
 self," very much as in our ordinary language we call 
 it our better or true self, I have carefully distinguished 
 it from the self, applying this latter term to our lower 
 elements only, or rather, to the whole man only so long 
 as these lower elements persist in him ; while to the 
 highest elements I have applied the term " true indivi- 
 dual " or " true soul." This distinction is vital ; there is 
 no more potent cause of confusion than the loose language
 
 184 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 which describes as " self " every active element in us 
 from the lowest or most earthly to the highest or divine. 
 
 We are now in a position to distinguish, though not 
 so sharply, between the aims of the self or of the ordi- 
 nary social person, and the ideals of the true individual, 
 even those social ideals which are conceived and sought 
 after by the true individual. For our social aims, like 
 all our personal aims, are determined in origin and 
 development by our social life and its conditions. But 
 our ideals (using the word now in the strict sense which 
 excludes any element of self-seeking) are drawn from a 
 non-social source, inspired, if you will, by something 
 beyond this world. This is generally admitted in the 
 case of the individual aspirations of the saint or the 
 religious soul. It is no less true of the aspirations which 
 take a social form. For the true social ideal is always 
 a vision of a City of God ; a vision of a society so changed 
 as to have become a fit habitation for souls not the most 
 satisfactory or comfortable habitation for selves. It is 
 in this sense that the Utopias of Plato or St. Augustine 
 may properly be called ideals. Their value does not lie 
 in any suggestions they contain for the increased well- 
 being of social persons ; but in the confident assertion of 
 the necessary social conditions of well-being for human 
 souls. 
 
 We may stop at this point to apply these rather un- 
 usual conceptions to the problems of social life which 
 we wish to resolve. First, as to the antagonism of the 
 individual to society. Such antagonism is clearly in- 
 evitable for the member of human society regarded as 
 a self. Although his normal equipment of attributes 
 and powers is derived from and developed by nature 
 and the social process, nevertheless each separate self 
 is and remains separate, and in arm, opposed to both 
 nature and society at many points. He is conscious 
 of an end which is not society's, however selfishly he 
 interprets it ; dimly conscious, too, of an overlord other
 
 THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 185 
 
 than society ; conscious again that he exists for a pur- 
 pose not to be described as a social purpose. But in 
 an ideal social state this antagonism would disappear. 
 So far as each member of society realized his true indi- 
 viduality and subordinated his self-interests to it, the kind 
 of opposition and separateness which characterizes selves 
 would disappear, and the condition of willing subordi- 
 nation (which we saw marked the ethical stage of family 
 or society) would be completely attained. And for 
 this reason : the selfless individual can have no conflict 
 of desire or aim with other people or with his social 
 group. The well-being or satisfaction which society 
 may be seeking, as a society of selves, is nothing to him ; 
 it is not on the same plane as the goal on the attain- 
 ment of which he is set. And an ideal society, or society 
 of such individuals, would in this way realize the ethical 
 stage absolutely, without any friction or discord. 
 
 But this does not mean that for the good man there 
 is no conflict in society as it now is ; only that the con- 
 flict will not resemble the clashing of interests to which 
 we are accustomed. The aim of society, we may safely 
 assert, will always differ decidedly from the social ex- 
 pression of the completely good man's ideal ; for it 
 is distorted by self-seeking, while his is not. And so 
 long as he is a social member, so long, that is, as his 
 activities are conditioned by the social life, he is bound 
 to care about the social aim, to be troubled by its wrong- 
 ness, to oppose it, in fact. He cannot escape, as a 
 part of society, from the difficulty which also confronts 
 him as a part of nature. It is nothing to him what 
 nature makes of his body ; yet it is something to him, 
 so long as he inhabits a body and depends upon it. 
 How far he is to submit to its demands, and let it alone, 
 and how far oppose it and strive to alter it, are questions 
 which he has to answer somehow. 
 
 It is evident, then, that we have not got away from 
 the difficulties of conflict of some sort. Our step from
 
 i86 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the lower to the higher individual is not a step clean 
 out of all social perplexities unless, like Plato, we cut 
 the knot by leading the real soul out of the social cave 
 altogether. Nor do we arrive at any principle by which 
 to determine the question of submission or resistance, 
 whether active or passive. This only is clear : the 
 really good individual is not interested in the social 
 aims in the same way as are ordinary social members. 
 It does not matter to him that the social aim runs counter 
 to his welfare as a self, because this is no longer of any 
 vital importance to him ; and his real welfare, as a 
 soul, cannot be affected by any social happenings. There- 
 fore it is easy for him, in one way, to bow to the social aim 
 in everything. But it does matter to him that the will 
 of society is wrong. Thus, it will be of little consequence 
 to him whether the policy chosen is that of Free Trade 
 or Tariff Reform ; of peace or war ; whether the result 
 is increase or decrease of wealth ; whether this or that 
 device for dealing with problems is adopted, this or that 
 mistaken method. But it does matter that society is 
 aways too selfish, and therefore neglects its poor : too, 
 sectional, and therefore never at peace. And so he must 
 needs protest, to the death if necessary, against the 
 wrongness of the social aim. And perhaps, if he continues 
 to live as a social member, the really good individual 
 may often have to die as a consequence of his protesting. 
 At the same time, it is certain that he will not resist the 
 social will by raising his head against it at every point 
 at which he believes it to be mistaken. He knows that 
 the perfecting of the social condition is an endless process, 
 and therefore very slow ; it is also a process of improve- 
 ment by trial and mistakes and experiences slowly acquired 
 from the consequences of mistakes ; above all, he knows 
 that the steps in the process are not his secret, nor re- 
 vealed to him, any more than are the steps of nature's 
 processes. Therefore he willingly submits to the demands 
 of his society, only protesting against the non-moral and
 
 THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 187 
 
 non-spiritual elements of the dominant aim. Is a war 
 decided upon ? To him it may seem quite certainly a 
 mistaken war ; but he will fight by the side of his fellow- 
 citizens, and die in the fight willingly. Is a policy chosen 
 which offends all his social opinions ? None the less will 
 he submit to it cheerfully as a loyal citizen should. For 
 let it be noted (and this will be clear later) that he knows 
 perfectly well that his social convictions, and the social 
 details of his ideals, are after all not inspired, but only 
 the outcome of his particular and partial contact with 
 social life as an ordinary social person ; and perhaps 
 they are not more likely to be right than the detailed 
 opinions of any other decent citizen. Only the general 
 direction and intention of the ideal are matters of complete 
 certainty to him. 
 
 Now if we leave the perfect individual, and consider 
 the normal and moderately good members of society as 
 they actually exist, we may discover the principle which 
 governs the conduct of the absolutely good man, and 
 determines the kind of willing submission we have 
 predicated for him. 
 
 In most of us, we are bound to confess, the self is 
 very dominant, and the true individual very dormant. 
 As selves, and still more as social persons, we owe a 
 debt to nature and society to which it is hard to assign 
 any limits. As souls, we owe no debt at all. As selves, 
 we owe to society a willing submission ; and society has 
 authority over most of our social activities and self- 
 activities and interests. If we wish to get married, 
 society has a right to dictate the terms ; if we wish to 
 make money, society properly decides the methods we 
 may use ; if we are artists, striving to realize our con- 
 ception of beauty, then society must first give us permission 
 before we may impress upon others the forms of our 
 aesthetic conceptions. The individualist who denies this, 
 as many do, is trying to repudiate the debt, claiming that 
 the self has some right of its own to determine absolutely
 
 i88 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the lines of its further development. But the develop- 
 ment of our personal and social interests is in our own 
 hands only by leave of society. It may be expedient (for 
 that development or for social welfare) that society should 
 leave the social unital one in this or that set of activities. 
 But that is a matter which society must decide. There is 
 no principle which shall determine any division of spheres. 
 The natural and social product is in the hands of nature 
 and society from first to last. 
 
 And to this authority of society, we may fairly say 
 that its responsibility is correlative. The society which 
 draws out the powers of each social person is so far 
 bound to see that the powers are not thwarted by lack 
 of opportunity. It may not starve the capacities which 
 it has itself called into existence. Society must con- 
 sider each of its members, as a family its children. But 
 we are not entitled to speak of the authority or the 
 responsibility of society as absolute ; since the develop- 
 ment of each self is, in part at least, determined by the 
 will of each, conjointly with the influence of society a 
 point to which we return in a moment. 
 
 When we turn to the true individual, the position is 
 totally reversed. Over him, society has no authority ; and 
 for him, no responsibility. He owes it no debt for his 
 development ; he has no claim upon it for opportunity. 
 
 The principle here outlined that society is paramount 
 over us qua selves, but powerless over us qua true in- 
 dividuals or souls, has been dimly recognized and acted 
 upon by the impulse of modern societies. The struggle 
 for freedom may have begun by confusing the issue ; 
 confusing, that is, the necessary freedom of the true 
 individual with the impossible freedom of the social 
 person. But gradually the confusion is giving way to 
 the recognition of the principle that society may interfere 
 with us as social persons, and therefore in all our external 
 activities ; but not as souls, in the really separate 
 activities of the soul.
 
 THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 189 
 
 So far I have emphasized the sharp distinction be- 
 tween self and soul, and the antagonism between them. 
 Following all exponents of the implication of our spiritual 
 nature, I have contrasted the unreality of the one with 
 the essential reality of the other. The natural and 
 social man belongs to the world of sense impressions 
 and perpetual change ; the spiritual man to the world 
 of realities, by contrast with which this world is only a 
 cave of shadows. And, as far as our worldly interests 
 and activities are concerned, the soul is conceived, in 
 this view, not so much as agent, but rather as the silent 
 watcher of all the self's activities, gaining the experience 
 which such a watcher might gain, but holding aloof, 
 playing no active part in the unreal world, only learning 
 and waiting until it is set free to act unhindered in the 
 world of reality to which it belongs. But this sharp 
 distinction will not fit with the facts we are considering. 
 However valid and valuable it may be for the mystic, 
 it leaves the social philosopher in an impossible posi- 
 tion, faced, as it were, by two aspects of a duality neither 
 of which can be brought into any intelligible relation to the 
 other. Yet he knows well enough that they are related ; 
 that self and soul interact continually ; and that the social 
 life in which the interactions take place has a very definite 
 reality which is not destroyed by contrasting it with the 
 absolute. Also, to be more explicit, he knows that all 
 the actions of every self, into which deliberate choice 
 enters, are also actions in which the soul takes part, the 
 will being, as it were, the connecting link between the two. 
 And this holds good of all the social units, and of every 
 society of such units, of whom conscious willing can be 
 asserted, even though the stage of " religion " (and there- 
 fore of the soul's awakening) has hardly yet been reached. 
 Consequently the social philosopher asserts roundly that 
 the chosen acts of all persons, and of all societies, are of 
 real importance, an importance which is not adequately 
 described even by calling them moral acts. For the
 
 igo A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 word " moral " is often taken as implying no more than 
 a harmony with social needs ; and our chosen acts have, 
 all of them, a relation to something more than social 
 needs. They have an influence upon the potentiality 
 of good in a deeper sense, upon the possibility of fuller 
 realization of the soul as above and beyond both self 
 and society. Every choice affects the progress of the 
 soul towards freedom ; and every chosen act has con- 
 sequences which react upon the condition of the self as 
 the body or garment of the soul. Whatever John 
 Smith, or any society of John Smiths, does of deliberate 
 choice is not only a result of some relation of soul to 
 self, but also directly modifies that relation, and may 
 indirectly modify the relation in the case of any number 
 of fellow-socii. And this is what we mean when we 
 say, in our rather loose language, that all deliberate 
 actions are both the outcome of character, and react 
 upon character. 
 
 This common-sense attitude is indisputable. It is 
 also strictly true ; and it is really involved in the doctrine 
 of self and soul upon which I have insisted. We 
 described the self as the whole equipment of physical 
 and mental powers and propensities, derived from nature 
 and modified by social influences, with which each of us 
 works as a human being. To express the relation of 
 this self to the soul, we may describe it also, though only 
 by metaphor and therefore dangerously, as the living 
 garment or case of the soul, from and through which the 
 soul has eventually to break away. But meanwhile the 
 soul is changing the case from within, and social life is 
 perpetually moulding it from without. And the resulting 
 qualities of the case, to which we apply the term " char- 
 acter," are the result of both the internal and the external 
 fashioning. 
 
 From this two consequences follow. First, with 
 reference to the good man's attitude to all external 
 (social) happenings. Common-sense is rightly offended
 
 THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 191 
 
 if we suggest that the utterly good man, knowing that 
 all these happenings are unreal, will therefore treat 
 them as unworthy of any great attention. The obvious 
 importance of social life stamps as wrong any attempt 
 to picture the perfect individual as a Gallio, even though 
 he has the excuse of being also a religious mystic. Yet 
 we may assert that the good man knows that no social 
 events need necessarily be important to any of us. Any- 
 body's shell may have been brought so completely under 
 the dominance of the soul that no external event will 
 matter. But social events, like physical, are usually of 
 considerable importance to all of us normal people ; and 
 for the sufficiently good reason that they do or may, in 
 degree and manner differing with our progress, harden 
 or soften the shell of self, so making it a worse or better 
 case for the soul. Therefore, the good man cares about 
 them, not only as a citizen or fellow-self, but as a fellow- 
 soul. Previously we saw that he must care, in so far as 
 the duty of rendering to Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar's laid upon him the citizen-duty of giving his 
 full service of social devotion to his society. But now 
 we see the further reason : the social services are also 
 the " things that are God's." 
 
 In the second place, we now reach a satisfactory ex- 
 planation of the time-honoured difficulty connected with 
 " character." This word, like others already noticed, 
 confuses very different things. Sometimes it is used to 
 express merely those qualities of the self which are 
 definitely social products, such as the accepted habits 
 of action of the social person. Sometimes it is applied 
 to those qualities of the self which are the joint product 
 of social influences and of the soul's striving. Some- 
 times, again, it is made to include those qualities which, 
 manifested through the self, are really the true expression 
 of the soul's nature. Now character of the first, and 
 lowest, order includes a very great deal of the disposi- 
 tions and tendencies of all of us. Character of the
 
 92 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 second kind applies to the comparatively small part of 
 our disposition which we have acquired as a result of 
 our conscious willings. And character of the third, and 
 highest, order is the rare emanation of the true soul 
 dominating its shell completely. And this last kind of 
 character, appearing very intermittently in good people, 
 is the permanent possession only of the saint. 
 
 In our ordinary talk about character, these very 
 different elements are not distinguished. The word 
 covers all the meanings noted ; and many of the asser- 
 tions we make about character are wholly true, partly 
 true, or wholly false, according as one meaning or another 
 predominates. Take, for instance, the controversy always 
 raging over the real influence which ought to be assigned 
 to social (external) conditions upon character, in which 
 the one side asserts that character is all-important and 
 circumstances more or less negligible, while the other 
 asserts that the social conditioning is supremely im- 
 portant, because it is actually the moulder of character. 
 It is clear that, in so far as we are thinking of character 
 in the first of the three senses explained, all external 
 changes are of supreme importance. The self which is 
 being formed unconsciously (as in the case of a young 
 child) into this or that kind of social person, with this 
 or that kind of qualities and social disposition, follows 
 in its development the line of least resistance. Place it 
 in a den of thieves or in a virtuous family, and its 
 character in this sense will vary accordingly.* It is 
 true that no one except a very young child is thus 
 wholly at the mercy of the environment. But all of 
 us, so far as ourselves and their activities are habitual, 
 are similarly influenced in the development of our 
 " character " by the external suggestions and pressures. 
 If, on the other hand, we take character in the third 
 sense defined, it is equally true that circumstances do 
 
 * Subject, of course, to the influence of inherited tendencies.
 
 THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 193 
 
 not matter at all. The only influence which counts is 
 that of the soul or of some power working through 
 the soul. And, finally, if we are considering character as 
 a joint product, in which the influence of the social 
 environment is combined with that of the internal 
 guiding power, then it is clear that external social changes 
 diminish in importance just in proportion as the true 
 individual is really awake in us ; but they never cease to 
 be of some importance until the wholly soul-governed 
 man is reached the completely religious man, or the true 
 philosopher. 
 
 Thus the old individualist dogma, " character and 
 not circumstance matters," is seen to be a dogma of 
 varying degrees of truth and falsity according to the 
 application, or the meaning of " character " involved. 
 It is very untrue of most of us, entirely true only of the 
 very best. In most of us, all the qualities of the self or 
 person are always under the influence of circumstances, 
 though never wholly so, after we have grown up, on 
 the assumption that the soul is never quite asleep, or 
 that no sane human being is quite without the will to 
 be saved. The individualist principle is one which we 
 should like to believe is true of us all. It is only really 
 true of our idealized " character." 
 
 Again, we can now see a similar confusion under- 
 lying the common assertion that " You can never make 
 people virtuous by Act of Parliament." If by virtue we 
 mean the good qualities of the social person, then the 
 assertion is foolishly paradoxical and misleading. Society's 
 laws, like all its actions, help to form the qualities of the 
 social self, by means of suggestion, increase or decrease of 
 opportunity, and all the means which combine to form 
 habit and the customary preference for " right " social 
 conduct which usually grows out of " right " habit. 
 Plato saw this clearly enough ; hence his elaborate arrange- 
 ments for the unconscious education of the young by the 
 quiet and persistent influence of a healthy social environ- 
 13
 
 194 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ment. But the assertion in question is neither paradoxical 
 nor misleading, if by virtue we mean the submission of self 
 to soul, or the full dominance of the soul's will over its 
 shell. This kind of virtue springs from within, or at 
 any rate, comes through the soul that is within. It is 
 not due to habit, nor is it a direct result of social moulding. 
 The true soul chooses or wills it ; and that is all. Right 
 habit prepares the way, if you like ; but the soul must 
 make the choice. 
 
 Yet again, we find a way of escape from many of 
 the difficulties of moral judgment passed upon our 
 fellow-citizens. We are inclined to say of the drunkard, 
 " He could be sober if he chose," just as we sometimes 
 say of the unemployed, " They might be in steady work 
 if they were good enough." And in all such judgments 
 we imply very definitely that they have only themselves 
 to blame. Of course ; it is perfectly true if we regard 
 them as selves in whom the soul is working constantly 
 through the medium of a life over which they have full 
 control. But it is very emphatically not true, if we 
 regard them as normal social selves, qualified and limited 
 and moulded in this way and that by the social medium 
 and by the opportunities it affords for this or that kind 
 of growth. As such, they may or may not be relatively 
 good in whatever sense society chooses to give to the 
 word, society fixing both the content of qualities 
 requisite for " goodness," and also the standard which 
 must be reached in order to deserve the name. And 
 both these vary with time and place and social need. 
 In the matter of sobriety, the required standard is now 
 placed much higher than it used to be ; but the attain- 
 ment of that standard by any one depends upon a 
 complex of causes in which natural tendencies and 
 social controls figure largely. It may be wise to pro- 
 claim the principle that the drunkard has only him- 
 self to blame ; but it certainly is not fair. Once more 
 we find that the individualist is applying to ordinary
 
 THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 195 
 
 social selves the verdicts which are only true of the very 
 rare individual who has risen above circumstance ; his 
 judgments are only fully applicable to our idealized 
 selves. This is at once the virtue and the defect of in- 
 dividualism : it assumes that we have realized our true 
 power very much more than most of us have a most 
 salutary assumption, but never a just one. And per- 
 haps, in the case of the unemployed man, the injustice 
 is too great to be balanced by the salutariness. For in 
 this case the standard of general capacity, moral or 
 mental or physical, below which the man falls, is not an 
 established or recognized standard at all, and varies 
 with the state of trade, just as much as a standard of 
 immunity from disease must vary with the prevalence 
 or absence of disease germs. No one is a healthy man 
 in a bad malarial district ; no one is " good enough " to 
 be employed in Lancashire during a cotton famine. 
 
 We may now, in the light of the distinctions drawn, 
 sum up the position reached in regard to the freedom of 
 the individual. The matter at first seems simple : the 
 freedom of the true individual is absolute ; that of 
 the social person is wholly relative to society's needs 
 and demands, which are as binding upon him as nature's 
 demands are upon the natural man. But the question 
 becomes more complex when we remember that each 
 member of society is also a self, and as such belongs to the 
 true individual, as his necessary instrument, as well as 
 to society. This dual ownership, if we may use the term, 
 is the root of all the difficulties. Which owner has the 
 prior claim or right ? And to what extent or in reference 
 to what activities ? The old assertion of " natural 
 rights," misleading as the term was, seemed to point 
 to a recognition of the fact that part at least of the 
 self's activities must be left wholly to the control of 
 the individual. We have already seen that this is the 
 case, certainly so far as the non-social activities are con- 
 cerned. And we may now state the position in this way :
 
 196 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Qua social person, the self is entirely subordinate to the 
 society of persons from whom all rights are derived, and 
 to whom also its personality is chiefly due. But the self 
 is, as we have seen, wider than the social person ; and as 
 such has " rights," or rather, has freedom, for it belongs 
 to and is at the disposal of its individual owner. As a 
 social person, I will agree to the principle that all my life 
 is at the disposal of my State. But as more than a social 
 person, I refuse to let the State dispose of me or of my 
 activities at all. 
 
 This position is quite satisfactory to those whom I 
 should venture to call true individualists, for they 
 have the certainty that their real life cannot be touched 
 by any social interference. It would not satisfy many 
 ordinary individualists, especially those of the Herbert 
 Spencer type. But it must be remembered that the 
 Spencerian theory, so far as it is a theory of the social 
 organism, limits us to a subordination of individual 
 to society very analogous to the subordination of cell to 
 body ; and it is little wonder that its exponents should, 
 however inconsistently, protest against the " slavery " 
 implied in such a conception. Such a theory does not 
 reach the conception of society as a system of rights and 
 duties tending always towards the ethical stage ; and there- 
 fore it does not lead us to the higher social element of 
 consent and purposive agreement upon which social 
 subordination is founded. An organism is not a person to 
 whom duty can be willingly owed and rendered ; submis- 
 sion to it must mean the submission of a cell or a slave. 
 
 NOTE. Common usage of words makes it quite in- 
 evitable that the word individual should be used in the 
 general sense which includes social units or social persons 
 and separate selves. I have, therefore, made no attempt 
 in other chapters to restrict its use to the peculiar meaning 
 attached to it in this chapter. Whenever it is necessary 
 to emphasize the distinction, I have used the term 
 " true individual."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE REAL PURPOSE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS ; AND 
 THE TESTS OF THE REFORMER'S AIMS AND 
 METHODS 
 
 THE last chapter has carried us into a region 
 of speculation very far removed from any accepted 
 social philosophy. Yet it has a vital con- 
 nexion with our main issue. We need not be afraid now 
 to make an admission which has gradually been forcing 
 itself upon us, namely, that the detailed content of 
 all social aims is determined by the natural process 
 by which felt or imagined need gives rise to various 
 suggestions of change, which in turn are elaborated 
 by individuals in the direction fixed for them by the 
 prejudices which each has inherited or acquired, by 
 the bias which each has derived from his or her partial 
 contact with social life, and by the one-sided feelings 
 and thoughts which make up the social equipment of 
 every normal citizen. These detailed aims, thus 
 elaborated into policies by individuals or groups of 
 individuals, are then offered to society to choose or 
 reject. By a kind of instinctive process the social 
 impulse does at last attach itself to some one policy, which 
 thus becomes, for the time being, the expression of the 
 social purpose with whatever modifications may be 
 introduced, as the play of a wider range of feeling, pre- 
 judice, and interest is brought to bear upon it. 
 
 197
 
 198 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Not a very intelligent procedure, you say, nor very 
 dignified for a society of thinking, reasonable beings ? 
 By no means ; it would be pleasanter to believe that 
 we thought out our aims and policies, as most of us 
 actually imagine that we do. But I must ask to be 
 allowed to offend the vanity of politicians and reformers 
 and ordinary citizens by dogmatically asserting, for the 
 moment, that their thought-out policies are not reason- 
 able, and to leave the further proof to a later section. 
 At present I only claim to have shown that they are not 
 inspired, but determined by the natural processes which 
 obtain among ordinary human beings. We have not 
 discovered any test of the utility or appropriateness of 
 aim or policy ; it can never be proved to be best, or even 
 advantageous ; all we can say is that the fact that the 
 general social impulse has fastened upon it, guided by the 
 consciousness of a particular need, is prima facie evidence 
 of its appropriateness in relation to that need, and of 
 its harmony with other accepted aims. 
 
 But what we may claim to have discovered is this: 
 a criterion or test of the worth of any social aim or policy, 
 regarded as a purposive striving after a true end. For 
 the analysis of the social person, the self, and the soul, 
 has entitled us to assert that no aim is true which is not 
 really spiritual that is, which is not consciously directed 
 to bringing nearer the attainment of the only absolutely 
 good end, the realization of the true individual as 
 supreme over both society and self. This position we 
 may now make clearer. 
 
 When, at the beginning of our inquiry, we adopted 
 the sociological point of view, we thereby committed 
 ourselves to the investigation of the principal causes and 
 conditions of social development, or of the influences 
 which help to determine the march of social events and 
 to modify the social structure, in such a way as to affect 
 the welfare of society as such. And this is the sole 
 province of the sociologist. His interest is centred in
 
 REAL PURPOSE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS 199 
 
 society and its progress ; and in that of the social units 
 only so far as they are members of society. But the 
 social philosopher is legitimately interested in the 
 individual social members as ends in themselves ; and 
 the social process chiefly interests him because of its 
 effect upon the development of the individual rather 
 than upon the development of society. We are now 
 able to go a step further than this. If with the social 
 philosopher's view we combine the conceptions outlined 
 in the last chapter, we at once find that the social pro- 
 cess has acquired a new significance. It is supremely 
 important by reason of its constant effect upon the 
 moulding and fashioning of the selves which are both 
 the instruments and the expressions of the true indi- 
 vidual. In other words, the importance of the social 
 process is found to lie, not in its social effects, not even 
 in its moral effects in the ordinary sense, but in its supra- 
 social reactions ; in its indirect effects, that is, upon 
 the progress of the individual soul. And therefore the 
 part we play as social reformers, or conscious guiders 
 of the social process, is of importance, not because it 
 improves the Great Being, social humanity, or its 
 members as social persons, but because it quickens the 
 process of that self-development which is essential to 
 the realization of the true individual. This develop- 
 ment of the self is not, of course, the end, any more 
 than is social welfare or the improvement of social 
 morality. But it is a necessary means to the one supreme 
 end the liberation and realized power of the true 
 individual. 
 
 Thus, the real reformer's work is always a religious 
 work, though seldom recognized as such by others or 
 even by himself. And the test of the real reformer 
 lies in this : is the goal towards which he is consciously 
 striving the true end of individual realization, or some- 
 thing lower than this ? Is he working to make the 
 social units better temples for souls, or only better
 
 200 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 material for social life and social happiness ? Apply 
 this test to many forms of social reform, and we find an 
 answer to the questions, "Why is it that many of the 
 most ardent social reformers seem to miss the spirit of 
 reform ? Why do so many attractive programmes seem 
 so materialistic and uninspiring ? " 
 
 One or two examples will make this clear. We 
 may feel the fullest agreement with the arguments and 
 pleadings of the eugenist, who is bent upon improving 
 the health of the national stock, and of the separate 
 social members. The improvement is obviously im- 
 portant, and is sorely needed, just as it is important 
 and necessary for me to find a remedy for any physical 
 ailment from which I may suffer. But it does not 
 touch the true end ; and herein lies the danger con- 
 centration upon this improvement may even lead to 
 neglect of the true end, exactly as concentration upon 
 the health of the body may be the very worst obstacle 
 to the real progress of the individual. The eugenist 
 does not get beyond the consideration of the social cells, 
 and their well-being as part of society or as ordinary social 
 persons. He is aiming only at making them healthier 
 material for the social process to work with, endowed 
 with increased capacities for personal enjoyment, appre- 
 ciation, or achievement. But it is very difficult to 
 concentrate attention upon health, and the capacities 
 it gives, as an end, without making it the end ; and that 
 is materialism. 
 
 So, again, we may feel complete sympathy with the 
 aims of many Socialists ; perhaps, too, with their ar- 
 guments and pleadings. They are bent upon lessen- 
 ing the injustices of social life, and opening for all the 
 opportunities of a satisfactory human existence ; upon 
 diminishing or abolishing the poverty which stunts and 
 starves all human capacities, and upon increasing for 
 all the poor the power to do and to enjoy. There is 
 usually no selfishness in the aim ; the Socialists who
 
 work hardest to bring about the prevention of destitu- 
 tion and the abolition of poverty are not themselves 
 either destitute or poor. And yet the aim seems to 
 miss the mark. For we are not here in order to be 
 well off : the purpose of our social life is not to increase, 
 for ourselves or even for others, the realization of well- 
 being, or the capacity for fuller appreciation, or the 
 opportunities for completer satisfaction. It is a good 
 thing, no doubt, to be better off and happier, just 
 as it is a good thing! to be healthier ; ' but only as a 
 means to something beyond both happiness and 
 health. 
 
 But both the Socialist and eugenist will by this time 
 have become scornfully impatient. Is not the realiza- 
 tion of their aims the essential condition of the attain- 
 ment of any other ends ? Filth, poverty, misery, and 
 disease are these the friends of virtue, or are they the 
 sure breeders of vice ? Till they are put away, what 
 progress can come ? I hope I am not so foolish as to 
 dispute the verdict of common-sense in these things. 
 Of course, eugenist and Socialist are working for good 
 things ; but their aims will only satisfy the test of 
 goodness if they are linked to something very different. 
 We will and must work to make any one healthier 
 not in order that he may be a more efficient person, or 
 a more fully satisfied self, but in order that he may be 
 better equipped to be a victor in the fight against the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil. We will and must work 
 to lessen any one's poverty so far as that poverty 
 depresses the human being down to the level of the 
 slave who cannot hold the strings of his own life in his 
 own hands. We will join forces with the crusaders 
 against destitution and inherited feebleness, not in 
 order to make the bodies of our neighbours better fed, 
 or their faculties more efficient, or themselves and their 
 community more successful and prosperous ; but because 
 the kind of poverty and inherited weakness which we
 
 202 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 see in them works like a poison against the better life 
 of all, preventing men and women from realizing that 
 they are spiritual beings and not only human, blinding 
 them to the true purposes of life and of its difficulties, 
 forcing their thoughts to dwell wholly upon their 
 chains and limitations, with no vision of the deliverance 
 which might be within their grasp. And mark how the 
 conception of the causes to be attacked must change 
 with this change of motive. The misery of dire poverty 
 is hateful, not only because its effects are paralyzing, 
 but because its real causes are poisonous too. It is not 
 the faulty organization of the labour market or the 
 clumsy and antiquated system of relief that chiefly 
 matters, but the selfishness which makes the labour 
 market faulty, the apathy which keeps relief inept. 
 The degeneracy of a badly bred population is hateful, 
 not only because it piles up suffering for the future, but 
 because it springs chiefly from present neglect and lust. 
 It is not the bad mating and thoughtless selection of 
 the future parents which chiefly matter ; but the vice 
 which makes many parents bad, the self-indulgence 
 which destroys the sense of parenthood's responsibili- 
 ties. 
 
 Are we drawing too subtle a distinction here ? Ought 
 we not to rest content with the good work done for a 
 suffering humanity under the motives of disinterested 
 sympathy, pity, and affection ? Need we ask anything 
 more of the reformer than that he should care for his 
 neighbour and consider the poor, and try to make their 
 lives happier, brighter, fuller, and worthier of human 
 beings ? To questions put in this form we can give but 
 one answer : we neither expect nor desire to supersede 
 the aim and motives of the good citizen unselfishly 
 striving to help his fellow-citizens to better things. 
 From his actions, as quite surely from his goodwill, the 
 deeper result will certainly follow ; the spirit of sacrifice, 
 and therefore the spirit that is not of self, goes with
 
 REAL PURPOSE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS 203 
 
 all such reform and goes beyond it. But the difference 
 of conception of "social evils on which I have insisted 
 rests upon a distinction which is neither unimportant 
 nor over-subtle. Both the methods and the results of 
 reform differ enormously according as we think of an 
 evil as merely a preventible barrier to increased satis- 
 faction, or as a barrier to the attainment of a good life ; 
 and the distinction underlying the difference is that 
 between the conception of ourselves as beings capable 
 of enjoyment and the^' conception of ourselves as 
 instruments capable of perfection. 
 
 If the examples I have taken have failed to make 
 this clear, let me take one other in which there is no 
 possibility of confusion. The institution of marriage is 
 considered imperfect. There is much unhappiness in 
 many married lives ; incompatible temperaments are 
 found to have yoked themselves together ; constant 
 discord takes the place of mutual affection ; or open 
 rupture occurs, one partner or the other giving unfor- 
 givable offence by bad conduct or bad habits. In any 
 case, the joy which should be the permanent possession 
 of husbands and wives, and the natural result of their 
 union, disappears beyond recovery, and worry, pain, and 
 hatred takes its place. An obvious evil, this ; how shall 
 it be met ? By the obvious remedy, say many reformers, 
 of altering the conditions upon which the institution of 
 marriage rests. Make escape from the evil easier ; make 
 it possible for discordant unions to be dissolved, and for 
 the people who are made wretched by them to find in 
 other unions, or in none, the happiness they have missed 
 in the one which has failed. 
 
 Now, quite apart from the question of whether easier 
 divorce would be a good thing or a bad, apart too from 
 countless social considerations affecting the issue, it is 
 certain that the attitude here indicated is vitiated by 
 the wrong conception of purpose or end for which the 
 institution of marriage exists. Passing by the various
 
 204 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 social ends which have been noticed in previous chapters, 
 we can now assert boldly that marriage, like every other 
 human relationship, has a supreme purpose as a means 
 of training, disciplining, and developing the self out of its 
 self-hood. It is perhaps more valuable than any other 
 relationship, because it is better fitted for this purpose 
 than any other ; and its fitness rests in great measure 
 upon its absolute permanence, upon the crude fact that 
 there is no easy way of escape from its difficulties, that 
 the bed made by choice must be lain upon of necessity, 
 that the partner chosen must be made partner, even 
 though the imagined possibility of human joy must be 
 permanently abandoned in this case or in that. Shall 
 we make it easier to dissolve the relationship and so start 
 again with new hope in pursuit of the joy we have missed ? 
 The device is too easy to be the right one ; and such a 
 device, adopted with such a motive, resting upon such 
 a conception of purpose, is foredoomed to failure. Not, 
 however, chiefly because the will o' the wisp which the 
 disappointed husband or wife dreams of will never be 
 caught, but because the conversion of marriage into a 
 device for catching it means robbing the relationship of 
 its highest pupose. 
 
 But let me remark emphatically that this conception 
 does not settle the matter, even for the philosopher. No 
 one point of view can do this, not even the highest. It 
 is very possible that the laws of divorce do need altera- 
 tion. Just as there are conditions of poverty which 
 must be regarded as absolute barriers to the true develop- 
 ment of normal human beings, so there are conditions 
 of married life which, for any one short of a saint, may 
 kill the beginnings of effort in the husband or wife who 
 is yoked to an intolerable mate. And the social consider- 
 ations of health and example, of effects upon children 
 and the general good of the community, may also be 
 decisive in numerous cases. No iron rule can be framed. 
 Only absolute certainty belongs to the definition of the
 
 necessary point of view from which, first of all, the 
 problem must be approached. 
 
 It must be remarked also that, although we may be 
 said to be treating the subject from a standpoint which 
 is really religious, we are not, as social philosophers, 
 concerned with the attitude of many religious people 
 who find in the authoritative law of their Church a final 
 answer to the problem. The philosopher may not fall 
 back upon any authority even that of a Church though 
 he may feel certain that the Church's law is really 
 based upon that very conception of the purpose of the 
 relationship which he too has found to be decisive 
 wherever it can be clearly applied. 
 
 One other misconception must be guarded against 
 here. I may be accused of going to the ridiculous 
 extreme of disregarding altogether the value of simple 
 human happiness as a concomitant of our human 
 activities ; indeed I can almost hear the taunt : Because 
 thou art virtuous (or pretending to be), shall there be 
 no more cakes and ale ? But this is really a miscon- 
 ception. I might even plead that I only require the 
 utilitarian to admit, as J. S. Mill did, that the curious 
 thing about happiness as an end is that if we aim at it 
 we most certainly miss it. I do not minimize the im- 
 portance of happiness : I simply assert that happiness 
 in the sense of the satisfaction of the self is, and will 
 always be, a delusion ; and that no more permanent kind 
 of happiness is open to us except as a result of following 
 a higher aim. That is why I maintain that it is useless 
 to base any reform upon the desire to make ourselves 
 and our society happier or more fully satisfied. True 
 reform must rest upon an ideal ; no end can be really an 
 ideal unless it carries us beyond the self and its desires 
 and satisfactions. But true reform will always make 
 both us and our community happier in a different sense : 
 not by cutting down obstacles in the way of our easier 
 satisfaction as selves, but by leading us up to the
 
 206 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 power of so ordering our selves and their desires for 
 satisfaction as that there shall no longer be any 
 ^satisfaction to be unhappy about. 
 
 Let us pass on to a simpler question, concerning, not 
 the test of the worth of our policies or aims, but rather 
 the test of our methods as reformers. The constant 
 difficulty which meets us is the fear lest we may be 
 " weakening responsibility," or the sense of responsibility, 
 among the people whom we wish to help. If we take 
 the trouble to analyse the meaning of the responsibility 
 which we are not to weaken, we shall find, as we found 
 in the case of " character," that the word has more than 
 one meaning. It implies, in the first place, answerability 
 to society for the performance of certain duties which 
 are demanded or expected of us as social members. 
 Thus, " parental responsibility " denotes our answerability 
 to our society for the performance of those duties to 
 our children which society insists upon. The content 
 of the duties for the performance of which we are 
 answerable is determined by society. This content is 
 never finally fixed ; we may even go further and say 
 that it is not supremely important what the content is, 
 or rather, that the fixing of this or that content is a 
 matter of expediency, and does not rest upon any ulti- 
 mate principle. It does not greatly matter whether 
 society lays upon me the duty of cleaning my own door- 
 step, or performs that particular operation for me. 
 It does not greatly matter whether society includes in 
 " parental responsibility " the duty of teaching children 
 their lessons, or takes that particular duty out of the 
 parent's hands, and performs it for him. That is to say, 
 society will and must define the scope of our responsi- 
 bility as it thinks most expedient, for our good and the 
 good of all. 
 
 But to rest content with this meaning of responsi- 
 bility would clearly leave the reformer in a dangerous 
 position. It gives no guiding principle at all, but only
 
 REAL PURPOSE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS 207 
 
 the test of expediency or utility, which we have seen 
 again and again is nothing more than the test of what 
 we imagine will be most expedient. If any would-be 
 reformers assert that it is expedient to relieve the 
 poorer parents of the duty of feeding or clothing or 
 nursing their children, we may disagree vehemently, but 
 we have no answer to make except the very unconvinc- 
 ing assertion that we do not think so. The argument 
 thus becomes a mere contest of competing ideas of 
 expediency, one party asserting their belief that the 
 community will be healthier and happier if the majority 
 of children are treated as children of the State, and 
 uniformly fed and cared for in accordance with a fair 
 standard of nurture, the other side asserting their con- 
 viction that such a proceeding will ruin both society 
 and its individual members. But the convictions of the 
 latter will not convince their opponents. They cannot 
 deny that deficient nourishment and general neglect 
 are very potent causes of social degeneracy ; they can- 
 not deny (and this is more important) that the conditions 
 of economic pressure make it increasingly difficult for 
 many poor parents, not to keep their children, but to 
 keep them up to the rising standard required, and that 
 therefore many parents are over-burdened and depressed, 
 and so become apathetic ; while if they assert that the 
 more the community does for people the slacker and lazier 
 they become, the assertion is met by a point-blank 
 denial, backed by references to recent history which it 
 is not easy to get over. Both sides are using the same 
 test the imagined utility or benefit of the society and 
 of the social persons composing it ; and neither side 
 ever convinces the other, for the simple reason that our 
 conceptions of utility are not logical at all, but the out- 
 come of our peculiar prejudices, inherited and acquired, 
 of our private or class interests, of our undigested experi- 
 ence of a little corner of the whole social life. 
 Now, in most jpolitical issues, this clash of competing
 
 208 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 " convictions " is all the process there is to decide the 
 matter. We have seen, however, that the worth of a 
 reformer's aim may be tested by the application of a 
 spiritual principle which is always decisive ; we are 
 satisfied only if the aim proposed harmonizes with the 
 conception of the social process as a means to a supreme 
 spiritual end. May we not also find a similar principle 
 applicable as a test to the method of reform, especially in 
 so far as it alters the content of the citizen's responsi- 
 bility ? 
 
 There undoubtedly is such a test, though not easy 
 to apply with any sureness. We have admitted that 
 the content of our social duty is not of supreme import- 
 ance. It may at one time include, at another disregard, 
 this or that particular set of actions ; at one time I may 
 be responsible for cleaning my own bit of pavement, at 
 another the local authority may do this for me. But 
 what is of supreme importance is that the content of 
 each individual's duty should never grow less, but 
 always increase ; and this is chiefly because responsi- 
 bility implies something higher than answerability to 
 society, and is relative to a good far transcending social 
 or personal utility. It implies also answerability 
 of the self to its true owner which is not society ; 
 we may call it answerability to the Good, if we wish, or 
 answerability to the true individual whose instrument 
 the self is. This answerability, with its range of duties, 
 has, of course, no limits ; and self-progress involves, 
 obviously, that the range and content of recognized 
 and accepted duty shall continually grow greater. If 
 we are to grow, we must grow in dutifulness ; there is 
 no other condition of progress. More and more actions 
 and activities must be brought under the sphere of 
 duty ; our range of choice the amount of " open 
 space " for our wills must constantly expand and not 
 contract. Therefore, though it matters little what par- 
 ticular duties society thinks fit to emphasize at any
 
 REAL PURPOSE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS 209 
 
 given time, it matters much whether society makes 
 fewer or more demands upon us, expects of us less or 
 more. For the content of the duty of the self to the good, 
 though not necessarily social, is bound to include and 
 consist of social actions so far as we are necessarily mem- 
 bers of society, finding in social life our training ground. 
 Even the saint cannot escape that condition, though for 
 him the social duties will form but a small part of the 
 whole. For most of us, almost the whole of our duti- 
 fulness must find expression in the performance of social 
 duties ; and consequently the continual expansion of the 
 range of these social duties is the essential condition of 
 our growth. 
 
 Is the test applicable to our difficulties concerning 
 the methods of reform ? Not easily nor with any de- 
 finiteness ; the findings of philosophy, like the deepest 
 teachings of religion, are the hardest things in the world 
 to apply in detail, though their general application is so 
 clear. But we may safely take up this attitude : if 
 the impulse of the community leads it to relieve the 
 poorer classes of any particular duty well, so be it. 
 The aged poor may be pensioned, the children of the 
 poor doctored or clothed or fed. In one case the re- 
 sponsibility of sons and daughters is diminished, in the 
 other, that of fathers and mothers. This diminution of 
 the content of duty is, by itself, wholly bad. But it 
 is not necessarily bad at all, if it is accompanied by in- 
 creased responsibility in other directions, by increased 
 demands for the performance of duties of other kinds. 
 Some adult citizens are relieved of a financial burden 
 and an economic duty : that tells us little or nothing ; 
 we must ask further, What new and greater duties are 
 demanded of them ? Or has the content of their recog- 
 nized duty already grown insensibly in such a way that 
 even without the specific duty of supporting aged parents 
 and buying food for dependent children, they have 
 greater obligations to fulfil than their predecessors had ? 
 u
 
 210 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Can we reasonably say that the poor who are relieved of 
 one burden are already shouldering others, of a different 
 kind, perhaps, but requiring greater, not less, effort and 
 self-control ? Are they striving to act up to a higher stan- 
 dard of care and consideration, of self-denial and affec- 
 tion, than a generation ago ? A progressive community 
 does undoubtedly demand more of parents in countless 
 ways as the general standard of social morality and social 
 welfare rises ; but is the mass of the population respond- 
 ing to the new demands, and learning to fulfil the new 
 requirements ? These are difficult and delicate ques- 
 tions to answer ; but in no other way can we place the 
 dispute upon a basis of real principle, and apply a sure 
 test of the safety or danger of the methods advocated. 
 And, once again, the test is not decisive, because 
 the answer to the questions must needs vary according 
 to each one's experience of his own or other classes' 
 conditions, according to each one's estimate of his own 
 or other people's capacity and character. And the 
 answer will vary, too, with our varying conceptions of 
 the significance of admitted social changes. It is pos- 
 sible to urge that a civilized community cannot help 
 applying to its social complexities the organized methods 
 which have proved so effective in all the specialized 
 activities of its life. And further, the certain discovery, 
 of how various evils can be treated effectually, forces 
 upon the society (as a matter of simple common-sense) 
 the necessity of applying the discovered treatment in the 
 most effectual way that is, universally, compulsorily, 
 and, if need be, gratuitously. No community can have 
 placed in its hands a sure preventive of small-pox (or 
 what is believed to be such) without very soon insisting 
 upon universal vaccination. No community can discover 
 the sure connexion between simple ignorance and general 
 inefficiency, without very soon insisting upon universal 
 education. The discovery of the direct connexion 
 between bad drains and disease leaves a city or a
 
 REAL PURPOSE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS 211 
 
 nation no alternative but to organize a general system 
 of sanitation. To leave the application of the treatment 
 to the choice of each individual or family would seem 
 to be a perverse refusal to utilize the remedy within 
 our reach. And if the medical specialist or any other 
 specialist informs us authoritatively that this or that 
 remedy will produce this or that desired improvement 
 of health or welfare, then it is difficult to avoid the 
 adoption of the measure recommended as part of that 
 universal provision of the conditions of well-being 
 which every civilized community is constantly increas- 
 ing. Observe, too, that this process is quickened by 
 the growth of the knowledge of the evils to be remedied. 
 The statistician is perpetually universalizing the facts 
 for the reformers and citizens ; how can these in turn 
 help universalizing the treatment necessary to meet the 
 facts ? The sociologist is perpetually bringing to light 
 new sufferings for our sympathies to fasten upon, new 
 causes of suffering for our ingenuity to prevent. How 
 then can we expect the social brotherhood not to apply, 
 under the influence of its newly aroused sympathy, 
 the preventives which its growing ingenuity suggests, 
 and to apply them, too, in the most effective way ? 
 Universalized treatment is thus the natural sequel to 
 the accumulation of national statistics ; Socialism natur- 
 ally follows the sociologist Socialism, that is, in the sense 
 of general communal action superseding much of the 
 voluntary action or inaction of each separate individual. 
 And individualism is gradually crowded out by the pressure 
 of new faith in organization, new discoveries of remedies 
 for evils, new knowledge of the extent of suffering, new 
 sympathy with the sufferers, new analysis of causes, new 
 devices of prevention, and perhaps most of all, by the force 
 of a new closeness of the social tissue. 
 
 Such is the interpretation of the march of events by 
 which many would defend the methods of reform which 
 we have been examining. The philosopher can do no
 
 212 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 more than listen with interest to the interpretation 
 as to the counter-interpretation of the individualist. 
 For the latter will maintain that the socialistic tendency, 
 whose justification we have stated, is nothing better 
 than a weak yielding to the line of least resistance. 
 Of course it is easier to deal with a wide-spread want 
 by the simple device of filling up the void than by the 
 difficult method of treating each case of want as a separ- 
 ate problem calling for separate attention. And the 
 whole case turns upon a vicious analogy. Small-pox 
 and typhus and illiteracy are comparatively simple 
 evils, traceable always to simple causes. But poverty 
 and misery are not simple, and their causes are as in- 
 finitely varied as are the springs of human conduct. You 
 can sanitate the simpler evils out of existence by the 
 universal application of specific preventives. But you 
 can no more sanitate misery away than you can cure 
 sin by bottles of medicine. No two cases are really 
 alike, in spite of all the statisticians' universalizing. 
 Every case of misery is due to a combination of innu- 
 merable viruses, never twice the same. No one but the 
 shallowest of shallow Socialists would imagine that 
 his analysis has even brought him within sight of the 
 causes, when he asserts that want of the means to live 
 is the one universal evil to which misery is due. We 
 are misled by the terms we use, such as under-feeding 
 or physical inefficiency. They are convenient names 
 to describe evils of which the general manifestations and 
 effects are the same everywhere. But the evils spring 
 from a myriad different roots, moral, physical, and 
 mental, personal, social, and industrial. And the re- 
 former who disregards the distinction is as dangerous 
 as a quack physician, who applies a single panacea 
 to all kinds of undiagnosed complaints. The social 
 ailments will be aggravated, not cured ; and the real 
 roots of the social maladies will continue to grow un- 
 checked.
 
 REAL PURPOSE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS 213 
 
 Let the community decide the controversy ; no 
 one else can. The social philosopher, at any rate, is 
 not a dogmatic social theorist who can confidently 
 judge between rival policies. I dare not even say that 
 the individualist position harmonizes more closely 
 than the socialist's with the basis of principle which 
 I have claimed to be fundamental. It is possible that 
 the socialism which attacks the injustice and callousness 
 of the comfortable classes, but rather overlooks the 
 defects of the uncomfortable, is quite as near to the 
 spiritual ideal as the individualism which, while rather 
 condoning the materialism of the well-to-do, analyses 
 very accurately the shortcomings of the poor. Just as 
 there is much socialism which seems to be entirely 
 materialistic, so there is much individualism which treats 
 the individual more as a serviceable industrial unit 
 than as a living and struggling soul. The general 
 socialism which does bear in mind the spiritual growth, 
 is far better than the individualism which does not travel 
 far beyond a consideration of the value of certain econo- 
 mic virtues not because these are unimportant, but 
 because, being only symptoms of a deeper virtue, they are 
 treated as valuable in themselves. And the individualism 
 which does care most for the right development of each 
 individual self, is much nearer the mark than the socialism 
 which aims at regimenting society into a condition of 
 equable comfort. 
 
 The social politician may extract what guidance 
 he can from these platitudes. It is not the philosopher's 
 business to decide the issue for him. And what right 
 have I, the mere social philosopher, to carp at the 
 socialist with his impulse for progress, or at the indi- 
 vidualist, with his instinct of danger ? Each is a necessary 
 factor in the whole process of reform ; each represents 
 a part of the whole vital impulse of society towards a 
 better state of itself. 
 
 We have, in this chapter, established the two prin-
 
 214 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ciples which we chiefly need : one furnishes a test of the 
 quality or worth of the aim of any social policy ; the 
 other a test of the safety of its methods. The aim is 
 entirely worthy only when the policy of reform is con- 
 sciously directed towards such alteration of social con- 
 ditions as will make of social life and its relationships 
 a better training ground for the development of selves 
 as the servants and instruments of the true individual. 
 The methods are entirely satisfactory only when the re- 
 form is brought about by or brings with it a widening 
 of the field of choice and will for all the agents affected 
 by it when it makes possible and necessary a greater 
 consciousness of responsibility, and gives fuller content 
 to the conception of duty. We thus see the tremendous 
 validity of the plea about " weakening responsibility," 
 although this is usually misunderstood. The question 
 which matters is not " What particular responsibilities shall 
 be insisted upon ? " but " How far is the consciousness 
 of duty increased ? " Any specific social duty imposed 
 upon us may, with the change of social need, be taken 
 out of the individual's hands. That is immaterial. 
 Indeed we may safely affirm that the present content 
 of social duty is bound to change as social life rises 
 from one level to another. It is only in a stationary 
 society, such as a hive of bees, that the content of social 
 duty remains fixed ; and a stationary society may be very 
 perfect, for bees, but is the antithesis of perfection for 
 human beings. What does matter is that there shall be 
 a fuller and fuller recognition of duty on the part of all 
 citizens. If that condition is fulfilled, if the consciousness 
 of responsibility is on the up-grade, then there need be 
 no uneasiness about the effect of this or that " dangerous " 
 method. 
 
 But the principles here outlined rest upon a con- 
 ception of the individual as definitely supra-social. They 
 are not reached by any consideration of the requirements 
 of social welfare ; society's needs are not the clue to
 
 REAL PURPOSE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS 215 
 
 them ; although it may be very safely maintained that 
 the observance of them is the ultimate condition of the 
 attainment of any social welfare, and of the fulfilment of 
 any of society's needs.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THE FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 WE owe it to the reader to answer two or three 
 final questions. The tests of aim and method 
 explained in the last chapter are admittedly 
 difficult to apply, and in any case, they are not applicable 
 to the detailed content of this or that policy or reform. 
 Our ultimate aim may be the true one ; our conception 
 of the requirements of method may be right ; but even 
 so, a thousand alternative policies are left open to us. 
 How are we to choose between them ? It is not pre- 
 tended that the details of reform are ever inspired or 
 deduced from spiritual certainties : a Plato or a St. 
 Augustine may be as far astray in them as a Bellamy or 
 a Blatchford. Where then shall we look for guidance ? 
 What is the validity of our detailed social judgments ? 
 On what foundation do our decisions rest ? Must we 
 take our stand on the slippery basis of groping impulse 
 and blind prejudice ? Or may we hope for the firmer 
 foundation of knowledge ? Or are we to fall back upon 
 simple faith ? 
 
 The questions now at issue have two aspects : first, 
 How are the individual's judgments and decisions formed 
 and what are they worth ? and secondly, How are 
 society's judgments and decisions formed, and what is 
 the guarantee of their correctness ? These two aspects 
 cannot be kept quite separate ; but we may with advan- 
 tage begin by considering them separately. 
 
 216
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 217 
 
 All our individual judgments are clearly related to 
 our general conceptions of the significance and value 
 of the various component parts of our social life. When- 
 ever we are called upon to give an opinion upon any 
 social proposal any suggested reform or policy we 
 at once set about connecting the proposal with sundry 
 elements of our social life this or that activity or re- 
 lationship or institution or mode of development or of 
 satisfaction noting its probable effects upon these, 
 and then passing judgment upon it. We may go through 
 short or long processes of argument, use few or many 
 steps in tracing the connexion which we wish to estab- 
 lish (these will vary with our thoughtfulness and our 
 concentration upon the question in hand) ; but as soon 
 as the connexion is established, our judgment of praise 
 or blame, of approval or disapproval, follows at once. 
 And what really determines the judgment is the esti- 
 mate we hold of the value of the various activities, rela- 
 tionships, and other elements of our life which <we think 
 will be affected by the proposal. Thus the really de- 
 cisive factor is, for all of us, the general scheme of values 
 which we possess our estimate of the worth of all the 
 different elements in our life. 
 
 But, as we have seen, our social conceptions and 
 estimates always begin in the form of accepted, custom- 
 ary, unanalysed opinions and preferences which we 
 inherit or absorb as we live ; they are not, at first, 
 systems of thought or orderly schemes of value at all, 
 but rather crude blocks of sentiment, of given feeling 
 and prejudice. Further, we must admit that few people 
 in any society pass very far beyond this early stage. 
 We are most of us sentimentalists, always jumping to 
 conclusions in the direction in which we are impelled by 
 our unanalysed and unharmonized feelings and biases. 
 And as most societies are chiefly composed of people 
 who are neither sociologists nor social philosophers, it 
 would seem to follow that the decisions of any demo-
 
 218 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 cracy can be nothing more than the outcome of innu- 
 merable competing masses of unenlightened prejudice. 
 
 Let us note, however, that, even if this is a correct 
 account, we are not therefore justified in dismissing such 
 decisions as either futile or dangerous. The fact that 
 my judgment only rests upon a basis of an acquired or 
 inherited sentiment and bias by no means implies that 
 it is valueless. Very far from it : the mass of sentiment 
 which impels me in this direction or in that is a result 
 of my own and my predecessors' experience, the out- 
 come of the constant working of the facts of life upon 
 my and their consciousness or subconsciousness. Its 
 promptings are thus an index to something real, vital, 
 and valuable, far more so than is expressed by calling 
 it a mere mass of prejudice or sentiment. And a society 
 mainly composed of such people, reaching its conclusions 
 by appeal to such masses of sentiment, is not therefore 
 incapable of sensible decision. On the contrary^' its 
 decisions are, at any rate, indicative of its felt needs, 
 and are the resultant of its general experience of life. 
 
 But this would be an unfair account of the decisions 
 of any society which has reached the stage of demo- 
 cratic government. Every democracy contains at least 
 a sprinkling of people who think ; people such as men 
 of science or social specialists or even philosophers, who 
 have reached the rational stage, have analysed their 
 masses of feeling into their component parts, and re- 
 built their social ideas and estimates into an ordered 
 system in accordance with the general facts of social 
 life. Moreover, in even a newspaper-reading community 
 every citizen is continually revising and correcting his 
 estimates under the instruction of some writers who 
 have reached this rational stage ; and the social de- 
 cisions are thus always influenced, if not largely deter- 
 mined by the knowledge which presumably supersedes 
 mere prejudice in the case of the thinkers who have 
 reached the rational stage. The question, then, which
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 219 
 
 we must decide is this : Is the really wise citizen's judg- 
 ment rational ? Can he claim that it is founded upon 
 knowledge, or does he too depend upon the promptings 
 of feeling ? 
 
 Now the wisest man's system of social conceptions, 
 ideas, and estimates, is relative to three different things. 
 First, it has an obvious connexion with the actual social 
 system, which he interprets as best he can. In this 
 way his conceptions are linked to fact. Secondly, his 
 system is based upon various rational systems of scienti- 
 fic knowledge, furnished by the different social sciences 
 with which he is acquainted. In this way his system 
 is linked to science. And thirdly, it is relative to an 
 ideal system which is peculiarly his own, inspired by his 
 own vision of the good. In this way his system is 
 linked to faith. He has therefore these three bases 
 for his conceptions fact, knowledge, and faith surely a 
 perfect foundation upon which to build a scheme of 
 social estimates wherewith to illumine his judgment. 
 
 But let us look a little more closely at this combina- 
 tion of plausible elements. We speak of a basis of 
 fact. The phrase has a reassuring sound, doubtless ; 
 yet it is totally misleading. The facts of life are so 
 unlike any other facts that it is very doubtful whether 
 we are justified in calling them by the same name. 
 A birth, a death, a marriage, such are the simplest of 
 social facts. But is not the birth of her firstborn a 
 unique fact for every mother, and one of infinite and 
 unanalysable significance ? Is the death of any human 
 being ever the same as the death of any other ? The 
 birth of a son, the death of a wife these are your social 
 facts ; and they resemble the facts of science just so 
 far as they are meaningless to us, the living and feeling 
 agents. What they really mean as events is another 
 matter. Their whole significance depends upon the 
 chords of feelings touched in us, the myriad reactions 
 upon our separate emotions and thoughts, and a host of
 
 220 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 personal and peculiar vital issues which no observation 
 can schedule because no observation can reveal or 
 analyse. But surely there are less intimate facts than 
 these, the events and changes which do not touch us 
 closely, and which we can at any rate weigh and examine 
 dispassionately ? Yes ; dispassionately, if you will. 
 But what philosopher has ever considered them im- 
 partially ? The whole quality of every social fact 
 depends upon the interpretation which we give to 
 it, the relation in which we place it to all the other 
 facts of our experience. And our interpretation is 
 biased from the start, just as our experience is a one- 
 sided accumulation of prejudiced notes. The facts of 
 astronomy, chemistry, or physics come to us pure and 
 undenled; we do not b3gin our observation of them 
 with ingrained preferences and aversions. They are 
 the same to you and to me and to any other intelligent 
 person to whom they are properly pointed out. But no 
 two human beings ever see the same social fact ; for 
 each one of us sees each fact of life through the lenses 
 of his or her own peculiar experience, feeling, self- 
 interest, moral conceptions, political prejudices, and 
 desires and hopes and fears. In matters political, it is 
 plainly impossible for Conservative and Liberal, brewer 
 and temperance reformer, duke and Labour leader, 
 Quaker and soldier, even to see the same facts. Each 
 sees them through a private glass darkly. There are 
 no " same facts " to be seen, by us who live and move 
 and have our being among them and by means of them. 
 We never reach the facts at all, but only our distorted, 
 one-sided, self-interested interpretations of them. And 
 in social matters the personal distortions are even 
 greater, because the personal feelings come more insist- 
 ently into play. I do not mean merely that none of 
 us can ever hear of certain events or doings without at 
 once clothing them with a quality dependent upon feel- 
 ing, thus converting a fact of cruelty into a " hate-
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 221 
 
 ful " fact, a disaster into a " mournful " fact, and so on. 
 That kind^of simple qualification of facts is of course 
 inevitable, and, in its simple and universal forms, need 
 not be regarded as a distortion at all. But I refer to 
 what every social worker is familiar with : the way in 
 which every kind of social fact reaches us through a 
 medium of prejudice. Sit on a charitable committee, 
 and note how differently the different kinds of cases are 
 " apperceived " by the different members. A case of 
 a widow in distress immediately attracts the strong 
 sympathy of the working-class members, while leaving 
 others comparatively cold. The former see it as a case 
 of peculiar suffering : every working man has an ex- 
 tremely soft heart for widows, doubtless because he 
 feels (as the well-to-do do not) what widowhood involves 
 for a poor woman. A case of distress partly aggravated 
 through drink is at once prejudged by the strong tem- 
 perance members : and so with other kinds of cases. 
 One can almost say beforehand what the different 
 members will see in the different kinds of case, Nor 
 does this apply only to cases of distress. Note how the 
 mention of a particular society will be received with 
 execration in one circle, and with approval in another ; 
 how in some gatherings it is impossible to speak of a 
 social phenomenon such as teetotallers or anti-vaccina- 
 tionists, without rousing manifestations of derision or 
 contempt ; while in others, the same phenomenon will 
 be received with the greatest respect. A good man 
 ought to be the simplest of phenomena, seen in the same 
 light by all. But he is not. In certain circles he is a 
 prig ; in others a " deep one " ; in others a spoil-sport. 
 Is it not clear that in all our social observation, our 
 apperceptive systems are shot through and through with 
 bias and bigotry, and that we note and classify our 
 facts, not with the help of candid vision, but by the 
 touch of tentacles of prejudice ? Possibly we call the 
 bias and prejudice our " principles " ; and I grant that
 
 222 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the term is often the right one ; but the obscuration of 
 our sight remains the same. 
 
 Does the philosopher escape these limitations ? We 
 may assume that he is superior to the blinding of crude 
 self-interest and of mere unthinking bigotry. But he 
 can no more shed the scales of his life-bias than he 
 can shed his physical senses. For him, as for ordinary 
 mortals, there are no true social " facts." 
 
 If then the basis of fact turns out to be so much an 
 illusion, it would seem to follow necessarily that the 
 basis of scientific knowledge of social causation is illu- 
 sory too. We cannot deduce scientific conclusions 
 about any process if the requisite data cannot be observed 
 impartially. This inference is, I admit, too abrupt and 
 too crude to be accepted as it stands ; I have dealt with 
 the question more fully elsewhere. But at least it is 
 possible for us to assert that the scientific knowledge 
 of social life or its departments is not the same as scien- 
 tific knowledge of any other phenomena ; and therefore 
 the basis of science which the wise man may claim for 
 his social judgments is not as reassuring as the phrase 
 implies. 
 
 What, then, of the basis of faith ? Is it more trust- 
 worthy ? It means the faith in his vision of a kingdom 
 of heaven upon earth, in the light of which every wise 
 and good man interprets all social facts, and the whole 
 system of facts which we call our social life. It is, at 
 any rate, the most important of the bases upon which 
 his decisions rest ; it alone supplies finality to his 
 verdicts, at least for him. But it is anything but 
 rational ; whatever else it is, it is not the reflection of 
 the dry light of reason. For through all the wise man's 
 work as a reasoning, harmonizing and idealizing social 
 philosopher there runs his life-bias. The whole of his 
 thought about life moves upon a track of feeling, and 
 the thought-systems which he frames are connected 
 with his likes and dislikes, his social and moral impulses
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 223 
 
 and aversions, at every point. His thought moves 
 whither his life-motives take it ; and the result is no 
 true thought-system at all. Compare it with one 
 such as the chemist's or the mechanician's thought- 
 system and the difference is obvious. The latter takes 
 always the same shape for every true student in the 
 field ; the former, like the facts from which it flows, is 
 never twice the same. And the cause is clear. Each 
 of us, wise or foolish, philosopher or plain man, is always 
 an agent, and has to live. We are never simple knowers 
 or learners or observers, but these things subject to the 
 conditions of living and acting from moment to moment. 
 That is to say, we are lovers and haters, likers and dis- 
 likers, all the time because we are always social agents. 
 And for the foundation of our social faiths and ideals we are 
 brought back once again to feeling and impulse. The 
 knowledge we claim as our basis is beyond our grasp ; 
 for knowledge demands indifference, while life refuses it. 
 
 What, then, is the guarantee of the validity of the 
 wise man's judgment ? There is none ; except perhaps 
 so far as a partial guarantee of its honesty and perti- 
 nence is afforded by his moral worth, and by the 
 healthiness of the impulses which rule his life. And 
 this is true of the social judgment also, whether it is 
 determined more by the wise men or by the more 
 numerous members of society who hardly even pretend 
 to reason and think out their conclusions. There is no 
 test of its validity except a moral one. If the determin- 
 ing mass of feeling is sound, if the life from which all 
 the impulses flow is healthy, then the judgments and 
 decisions are so far likely to be sound and healthy too. 
 If otherwise, then they will probably be unsound and 
 harmful despite all the philosopher's warnings. 
 
 But the conclusion now reached, though really 
 incontrovertible, is not yet satisfactory. I do not mean 
 merely that it will not satisfy the political or social 
 dogmatist (a class which includes us all at some time
 
 224 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 or other) ; for it will never do that. But I mean that it 
 is not yet a satisfactory answer to the questions which we 
 set out to answer in this chapter. Putting on one side 
 for the moment the question of whether the social scien- 
 tist or scientific sociologist may not be able to give 
 us the authoritative guidance which we would like to 
 have, it is obvious that we have not explained why it is 
 that we all believe in the value of social argument, social 
 observation, social researches, and as great an increase 
 of social thought as we can get. Why, in fact, should 
 I think it worth while to write a long and laboured 
 treatise on the subject of social philosophy, if, after all, 
 the decisions both of society and of its individual mem- 
 bers must to the end be the non-rational outcome of 
 vital impulses which cannot be really enlightened by any 
 amount of study ? 
 
 These questions can be answered, and without incon- 
 sistency ; but we must take a rather longer road to 
 reach the answers. Let us begin by an analysis of 
 what happens in the case of an individual life, faced by 
 the necessity of making a decision as to its future coi 
 duct. A very simple instance will best serve our pui 
 pose. Suppose that all is not well with my health ; soi 
 change seems to be called for, and a change of diet froi 
 meat-eating to vegetarianism is suggested. What haj 
 pens ? There is first, as in the case of most of us, the 
 usual outburst of sheer prejudice or bias, which may quite 
 possibly decide the matter for me at once. We 
 seen that such a decision is by no means futile or unrea- 
 sonable, since the prejudice which dictates it indicate 
 something instinctive, deep-seated, and vital, which 
 never without real value. But probably I wish to gc 
 further into the question, and so find a more ratiom 
 basis for my decision. The next step is then to call t( 
 my aid any pertinent thought-systems which are available 
 in reference to the matter. In this case I will lear 
 what I can of the scientific systems of the dietetician anc
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 225 
 
 will frame a system for myself by the help of what I 
 have learned. This system will then become the basis 
 for my decision. This basis now consists of a would-be 
 scientific system of values and conceptions ; but even 
 in so simple a matter as the one we are considering, 
 the system is never really scientific (at any rate for the 
 ordinary person), since we can none of us help selecting 
 even our dietetic principles under the sway of our tastes 
 and preferences. Nevertheless, it may decide the 
 question for me ; I may even proclaim that I have 
 " disproved " vegetarianism and be perfectly satisfied 
 with the rationality of the proof. 
 
 But, on the other hand, I may not yet feel satisfied ; 
 I may still wait for something else. What is it ? Re- 
 fusing the authoritative guidance of the dietetician,* 
 
 * I am almost afraid to incur the wrath of the orthodox 
 dietetician or doctor by defending this disregard of his authority. 
 If it was only a social science whose findings I refused to accept, 
 no defence would be needed. Every self-respecting citizen con- 
 siders himself entitled to set up his own opinion against the 
 conclusions of the economist, for example, not only because many 
 economists contradict one another, but simply because they are 
 social scientists. And it is noteworthy that, if our example had 
 been different, if, let us say, it had involved a question of building 
 a house, then the authority of the scientific engineer would have 
 been quite decisive in the matter, and I should not have defied it 
 unless I had been mad. But the science of dietetics holds a 
 position mid-way between an indisputable science such as 
 mechanics, and a very disputable one, such as economics. So far 
 as it lays down the laws about my bodyonly, just so far am I bound 
 to accept its conclusions respectfully.' But when it trenches on 
 the general conduct of my life as a whole, then I am free to dis- 
 regard its authority, because no science can decide, for me or for 
 others, the conduct of life, whether individual or social. To put it 
 plainly : if the medical expert tells me that this or that food affects 
 the physical organs in this or that way, I accept his assertion, 
 only remembering that even the physical organs are influenced in 
 very queer ways by such things as faith or confidence, which 
 scientific examination does not accurately touch. But if the 
 medical expert goes on to tell me that I ought or ought not to eat 
 meat, I do not accept his ruling, any more than I accept that of 
 15
 
 226 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 I refer the question to the test of my whole life-system 
 (that queer compound of impulses, reasonings, and 
 ideals), and am startled, and perhaps made uncomfort- 
 able, by the discovery that the matter is somehow 
 connected with the moral elements in my system. I 
 find that it is related to certain principles bearing upon 
 the taking of life in any form, if it can be avoided ; or 
 upon the rightness or wrongness of inflicting any unneces- 
 sary pain upon any fellow-creature. Now, if I find in 
 my life-system any such principles as these, then, in pro- 
 portion as these elements are active and dominant (in 
 proportion as I am really conscientious), the question is 
 finally settled for me ; and I take to vegetarianism as an 
 act of faith, it may be with disastrous consequences to 
 my health. But my faith will not consider that ; the 
 decision becomes necessary and binding : "I can no 
 otherwise." 
 
 Now in the good individual life, this connexion with 
 a bed-rock of moral certainty is always arrived at, and 
 is always decisive, at any rate in many of the big issues 
 of life. And in the good social life the same thing 
 happens. And, further, the same process is gone through. 
 Every proposal of importance is first put to the test of 
 feeling. We do or do not like the idea of it ; and, obey- 
 ing a simple impulse of attraction or repulsion, we side 
 with it or oppose it. In some issues of our national life 
 this element of immediate feeling is the final arbiter, 
 in some questions of peace or war for instance. In others, 
 it is not final at all, but only the ground of preliminary 
 judgment. And this preliminary judgment, thus reached, 
 is of course usually a judgment against the new proposal 
 in cases in which the question raised is important and 
 the idea of the change or reform is new. Instinctive 
 feelings of dislike, ranging from mere dislike of a new 
 and untried idea to fierce hatred of what is considered 
 
 the economist who tells me that we ought to stick to Free Trade 
 or ought to discard it.
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 227 
 
 the pernicious tendency of the proposal, checks its progress 
 for a time, or perhaps drives it out of the field of practical 
 politics altogether. And if the proposal is not only new, 
 but quite obviously affects any deep layers of feeling or 
 deep bias of self-interest, then the instinctive opposition 
 will act as a set-back (it may possibly be a salutary set- 
 back) for years or even for generations. Proposals for 
 the abolition of slavery or the enfranchisement of woman 
 are cases in point. 
 
 But after the preliminary judgment of impulse and 
 feeling, there follows a stage of discussion and reflec- 
 tion. This involves two things : first, an insistent effort 
 to discover what the proposal really entails, to analyse 
 it, expose its probable tendencies, and so trace its con- 
 nexion with different known elements and values in 
 our life, and lay bare its relation to deeper and deeper 
 layers of instinctive feeling ; and secondly, an attempt 
 to connect it with any scientific systems which may be 
 available, and so to bring the advice of the appropriate 
 experts to bear upon it. Now our judgment may be 
 made decisive by either part of this process. Sometimes 
 discussion and reflection persuade most of us that the 
 proposal is likely to have effects, not at first suspected, 
 upon some elements of our social life about which we 
 feel very strongly ; and according as these effects 
 attract or repel us, so we decide for or against the 
 proposal. Sometimes again, the verdict of the expert 
 is allowed to be decisive especially in matters about 
 which we are both nervous and ignorant, such as the 
 national health. But in this case it is to be noted that 
 we do not simply accept the dictation of the expert, 
 but incorporate his conclusions (with some of his reasons 
 for them) in our own thought-system, so converting 
 ourselves into quasi-experts. But, just as in the 
 case of the individual judgment described above, so in 
 that of the social judgment, the guidance of the expert 
 is seldom allowed to decide the question authoritatively 
 15*
 
 228 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 in any matters which touch the conduct of our life as a 
 whole. We accept his " science " only to mix it in a 
 distorted form with our own ignorance, and so make 
 the judgment really our own. And the basis of know- 
 ledge which we may claim to have secured thus becomes 
 a basis of knowledge confused with ignorance, and 
 made still more insecure by the fact that we are quite 
 certain to have selected some facts and rejected others, 
 under the sway of our ingrained prejudices. 
 
 But even now, the judgment may not be a final one, 
 and indeed very seldom is. We seek a deeper founda- 
 tion still. This is reached in one way only, by con- 
 necting the proposal with the underlying purposive and 
 moral elements of our schemes of life- values ; and 
 also, possibly, with the ideal of a better social state to 
 which all these purposive and moral elements are related. 
 Grasping or guessing at this or that probable tendency 
 of the proposal, the community brings it to the test of 
 its floating conception of what it needs and wants, of 
 what it believes to be the ultimate aim of its purposes, 
 and above all, in so far as the community is moral, to 
 the test of its conception of right and wrong. Then, 
 and then only, the decision is made final. And in this 
 third stage it will hardly be claimed that knowledge 
 has much to do with the decision. The process be- 
 comes merged in the persistent, impulsive striving of 
 the community to realize what it imagines to be a better 
 state of itself, in harmony with its conception of the 
 good in the full sense. 
 
 And the guarantee of the rightness or safety of the 
 decision is nothing more nor less than the moral worth 
 of the community as a whole the sanity of its impulses, 
 the trueness of its conception of purpose, the degree 
 to which mere self-interest is subordinated to some 
 kind of an ideal. If the community is morally healthy, 
 its decision may be mistaken (there is no way of pre- 
 venting that), but is not likely to be harmful. For its
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 229 
 
 mistakes will not long remain uncorrected, simply because 
 their effects will quickly be found to be antagonistic to 
 the realization of the end conceived. But if the com- 
 munity is not morally healthy, no amount of knowledge, 
 no acuteness of reasoning, no accumulation of social 
 discoveries, will give soundness or safety to its decisions. 
 It is easy now to discern the function performed by 
 argument and the discussion of problems, by scientific 
 research and social inquiry, and by the philosopher's 
 speculations and reasonings. Only by long-continued 
 discussion can any proposal be brought into connexion 
 with the deeper instincts and impulses, the needs and 
 wants, the desires and aims, the life-values and estimates, 
 of individuals or groups or the society as a whole. Only 
 by scientific research and inquiry can our schemes 
 of thought and estimate be widened, deepened, or 
 brought into truer harmony with various important 
 elements in our life. Only by the philosopher's reason- 
 ings can the general aims of individual or society be 
 linked to those concepts of a supreme moral end which 
 alone are allowed to be decisive in any good life. In 
 our deliberate judgments, we cannot do without dis- 
 cussion, although our arguments never prove a case ; 
 we cannot do without all the light which science can 
 give, although no social science can furnish us with 
 authoritative conclusions ; we cannot do without the 
 philosopher, although the supreme end to which he 
 points is not demonstrated by his reasonings, but only 
 revealed by faith. And, as in the individual life,^so 
 also in the social life, it is we who must take the decision 
 all of us units of the society who are neither logical 
 in our arguments, nor scientific in our knowledge, nor 
 inspired in our faith. Even the most deliberate of our 
 social decisions are still leaps taken in the darkness, in 
 the direction determined by the impulses of our feelings 
 and our faith. 
 We can now meet the reproach so often levelled at
 
 230 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 society by the expert or the thinker. Take, for example, 
 the complaint of a leading economist : * that we are 
 continually making decisions fraught with momentous 
 consequences of weal or woe, with less thought than is 
 devoted to the building of a first-class battleship. The 
 reproach rests upon a misunderstanding. The building 
 of a battleship is a matter in which the guidance of the 
 scientific thinker is all-important and is decisive at every 
 step. No one but a fool would attempt even to build 
 a canoe without it. But the decision to have a strong 
 navy, or any other national or social decision whatso- 
 ever, belongs to a different category. We have seen that 
 the guidance of scientific experts and thinkers is not 
 decisive here, and never can be. We cannot " think the 
 matter out " ; if we tried to, we should never come to 
 any decisions at all. It is no reproach to the individual 
 man that he usually makes the most momentous decision 
 in his whole lif e the choice of his wife with less thought 
 than he bestows upon the choice of his golf clubs. He 
 is quite right : were it otherwise, few of us would ever 
 marry. And in the social life also, the decisions are and 
 must always be impulsive. We may agree that both society 
 and the individual ought to " think " more than they 
 do. That follows from what has been said above about 
 the value of discussion, scientific research, and philo- 
 sophic reasoning. But we will not agree that the great 
 decisions of our life, either in matters with which the 
 expert deals, such as industry and health, or in count- 
 less other matters which no expert pretends to touch, 
 can or should wait for the same kind of thought and 
 scientific guidance as is applicable to the efficient carrying 
 out of details in which the expert is properly supreme. 
 This brings us back to the practical interest of the 
 reformer, which I confess I have neglected too long. 
 In the early stages of our inquiry we found numerous 
 considerations connected with the physical or vital or 
 * Professor Alfred Marshall.
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 231 
 
 mental and social conditioning of our life, which had 
 an obvious bearing upon the problems of reform from 
 which we started. In each department of the inquiry, 
 forces were brought to light with which the reformer 
 has to reckon. He cannot disregard the pressures of 
 physical necessity, the conditions of organic growth 
 and change, the laws of thought and of the spread of 
 thoughts and ideas. Above all, he cannot disregard 
 the conditions which determine the preparedness for 
 change in a society subject to these forces. All these 
 considerations pointed to the need of caution and slow- 
 ness ; and the impatient reformer was probably chafing 
 at every step under the fetters apparently laid upon his 
 zeal, and the disagreeable suggestion that he must move 
 very slowly if he wished to move safely. 
 
 But the latter part of our inquiry has brought to light 
 a very different condition of preparedness for change, 
 under which changes of human and social life may 
 be made far more rapidly. When we reach the con- 
 sciously purposive stage of social development, the pos- 
 sibilities of progress may be enormously quickened, 
 though still subject to the conditions which are so 
 important in the earlier stages. For change is now 
 increasingly motived by the conception of a better social 
 state, presented to the minds of agents who are growingly 
 conscious of their power to realize that better state if 
 they will, and to make themselves prepared for its 
 realization. Just as the life of an individual may be 
 " converted " in apparent defiance of environmental 
 hindrances, so the life of society might be changed with 
 a rapidity which would be quite impossible in the 
 earlier stages. For the spiritual force of the true 
 individual, who is the reality in every social unit, has 
 a practically limitless power on the higher levels of 
 life. We say " might be changed," because a real con- 
 version is never a probability. But it is at least a 
 possibility, and the reformer has so far a justification
 
 232 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 for his hope that society may be saved even in his gener- 
 ation. He has, at any rate, a right to proclaim his 
 intention to try to reform it in this direction or in that 
 to make the drunkard sober, the dirty clean, the 
 lazy industrious, the selfish considerate, the oppressors 
 j ust. No law which asserts the slowness of cosmic or 
 organic evolution, and the gradualness of natural change 
 of habit or mental attitude, entitles us to call his hope 
 delusive or his aim foolish. It is not likely that society 
 will reform itself quickly ; but it is not impossible. 
 And it is at least certain that, though hurry is a 
 dangerous foe to progress, excess of caution and want 
 of confidence are no less dangerous. 
 
 A further justification of the reformer's impatience is 
 found in our final conclusion. Society does not move 
 on to better things by thought and reasoning and know- 
 ledge of its path. It moves by the impulse of a sound 
 life, with faith in the ideal for its guide. Every true 
 reformer is the expression of a healthy moral impulse 
 and the lantern-bearer of new faith. We may say, and 
 must say, that he will not be a true reformer if he disre- 
 gards any of the thought or the knowledge or the 
 reasoning within his grasp ; but there is no inconsist- 
 ency in saying also that these cannot and will not 
 weaken the impulse which he honestly expresses, nor 
 lessen the faith in which he finds his inspiration. His 
 vision of a better future, in which he intensely believes, 
 is his to hold against every scientist or expert or social 
 dogmatist ; for progress comes from visions and the 
 faith in them, not from any elaborate charts of social 
 causation. 
 
 In this final conclusion two implications are involved, 
 both, perhaps, unpalatable to most people, but both 
 urgently requiring emphasis. The one concerns the 
 reformer's position, and the way in which he must be 
 content to work ; the other concerns his and our 
 estimate of the relative importance of the different
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 233 
 
 elements involved in social reform. It is clear that the 
 reformer of to-day is increasingly called upon to work 
 through public opinion and the impulses of the people, 
 leading to change of law and so to alteration of the 
 social structure and the social mechanism. However far 
 advanced he may be in wisdom or goodness, he cannot 
 now claim authority to ordain this change or that for 
 the good of his society. The day of the wise law-giver 
 has passed ; our modern society can expect no Solon or 
 Lycurgus to direct it, no Confucius or Manu or Moses 
 to make its laws, no philosopher-king or priest-king 
 to rule it. The true aristocrat, wherever he exists, 
 must use a different method, for society is no longer 
 in its childhood, moving unconsciously along lines laid 
 down for its safety. Its units are beginning to be wide- 
 awake, interested, alert, reflective, critical, living as 
 free citizens, not merely functioning as custom-bound 
 cells ; living, too, as conscious co-operators in a social 
 life whose moving complexity is in sharp contrast to 
 the fixed simplicity of earlier days. It is easy for a 
 parent to direct a family of young children ; but the 
 condition changes entirely as the children one by one 
 grow nearer manhood, and the family life becomes ampli- 
 fied and diversified as each new mind and will takes its 
 place as a conscious part of the guiding force of the 
 whole. So in modern society. It is not merely that 
 activities increase in all directions, covering a field so 
 vast that no one mind can grasp it ; but, even more 
 important, the number of groups and individuals con- 
 sciously competing and co-operating, struggling and 
 desiring, willing and aspiring, becomes so vast as to 
 turn the social process into a new thing, no longer to be 
 regulated or controlled by any one or two individuals or 
 groups. This is the unanswerable defence of demo- 
 cratic rule. We may hate it, if we please ; but there is 
 no alternative. Even a Solon would probably abdicate as 
 soon as he grasped the conditions of social change to-day.
 
 234 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 This, then, is the reformer's position. To begin with, 
 he is but one among a thousand schemers ; his plan of 
 reform is but one among a thousand competing con- 
 ceptions of social betterment. He must follow his 
 vision, believing it to be the best, but never knowing it 
 to be right. His aim is to get something done, for the 
 good of the people. But the decision rests with the 
 people, not with him. They are the real doers, as well 
 as the judges of what shall be done. Every problem 
 he touches has a million strands of interest, spreading 
 not only into every department of state and munici- 
 pality, but into every kitchen and nursery, home and 
 workshop. It is the people themselves who must " solve " 
 the problem, and live out the solution as best they can, 
 each unit learning in the process the primary lessons of 
 social responsibility, of citizen duty, of neighbour duty. 
 The reformer throws his vision of progress before them 
 a vision for him, clearly seen and confidently held, but 
 for them only a rather confused suggestion of change, 
 presented side by side with many competing suggestions. 
 And as such they accept or reject it, bringing it to the 
 test of their varied experiences and felt needs, their 
 innumerable desires and hopes and fears. They are 
 not good judges, in any ordinary sense. The reformer may 
 have spent months or years of thought upon his scheme ; 
 they perhaps spend but a few odd moments. And their 
 judgment is, no doubt, often wholly wrong ; at any rate 
 it will seem so to posterity. But there is no other way. 
 They form the only court of appeal ; the touchstone of 
 their general social impulse is the sole criterion. The wisest 
 reformer has no right to say : "I know this or that 
 change is best " ; though this is exactly what he does 
 say, thus instinctively proclaiming his faith to be also 
 knowledge. But he is only entitled to say : "I believe 
 this to be best ; it is the outcome of my best efforts as 
 a thinking and willing citizen. You others must set 
 your thoughts and wills to work upon it, and say whether 
 I am right or not."
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 235 
 
 Now, in the light of all this, what is it which is of 
 real importance in the reformer's proposals ? Usually, 
 he is intently bent upon his scheme as a scheme, and 
 upon the details of social change which it proposes. 
 He says in effect : " This is the method by which your 
 children shall be fed, your poor relieved, your industry 
 reformed, your diseases prevented. Alter this law ; 
 make this new provision ; change this bit of the social 
 machinery, and all will be well." But unless our whole 
 estimate of the significance of the social process is at 
 fault, these are not the important things. If they were, 
 we might be pessimists indeed, for of their lightness 
 or wrongness there is never any guarantee, nor any 
 test except the experience of their working, which is yet 
 to come. They are all concerned with the perfecting of 
 the social structure, in some way or other ; and the per- 
 fecting of the social structure, like the perfecting of each 
 man's physical body, is important only as a means to 
 something beyond. Just as I rightly pay attention to 
 my physical health and strength, because such attention 
 is part of my whole duty to my environment, and a 
 necessary condition of any real progress ; so also we all 
 rightly strive to improve our great body, society, 
 partly because this constant effort is an invaluable form 
 of the training which social life affords, and partly 
 because an improved environment, which we ourselves 
 have constantly striven to make better, is the necessary 
 stepping-stone to any kind of better life. But and 
 this is the important point to note it is of no real 
 moment whether or not our efforts succeed or are thwarted, 
 whether or not our ideas are accepted or tossed aside. 
 Indeed, it does not profoundly matter whether or not 
 the social structure is really made more perfect in our 
 view ; for, after all, part of its very excellence, as an 
 environment, lies in the difficulties it contains, and it is 
 probable that these will continue to exist, and perhaps 
 increase, in spite of all our reforms. Of this, more will
 
 236 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 be said in a moment ; but we may at any rate assert 
 now that the important matter in all improvement is the 
 will to reform, and the effort to improve, the social 
 environment in which our neighbours struggle, rather 
 than the results of the will and effort ; and the object 
 of all improvement is, not to give our neighbours or our- 
 selves an easier time or a more comfortable life, but to 
 give ourselves and them a better opportunity to develop 
 all our personalities along the lines which lead towards 
 the realization of our true individualities. 
 
 Much of this must seem a hard doctrine. I admit 
 it is unpalatable, for it sets the seal of uncertainty upon 
 all our thought-out policies. I admit it is paradoxical 
 too. The reformer who is really in earnest and likely 
 to be effective, cannot help feeling that he knows 
 better than his unthinking neighbours. And he is 
 right ; he does know better ; yet he does not really 
 know at all. But the doctrine, unpalatable and para- 
 doxical as it must appear, is the only possible basis for 
 healthy optimism. As a sensible citizen, with strong 
 views, I am quite certain that my society is making 
 numerous mistakes. As a social philosopher, I am equally 
 certain that / cannot really improve upon them. But, 
 as a reformer, I insist upon trying to do so only to be 
 constantly disappointed, doomed to find most of my 
 warnings disregarded, my schemes rejected, my policies 
 despised. Is this a cause for despondency ? Not in the 
 least, upon two conditions : first, that I am able to take 
 a sane view of the value of my own convictions ; secondly, 
 that I am able to assure myself that my neighbours' aim 
 and purpose are as single as my own. 
 
 The first condition is a small matter. Of course I 
 am disgusted, as every keen citizen is, that my society 
 should be so stupid as to fly in the face of all that I tell 
 it is necessary and wise. Possibly I go about for a 
 while assuring every one that the country is going to 
 the dogs. But a very little philosophy is enough to
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 237 
 
 bring me to a more balanced view. Every country is 
 always going to the dogs, in the opinion of many of its 
 sturdiest citizens ; but it seldom gets there. And, 
 granted that it is wrong and that I am right in this 
 or that particular policy, this is a matter which cannot 
 possibly be determined beforehand. I do my best ; I give 
 of my best of right feeling and thought and effort to 
 persuade others and point out the way to them. The 
 people will have none of my advice or guidance. Very 
 well : let them follow their own guidance ; and let me, 
 as their fellow-citizen still, take up again the tas-k of 
 making the best of what is, and trying to find and point 
 out once more, in the new conditions, the better way 
 which every good citizen is always busying himself to 
 discover. 
 
 But the second condition is obviously a more serious 
 matter. Perhaps the consideration of it will indicate 
 the degree of assurance which, as reformers, we may hope 
 to obtain in reference to any proposed changes, and may 
 also help us to estimate finally the relative importance 
 of the spirit of reform and of the results of reform. 
 
 It is, beyond question, possible for me, as an indi- 
 vidual, to know whether my own purpose or aim or end 
 is good or not ; often, too, it is possible to know whether 
 the purpose or aim or end of my society is good. We are 
 trying to lessen the poverty of the poor, let us say ; / 
 think this must be done in one way ; my society chooses 
 a different way. I, perhaps, believe that the end can be 
 gained only by a slow process of moral education of all 
 classes ; my society, perhaps, decides upon some quicker 
 and easier methods such as change of industrial or 
 social machinery, or devices of taxation and provision 
 of resources which to me may seem but a churning wp 
 of the very complexities we had best leave alone. No 
 matter ; / am certainly not the pivot of the social impulse, 
 nor am I conscious of a thousandth part of all the pushes 
 and pulls which determine it. Let the society which feels
 
 238 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 them all decide its own course ; and I will do my best, 
 with all other decent citizens, to make the new order 
 work for good. But this I Jznow if I am honest with 
 myself that the purpose for which my rejected scheme of 
 reform was devised was a true social purpose, aiming at 
 the end of whose validity I have more certainty than 
 knowledge can give ; a purpose not selfish, not biased 
 by the narrow interests of my class, not limited in its 
 range to any acquisition of wealth or comfort or material 
 benefit not even of wealth or comfort or benefit for all ; 
 but true in the sense that it is aimed at the only complete 
 good of our social life, namely, the perfecting of society 
 in such a way as that every social relation, every social 
 activity, every social institution, shall offer to each 
 willing citizen adequate opportunity of learning fully the 
 lessons which the social process has to teach, the lessons 
 which begin in the development of all social and there- 
 fore not wholly self-centred, interests, and end in the 
 freedom of the individual from any self-interests at all. 
 Moreover, society may have the same assurance of 
 certainty as to its purpose, if it chooses. At present, in 
 most of its decisions, it is thinking chiefly of loaves and 
 fishes, or of escape from difficulties and burdens just as 
 I am ; in other words, it is aiming usually at that goal 
 of greater satisfaction and less dissatisfaction which 
 recedes just in proportion as we consciously struggle to 
 reach it. But even so, it can know whether it is aiming 
 in such a way as to bring its purpose into harmony with 
 the true purpose. Sometimes there is not the least 
 doubt that society is honestly trying to open out life, not 
 for itself, but for some unconsidered or perhaps uncon- 
 scious part of itself, for its slaves or submerged members, 
 for example, or for the posterity whose gain is not its 
 present gain ; sometimes again there is equally little 
 doubt that we are merely trying to get rid of an un- 
 pleasant difficulty with as little sacrifice as may be, or to 
 gain a coveted satisfaction with the least possible trouble.
 
 FINAL CRITERIA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 239 
 
 In the one case, the effort at reform, however mistaken 
 in method, is saved from futility or any real danger by 
 the honesty of its purpose ; in the other case, even good 
 luck in the choice of method will not save us from dis- 
 appointment. In the one case, we may stumble wofully 
 and bruise ourselves against all sorts of unexpected 
 obstacles, but we shall be moving forward even in our 
 falls. In the other case, we are not going anywhere at 
 all, however smooth we may find the road at the 
 moment. And in the former case we have this very 
 certain consolation : if the movement is really a forward 
 one, the mishaps and falls are not of any consequence. 
 We shall learn something from them ; they can take 
 nothing of value from us. Goodwill will have been 
 increased again worth many falls ; social life will have 
 become more buoyant and more wholesome, though 
 perhaps not more easy. And just herein lies our chief 
 illusion, and the source of most of our disappointments 
 and fears. We aim at making social life more perfect 
 the right aim, of course. But we interpret this to mean 
 that social life is to be made easier, simpler, pleasanter 
 qualities which have nothing to do with the true purpose. 
 We know, of course, that society will never be perfected, 
 any more than will any of our environments, from our 
 bodies to our Churches. But we refuse to see that this 
 continuing imperfection is a necessary part of their 
 excellence as material for our wills to work upon. We 
 think that by our hygienic and therapeutic ingenuities 
 we are going to make society healthy ; by our economic 
 ingenuities, to make it better off ; by our political 
 ingenuities, to make it contented. If these desirable 
 results occur, it will not be from these causes, nor from 
 any ingenuities whatever. Most probably they will not 
 occur : we may escape from cholera and typhus only to 
 find our health threatened by greater nervous instability ; 
 we may increase wealth tenfold, only to find a growing 
 consciousness of waJit permeating our whole community ;
 
 240 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 we may establish good government and good manage- 
 ment, only to find unsuspected forms of social unrest 
 producing new and harder problems of social adjust- 
 ment. For that is the way with our ingenuities ; they 
 are never quite ingenious enough to solve any of the 
 problems of life. But in the face of goodwill and honest 
 effort guided by true purpose, the problems one by one 
 disappear ; or, if they remain, perhaps remain rather as 
 safeguards than as hindrances. And this is the philo- 
 sopher's final lesson : to learn that what is of import- 
 ance is not the reform, but the will that prompts it ; not 
 the improvement of social machinery, but the resolve 
 that machinery shall be improved until all are helped by 
 it ; not the results achieved by our devices, but the 
 effort to achieve something good for the use of our 
 fellow-citizens. If the reformer dislikes this doctrine, 
 let him remember that it is after all but a corollary 
 from the assumption which we took as our foundation, 
 namely, that the supreme purpose of human life, 
 whether individual or social, is a spiritual purpose, even 
 as the sole interpretation of its significance is a religious 
 interpretation. For this means that all actions derive 
 their value from the part they play in the working out 
 of the spiritual process, not from their immediate or 
 apparent effects upon the social process. In the spiritual 
 scale of values it is not the success of the treatment 
 applied by the good Samaritan which counts for much 
 any more than it is the actual purchasing power 
 of the two mites given by a poor widow ; but simply the 
 fact that the one did his best in the spirit of neigh- 
 bourliness, and the other gave her all in the spirit of 
 sacrifice.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 THE following list of books may be of use to any readers who 
 wish to follow up the subjects discussed in the different 
 chapters. 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL 
 
 H. WILDON CARR. The Philosophy of Change. 
 AUGUSTE COMTE. General View of Positivism. 
 G. LOWES DICKINSON. Justice and Liberty. 
 
 C. A. ELLWOOD. The Social Problem. 
 
 H. J. W. HETHERINGTON and J. H. MUIRHEAD. Social 
 Purpose. 
 
 L. T. HOBHOUSE. Development and Purpose. 
 L. T. HOBHOUSE. Mind in Evolution. 
 J. S. MACKENZIE. Introduction to Social Philosophy. 
 J. McCuNN. Ethics of Citizenship. 
 J. H. MUIRHEAD. The Service of the State. 
 
 SOCIOLOGICAL 
 
 F. W. BLACKMAR and J. L. GILLIN. Outlines of Sociology. 
 J. Q. DEALY. The Family in its Sociological Aspects. 
 A. FAIRBANKS. Introduction to Sociology. 
 
 R. M. MAC!VER. Community. 
 
 E. A. Ross. Foundations of Sociology. 
 
 E. WESTERMARCK. History of Human Marriage. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL 
 
 D. G. BRINTON. The Basis of Social Relations. 
 
 C. A. ELLWOOD. Psychological Aspects of Sociology. 
 W. JAMES. Principles of Psychology. 
 
 G. LE BON. The Crowd. 
 
 241
 
 242 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 L. LEOPOLD. Prestige. 
 W. McDouGALL. Social Psychology. 
 TH. RIBOT. Psychology of the Emotions. 
 E. A. Ross. Social Psychology. 
 
 A. F. SHAND. Foundations of Character. 
 G. TARDE. Les lois de 1'imitation. 
 GRAHAM WALLAS. The Great Society. 
 
 R. S. WOOD WORTH. Dynamic Psychology. 
 
 BIOLOGICAL 
 
 C. DARWIN. The Descent of Man. 
 R. H. LOCK. Variation, Heredity and Evolution. 
 E. B. POULTON. Darwin and the Theory of Natural 
 Selection. 
 J. A. THOMPSON. Heredity. 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY 
 
 W. BAGEHOT. Physics and Politics. 
 
 J. MARK BALDWIN. The Individual and Society. 
 
 H. BERGSON. L'Evolution creatrice. 
 
 B. BOSANQUET. Civilisation of Christendom. 
 
 B. BOSANQUET. Principles of Individuality and Value. 
 
 A. V. DICEY. Law and Opinion in England. 
 
 T. H. GREEN. Principles of Political Obligation. 
 
 L. T. HOBHOUSE. Social Evolution and Political Theory. 
 
 HENRY JONES. The Working Faith of the Social Reformer. 
 
 J. McCuNN. The Making of Character. 
 
 J. S. MACKENZIE. Outlines of Social Philosophy. 
 
 W. G. McKECHNiE. The State and the Individual. 
 
 TH. VEBLEN. The Theory of the Leisure Class.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ASSOCIATIONS of ideas, 87 
 Authority of society, 187 ff. 
 
 BOOTH, CHARLES, 57 
 Bosanquet, Bernard, 151 
 Browning, R. (quoted), 183 
 
 CHARACTER and circumstance, 75, 
 
 191 ff. 
 Citizenship, chap, vii 
 
 for women, 1 5 5 ff . 
 
 Civilization and natural selection, 
 
 77 
 
 Cosmic Evolution, 32 
 Custom, 37 
 
 DEMOCRACY, defence of, 232 ff. 
 Desire and aspiration, 181 
 Divorce, 203 
 Duties and rights, chap, vii 
 
 ECONOMICS and ethics, 23 
 Economic interpretation, 42 
 Energy, laws of, 32 
 Environment, influence of, 75, 
 
 191 ff. 
 Ethical stage of institutions, 
 
 125 ff. 
 Eugenics, 200 
 
 FAMILY, content of, 157 ff. 
 , development of, 126 ff. 
 
 duties, 1 57 ff . 
 
 , economic functions of, 160 
 
 , ethical stage of, 168 
 
 , isolation of, 156 ff. 
 
 , necessary changes of, 158, 
 
 1 66 
 
 Freedom and anarchy, 140 ff. 
 
 of individual, 195 ff. 
 
 GALTON, FRANCIS, 94 
 Geographical influences, 34 
 Greek citizenship, 151 
 Growth and decay, 50 ff. 
 
 HABITUAL processes, 82 ff. 
 Happiness as an end, 205 
 Hypnotic influence of ideas, 1132 
 
 IDEALS and idealism, chap, x 
 
 as forces, 174 
 
 , origin of, chap, viii 
 
 Imitation, 106 ff. 
 
 Impulse, 102 
 
 Individual, definition of, 182 
 
 antagonism to society, 1 84 
 
 , nature of, 176 
 
 judgments, how formed, 
 
 219 ff. 
 
 and social purposes, 173 ff. 
 
 Individualists, 212 
 Individualist family, 157 ff. 
 Instinct and habit, 81 ff., 101 ff. 
 Institutions, definition of, 19 
 
 , changes of content of, 168 
 
 , ethical stage of, chap. vii. 
 
 Interdependence, 22, 48, 62 
 Inventions, 174 
 
 KNOWLEDGE and faith, 222, 234 
 LE PLAY, FREDERICK, 36 
 
 MARRIAGE, 93 ff., 203 
 Marshall, Alfred, 230 
 
 243
 
 244 A PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Marx, Karl, 35 
 Monogamy, 93 ff. 
 
 NATURAL rights, 147 ff. 
 Natural selection, 52, 77 
 
 ORGANIC analogy, chap, iii 
 
 adaptation to change, 66 ff. 
 
 interdependence, 48 ff., 62 
 
 PARENTAL powers, changes in, 158 
 
 responsibility, 209 
 
 Plato, 49, 108, 184, 193 
 
 Poverty, line, 68 
 
 Preparedness for change, 66 ff., 
 
 80, 231 ff. 
 Property 130, 165 
 
 , changes in, 162 ff. 
 
 , ethical stage of, 167 
 
 , purposes of, 163 
 
 , rights and duties of, 162 
 
 Psychology, social, chap, iv 
 
 , spiritual, 176 
 
 Punishment, 130 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY, 206 ff. 
 Rights and duties, chap, vii 
 
 - of society, 187 
 Ross, E. A., 34, 77 
 Ruskin, John, 165 
 
 SCIENCE and religion, 142 
 Scientific laws, 1 1 
 Self, definition of, 182 
 Social aims, 14 ff. 
 
 control, 4 
 
 evolution, 522. 
 
 Social facts, 219 
 
 impulse, 102, chaps, ix and x 
 
 institutions defined, 19 
 
 judgments, chap, x 
 
 mind, 84 ff. 
 
 person, 182 
 
 phenomena defined, 19 
 
 philosophy defined, 4 
 
 process defined, 19 
 
 purpose, origin of, chap, vi, 
 
 173 
 
 psychology, chap, iv 
 
 relations defined, 19 
 
 science, limits of, chap, i 
 
 unity, 49, 124, 137 ff. 
 
 units, 55, 89 
 
 Socialism, 200 
 Socialist position, 210 
 Society, definition of, 18 
 Sociology, province of, 7 ff. 
 Spiritual forces, chaps, i and x 
 Spread of new ideas, 109 ff. 
 Subject-matter of sociology, 21 
 Suggestion, no 
 
 Survival, 52 
 Systems of ideas, 87 
 
 THOUGHT systems, 87 ff. 
 Tradition, 85 
 
 UNITY of Greek city state, 138 
 
 of medieval state, 1 38 
 
 Utilitarianism, 173 
 
 WAGE system, 133 
 Women's rights, 154 ff. 
 
 Printed in Gnat Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frame and London
 
 A SELECTION OF BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY METHUEN 
 
 AND CO. LTD. LONDON 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET 
 
 W.C. 2 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 General Literature ... i 
 
 Ancient Cities .... i* 
 
 Antiquary's Books ... xa 
 
 Arden Shakespeare ... 13 
 
 Classics of Art .... 13 
 
 'Complete' Series ... 14 
 
 Connoisseur's Library . . 14 
 
 Handbooks of English Church 
 
 History 15 
 
 Handbooks of Theology . . 15 
 
 Health Series .... i 5 
 
 ' Home Life ' Series ... 15 
 
 Leaders of Religion . . 16 
 
 Library of Devotion . . 16 
 
 Little Books on Art . . 17 
 
 Little Guides .... 17 
 
 Little Library .... 18 
 
 Little Quarto Shakespeare . 10 
 
 Miniature Library . 
 New Library of Medicine 
 New Library of Music . 
 Oxford Biographies . 
 Nine Plays . 
 Sport Series . . . 
 States of Italy . 
 Westminster Commentaries 
 1 Young ' Series . 
 Cheap Library . 
 Books for Travellers 
 Some Books on Art. 
 Some Books on Italy 
 
 Fiction 
 
 Bocks for Boys and Girls 
 
 Cheap Novels . 
 
 One and Threepenny Novels 
 
 PACK 
 19
 
 A SELECTION OF 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S 
 PUBLICATIONS 
 
 IN this Catalogue the order is according to authors. 
 
 Colonial Editions are published of all Messrs. METHUEN'S Novels issued 
 at a price above 41. net, and similar editions are published of some works of 
 General Literature. Colonial Editions arc only for circulation in the British 
 Colonies and India. 
 
 All hooks marked net are not subject to discount, and cannot be bought 
 at less than the published price. Books not marked net are subject to the 
 discount which the bookseller allows. _ 
 
 The prices in this Catalogue are liable to alteration without previous notice. 
 
 Messrs. METHUEN'S books are kept in stock by all good booksellers. If 
 there is any difficulty in seeing copies, Messrs. Methuen will be very glad to 
 have early information, and specimen copies of any books will be sent on 
 receipt of the published price plus postage for net books, and of the published 
 price for ordinary books. 
 
 This Catalogue contains only a selection of the more importa-t books 
 published by Messrs. Methuen. A complete catalogue of their piiL.ications 
 may be obtained on application. 
 
 indrewes (Lancelot). PRECES PRI- 
 VATAE. Translated and edited, with 
 Notes, by F. E. BRIGHTMAN. Cr. 6v0. 
 js. 6d. net. 
 
 Aristotle. THE ETHICS. Edited, with 
 an Introduction and Notes, by JOHN 
 BUENET. Demy %vo. 15*. tut. 
 
 Atkinson (T. D.). ENGLISH ARCHI- 
 TECTURE. Illustrated, fourth Edition. 
 Fcap. &vo. 6s. net. 
 
 A GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED IN 
 ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. Illus- 
 trated. Second Edition. Fcap.lvo. It. tut. 
 
 Itteridge (1. H.). FAMOUS LAND 
 FIGHTS. Illustrated. Cr. 8zx>. 7 t. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 Baggally (W. Wortley). TELEPATHY : 
 GENUINE AND FRAUDULENT. Cr. toe. 
 3S. 6d. net. 
 
 Bain(F. W.). A DIGIT OF THE MOON: 
 
 A HINDOO LOVE STORY. Twelfth Edition. 
 
 Fcap. %vo. 5s. net. 
 THE DESCENT OF THE SUN : A CVCLB 
 
 OF BIRTH. Seventh Edition. Fcap. &vo. 
 
 $s. tut. 
 A HEIFER OF THE DAWN. Ninth 
 
 Edition. Fcap. Svo. $s. net. 
 IN THE GREAT GOD'S HAIR. Sixth 
 
 Edition. Fcap &oo. 5*. net. 
 
 A DRAUGHT OF THE BLUE. Sixth 
 Edition, Fcap. %vo. $s. net. 
 
 AN ESSENCE OF THE DUSK. Fourth 
 Edition. Fcap. te#. 5*. net. 
 
 AN INCARNATION OF THE SNOW. 
 Fourth Edition. Fcap. Zvo. $s. net. 
 
 A MINE OF FAULTS. Fourth Edition. 
 Fcap. &vo. $s. net. 
 
 THE ASHES OF A GOD. Second Edition. 
 Fcap. &vo. 5*. net. 
 
 BUBBLES OF THE FOAM. Second 
 Edition. Fcap. 4/0. 7 s. 6d. Met. Also 
 Fcap. tap. 5*. net. 
 
 A SYRUP OF THE BEES. Fcap. +to. 
 
 ^s. 6d. net. Also Fcap. tvo. $s. net. 
 THE LIVERY OF EVE. Second Edition. 
 
 Fcap. 4to. 7*. 6d. net. Also Fcap &vo. 
 
 51. net. 
 
 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES. Rescued 
 from Oblivion by F. W. BAIN. Wide Demy 
 3->o. los. 6d. net. 
 
 Balfour (Graham). THE LIFE OF 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. Fif- 
 teenth Edition. In one Volume. Cr. too. 
 Buckram, js. dd. net. 
 
 Baring (Hon. Maurice). LANDMARKS 
 IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE. Third 
 Edition. Cr. Bvo. js. <xl. net. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. Second 
 Edition. Dtmy tew. 15*. net.
 
 GENERAL LITBRATDRI 
 
 A YEAR IN RUSSIA. Cr. fo. jt. to. 
 ntt. 
 
 Baring-Gould (8.). THE TRAGEDY OF 
 THE CAESARS: A STODY OF THE 
 CHARACTERS OF THE CCSARS or THE 
 JULIAN AND CLAUDIAN HOUSES. Illus- 
 trated. Seventh Edit on. Royal Svo. 15*. 
 ntt. 
 
 A BOOK OF CORNWALL. Illustrated. 
 Third Edition. Cr. 800. jt. 6d. net. 
 
 A BOOK OF DARTMOOR. Illustrated. 
 Third Edition. Cr. Svo. jt. fid. net. 
 
 A BOOK OF DEVON. Illustrated. Third 
 Edition. Cr. Svo. jt. 6d. net. 
 
 Baring-Gould (8.) and Sheppard (H. F.). 
 A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG. 
 English Folk Songs with their Tradi- 
 tional Melodies. Demy \t. jt. fid. net. 
 
 Baring-Gould (S.), Sheppard (H. F.), and 
 Bussell (F. W.). SONGS OF THE 
 WEST. Folk Songs of Devon and Corn- 
 wall. Collected from the Mouths of the 
 People. New and Revised Edition, under 
 the musical editorship of CECIL J. SHARP. 
 Second Edition. Large Imperial Svo. 
 jt. 6J. net. 
 
 Barker (E.). GREEK POLITICAL 
 THEORY : PLATO AND HIS PREDECESSORS. 
 Demy Svo. 14*. net. 
 
 Bastable (C. F.). THE COMMERCE OF 
 NATIONS. Eighth Edition. Cr. Svo. 51. 
 net. 
 
 Beokford (Peter). THOUGHTS ON 
 HUNTING. Edited by J. OTHO PAGET. 
 Illustrated. Third Edition. Demy Svo. 
 jt. 6d. net. 
 
 Belloc (H.). PARIS. Illustrated. Third 
 Edition. Cr. Svo. js. (td. net. 
 
 HILLS AND THE SEA. Ninth Edition. 
 Fcap. Svo. 6s. net. 
 
 ON NOTHING AND KINDRED SUB- 
 JECTS. Fourth Edition. Fcap. Svo. 6s. 
 net. 
 
 ON EVERYTHING. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 
 
 Svo. 6t. net. 
 
 ON SOMETHING. Third Edition. Fcap. 
 
 Svo. 6s. net. 
 
 FIRST AND LAST. Second Edition. 
 . Svo. 6s. net. 
 
 THIS AND THAT AND THE OTHER. 
 Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. 6s. net. 
 
 MARIE ANTOINETTE. Illustrated. 
 Fourth Edition. Demy Svo. iSs. net. 
 
 THE PYRENEES. Illustrated. Second 
 Edition. Demy 3t*. iar. 6< net. 
 
 Bennett (Arnold). THE TRUTH ABOUT 
 AN AUTHOR. Fcap. Svo, 51. net. 
 
 Bennett (W. H.). A PRIMER OF THE 
 BIBLE. Fifth Edition. Cr. Svo. 4*. net. 
 
 Bennett (W. H.) and JLdeney (W. F.). A 
 BIBLICAL INTRODUCTION. With a 
 concise Bibliography. Sixth Edition. Cr. 
 too. St. 6d. net. Alto in Two Volumes. 
 Cr. Sve. Each $s. net. 
 
 Berrtman (Algernon B.). AVIATION. 
 Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr. Svo. 
 its. 6d. net. 
 
 MOTORING. Illustrated. Demy Svo. 
 tar. 6rf. net. 
 
 Bioknell (Sthel E.). PARIS AND HER 
 TREASURES. Illustrated. Fcap. Svo. 
 Round corners. 6s. net. 
 
 Blake (William). ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
 THE BOOK OF JOB. With a General 
 Introduction by LAURENCE BINVON. Illus- 
 trated. Quarto. i it. net. 
 
 Bloemfonteln (Bishop of). ARA CGELI : 
 Aw ESSAY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY. 
 Seventh Edition. Cr. Svo. 5* *>*/. 
 
 FAITH AND EXPERIENCE. Third 
 Edition. Cr. too. St. net. 
 
 THE CULT OF THE PASSING 
 MOMENT. Fourth Edition. Cr. Svo. 
 S*. net. 
 
 THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND RE- 
 UNION. Cr. Svo. st. net. 
 
 Brabant (F. G.). RAMBLES IN SUSSEX. 
 Illustrated. Cr. Svo. js. 6d. net. 
 
 Braid (James). ADVANCED GOLF. 
 Illustrated. Eighth Edition. Demy Svo. 
 ia. 6d. net. 
 
 Bulley (M. H.). ANCIENT AND MEDI- 
 EVAL ART. Illustrated. Cr. Svo. js. 6d. 
 ntt. 
 
 Carlyle (Thomu). THE FRENCH 
 REVOLUTION. Edited by C. R. L. 
 FLETCHER. Three Volumtt. Cr. Svo. i&i. 
 net. 
 
 THE LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. With an In- 
 troduction by C. H. FIRTH, and Notes 
 and Appendices by S. C. LOMAS. Three 
 Volumes. Demy Svo. iSs. net. 
 
 Chambers (Mrs. Lambert). LAWN 
 TENNIS FOR LADIES. Illustrated. 
 Second Edition. Cr. Svo. 5*. net. 
 
 Chesterton (Q. K.). CHARLES DICKENS. 
 With two Portraits in Photogravure. Eighth 
 Edition. Cr. Soo. jt. 64. net.
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE. 
 Fifth Edition. 6*. net. 
 
 ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Tenth 
 Edition. Fcap. toff. 6s. ntt. 
 
 TREMENDOUS TRIFLES. Fifth Edi- 
 tion. Fcap. too. 6f. ntt. 
 
 ALARMS AND DISCURSIONS. Stcond 
 Edition. Fcap. too. 6s. net. 
 
 A MISCELLANY OF MEN. Stcond 
 Edition. Fcap. too. 6s. net. 
 
 WINE, WATER, AND SONG. Ninth 
 Edition. Fcap. too. is. 6d. ntt. 
 
 Clausen (George). ROYAL ACADEMY 
 LECTURES ON PAINTING. Illustrated. 
 Cr. too. is. 6d. net. 
 
 Clephan (R. Coltman). THE TOURNA- 
 MENT: Its Periods and Phases. With 
 Preface by CHAS. J. FFOULKES. Illustrated. 
 Royal 4(0. 3 2J. net. 
 
 Glutton-Brook (4.)- THOUGHTS ON 
 THE WAR. Ninth Edition. Fcap. too. 
 is. 6d. net. 
 
 WHAT IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN ? 
 Cr. toe. 5*. net. 
 
 Conrad (Joseph). THE MIRROR OF 
 THE SEA : Memories and Impressions. 
 Fcap. too. $s. net. 
 
 Coulton (0. 0.). CHAUCER AND HIS 
 ENGLAND. Illustrated. Second Editie :t. 
 Demy too. iw. 6d. net. 
 
 Cowper (William). POEMS. Edited, with 
 an Introduction and Notes, by J. C. BAILEY. 
 Illustrated. Demy too. i2j. 6d. net. 
 
 Cox (i. C.). RAMBLES IN SURREY. 
 
 Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr. too. 
 7*. 6d. net. 
 
 RAMBLES IN KENT. Illustrated. Cr. 
 too. ^s. 6d. net. 
 
 Dalton (Hugh). WITH BRITISH GUNS 
 IN ITALY. Illustrated. Cr. too. 8j. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 Davis (H. W. C.). ENGLAND UNDER 
 THE NORMANS AND ANGEVINS: 
 1066-1374. Fifth. Edition. Demy too. 
 i2s. td. net. 
 
 Day (Harry A.), P.R.H.8. SPADECRAFT : 
 OR, How TO BE GARDENER. Second Edi- 
 tion. Cr. too. -a. net. 
 
 VEGECULTURE : How TO GROW VEGE- 
 TABLES, SALADS, AND HERBS IN TOWN 
 AND COUNTRY. Stcond Edition. Cr. too. 
 M. ntt. 
 
 THE FOOD-PRODUCING GARDEN. 
 Cr. too. as. net. 
 
 Dearmer (Mabel). A CHILD'S LIFE OF 
 CHRIST. Illustrated. Fourth Edition. 
 Large Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 Dickinson (Sir O.L.). THE GREEK VIEW 
 OF LIFE. Eleventh Edition. Cr. too. 
 y. net. 
 
 Dltchfleld (P. H.). THE VILLAGE 
 CHURCH. Second Edition. Illustrated. 
 Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 THE ENGLAND OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 Illustrated. Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 Dowden (J.). FURTHER STUDIES IN 
 THE PRAYER BOOK. Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 | Durham (The Barl of). THE REPORT 
 ON CANADA. With an Introductory 
 Note. Second Edition. Demy too. 71. M. 
 ntt. 
 
 Bgerton (H. B.). A SHORT HISTORY 
 OF BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY. 
 Fifth Edition. Demy too. IQS. 6d. net. 
 
 'Ettenne.' A NAVAL LIEUTENANT, 
 1914-1918. Illustrated. Cr. too. St. dd. 
 net. 
 
 Fairbrother (W. H.). THE PHILO- 
 SOPHY OF T. H. GREEN. Second 
 Edition. Cr. too. $s. net. 
 
 ffoulkas (Charles). THE ARMOURER 
 AND HIS CRAFT. Illustrated. Royai 
 t,to. 2 is. net. 
 
 DECORATIVE IRONWORK. From the 
 xith to the xvinth Century. Illustrated. 
 Royal 4/0. 2 xs. net. 
 
 Firth (C. H.). CROMWELL'S ARMY. 
 A History of the English Soldier during the 
 Civil Wars, the Commonwealth, and the 
 Protectorate. Illustrated. Second 1 Edition. 
 Cr. too. ft. 6d. net. 
 
 Fisher (H. JL L.). THE REPUBLICAN 
 TRADITION IN EUROPE. Cr. too. 
 ^s. 6d. net. 
 
 FitzQerald (Edward). THE RUBAlYAT 
 OF OMAR KHAYYAM. Printed from 
 the Fifth and last Edition. With a Com- 
 mentary by H. M. BATSON, and a Biograph- 
 ical Introduction by E. D. Ross. Cr. too. 
 js. 6d. net. 
 
 Fyleman (Rose). FAIRIES AND CHIM- 
 NEYS. Fcap. too. Fourth Edition. 
 3*. & ntt.
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 5 
 
 Gantln (Crosby). THE MUD-LARKS 
 AGAIN. Fcaj>. Bvo. y. fxt. net. 
 
 Gibbins (H. de B.). INDUSTRY IN 
 ENGLAND: HISTORICAL OUT- 
 LINES. With Maps and Plans. Ninth 
 Edition. Dimy too. IU. (>d. net. 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF 
 ENGLAND. With 5 Maps and a Plan. 
 Twenty-sixth Edition. Cr. too. 5*. 
 
 Gibbon (Edward). THE DECLINE AND 
 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 Edited, with Notes, Appendices, and Maps, 
 by J. B. BURY. Illustrated. Seven Volumes. 
 Demy too. Illustrated. Each izf. 6d. net. 
 Also in Seven Volumes. Cr. too. Each 
 7*. 6d. net. 
 
 Gladstone (W. Swart). GLADSTONE'S 
 SPEECHES : DESCRIKTIVK INDEX AND 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Edited by A. TILNEY BAS- 
 SETT. With a Preface by VISCOUNT 
 BRYCE, O.M. Demy Zvo. ias. 6af. net. 
 
 Glover (T. R.). THE CONFLICT OF 
 RELIGIONS IN THE EARLY ROMAN 
 EMPIRE. Seventh Edition. Demy too. 
 lot. 6d. net. 
 
 POETS AND PURITANS. Second Edition. 
 Demy too. los. 6d. net. 
 
 FROM PERICLES TO PHILIP. Second 
 Edition. Demy too. ios. 6d. net. 
 
 VIRGIL. Third Edition. Demy too. ios.6d. 
 net. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND 
 ITS VERIFICATION. (The Angus Lec- 
 ture for 1912.) Second Edition, Cr. too. 
 6s. net. 
 
 Grahame (Kenneth). THE WIND IN 
 THE WILLOWS. Eighth Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. 6d. net. 
 
 Griffin (W. Hall) and Kinchin (H. C.). 
 THE LIFE OF ROBERT BROWNING. 
 Illustrated.' Second Edition. Demy too. 
 ias. t>d. net. 
 
 Halg (K. Q.). HEALTH THROUGH 
 DIET. Fourth Edition. Cr. Zoo. 6s. 
 net. 
 
 Hale (J. R.). FAMOUS SEA FIGHTS : 
 FROM SALAMIS TO TSU-SHIMA. Illustrated. 
 Third Edition. Cr. toe. 7*. 6d. net. 
 
 Hall (H. R.). THE ANCIENT HISTORY 
 OF THE, NEAR EAST FROM THE 
 KARI.iEST TIMES TO THE BATTLE 
 OK SALAMIS. Illustrated. Fourth Edi- 
 tion. Dtmy 80*. \6s. ntt. 
 
 Hannay (D.). A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 THE ROYAL NAVY. Vol. I., 1217-1688. 
 Second Edition. Vol. II., 1689-1815. 
 Demy too. Each ios. 6d. net. 
 
 Barker (Alfred). THE NATURAL HIS- 
 TORY OF IGNEOUS ROCKS. With 
 iia Diagrams and 2 Plates. Demy Svo. 
 15*. net. 
 
 Harpe? (Charles G.). THE 'AUTOCAR' 
 ROAD-BOOK. With Maps. Four 
 Volumes. Cr. too. Each 8s. 6d net. 
 
 I. SOUTH OF THE THAMES. 
 
 II. NORTH AND SOUTH WALKS AND 
 WEST MIDLANDS. 
 
 III. EAST ANGLIA AND EAST MIDLANDS. 
 
 IV. THE NORTH OF ENGLAND AND 
 SOUTH OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 Hassall (Arthur). THE LIFE OF 
 NAPOLEON. Illustrated Demy too. 
 ios. 6d. net. 
 
 Henley (W. B.). ENGLISH LYRICS: 
 CHAUCER TO POE. Second Edition. 
 Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 Hill (George Francis). ONE HUNDRED 
 MASTERPIECES OF SCULPTURE. 
 Illustrated. Demy too. ins. dd. net. 
 
 Hobhonse (L. T.). THE THEORY OF 
 KNOWLEDGE. Second Edition. Demy 
 too. i$s, net. 
 
 Hobson (J. A.). INTERNATIONAL 
 TRADE : AN APPLICATION OF ECONOMIC 
 THEORY. Cr. too. &r. net. 
 
 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY : AN INQUIRY 
 INTO THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF THE 
 POOR. Eifhth Edition. Cr. too. $s. net. 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF THE UN- 
 EMPLOYED : AN INQUIRY AND AN 
 ECONOMIC POLICY. Sixth Edition. Cr. too. 
 5*. net. 
 
 GOLD, PRICES AND WAGES : WITH AN 
 EXAMINATION OF THE QUANTITY THEORY. 
 Second Edition. Cr. too. $s. net. 
 
 Hodgson (Mrs. W.). HOW TO IDENTIFY 
 OLD CHINESE PORCELAIN. Illus- 
 trated. Third Edition. Post too. ^s. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 Holdsworth (W. 8.). A HISTORY OF 
 ENGLISH LAW. Four Volumes. 
 Vols. /., //., ///. Each Second Edition. 
 Demy too. Each i$s. net. 
 
 Hutt (0. WA CROWLEY'S HYGIENE 
 OF SCHOOL LIFE. Illustrated. Second 
 and Revised Ediiiof.. Cr. too. 6s. net.
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 Button (Edward). THE CITIES OF 
 
 UMBRIA. Illustrated. Fifth Edition. 
 
 Cr. &vo. ^s. dd. net. 
 THE CITIES OF LOMBARDY. Illus- 
 
 trated. Cr. %vo. ?s. dd. net. 
 THE CITIES OF ROMAGNA AND THE 
 
 MARCHES. Illustrated. Cr. Bvo. js. dd. 
 
 net. 
 
 FLORENCE AND NORTHERN TUS- 
 CANY, WITH GENOA. Illustrated. 
 
 Third Edition. Cr. 6vo. ^s. dd. net. 
 SIENA AND SOUTHERN TUSCANY. 
 
 Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. ^s. 
 
 kd. net. 
 VENICE AND VENETIA. Illustrated. 
 
 Cr. &vo. ^s. dd. net. 
 NAPLES AND SOUTHERN ITALY. 
 
 Illustrated. Cr. Zvo. js. dd. net. 
 ROME. Illustrated. Third Edition. Cr. 
 
 Svo. js. dd. net. 
 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE. 
 
 Illustrated. Second Edition. Fcap. Zvo. 
 
 6s. net. 
 THE CITIES OF SPAIN. Illustrated. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Cr. &vo. js. dd. net. 
 
 Ibsen (Henrik). BRAND. A Dramatic 
 Poem, translated by WILLIAM WILSON. 
 Fourth Edition. Cr. %vo. $s. net. 
 
 Inge(W.R.). CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM. 
 (The Bampton Lectures of 1899.) Fourth 
 Edition. Cr. 800. ^s. dd. net. 
 
 Innes (A. D.). A HISTORY OF THE 
 BRITISH IN INDIA. With Maps and 
 Plans. Second Edition. Cr. 8r. js. dd. 
 net. 
 
 ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 With Maps. Fifth Edition. Demy too. 
 ias. 6d. net. 
 
 Innes (Mary). SCHOOLS OF PAINT- 
 ING. Illustrated. Third Edition. Cr. 
 
 &vo. Zs. net. 
 
 Jenks (E.)- AN OUTLINE OF ENG- 
 LISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT. Third 
 Edition. Revised by R. C. K. ENSOR. Cr. 
 8r><7. $s. net. 
 
 A. SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH 
 LAW : FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO 
 THE EHD OF THE YEAR xgn. Dttny too. 
 ioj. dd. net. 
 
 Johnston (Sir H. H.). BRITISH CEN- 
 TRAL AFRICA. Illustrated. Third 
 Edition. Cr. 1^0. i8j. net. 
 
 THE NEGRO IN THE NEW WORLD. 
 Illustrated. Crown 4(0. i is. net. 
 
 Julian (Lady) of Norwich, REVELA- 
 TIONS OF DIVINE LOVE. Edited by 
 GKACR WARRACK. Sixth Edition. Cr. 
 iff. it. nit. 
 
 Keats (John). POEMS. Edited, with Intro- 
 duction and Notes, by E. de SELINCOURT. 
 With a Frontispiece in Photogravure. 
 Third Edition. Demy Svo. los. dd. net. 
 
 Keble(John). THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. 
 With an Introduction and Notes by W. 
 LOCK. Illustrated. Third Edition. Fcap. 
 8vo. 5*. net. 
 
 Kelynack (T. N.), M.D., M.R.C.P. THE 
 DRINK PROBLEM OF TO-DAY IN 
 ITS MEDICO-SOCIOLOGICAL AS- 
 PECTS. Second and Revised Edition. 
 Demy 8n. los. dd. net. 
 
 Kldd (Benjamin). THE SCIENCE OF 
 POWER. Eifhth Edition. Cr. 8r*>. ^t.dd. 
 net. 
 
 Kipling (Rudyard). BARRACK - ROOM 
 
 BALLADS. iZath Thousand. Cr. too. 
 
 Buckram, -js. dd. net. Also Fcap. too. 
 
 Cloth, 6s. net ; leather, ft. dd. net. 
 
 Also a Service Edition. Two Velumet. 
 
 Square fcap. to*. Each 3.1. net. 
 THE SEVEN SEAS. noth Thousand. 
 
 Cr. 8tw. Buckram, js. dd. net. Also Fcap. 
 
 800. Cloth, 6s. net; leather, js. dd. net. 
 
 Also a Service Edition. Two Volumes. 
 
 Square fcap. &vo. Each 3*. net. 
 THE FIVE NATIONS. i*oth Thousand. 
 
 Cr. SPO. Buckram, js. dd. net. Also Fcap. 
 
 8w>. Cloth, 6*. net ; leather, js. dd. net. 
 
 Also a Service Edition. Two Volumes. 
 
 Square fcap. Bvo. Each 3,1. net. 
 THE YEARS BETWEEN. Cr. too. 
 
 Buckram, js. dd. net. Also on thin paper. 
 
 Fcap. 8t>*. Blue cloth, 6s. net; Limp 
 
 lambskin, Js. dd. net. 
 
 Also a Service Edition. Two volumes. 
 
 Square fcap. Soo. Each 3.1. net. 
 DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES. 84^ Thou- 
 sand, Cr. 8w. Buckram, ^s. dd. net. 
 
 Also Ftap. 8t>. Cloth, 6s. net; leather, 
 
 js. dd. net. 
 
 Also a Service Edition. Two Volumes. 
 
 Square /cap. 8w. Each 35. net. 
 HYMN BEFORE ACTION. Illuminated. 
 
 Fcap. ito. is. dd. net. 
 RECESSIONAL. Illuminated. Fcap. 4(0. 
 
 is. dd. net. 
 TWENTY POEMS FROM RUDYARD 
 
 KIPLING. 360** Thousand. Fcap. 8va. 
 
 Lamb (Charles and Mary). THE COM- 
 PLETE WORKS. Edited by E. V. LUCAS. 
 A New and Revised Edition in Six Volumes. 
 With Frontispieces. Fcap. Zvo. Each ds. 
 net. 
 
 The volumes are : 
 
 i. MISCELLANEOUS PROSE, n. ELIA AND 
 THB LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA. in. BOOKS 
 FOK CHILDREN, iv. PLAYS AND POKMS, 
 T. ud VT. LRTTKBS.
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 Lane-Pcole (Stanley). A HISTORY OF 
 EGYPT IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 Illustrated. Second Edition, Revised. Cr. 
 Zvo. gs. net. 
 
 Lankester (Sir Ray). SCIENCE FROM 
 
 AN EASY CHAIR. Illustrated. Eighth 
 
 Edition. Cr. Zvo. js. 6a. net. 
 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR. 
 
 Second Series. Illustrated. First Edition. 
 
 Cr. 8w. ^s. 6d. net. 
 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST. 
 
 Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. 
 
 7 s. 6d. net. 
 
 Lewis (Edward). EDWARD CARPEN- 
 TER : AN EXPOSITION AND AN APPRECIA- 
 TION. Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 Lock (Walter). ST. PAUL, THE 
 MASTER BUILDER. Third Edition. 
 Cr. Zvo. ss. net. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 Cr. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 Lodge (Sir Oliver). MAN AND THE 
 UNIVERSE : A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE 
 OF THB ADVANCE IN SCIENTIFIC KNOW- 
 LEDGE UPON OUR UNDERSTANDING OF 
 CHRISTIANITY. Ninth Edition. CrownZvo. 
 js. 6d. net. 
 
 THE SURVIVAL OF MAN : A STUDY IN 
 UNRECOGNISED HUMAN FACULTY. Seventh 
 Edition. Cr. Zvo. js. (td. net, 
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS. Cr. too. 7*. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 RAYMOND ; OR, LIFE AND DEATH. Illus- 
 trated. Eleventh Edition. Demy Zvo. 15^. 
 net. 
 
 THE WAR AND AFTER : SHORT CHAP- 
 TERS ON SUBJECTS OF SERIOUS PRACTICAL 
 IMPORT FOR THE AVERAGE CITIZEN IN A.D. 
 1915 ONWARDS. Eighth Edition. Fcap. 
 8vo. is. net. 
 
 Loreburn (Earl). CAPTURE AT SEA. 
 
 Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. as. (td. net. 
 HOW THE WAR CAME. With a Map. 
 
 Cr. Zvo. 7.1. 6d. net. 
 
 Lorimer (George Horace). LETTERS 
 FROM A SELF-MADE MERCHANT 
 TO HIS SON. Illustrated. Twenty- 
 fourth Edition. Cr. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 OLD GORGON GRAHAM. Illustrated. 
 Second Edition. Cr. Zvo, 65. ntt. 
 
 Lorimer (Norma). BY THE WATERS 
 OF EGYPT. Illustrated. Third Edition. 
 Cr. Zvc. js. 6d. net. 
 
 Lucns (S. Y.). THE LIFE OF CHARLES 
 LAMB. Illustrated. Sixth Edition. Dtmy 
 it*, iwt. 6d. ntt. 
 
 A WANDERER IN HOLLAND. Illus- 
 trated. Sixteenth Edition. Cr. Zvo. Ss. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 A WANDERER IN LONDON. Illus- 
 trated. Eighteenth Edition, Revised. Cr. 
 Zvo. Zs. 6d. net. 
 
 LONDON REVISITED. Illustrated. Third 
 Edition. Cr. Zvo. Zs. 6d. net. 
 
 A WANDERER IN PARIS. Illustrated. 
 Thirteenth Edition. Cr. Zvo. Zs. 6d. net. 
 Also Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 A WANDERER IN FLORENCE. Illus- 
 trated. Sixth Edition. Cr. Zvo. Zs. (*/. 
 net. 
 
 A WANDERER IN VENICE. Illustrated. 
 Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. Ss. 6rf. net. 
 
 THE OPEN ROAD : A LITTLE BOOK For; 
 WAYFARERS. Twenty-seventh Edition. 
 Fcap. Zvo. tw. 6d. net. India Paper, js. dd. 
 net. 
 A Is* Illustrated. Cr. ^to. iss.net. 
 
 THE FRIENDLY TOWN : A LITTLE BOOK 
 FOR THB URBANE. Ninth Edition. Fcap. 
 Zvo. 6s, net. 
 
 FIRESIDE AND SUNSHINE. Ninth 
 Edition. Fcap, Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 CHARACTER AND COMEDY. Eighth 
 Edition. Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 THE GENTLEST ART: A CHOICE OP 
 LETTERS BY ENTERTAINING HANDS. 
 Tenth Edition. Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 THE SECOND POST. Fifth Edition. 
 Fcap. Zvo,. 6s. net. 
 
 HER INFINITE VARIETY : A FEMININE 
 PORTRAIT GALLERY. Eighth Edition. 
 Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 GOOD COMPANY: A RALLY OF MEN. 
 Fourth Edition. Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 ONE DAY AND ANOTHER. Seventh 
 Edition. Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 OLD LAMPS FOR NEW. Sixth Edition. 
 Fcap. Zv. 6s. net. 
 
 LOITERER'S HARVEST. Third Edition. 
 
 Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 CLOUD AND SILVER. Third Edition. 
 
 Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 LISTENER'S LURE : AN OBLIQUE NARRA- 
 TION. Twelfth Edition. Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 OVER BEMERTON'S: AN EASY-GOING 
 CHRONICLE. Sixteenth Edition. Fcap. 
 Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 MR. INGLESIDE. Twelfth Edition. 
 Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 LONDON LAVENDER. Twelfth Edition. 
 Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 LANDMARKS. Fifth Edition. Fcap. Zvo. 
 to. net.
 
 8 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 THE BRITISH SCHOOL : AN ANECDOTAL 
 GUIDE TO THE BRITISH PAINTERS AND 
 PAINTINGS IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 Fcap. too. 6s. net. 
 
 A BOSWELL OF BAGHDAD, AND 
 OTHER ESSAYS. Third Edition. Fcap. 
 too. 6s. net. 
 
 TWIXT EAGLE AND DOVE. Third 
 Edition. Fcap. too. 6s. net. 
 
 Lydekker (R.). THE OX AND ITS 
 KINDRED. Illustrated. Cr. too. jt. 6d. 
 tut. 
 
 Maoaulay (Lord). CRITICAL AND 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. Edited by F. 
 C. MONTAGUE. Three Volumes. Cr. too. 
 i&s. tut. 
 
 Macdorald (J. R. M.). A HISTORY OF 
 FRANCE. Three Volvmtt. Cr. too. 
 Each ID.?. 6d. net. 
 
 McDougall (William), AN INTRODUC- 
 TION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 Twelfth Edition. Cr. too. js. 6d. net. 
 
 BODY AND MIND : A HISTORY AND A 
 DEFENCE OF ANIMISM. Fourth Edition. 
 Demy too. 12*. 6d. net. 
 
 Maeterlinck (Maurice). THE BLUE 
 BIRD : A FAIRY PLAY IN Six ACTS. 
 Translated by ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE 
 MATTOS. Fcap. too. 6s. net. A iso Fcap. 
 too. 2s net. Of the above book Forty- 
 one Editions in all have been issued. 
 
 MARY MAGDALENE: A PLAY IN THREE 
 ACTS. Translated by ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA 
 DE MATTOS. Third Edition. Fcaf. too. 
 ss. net. Also Fcap. Zoo. as. net. 
 
 DEATH. Translated by ALEXANDER TEIX- 
 EIRA DE MATTOS. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 
 too. 35. 6d. net. 
 
 OUR ETERNITY. Translated by ALEX- 
 ANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS. Second 
 Edition. Fcaf. too. 6s. net. 
 
 THE UNKNOWN GUEST. Translated 
 by ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS. 
 Third Edition. Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 POEMS. Done into English Vem by 
 BERNARD MIALL. Second Edition. Cr. 
 too. ss. net. 
 
 THE WRACK OF THE STORM. Third 
 Edition. Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 THE MIRACLE OF ST. ANTHONY: A 
 PLAY IN ONE ACT. Translated by ALEX- 
 ANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS. Fcaf. too. 
 31. 6d. net. 
 
 THE BURGOMASTER OF STILE- 
 MONDE : A PLAY IN THREE ACTS. 
 Translated by ALEXANDER TEIXEIKA r>E 
 MATTOS. Fcap. too. y. net. 
 
 THE BETROTHAL; OR, THE BLUE 
 BIRD CHO"SES. Translated by ALEX- 
 ANDER TEIXEIKA DE MATTOS. Fcap. too. 
 6s. net. 
 
 MOUNTAIN PATHS. Translated by ALEX- 
 ANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS. Fcap. too. 
 6s. net. 
 
 Mahaffy (J. P.). A HISTORY OF EGYPT 
 UNDER THE PTOLEMAIC DYNASTY. 
 Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr. too. gs. 
 net. 
 
 Maltland (F. W.). ROMAN CANON LAW 
 IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 Royal too. roj. 6d. net. 
 
 Marett (R. R.). THE THRESHOLD OF 
 RELIGION. Third Edition. Cr. too. 
 ys. 6d. net. 
 
 Marriott (J. A. R.). ENGLAND SINCE 
 WATERLOO. With Maps. Second 
 Edition, Revised. Demy too. i2S. 6d. net. 
 
 Masefleld (John). A SAILOR'S GAR- 
 LAND. Selected and Edited. Second 
 Edition. Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 Master-man (C. F. G.). TENNYSON 
 ASA RELIGIOUS TEACHER. Second 
 Edition. Cr. too. 7*. 6d. net. 
 
 Medley (D. J.). ORIGINAL ILLUSTRA- 
 TIONS OF ENGLISH CONSTITU- 
 TIONAL HISTORY. Cr. too. 8*. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 Miles (Eustace). LIFE AFTER LIFE; 
 
 OR, THE THEORY OP REINCARNATION. 
 
 Cr. too. 3.1. 6d. net. 
 THE POWER OF CONCENTRATION: 
 
 How TO ACQUIRE IT. Fifth Edition. 
 
 Cr. toe. 6s. net. 
 PREVENTION AND CURE. Second 
 
 Edition. Crown too. $s. net. 
 
 Miles (Mrs. Eustace). HEALTH WITH- 
 OUT MEAT. Sixth Edition. Fcaf. 800. 
 is. 6d. net. 
 
 Mlllals (J. G.). THE LIFE AND LET 
 TERS OF SIR JOHN EVERETI 
 MILLAIS, Illustrated. Third Edition. 
 Demy too. las. 6d. net. 
 
 Milne (J. 0.). A HISTORY OF EGYPT 
 UNDER ROMAN RULE. Illustrated. 
 Second Edition. Cr, too. gs. net. 
 
 Money (Sir Leo Ghiozza). RICHES AND 
 POVERTY, 1910. Eleventh Edition. 
 Demy too. ss. net. 
 
 Montague (C. E.). DRAMATIC VALUES. 
 Second Edition. Fcaf. li't>. $* ***
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 Myers (Charles 8.). PRESENT-DAY 
 APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY. 
 Third Edition. Fcap. too. is. yt. net. 
 
 Noyea ("Alfred). A SALUTE FROM THE 
 FLEET, AND OTHER POEMS. Third 
 Edition. Cr. too. ^s. 6d. net. 
 
 RADA : A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS EVE. Illus- 
 trated. Fcaf. too. $s. net. 
 
 Oman (C. W. 0.). A HISTORY OF THE 
 ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE 
 AGES. Illustrated. Demy 600. i$s. net. 
 
 ENGLAND BEFORE THE NORMAN 
 CONQUEST. With Maps. Third Edi- 
 tion, Revised. Demy too. is. 6d. net. 
 
 Oxenham (John). BEES IN AMBER: A 
 LITTLB BOOK OF THOUGHTFUL VERSE. 
 228/A Thousand. Small Pott too. Paper 
 is. yt. net ; Cloth Boards, as. net. 
 Also frustrated. Fcap. to. 3*. 6d. net. 
 
 ALL'S WELL: A COLLECTION OF WAR 
 POEMS. ijsth Thousand. Small Pott 
 too. Pafer, is. yl. net; Cloth Boards, 
 is. net. 
 
 THE KING'S HIGH WAY. iaoth Thousand. 
 Small Pott too. is. jd.net; Cloth Boards, 
 is. net. 
 
 THE VISION SPLENDID, loath Thou- 
 sand. Small Pott too. Paper, is. yl. net ; 
 Cloth Boards, is. net. 
 
 THE FIERY CROSS. toth Thousand. 
 Small Pott too. Paper, is. yf. net ; Cloth 
 Boards, is. net. 
 
 HIGH ALTARS : THB RECORD OF A VISIT 
 TO THE BATTLEFIELDS OF FRANCE AND 
 FLANDERS. +oth Thousand. Small Pott 
 too. is. yl. net ; Cloth Boards, as. net. 
 
 HEARTS COURAGEOUS. Small Pott 
 too. it. jd net. Cloth Boards, as. net. 
 
 ALL CLEAR. Small Pott too. is. yL net. 
 Cloth Boards, as. net. 
 
 WINDS OF THE DAWN. Small Pott too. 
 as. net. 
 
 Oxford (M. H.). A HANDBOOK OF 
 NURSING. Seventh Edition, Revised. 
 Cr. too. $s. net. 
 
 Pakes (W. 0. 0.). THE SCIENCE OF 
 HYGIENE. Illustrated. Second and 
 Cheaper Edition. Revised by A. T. 
 NANKIVELL. Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 Petrle (W. H. Flinders.) A HISTORY 
 
 OF EGYPT. Illustrated. Six Volumes 
 
 Cr. too. Each gs. net. 
 VOL. I. FROM THE IST TO THB XVlTH 
 
 DYNASTY. Eighth Edition. 
 VOL. II. THE XVIIrn AND XVIIlTH 
 
 DYNASTIES. Sixth Edition. 
 VOL. III. XIXTH TO XXXTH DYNASTIES. 
 
 Second Edition. 
 VOL. IV. EGYPT UNDER THE PTOLEMAIC 
 
 DTMASTT. J. P. MAHAFFY. Second Edition. 
 
 a 
 
 VOL. V. EGYPT UNDER ROMAN RULE. J. G. 
 
 MlLNE. Second Edition. 
 VOL. VI. EGYPT IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 STANLEY LANE POOLE. Second Edition. 
 RELIGION AND CONSCIENCE IN 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. Illustrated. Cr. too. 
 
 $s. net. 
 SYRIA AND EGYPT, FROM THE TELL 
 
 EL AMARNA LETTERS. Cr. too. 
 
 $s. net. 
 EGYPTIAN TALES. Translated from the 
 
 Papyri. First Series, ivth to xiith Dynasty. 
 
 Illustrated. Third Edition. Cr. too. 
 
 $s. net. 
 EGYPTIAN TALES. Translated from the 
 
 Papyri. Second Series, xviiith to xixth 
 
 Dynasty. Illustrated. Second Edition. 
 
 Cr. too. $s. net. 
 
 Pollard (Alfred W.). SHAKESPEARE 
 FOLIOS AND QUARTOS. A Study in 
 the Bibliography of Shakespeare's Plays, 
 1594-1685. Illustrated, folio. i is. net. 
 
 Porter (G. R.). THE PROGRESS OF 
 THE NATION. A New Edition. Edited 
 by F. W. HIRST. Demy too. 1 is. net. 
 
 Power (J. O'Connor). THE MAKING OF 
 AN ORATOR. Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 Price (L. L.). A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY IN ENGLAND 
 FROM ADAM SMITH TO ARNOLD 
 TOYNBEE. Ninth Edition. Cr. too. 
 SS. net. 
 
 RawlingB (Gertrude B.). COINS AND 
 HOW TO KNOW THEM. Illustrated. 
 Third Edition. Cr. too. js. 6d. net. 
 
 Regan (C. Tate). THE FRESHWATER 
 FISHES OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 
 Illustrated. Cr. too. js. 6d. net. 
 
 Reid (G. Archdall). THE LAWS OF 
 HEREDITY. Second Edition. Demy too. 
 i is. net. 
 
 Robertson (C. Grant). SELECT STAT- 
 UTES, CASES, AND DOCUMENTS, 
 1660-1832. Second Edition, Revised and 
 Enlarged. Demy too. 15*. net. 
 
 ENGLAND UNDER THE HANOVER- 
 IANS. Illustrated. Third Edition. Demy 
 too. ias. 6d. net. 
 
 Rolle (Richard). THE FIRE OF LOVE 
 AND THE MENDING OF LIFE. 
 Edited by FRANCES M. COMPF.R. Cr. too. 
 6s. net. 
 
 Ryley (A. Beres'ord). OLD PASTE. 
 Illustrated. Royal 4(0. 2 2S. net. 
 
 'Saki' (H. H. Munro). REGINALD. 
 Fourth Edition. Fcap. too. 3*. 6a. nti.
 
 IO 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 REGINALD IN RUSSIA. Fcaf. Ivo. 
 y. (>d. net. 
 
 Schidrowitz (Philip). RUBBER. Illus- 
 trated. Second Edition. Demy Bvo. i$s. 
 net. 
 
 Solous (Edmund). TOMMY SMITH'S 
 ANIMALS. Illustrated. Sixteenth Edi- 
 tion. Fcap. &vo. y. 6d. net. 
 
 TOMMY SMITH'S OTHER ANIMALS. 
 Illustrated. Seventh Edition. Fcap. &vo. 
 y. 6d. net. 
 
 TOMMY SMITH AT THE ZOO. Illus- 
 trated. Second Edition. Fcap. %vo. 
 21. gd. 
 
 TOMMY SMITH AGAIN AT THE ZOO. 
 Illustrated. Fcap. Zvo. as. gd. 
 
 JACK'S INSECTS. Illustrated. Cr. too. 6s. 
 net. 
 
 Shakespeare (William). 
 
 THE FOUR FOLIOS, 1623; 1632; 1664; 
 1685. Each 4 4S. net, or a complete set, 
 12 I2S. net. 
 
 THE POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKE- 
 SPEARE. With an Introduction and Notes 
 by GEORGE WVNDHAM. Demy 800. Buck- 
 rant, i2s. 6d. net. 
 
 Shelley (Percy Bysahe). POEMS. With 
 an Introduction by A. CLUTTON- BROCK and 
 notes by C. D. LOCOCK. Two Volumes. 
 Demy Zvo. t is. net. 
 
 Sladen (Douglas). SICILY: THE NEW 
 WINTER RESORT. An Encyclopaedia of 
 Sicily. With 234 Illustrations, a Map, and 
 a Table of the Railway System of Sicily. 
 Second Edition, Revised. Cr. 8r. 71. fid. 
 net. 
 
 Siesser (H. H.). TRADE UNIONISM. 
 
 Cr. &vo. ss. net. 
 
 Smith (Adam). THE WEALTH OF 
 NATIONS. Edited by EDWIN CANNAN. 
 Two Volumes. Demy 8vo. i $s. net. 
 
 Smith (0. F. Herbert). GEM-STONES 
 AND THEIR DISTINCTIVE CHARAC- 
 TERS. Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr. 
 8vo. ^s. 6d. net. 
 
 Stanollffe. GOLF DO'S AND DONT'S. 
 Sixth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. as. net. 
 
 Stevenson (R. L.). THE LETTERS OF 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. Edited 
 by Sir SIDNEY COLVIN. A New Re- 
 arranged Edition infcur volumes. Fourth 
 Edition. Fcap. Zvo. Each 6s. net. Leather, 
 each js. 6d. net. 
 
 Surtees (R. S.). HANDLEY CROSS. 
 
 Illustrated. Eighth Edition. Fcap. &vc. 
 js. bd. net. 
 
 MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 
 Illustrated. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 
 js. 6d. tut. 
 
 ASK MAMMA; OR, THE RICHEST 
 COMMONER IN ENGLAND. Illus- 
 trated. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. js. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 JORROCKS'S JAUNTS AND JOLLI- 
 TIES. Illustrated. Sixth Edition. Fcap. 
 8z><7. 6s. net. 
 
 MR. FACEY ROMFORD'S HOUNDS. 
 Illustrated. Third Edition. Fcap. &vo. 
 js. 6d. net. 
 
 HAWBUCK GRANGE ; OR, THE SPORT- 
 ING ADVENTURES OF THOMAS 
 SCOTT, ESQ. Illustrated. Fcap. &vt>. 
 6s. net. 
 
 PLAIN OR RINGLETS? Illustrated 
 Fcap. Zvo. is. 6d. net. 
 
 HILLINGDON HALL. With 12 Coloured 
 Plates by WILDRAKE, HEATH, and JELLI- 
 COE. Fcap. &vo. js. 6d. net. 
 
 Snso (Henry). THE LIFE OF THE 
 BLESSED HENRY SUSO. By HIMSELF. 
 Translated by T. F. KNOX. With an Intro- 
 duction by DEAN INGE. Second Edition. 
 Cr. 80. 6s. net. 
 
 Swanton (B. W.). FUNGI AND HOW 
 TO KNOW THEM. Illustrated. Cr. 8t*. 
 ior. 6d. net. 
 
 BRITISH PLANT -GALLS. Cr. 8*0. 
 ioj. 6d. net. 
 
 Tabor (Margaret B.). THE SAINTS IN 
 ART. With their Attributes and Symbols 
 Alphabetically Arranged. Illustrated. 
 Tkird Edition. Fcap. &vo. yt. net. 
 
 Taylor (A, B.). ELEMENTS OF META- 
 PHYSICS. Fourth Edition. Demy 8w. 
 i2s. 6d. net. 
 
 Taylor (J. W.). THE COMING OF THE 
 SAINTS. Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 net. 
 
 Thomas (Edward). MAURICE MAE- 
 TERLINCK. Illustrated. Second Edition. 
 Cr. 800. 6s. net. 
 
 A LITERARY PILGRIM IN ENGLAND. 
 Illustrated. Demy 8vo. izs. 6d. net. 
 
 Tlleston (Mary W.). DAILY STRENGTH 
 FOR DAILY NEEDS. Tiucnty-fiftk 
 Edition. Medium i6nto. y, 6d. net. 
 
 Toynbee (Paget). DANTE ALIGHIERI. 
 His LIFE AND WORKS. With 16 Illustra- 
 tions. Fourth and Enlarged Edition. Cr. 
 
 Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 Trevelyan (G. M.). ENGLAND UNDER 
 THE STUARTS. With Maps and Plans. 
 Seventh Edition. Demy &vo. 12*. 6d. net. 
 
 Trlggs (H. Inlgo). TOWN PLANNING : 
 PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE. Illustra- 
 ted. Second Edition. Wide Royal ftw. 
 
 i&r. ntt.
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 ii 
 
 Underbill (Evelyn). MYSTICISM. A 
 
 Study in the Nature and Development of 
 Man's Spiritual Consciousness. Seventh 
 Edition. Demy Sco. 15.1. net. 
 
 Vardon (Harry). HOW TO PLAY GOLF. 
 Illustrated. Eleventh Edition. Cr. Sva. 
 51. ntt. 
 
 Vernon (Hon. W. Warren). READINGS 
 ON THE INFERNO OF DANTE. With 
 an Introduction by the Rev. Dr. MOORE. 
 Two Volumes. Second Edition, Rewritten. 
 Cr. too. 15*. net. 
 
 READINGS ON THE PURGATORIO 
 OF DANTE. With an Introduction by 
 the late DEAN CHURCH. Two Volumes. 
 Third Edition, Revised. Cr. Svo. i$s. net. 
 
 READINGS ON THE PARADISO OF 
 DANTE. With an Introduction by the 
 BISHOP OP RIPON. Two Volumes. Second 
 Edition, Revised. Cr. Svo. i$s. net. 
 
 Yickers (Kenneth H.). ENGLAND IN 
 THE LATER MIDDLE AGES. With 
 Maps. Second Edition, Revised. Demy 
 Zoo. i2s. dd. net. 
 
 Waddell (L. A.). LHASA AND ITS 
 MYSTERIES. With a Record of the Ex- 
 pedition of 1903-1004. Illustrated. Third 
 Edition. Medium &vo. izs. dd. net. 
 
 Wade (G. W. and J. H.). RAMBLES IN 
 SOMERSET. Illustrated. Cr. Svo. js. dd. 
 ntt. 
 
 Wagner (Richard). RICHARD WAG- 
 NER'S MUSIC DRAMAS. Interpreta- 
 tions, embodying Wagner's own explana- 
 tions. By ALICE LEIGHTON CLEATHER 
 and BASIL CRUMP. Fcap. Svf. Bach 4*. 
 net. 
 THE RING OP THE NIBBLUNG, 
 
 Sixth Edition. 
 LOHENGRIN AND PARSIFAL. 
 
 Third Edition. 
 TRISTAN AND ISOLDE. 
 
 Second Edition. 
 
 TANNHAUSER AND THE MASTERSINGERS 
 OP NUREMBURG. 
 
 Waterhousc (Elizabeth). WITH THE 
 SIMPLE-HEARTED. Little Homilies. 
 Third Edition. Small Pott Svo. 3*. dd. 
 net. 
 
 THE HOUSE BY THE CHERRY TREE. 
 A Second Series of Little Homilies. Small 
 Pott Svo. 31. dd. net. 
 
 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY. Being 
 Selections for Morning and Evening Read- 
 ing. Cr. Svo. js. dd. net. 
 
 THOUGHTS OF A TERTIARY. Second 
 Edition. Small Pott Svo. is. 6d. net. 
 
 VERSES. Second Edition, Enlarged. Fcap. 
 Vof. fcf. net. 
 
 A LITTLE BOOK OF LIFE AND 
 DEATH. Nineteenth Edition. Small 
 Pott Svo. Cloth, is. dd. net. 
 
 Waters(W. G.). ITALIAN SCULPTORS. 
 Illustrated. Cr. Svo. js. dd. net. 
 
 Watt (Francis). CANTERBURY PIL- 
 GRIMS AND THKIR WAYS. With a 
 Frontispiece in Colour and 12 other Illustra- 
 tions. Demy Svo. los. dd. net. 
 
 Welgall (Arthur E. P.). A GUIDE TO 
 THE ANTIQUITIES OF UPPER 
 EGYPT : FROM ABYDOS TO THE SUDAN 
 FRONTIER. Illustrated. Second Edition. 
 Cr. Svo. lot, dd. net. 
 
 Wells (J.). A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 ROME. Sixteenth Edition. With 3 Maps. 
 Cr. 800. 6s. 
 
 Wilde (Oscar). THE WORKS OF OSCAR 
 WILDE. Thirteen Volumes. Fcap. Svo. 
 Each 6s. dd. net. 
 
 i. LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME AND 
 THB PORTRAIT or MR. W. H. n. THE 
 DUCHESS OP PADUA. HI. POEMS, iv. 
 LADY WINDERMBRE'S FAN. v. A WOMAN 
 OF No IMPORTANCE, vi. AN IDEAL HUS- 
 BAND, vii. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING 
 EARNEST. vm. A HOUSE OF POME- 
 GRANATES, ix. INTENTIONS, x. DE PRO- 
 PUNDIS AND PRISON LETTERS, xi. ESSAYS. 
 xii. SALOME, A FLORENTINE TRAGEDY, 
 and LA SAINTE COURTISANE. xiv. 
 SELECTED PROSE OF OSCAR WILDK. 
 
 A HOUSE OF POMEGRANATES. Illus- 
 trated. Cr. 4/0. 2is. net. 
 
 Wilding (Anthony P). ON THE COURT 
 AN DOFF. With 58 Illustrations. Seventh 
 Edition. Cr. ST>O. 6s. net. 
 
 Wilson (Ernest H.). A NATURALIST IN 
 WESTERN CHINA. Illustrated. Second 
 Edition, a Vols. Demy Svo. i ios. net. 
 
 Wood (Sir Evelyn). FROM MIDSHIP. 
 MAN TO FIELD-MARSHAL. Illus- 
 trated. Fifth Edition. Demy Svo. us. dd. 
 net. 
 
 THE REVOLT IN HINDUSTAN (1857- 
 59). Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr. Svo. 
 js. dd. net. 
 
 Wood (Lient. W. B.) and Edmonds (Col. 
 J. E.). A HISTORY OF THE CIVIL 
 WAR IN THE UNITED STATES 
 (1861-65). With an Introduction by SPENSER 
 WILKINSON. With 24 Maps and Plans, 
 Third Edition. Demy Svo. i$s. net. 
 
 Wordsworth (W.). POEMS. With an 
 Introduction and Notes by No WELL C. 
 SMITH. Three Volumes. Demy Svo. iSs. 
 ntt. 
 
 Yeats (W. B.). A BOOK OF IRISH 
 VERSE. Third Edition. Cr. lev. fa.nti.
 
 12 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 PART II. A SELECTION OF SERIES 
 Ancient Cities 
 
 General Editor, SIR B. C. A. WINDLE 
 
 Cr. &vo. 6s. net each volume 
 With Illustrations by E. H. NEW, and other Artists 
 
 BRISTOL. Alfred Harvey. 
 CANTERBURY. J. C. Cox. 
 CHESTER. Sir B. C. A. Windle. 
 DUBLIN. S. A. O. Fitzpatrick. 
 
 EDINBURGH. M. G. Williamson. 
 LINCOLN. E. Mansel Sympson. 
 SHREWSBURY. T. Auden. 
 WELLS and GLASTONBURY. T. S. Holmes. 
 
 The Antiquary's Books 
 
 General Editor, J. CHARLES COX 
 
 Demy Svo. IDS. 6d. net each volume 
 
 With Numerous Illustrations 
 
 ANCIENT PAINTED GLASS IN ENGLAND. 
 Philip Nelson. 
 
 ARCHEOLOGY AND FALSE ANTIQUITIES. 
 R. Munro. 
 
 BELLS OF ENGLAND, THE. Canon J. J. 
 Raven. Second Edition. 
 
 BRASSES OF ENGLAND, THE. Herbert W. 
 Macklin. Third Edition. 
 
 CASTLES AND WALLED TOWNS OF ENGLAND, 
 THE. A. Harvey. 
 
 CELTIC ART IN PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN 
 TIMES. J. Romilly Allen. Second Edition. 
 
 CHURCHWARDENS' ACCOUNTS. J. C. Cox. 
 DOMESDAY INQUEST, THE. Adolphus Ballard. 
 
 ENGLISH CHURCH FURNITURE. J. C. Cox 
 and A. Harvey. Second Edition. 
 
 ENGLISH COSTUME. From Prehistoric Times 
 to the End of the Eighteenth Century. 
 George Clinch. 
 
 ENGLISH MONASTIC LIFE 
 fourth Edition. 
 
 Cardinal Gasquet. 
 
 ENGLISH SEALS. J. Harvey Bloom. 
 
 FOLK-LORE AS AN HISTORICAL SCIENCE. 
 Sir G. L. Gomme. 
 
 GILDS AND COMPANIES OF LONDON, THE. 
 George Unwin. 
 
 HERMITS AND ANCHORITES OF ENGLAND, 
 THE. Rotha Mary Clay. 
 
 MANOR AND MANORIAL RECORDS, THE. 
 Nathaniel J. Hone. Second Edition. 
 
 MEDIEVAL HOSPITALS OF ENGLAND, THE. 
 Rotha Mary Clay. 
 
 OLD ENGLISH INSTRUMENTS OF Music. 
 F. W. Galpin. Stttnd Ediiitn,
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 The Antiquary's Book* continued 
 OLD ENGLISH LIBRARIES. Ernest A. Savage. 
 
 OLD SERVICE BOOKS OF THE ENGLISH 
 CHURCH. Christopher Wordsworth, and 
 Henry Littlehales. Second Edition. 
 
 PARISH LIFE IN MBDIJBVAL ENGLAND. 
 Cardinal Gasquet . Fourth Edition. 
 
 PARISH REGISTERS OF ENGLAND, THE. 
 J. C. Cox. 
 
 REMAINS OF THE PREHISTORIC AGE IN 
 ENGLAND. Sir B. C. A. Windle. Second 
 Edition. 
 
 ROMAN ERA IN BRITAIN, THE. J. Ward. 
 
 ROMANO-BRITISH BUILDINGS AND EARTH- 
 WORKS. J. Ward. 
 
 ROTAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND, THE. J. C- 
 Cox. 
 
 SCHOOLS OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND, THF. 
 A. F. Leach. Second Edition. 
 
 SHRINES OF BRITISH SAINTS. J. C Wall. 
 
 The Arden Shakespeare 
 
 General Editor R. H. CASE 
 Demy 8vo. 6s. net each volume 
 
 An edition of Shakespeare in Single Plays ; each edited with a full Introduction, 
 Textual Notes, and a Commentary at the foot of the page 
 
 MACBETH. Second Edition. 
 
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 
 
 MERCHANT OF VENICE, THE. Fourth Edition. 
 
 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, THE. 
 
 MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, A. 
 
 OTHELLO. Second Edition. 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. Second Edition. 
 
 SONNETS AND A LOVER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 TAMING OF THE SHREW, THE. 
 
 TEMPEST, THE. Second Edition. 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 TITUS ANDRONICUS. 
 
 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT. Third Edition. 
 
 Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, THE. 
 
 VENUS AND ADONIS. 
 
 WINTER'S TALE, THE. 
 
 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. Third Edition. 
 
 As You LIKE IT. 
 
 CYMBEI.INE. Second Edition. 
 
 COMEDY OF ERRORS, THE. 
 
 HAMLET. Fourth Edition. 
 
 JULIUS CAESAR. Second Edition. 
 
 KING HENRY iv. PT. i. 
 
 Second Edition. 
 
 PT. i. 
 
 PT. H. 
 
 PT. iii 
 
 KING HENRY v. 
 
 KING HENRY vi. 
 
 KING HENRY vi. 
 
 KING HENRY vi. 
 
 KING HENRY vin. 
 
 KING LEAR. Second Edition. 
 
 KING RICHARD n. 
 
 KING RICHARD in. Second Edition. 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN. THE. 
 
 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. Second Edition. 
 
 Classics of Art 
 
 Edited by DR. J. H. W. LAING 
 With numerous Illustrations, Wide Royal Sva 
 
 ART OF THE GREEKS, THE. H. B. Walters. 
 i St. net. 
 
 ART OF THE ROMANS, THE. H. B. Walters. 
 
 ifc. net. 
 CHARDIN. H. E. A. Font. 15*. net. 
 
 DONATELLO. Maud Cruttwell. i&r. net. 
 
 FLORENTINE SCULPTORS OF THE RENAIS- 
 SANCE. Wilhelm Bode. Translated by 
 Jessie Haynes. 15*. net. 
 
 GEORGE ROMNKY. Arthur B. Chamberlain. 
 151. net.
 
 MBTHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 Classics of Art continued 
 
 GHIRLANDAIO. Gerald S. Davies. Second 
 Edition. 15*. net. 
 
 LAWRENCE. Sir Walter Armstrong. iy. net. 
 
 MICHELANGELO. Gerald S. Davies. is*. 
 
 net. 
 RAPHAEL. A. P. Oppe 1 . 151. net. 
 
 REMBRANDT'S ETCHINGS. A. M. Hind. 
 Two Volumes. 15*. net. 
 
 RUBENS. Edward Dillon. 301. net. 
 
 TINTORBTTO. Evelyn March Phillipps. \(a. 
 net. 
 
 TITIAN. Charles Ricketts. i6t. net. 
 
 TURNER'S SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS. A. J. 
 Finberg. Second Edition. 15*. net. 
 
 VELAZQUEZ. A. de Beruete. 15.1. net. 
 
 The 'Complete' Series 
 
 Fully Illustrated, Demy 8vo 
 
 COMPLETE AMATEUR BOXER, THE. J. G. 
 
 Bohun Lynch. lox. M. net. 
 COMPLETE ASSOCIATION FOOTBALLER, THE. 
 
 B. S. Evers and C. E. Hughes-Davies. 
 
 ioj. 6d. net. 
 COMPLETE ATHLETIC TRAINER, THB. S. A. 
 
 Mussabini. los. 6d. net. 
 COMPLETE BILLIARD PLATER, THE. Charles 
 
 Roberts, its. 6d. net. 
 COMPLETE COOK, THK. Lilian Whitling. 
 
 IM. dd. net. 
 COMPLETE CRICKETER, THB. Albert E. 
 
 KNIGHT. Second Edition, lot. dd. net. 
 COMPLETE FOXHUNTBR, THE. Charles Rich- 
 ardson. Second Edition. i6s. net. 
 COMPLETE GOLFER, THE. Harry Vardon. 
 
 Fifteenth Edition, Revised. iaf. dd. net. 
 COMPLETE HOCKEY-PLAYER, THE. Eustace 
 
 E. White. Second Edition, tos. dd. net. 
 COMPLETE HORSEMAN, THE. W. Scarth 
 
 Dixon. Second Edition. iaJ. dd. net. 
 COMPLETE JUJITSUAN, THE. W. H. Garrud. 
 
 51. net. 
 
 COMPLETE LAWN TENNIS PLAYER, THE. 
 A. Wallis Myers. Fourth Edition. ias. dd. 
 net. 
 
 COMPLETE MOTORIST, THE. Filson Young 
 and W. G. Aston. Revised Edition. 
 ioj. 6d. net. 
 
 COMPLETE MOUNTAINEER, THE. G. D. 
 Abraham. Second Edition. i6s. net. 
 
 COMPLETE OARSMAN, THE. R. C. Lehmann. 
 
 us. dd. net. 
 
 COMPLETE PHOTOGRAPHHR, THE. R. Child 
 
 Bayley. Fifth Edition, Revised. ias. 6d. 
 
 ntt. 
 COMPLETE RUGBY FOOTBALLER, ON THE NEW 
 
 ZEALAND SYSTEM, THE. D. Gallaher and 
 
 W. J. Stead. Second Edition, us. 6d. net. 
 COMPLETE SHOT, THE. G. T. Teasdale- 
 
 Buckell. Third Edition. i6s. net. 
 COMPLETE SWIMMER, THE. F. Sachs. 10*. 
 
 dd.net. 
 COMPLETE YACHTSMAN, THE. B. Heckstall- 
 
 Smith and 1: . du Boulay. Second Edition, 
 
 Revised. i6s. ntt. 
 
 The Connoisseur's Library 
 
 With numerous Illustrations. Wide Royal &vo. 255. net each volume 
 
 ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS. Martin Hardie. 
 ENGLISH FURNITURE. F. S. Robinson. 
 
 Second Edition. 
 ETCHINGS. Sir F. Wedmore. Second Edition. 
 
 EUROPEAN ENAMELS. Henry H. Cunyng- 
 
 hame. 
 
 FINE BOOKS. A. W. Pollard. 
 GLASS. Edward Dillon. 
 GOLDSMITHS' AND SILVERSMITHS' WORK. 
 
 Nelson Dawson. Second Edition. 
 
 ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. J. A. Herbert. 
 
 Second Edition. 
 IVORIES. Alfred Maskeli. 
 
 JEWELLERY. H. Clifford Smith. Second 
 
 Edition. 
 
 MEZZOTINTS. Cyril Davenport. 
 MINIATURES. Dudley Heath. 
 PORCELAIN. Edward Dillon. 
 SEALS. Walter de Gray Birch. 
 WOOD SCULPTURE. Alfred MaskelL
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 Handbooks of English Church History 
 
 Edited by J. H. BURN. Crown 8vo. $s. net each volume 
 
 REFORMATION PERIOD, THE. Henry Gee. 
 
 FOUNDATIONS OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH, THE. 
 J. H. Maude. 
 
 SAXON CHURCH AND THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 
 THE. C. T. Cruttwell. 
 
 MEDIEVAL CHURCH AND THE PAPACY, THE. 
 A. C. Jennings. 
 
 STRUGGLE WITH PURITANISM, THE. Bruce 
 Blaxland. 
 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
 CENTURY, THE. Alfred Flummer. 
 
 Handbooks of Theology 
 
 Demy Svo 
 
 DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION, THE. R. L. 
 Ottley. Fifth Edition. 15*. net. 
 
 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, A. 
 
 J. F. Bethune-Baker. 15.1. net. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. 
 AN. F. B. Jevons. Stvtnth Edition. ias. 6d. 
 tut. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE 
 CREEDS, AN. A. E. Burn. i2s. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION IN ENGLAND AND 
 AMERICA, THE. Alfred Caldecott. 12.5. bd. 
 net. 
 
 XXXIX ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENG- 
 LAND, THE. Edited by E. C. S. Gibson. 
 Ninth Edition. 15$. net. 
 
 Health Series 
 
 Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net 
 
 BABY, THE. Arthur Saunders. 
 CARE OF THE BODY, THE. F. Cavanagh. 
 CARE OF THE TEETH, THE. A. T. Pitts. 
 EYES OF OUR CHILDREN, THE. N. Bishop 
 
 Harman. 
 HEALTH FOR THE MIDDLE-AGED. Seymour 
 
 Taylor. Third Edition. 
 HEALTH OF A WOMAN, THE. R. Murray 
 
 Leslie. 
 HEALTH OF THE SKIN, THE. George Pernet. 
 
 How TO LIVE LONG. J. Walter Carr. 
 PREVENTION OF THE COMMON COLD, THE. 
 
 O. K. Williamson. 
 
 STAYING THE PLAGUE. N. Bishop Harman. 
 THROAT AND EAR TROUBLES. Macleod 
 
 Yearsley. Third Edition. 
 TUBERCULOSIS. Clive Riviere. 
 
 HEALTH OF THE CHILD, THE. O. Hilton. 
 Second Edition, vs. net. 
 
 The 'Home Life' Series 
 
 Illustrated. Demy Svo. 
 
 HOME LIFE IK AMERICA. Katherine G. 
 
 Busbey. Second Edition, us. 6d. net. 
 HOME LIFE IN CHINA. I. Taylor Headland. 
 
 i2j. 6d. net. 
 HOME LIFE IN FRANCE. Miss Betham 
 
 Edwards. Sixth Edition. Js. 6d. net. 
 HOME LIFE IN GERMANY. Mrs. A. Sidgwick. 
 
 Third Edition. 12. (td. net. 
 HOME LIFE IN HOLLAND. D. S. Meldrum. 
 
 Second Edition, in. 64. int. 
 
 HOME LIPS IN ITALY. Lina Duff Gordon. 
 Third Edition, i2s.6d.net. 
 
 HOME LIFE IN NORWAY. H. K. Daniels. 
 Second Edition, ixs. 6d. net. 
 
 HOME LIFE IN SPAIN. S. L. Bensusan. 
 Second Edition, us. 6d. net. 
 
 BALKAN HOME LIFE. Lucy M. J. Garnett. 
 ij. dd. net.
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 Leaders of Religion 
 
 Edited by H. C. BEECHING. With Portraits 
 Crown %vo. y. net each volume 
 
 AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY. E. L. Cults. 
 BISHOP BUTLER. W. A. Spooner. 
 BISHOP WII.BERFORCE. G. W. Daniell. 
 
 CARDINAL MANNING. A. W. Hutton. Second 
 Edition. 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN. R. H. Hutton. 
 CHARLES SIMEON. H. C. G. Motile. 
 
 GEORGE Fox, THE QUAKER. T. Hodgkin. 
 Third Edition. 
 
 JOHN DONNE. Augustus Jessop. 
 JOHN HOWB. R. F. Horton. 
 
 JOHNKEBLE. Walter Lock. Seventh Edition. 
 JOHN KNOX. F. MacCunn. Second Edition. 
 JOHN WESLEY. J. H. Overton. 
 
 LANCELOT ANDRBWES. R. L. Ottley. Seconr 
 Edition. 
 
 LATIMER. R. M. and A. J. Carlyle. 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS. Mrs. Oliphant Second 
 Edition. 
 
 THOMAS CRANMER. A. J. Mason. 
 THOMAS KEN. F. A. Clarke. 
 
 WILLIAM LAUD. W. H. Hutton. 
 Edition. 
 
 Fourth 
 
 The Library 
 
 With Introductions and 
 
 Small Pott 8vo, doth, 3.?. net ; 
 
 y. 6d. net 
 
 BISHOP WILSON'S SACRA PRIVATA. 
 
 BOOK OF DEVOTIONS, A. Second Edition. 
 CHRISTIAN YEAR, THE. Fifth Edition. 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, THE. 
 Ninth Edition, y. 6d. net. 
 
 DAY BOOK FROM THE SAINTS AND FATHERS, 
 A. 
 
 DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. 
 DEVOTIONS FROM THE APOCRYPHA. 
 DEVOTIONS OF ST. ANSELM, THB. 
 
 DEVOTIONS FOR EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK 
 AND THE GREAT FESTIVALS. 
 
 GRACE ABOUNDING TO THE CHIEF OF SIN- 
 NERS. 
 
 GUIDE TO ETERNITY, A. 
 
 HORAE MYSTICAE. A Day Book from the 
 Writings of Mystics of Many Nations. 
 
 IMITATION OF CHRIST, THE. Eighth Edition. 
 INNER WAY, THE. Third Edition. 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE, AN. 
 
 of Devotion 
 
 (where necessary) Notes 
 
 also some volumes in leather^ 
 each volume 
 
 LIGHT, LIFE, and LOVE. A Selection fr&-_: 
 the German Mystics. 
 
 LITTLE BOOK OF HEAVENLY WISDOM, A. 
 A Selection from the English Mystics. 
 
 LYRA APOSTOLICA. 
 
 LYRA INNOCENTIUM. Third Edition. 
 
 LYRA SACRA. A Book of Sacred Verse. 
 Second Edition. 
 
 MANUAL OF CONSOLATION FROM THE SAINTS 
 AND FATHERS, A. 
 
 ON THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 PRECES PRIVATAE. 
 PSALMS OF DAVID, THB. 
 
 SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY 
 LIFE, A. Fifth Edition. 
 
 SONG OF SONGS, THE. 
 
 SPIRITUAL COMBAT, THE. 
 
 SPIRITUAL GUIDE, THE. Third Edition, 
 
 TEMPLE, THE. Second Edition. 
 
 THOUGHTS OF PASCAL, THE. Second Edition.
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 Little Books on Art 
 
 With many Illustrations. Demy i6mo. $s. net each volume 
 
 Each volume consists of about 200 pages, and contains from 30 to 40 Illustrations, 
 including a Frontispiece in Photogravure 
 
 ALBRECHT DURBR. L. J Allen. 
 
 ARTS OF JAPAN, THE. E. Dillon. Third 
 Edition. 
 
 BOOKPLATES. . Almack. 
 
 BOTTICELLI. Mary L. Bonnor. 
 
 BURNE- JONES. F. de Lisle. Third Edition. 
 
 CELLINI. R. H. H. Cust. 
 
 CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM. Mrs. H. Jenner. 
 
 CHRIST IN ART. Mrs. H. Jenner. 
 
 CLAUDE. E. Dillon. 
 
 CONSTABLE. H. W. Tompkins. Second 
 Edition. 
 
 COROT. A. Pollard and E. Birnstingl. 
 
 EARLY ENGLISH WATER-COLOUR. C. E. 
 Hughes. 
 
 ENAMELS. Mrs. N. Dawson. Second Edition. 
 FREDERIC LEIGHTON. A. Corkran. 
 GEORGE ROMNEY. G. Paston. 
 
 GREEK ART. H. B. Walters. Fifth Edition. 
 GRBUZE AND BOUCHER. E. F. Pollard. 
 HOLBEIN. Mrs. G. Fortescue. 
 JEWELLERY. C. Davenport. Second Edition. 
 JOHN HOPPNER. H. P. K. Skipton. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. J. Sime. Second 
 Edition. 
 
 MILLET. N. Peacock. Second Edition. 
 
 MINIATURES. C. Davenport, V.D., F.S.A. 
 Second Edition. 
 
 OUR LADY IN ART. Mrs. H. Jenner. 
 RAPHAEL. A. R. Dryhurst. Second Edition 
 RODIN. Muriel Ciolkowska. 
 TURNER. F. Tyrrell-3iil. 
 VANDYCK. M. G. Smallwood. 
 
 VELAZQUEZ. W. Wilberforce and A. R. 
 Gilbert. 
 
 WATTS. R. E. D. Sketchley. Second Edition. 
 
 The Little Guides 
 
 With many Illustrations by E. H. NEW and other artists, and from photographs 
 Small Pott 8vo. 41. net each volume 
 
 The main features of these Guides are ( I ) a handy and charming form ; (2) illus- 
 trations from photographs and by well-known artists ; (3) good plans and maps ; 
 (4) an adequate but compact presentation of everything that is interesting in the 
 natural features, history, archaeology, and architecture of the town or district treated. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES. A. H. 
 
 Thompson. Fourth Edition, Revised. 
 CHANNEL ISLANDS, THE. E. E. Bicknell. 
 ENGLISH LAKES, THE. F. G. Brabant 
 ISLE OF WIGHT, THE. G. Clinch. 
 LONDON. G. Clinch. 
 
 MALVERN COUNTRY, THE. SirB.C.A.Windle. 
 Second Edition. 
 
 NORTH WALKS. A. T. Story. 
 
 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES. 
 Tenth Edition. 
 
 J. Wells. 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. G. Clinch. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S COUNTRY. Sir B. C. A. 
 Windle. Fifth Edition. 
 
 SOUTH WALES. G. W. and J. H. Wade. 
 TEMPLE, THE. H. H. L. Bellot. 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. G. E. Troutbeck. 
 Second Edition.
 
 iS 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 The Little Guide continued 
 
 BEDFORDSHIRE AND HUNTINGDONSHIRE. H. 
 W. Macklin. 
 
 BERKSHIRE. F. G. Brabant. 
 
 BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. E. S. Roscoe. Second 
 Edition, Revised. 
 
 CAMBRIDGESHIRE. J. C. Cox. 
 CHESHIRE. W. M. Gallichan. 
 CORNWALL. A. L. Salmon. Second Edition. 
 DERBYSHIRE. J. C. Cox. Second Edition. 
 DEVON. S. Baring-Gould. Fourth Edition. 
 DORSET. F. R. Heath. Fourth Edition. 
 DURHAM. J. E. Hodgkin. 
 ESSEX. J. C. Cox. Second Edition. 
 
 GLOUCESTERSHIRE. J. C Cox. Second 
 Edition. 
 
 HAMPSHIRE. J. C. Cox. Third Edition. 
 HEREFORDSHIRE. G. W. and J. H. Wade. 
 HERTFORDSHIRE. H. W. Tompkins. 
 
 KENT. J. C. Cox. Second Edition, Re- 
 written. 
 
 KERRY. C. P. Crane. Second Edition. 
 
 LEICESTERSHIRE AND RUTLAND. A. Harvey 
 and V. B. Crowther-Beynon. 
 
 LINCOLNSHIRE. J. C. Cox. 
 MIDDLESEX. J. B. Firth. 
 MONMOUTHSHIRE. G. W. and J. H. Wade. 
 
 NORFOLK. W. A. Dutt. Fourth Edition, 
 Revised. 
 
 NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. W. Dry. Second 
 Edition, Revised. 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND. J. E. Morris. 5,1. 
 net. 
 
 NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. L. Guilford. 
 OXFORDSHIRE. F. G. Brabant Second Edition. 
 SHROPSHIRE. J. E. Auden. Second Eaitian. 
 
 SOMERSET. G. W. and J. H. Wade. Fourth 
 Edition. 
 
 STAFFORDSHIRE. C. Masefield. Second Edi- 
 tion. 
 
 SUFFOLK. W. A. Dutt. Second Edition. 
 
 SURREY. J. C. Cox. Third Edition, Re- 
 written. 
 
 SUSSEX. F. G. Brabant. Fifth Edition. 
 WARWICKSHIRE. J. C. Cox. 
 WILTSHIRE. F. R. Heath. Third Edition. 
 
 J. E. 
 
 YORKSHIRE, THE EAST RIDING. 
 Morris. 
 
 YORKSHIRE, THE NORTH RIDING. 
 Morris. 
 
 YORKSHIRE, THE WEST RIDING. 
 Morris. 5*. net. 
 
 J. E. 
 J. E. 
 
 BRITTANY. S. Baring-Gould. Second Edition. 
 NORMANDY. C. Scudamore. Second Edition. 
 ROME. C. G. Ellaby. 
 SICILY. F. H. Jackson. 
 
 The Little Library 
 
 With Introduction, Notes, and Photogravure Frontispieces 
 
 Small Pott 8vo. 
 
 Each Volume, cloth, 2s. &/. net ; also some volumes 
 in leather at y. 6d. net 
 
 Anon. A LITTLE BOOK OF ENGLISH 
 LYRICS. Second Edition, y. 6d. net. 
 
 Austen (Jane). PRIDE AND PREJU- 
 DICE. Two Volumes. 
 NORTHANGER ABBEY. 
 
 Bacon (Francis). THE ESSAYS OF 
 LORD BACON. 
 
 Barnett (Annie). A LITTLE BOOK OF 
 ENGLISH PROSE. Third Edition. 
 
 Beckford (William). THE HISTORY OF 
 THE CALIPH VATHEK. 
 
 Blake (William). SELECTIONS FROM 
 THE WORKS OF WILLIAM BLAKE. 
 
 Browning (Robert). SELECTIONS FROM 
 THE EARLY POEMS OF ROBERT 
 BROWNING. 
 
 Canning (George). SELECTIONS FROM 
 THE ANTI-JACOBIN : With some later 
 Poems by GEORGE CANNING. 
 
 Cowley (Abraham). THE ESSAYS OF 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY.
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 The Little Library continued 
 
 Crabbe (George). SELECTIONS FROM 
 THE POEMS OF GEORGE CRABBE. 
 
 Crashaw (Richard). THE ENGLISH 
 POEMS OF RICHARD CRASHAW. 
 
 Dante Alighieri. PURGATORY. 
 PARADISE. 
 
 Darley (George). SELECTIONS FROM 
 THE POEMS OF GEORGE DARLEY. 
 
 KInglake (A. W.). EOTHEN. Stcond 
 Edition, as. 6d. ntt. 
 
 Looker (P.). LONDON LYRICS. 
 
 Marrell (Andrew). THE POEMS OF 
 ANDREW MARVELL. 
 
 Milton (John). THE MINOR POEMS OF 
 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 Molr (D. M.). MANSIE V/AUCH. 
 
 Nichols (Bowyer). A LITTLE BOOK OF 
 
 ENGLISH SONNETS. 
 
 Smith (Horace and James). 
 ADDRESSES. 
 
 REJECTED 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL 
 
 THE EARLY 
 LORD TENNY- 
 
 Bterne (Laurence). 
 JOURNEY. 
 
 Tennyson (Alfred, Lord). 
 
 POEMS OF ALFRED, 
 
 SON. 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 MAUD. 
 
 Yanghan (Henry). THE POEMS OF 
 HENRY VAUGHAN. 
 
 Waterhouie (Elizabeth). A LITTLE 
 BOOK OF LIFE AND DEATH. 
 Nineteenth Edition. 
 
 Wordsworth (W.). SELECTIONS FROM 
 THE POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDS- 
 WORTH. 
 
 Wordsworth (W.) and Coleridge (S. T.). 
 LYRICAL BALLADS. Third Edition. 
 
 The Little Quarto Shakespeare 
 
 Edited by W. J. CRAIG. With Introductions and Notes 
 Pott i6mo. 40 Volumes. Leather, price is. gd. net each volume 
 
 Miniature Library 
 
 Demy 32020. Leather^ 31. 6d. net each volume 
 
 EUPHRANOR: A Dialogue on Youth. Edward 
 FitzGerald. 
 THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM. Edwan 
 
 JPoLONius; or, Wise Saws and Modern In- 
 stances. Edward Fit/Gerald. 
 FitzGerald. Fifii J-.dition. Cloth, is. net. 
 
 The New Library of Medicine 
 
 Edited by C. W. SALEEBY. Demy Svo 
 
 AIR AND HEALTH. Ronald C. Macfie. Second 
 Edition. JOS. dd. net. 
 
 CARB OF THE BODY, THE. F. Cavanagh. 
 Second Edition. ior. 6d. net. 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE NATION, THE. The Right 
 Hon. Sir John Gorst. Second Edition. 
 ioj. 6d. net. 
 
 DRUGS AND THB DRUG HABIT. 
 bury. ioj. 6d. net. 
 
 H. Sains- 
 
 FUNCTIONAL NERVE DISEASES. A. T. Scho- 
 field. ior. 6d. net. 
 
 HYGIENE OP MIND, THE. Sir T. S. Clouston. 
 Sixth Edition. ios. 6d. net. 
 
 INFANT MORTALITY. 
 ioj. (td. net. 
 
 Sir George Newman. 
 
 PREVENTION OF TUBERCULOSIS (CONSUMP- 
 TION), THE. Arthur Newsholme. Second 
 Edition. i?f. dd. net,
 
 2O 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 The New Library of Music 
 
 Edited by ERNEST NEWMAN. Illustrated. Demy Svo. ICH. Get. net 
 BRAHMS. J. A. Fuller-Maitland. Second I HANDEL. R. A. Streatfeild. Second Edition. 
 
 I HUGO WOLF. Ernest Newman. 
 
 Oxford Biographies 
 
 Illustrated. Fcap. Svo. Each volume, cloth, 4*. net ; 
 also some in leather, $s. net 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. I. A. Taylor. 
 
 DANTE ALIGHIERI. Paget Toynbee. Fifth 
 
 Edition, 
 GIKOLAMO SAVONAROLA. E. L. S. Horsburgh. 
 
 Sixth Edition. 
 JOHN HOWARD. E. C. S. Gibson. 
 
 CHATHAM. A. S. McDowall. 
 CANNING. W. Alison Phillips. 
 
 Nine Plays 
 
 Fcap. Svo. 
 
 ACROSS THE BORDER. Beulah Marie DLx. 
 HONEYMOON, THE. A Comedy in Three Acts. 
 
 Arnold Bennett. Third Edition. 
 GREAT ADVENTURE, THE. A Play of Fancy in 
 
 Four Acts. Arnold Bennett. Fourth Edition. 
 MILESTONES. Arnold Bennett and Edward 
 
 Knoblock. Eighth Edition. 
 IDEAL HUSBAND, AN. Oscar Wilde. Acting 
 
 Edition. 
 
 }j. 6d. net 
 
 I KISMET. Edward Knoblock. Third Edi- 
 tion. 
 
 TYPHOON. A Play in Four Acts. Melchior 
 Lengyel. English Version by Laurence 
 Irving. Second Edition. 
 
 WARE CASE, THE. George Pleydell. 
 
 GENERAL POST. J. E. Harold Terry. Second 
 Edition. 
 
 Sport Series 
 
 Illustrated. Fcap. Svo. zr. net 
 FLYING, ALL ABOUT. Gertrude Bacon. 
 
 GOLF Do's AND DONT'S. ' Stancliffe.' Sixth 
 Edition. 
 
 THI 
 
 GOLFING SWING, 
 Fourth Edition. 
 How TO SWIM. H. R. Austin. 
 WRESTLING. P. Longhurst. 
 
 Burnham Hare. 
 
 The States of Italy 
 
 dited by E. ARMSTRONG and R. LANGTON DOUGLAS 
 
 Illustrated. Demy Svo 
 
 MILAN UNDER THE SFORZA, A HISTORY OF. I VERONA, A HISTORY op. A. M. Allen. 
 Cecilia M. Ady. izs. 6d. net. 15*. net. 
 
 PERUGIA, A HISTORY OF. W. Hey wood. 15*- net. 
 
 The Westminster Commentaries 
 
 General Editor, WALTER LOCK 
 Demy Svo 
 
 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, THE. R. B. Rack- 
 ham. Seventh Edition. i6s. net. 
 
 AMOS. E. A. Edghill. is. 6d. net. 
 
 CORINTHIANS, I. H. L. Goudge. Fourth 
 Edition. &s. ftd. net. 
 
 EXODUS. A. H. M'Neile. Second Edition. 
 155. net. 
 
 EZEKIEL, H. A. Redpath. iis. 6d. net. 
 
 GENESIS. S. R. Driver. Tenth Edition. 
 ids. net. 
 
 HEBREWS. E. C. Wickham. It. 64. ntt. 
 
 ISAIAH. G. W. Wade. i6s. net. 
 
 JEREMIAH. L. E. Binns. i&r. net. 
 
 JOB. E. C. S. Gibson. Second Edition. 
 6s. 6d. net. 
 
 PASTORAL EPISTLES, THE. E. F. BROWN. 
 &r. 6d. net. 
 
 PHILIPPIANS, THE. Maurice Jones. BJ. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 ST. JAMES. R. J. Knowling. Second Edi- 
 tion. &s. 6d. net. 
 
 ST. MATTHEW. P. A. Micklem. 15*. ntt.
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 21 
 
 The 'Young' Series 
 
 Illustrated. Crown 8vo 
 
 YOUNG BOTANIST, THE. W. P. Westell and 
 C. S. Cooper. 6s. net. 
 
 YOUNG CARPENTER, THE. Cyril Hall. 6s. 
 
 int. 
 YOUNG ELECTRICIAN, THE. Hammond Hall. 
 
 Second Edition. 6s. tut. 
 
 YOUNG ENGINEER, THE. Hammond Hall. 
 Third Edition. 6s. net. 
 
 YOUNG NATURALIST, THE. W. P. Westell. 
 7-r. 6d. net. 
 
 YOUNG ORNITHOLOGIST, THE. W. P. Westell 
 6s. net. 
 
 Methuen's Cheap Library 
 
 Fcap. 8z>0. 2s. net 
 
 ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. G. K. Chesterton. 
 BEST OF LAMB, THE. Edited by E. V. Lucas. 
 BLUB BIRD, THE. Maurice Maeterlinck. 
 CHARLES DICKENS. G. K. Chesterton. 
 CHARMIDES, AND OTHER POEMS. Oscar 
 
 Wilde. 
 CHITRAL : The Story of a Minor Siege. Sir 
 
 G. S. Robertson. 
 CUSTOMS OF OLD ENGLAND, THE. F. J. 
 
 Snell. 
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. Oscar Wilde. 
 FAMOUS WITS, A BOOK OF. W. Jerrold. 
 FROM MIDSHIPMAN TO FIELD-MARSHAL. 
 
 Sir Evelyn Wood, F.M., V.C. 
 HARVEST HOME. E. V. Lucas. 
 HILLS AND THE SEA. Hilaire Belloc. 
 IDEAL HUSBAND, AN. Oscar Wilde. 
 IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, THE. 
 
 Oscar Wilde. 
 
 INTENTIONS. Oscar Wilde. 
 JANE AUSTEN AND HER TIMES. G. E. 
 
 MlTTON. 
 
 JOHN BOYES, KING or THE WA-KIKUYU. 
 
 John Boyes. 
 
 LADY WINDERMBRE'S FAN. Oscar Wilde. 
 LETTERS FROM A SELF-MADE MERCHANT 
 
 TO HIS Sow. George Horace Lorimer. 
 LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN, THE. W. G. Colling- 
 
 wood. 
 LIFE OF ROBERT Louis STEVENSON, THE. 
 
 Graham Balfour. 
 
 LITTLE OF EVERYTHING, A. E. V. Lucas. 
 LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME. Oscar Wilde. 
 LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE, THE. Tickner 
 
 Edwardes. 
 
 MAN AND THE UNIVERSE. Sir Oliver Lodge. 
 M AXY MAGDALENE. Maurice Maeterlinck. 
 
 MIRROR OF THE SEA, THE. J. Conrad. 
 MIXED VINTAGES. E V. Lucas. 
 MODERN PROBLEMS. Sir Oliver Lodge. 
 MY CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD. Leo Tolstoy. 
 MY YOUTH. Leo Toistoy. 
 OLD COUNTRY LIFE. S. Baring-Gould. 
 OLD TIME PARSON, THE. P. H. Ditch- 
 field. 
 
 ON EVERYTHING. Hilaire Belloc. 
 ON NOTHING. Hilaire Belloc. 
 OSCAR WILDE : A Critical Study. Arthur 
 
 Ransome. 
 
 PICKED COMPANY, A. Hilaire Belloc. 
 REASON AND BELIEF. Sir Oliver Lodge. 
 R. L. S. Francis Watt. 
 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR. Sir Ray 
 
 Lankester. 
 
 SELECTED POEMS. Oscar Wilde. 
 SELECTED PROSE. Oscar Wilde. 
 SHEPHERD s LIFE, A. W. H. Hudson. 
 SHILLING FOR MY THOUGHTS, A. G. K. 
 
 Chesterton. 
 SOCIAL EVILS AND THEIR REMEDY. Leo 
 
 Tolstoy. 
 SOME LETTERS OF R. L. STEVENSON. Selected 
 
 by Lloyd Osbourne. 
 SUBSTANCE OF FAITH, THE. Sir Oliver 
 
 Lodge. 
 
 SURVIVAL OF MAN, THE. Sir Oliver Lodge. 
 TOWER OF LONDON, THE. R. Davey. 
 Two ADMIRALS. Admiral John Moresby. 
 VAILIMA LETTERS. Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 VARIETY LANE. E. V. Lucas. 
 VICAR OF MORWENSTOW, THE. S. Barine- 
 
 Gould. 
 WOMAN OF MO IMPORTANCE, A. Oscar 
 
 Wilde.
 
 22 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 Books for Travellers 
 
 Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net each 
 Each volume contains a number of Illustrations in Colour 
 
 AVON AND SHAKESPEARE'S COUNTRY, THE. 
 A. G. Bradley. Second Edition. 
 
 BLACK FOREST, A BOOK or THE. C. E. 
 Hughes. 
 
 CITIES OP LOMBARDY, THE. Edward Hutton. 
 
 CITIES OF ROMAGNA AND THE MARCHES, 
 
 THE. Edward Hutton. 
 
 CITIES OF SPAIN, THE. Edward Hutton. 
 Fifth Edition. 
 
 CITIES OF UMBRIA, THE. Edward Hutton. 
 Fifth Edition. 
 
 FLORENCE AND NORTHERN TUSCANY, WITH 
 GENOA. Edward Hutton. Third Edition. 
 
 LAND OF PARDONS, THE (Brittany). Anatole 
 Le Braz. Fourth Edition. 
 
 LONDON REVISITED. E. V. Lucas. Third 
 Edition. &t. 6d. net. 
 
 NAPLES. Arthur H. Norway. Fourth Edi- 
 tion. &s. 6d. net. 
 
 Edward 
 
 NAPLES RIVIERA, THE. 
 Second Edition, 
 
 H. M. Vaughan. 
 
 NEW FOREST, THE. Horace G. Hutchinson. 
 Fourth Edition. 
 
 NORWAY AND ITS FJORDS. M. A. Wyllie. 
 ROME. Edward Hutton. Third Edition. 
 
 ROUND ABOUT WILTSHIRE. A. G. Bradley. 
 Third Edition. 
 
 SIENA AND SOUTHERN TUSCANY. Edward 
 Hutton. Second Edition. 
 
 SKIRTS OF THE GREAT CITY, THE. Mrs. A. 
 G. Bell. Second Edition. 
 
 VENICE AND VENETIA. Edward Hutton. 
 
 WANDERER IN FLORENCE, A. E. V. Lucas. 
 Sixth Edition. 
 
 WANDERER IN PARIS, A. 
 Thirteenth Edition. 
 
 WANDERER IN HOLLAND, A. 
 Sixteenth Edition. 
 
 WANDERER IN LONDON, A. 
 Eighteenth Edition. 
 
 WANDERER IN VENICE, A. 
 Second Edition. 
 
 E. V. Lucas. 
 E. V. Lucas. 
 E. V. Lucas. 
 E. V. Lucas. 
 
 Some Books on Art 
 
 ART, ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL. M. H. 
 
 Bulley. Illustrated. Crown &vo. js. 6d. 
 
 net. 
 BRITISH SCHOOL, THE. An Anecdotal Guide 
 
 to the British Painters and Paintings in the 
 
 National Gallery. E. V. Lucas. Illus- 
 
 trated. Fcap. Soo. 6s. net. 
 DECORATIVE IRON WORK. From the xith 
 
 to the xvnith Century. Charles ffoulkes. 
 
 Royal 4io. 2 as. net. 
 
 FRANCESCO GUARDI, 1712-1793. G. A. 
 Simonson. Illustrated. Imperial ifo. 
 i 2s. net. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOOK OF JOB. 
 William Blake. Quarto. t is. net. 
 
 ITALIAN SCULPTORS. W. G. Waters. Illus- 
 trated. Crown too. 71- 6d- et. 
 
 OLD PASTE. A. Beresford Ryley. Illustrated. 
 Royal ^to. 2 zs. net. 
 
 ONE HUNDRED MASTERPIECES OF SCULPTURE. 
 With an Introduction by G F. Hill. Illus- 
 trated. Demy ftvo. izr. 6d. net. 
 
 ROYAL ACADEMY LECTURES OK PAINTING. 
 George Clausen. Illustrated. Crown &va. 
 js. 6a. net. 
 
 SAINTS IN ART, THE. Margaret E. Tabor. 
 Illustrated. Third Edition. Fcap. &vo. 
 is. net. 
 
 SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. Mary Innes. Illus- 
 trated. Second Edition. Cr. &vo. &s. net. 
 
 CELTIC ART IN PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN TIMES. 
 J. R. Allen. Illustrated. Second Edition, 
 Demy to*. 10*. 6*. net.
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 Some Books on Italy 
 
 FLORENCE AND HER TREASURES. H. M. 
 Vaughau. Illustrated. Fcap. %vo. 6s. net. 
 
 FLORENCE AND THE CITIES OF NORTHERN 
 TUSCANY, WITH GENOA. Edward Hutton. 
 Illustrated. Third Edition. Cr. %vo. 
 Si. M. net. 
 
 LOMBARDY, THE CITIES OF. Edward Hutton. 
 Illustrated. Cr. &vo. &s. 6d. net. 
 
 MILAN UNDER THE SFORZA, A HISTORY OF. 
 Cecilia M. Ady. Illustrated. Demy 6vo. 
 13S. 6d. net. 
 
 NAPLES : Past and Present. A. H. Norway. 
 Illustrated. Fourth Edition. Cr. &vo. 
 Ss. 6d. net. 
 
 NAPLES RIVIERA, THE. H. M. Vaughan. 
 Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr. Bvo. 
 
 &s. 6,/. net. 
 
 NAPLES AND SOUTHERN ITALY. E. Hutton. 
 Illustrated. Cr. Stic. Ss. 6d. net. 
 
 PERUGIA, A HISTORY OF. William Heywood. 
 Illustrated. Demy &vo. 151. net. 
 
 ROME. Edward Hutton. Illustrated. . Third 
 Edition. Cr. Zvo. &s. 6d. net. 
 
 ROMAGNA AND THE MARCHES, THE ClTIES 
 
 OF. Edward Hutton. Cr. Bro. St. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 ROME. C. G. Ellaby. Illustrated. Small 
 Pott &vo. 4*. net. 
 
 SICILY. F. H. Jackson. Illustrated. Small 
 Pti Ivo. 4S. *** 
 
 SICILY : The New Winter Resort. Douglas 
 Sladen. Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr. 
 &vo. js. 6d. net. 
 
 SIENA AND SOUTHERN TUSCANY. Edward 
 Hutton. Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr 
 Svo. St. fid. net. 
 
 UMBRIA, THE CITIES OF. Edward Hutton. 
 Illustrated. Fifth Edition. Cr. Zvo. 
 8j. 6d. net. 
 
 VENICE AND VENETIA. Edward Hutton. 
 Illustrated. Cr. &vo. 6s. (td. net. 
 
 VENICE ON FOOT. H. A. Douglas. Illus- 
 trated. Second Edition. Fcap. &vo. 6s. net. 
 
 VENICE AND HER TREASURES. H. A. 
 Douglas. Illustrated. Fcap. Bvo. 6s. net. 
 
 VERONA, A HISTORY OF. A. M. Allen. 
 Illustrated. Demy Zvo. i&r. net. 
 
 DANTE ALIGHIERI : His Life and Works. 
 Paget Toynbee. Illustrated. Fourth Edi- 
 tion. Cr. &vo. 6s. net. 
 
 LAKES OF NORTHERN ITALY, THE. Richard 
 Bagot. Illustrated. Second Edition. Fcap. 
 Svo. 6s. net. 
 
 SAVONAROLA, GIROLAMO. E. L. S. Horsburgh. 
 Illustrated. Fourth Edition. Cr. 6va, 
 6s. net. 
 
 SKIES ITALIAN : A Little Breviary for Tra- 
 vellers in Italy. Ruth S. Phelps. Fcaf. &vo. 
 V- ntt.
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 PART III. A SELECTION OF WORKS OF FICTION 
 
 Albanesi (E. Maria). I KNOW A 
 MAIDEN. Third Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 THE GLAD HEART. Fifth Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. net. 
 
 Aumonier (Stacy), OLGA BARBEL. 
 Cr. too. it. net. 
 
 Bagot (Richard). 
 SERRAVALLE. 
 Zoo. js. net. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF 
 Third Edition. Cr. 
 
 Bailey (H. C.). THE SEA CAPTAIN. 
 Third Edition. Cr. too. js. ntt. 
 
 THE HIGHWAYMAN. Third Edition. 
 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 THE GAMESTERS. Second Edition. Cr. 
 
 too. js. net. 
 THE YOUNG LOVERS. Second Edition. 
 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Baring- Gould (8.). THE BROOM- 
 SQUIRE. Illustrated. Fifth Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. net. 
 
 Barr (Robert). IN THE MIDST OF 
 ALARMS. Third Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 THE COUNTESS TEKLA. Fifth Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE MUTABLE MANY. Third Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Begbie (Harold). THE CURIOUS AND 
 DIVERTING ADVENTURES OF SIR 
 JOHN SPARROW, BART.; OR, THB 
 PROGRESS OF AN OPEN MIND. Second 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Belloc (H.). EMMANUEL BURDEN, 
 MERCHANT. Illustrated. Second Edi- 
 tion. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Bennett (Arnold). CLAYHANGER. 
 
 Twelfth Edition. Cr. too. &s. net. 
 
 HILDA LESSWAYS. 
 Cr. tow. 71. tut. 
 
 Eighth Edition. 
 
 THESE TWAIN. Fourth Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. net. 
 
 THE CARD. Thirteenth Edition. Cr. too. 
 js. net. 
 
 THE REGENT : A FIVB TOWNS STORY OF 
 ADVENTURE IN LONDON. Fifth Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE PRICE OF LOVE. Fourth Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 BURIED ALIVE. Ninth Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. net. 
 
 A MAN FROM THE NORTH. Third 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS. 
 Second Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 WHOM GOD HATH JOINED. A New 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 A GREAT MAN : A FROLIC. Seventh 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Benson (E. F.). DODO : A DETAIL OF THE 
 DAY. Seventeenth Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 Birmingham (George A.). SPANISH 
 GOLD. Seventeenth Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 THE SEARCH PARTY. Tenth Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 LALAGE'S LOVERS. Third Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. net. 
 
 GOSSAMER. Fourth Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 THE ISLAND MYSTERY. Second Edi- 
 tion. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE BAD TIMES. Second Edition. Cr. 
 too js. net. 
 
 Bowen (Marjorie). I WILL MAINTAIN. 
 Ninth Edition. Cr. too. js.net. 
 
 DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. Seventh 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 WILLIAM, BY THE GRACE OF GOD. 
 Second Edit**. Cr. to*. Js, ntt.
 
 FICTION 
 
 GOD AND THE KING. Sixth Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 PRINCE AND HERETIC. Third Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 A KNIGHT OF SPAIN. Third Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE QUEST OF GLORY. Third Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE GOVERNOR OF ENGLAND. Third 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE CARNIVAL OF FLORENCE. Fifth 
 Edition. Cr. too. jt. net. 
 
 MR. WASHINGTON. Third Edition. Cr. 
 too. jt. net. 
 
 " BECAUSE OF THESE THINGS. . . ." 
 Third Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE THIRD ESTATE. Second Edition. 
 Cr. to*, js. net. 
 
 B urroughs (Edgar Rice). THE RETURN 
 OF TARZAN. Fcap.too. zr. net. 
 
 THE BEASTS OF TARZAN. Second 
 Edition. Cr. Zvc. 6s. net. 
 
 THE SON OF TARZAN. Cr. too. jt. net. 
 A PRINCESS OF MARS. Cr. to*, it.net. 
 
 Castlr (Agnes and Egerton). THE 
 GOLDEN BARRIER. Third Edition. 
 Cr. too. jt. net. 
 
 Conrad (Joseph). A SET OF SIX. Fourth 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 VICTORY : AN ISLAND TALE. 
 Edition. Cr. too. gs. net. 
 
 Sixth 
 
 Conyers (Dorothea). SANDY MARRIED. 
 Fifth Edition. Cr. too. ft. tut. 
 
 OLD ANDY. Fourth Edition. Cr. lev. js. 
 net. 
 
 THE BLIGHTING OF BARTRAM. Third 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 B. E. N. Cr too. js. net. 
 
 Corelll (Marie). A ROMANCE OF TWO 
 WORLDS, rhirty-fifth Edition. Cr. too. 
 js. 6d. net. 
 
 VENDETTA ; OR, THE STORY OF ONK FOR- 
 GOTTEN. Thirty-fifth Edition. Cr. 600. 
 Ss. net. 
 
 THELMA: A NORWEGIAN PRINCESS. 
 Fifty-ninth Edition. Cr. too. &s. (>d. net. 
 
 ARDATH: THE STORY OF A DEAD SELF. 
 Twenty-fourth Edition. Cr. too. js. 6d. 
 
 THE SOUL OF LILITH. Twentieth 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 WORMWOOD: A DRAMA OF PARIS. 
 Twenty-second Edition. Cr. too. 8j. net. 
 
 BARABBAS: A DREAM OF THE WORLD'S 
 TRAGEDY. Fiftieth Edition. Cr. too. is. 
 net. 
 
 THE SORROWS OF SATAN. Sixty-third 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE MASTER-CHRISTIAN. Eighteenth 
 Edition. iZ+ih Thousand. Cr. too. 
 8x. 6d. net. 
 
 TEMPORAL POWER: A STUDY IN 
 SUPREMACY. Second Edition. isoM 
 Thousand. Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 GOD'S GOOD MAN: A SIMPLE LOVE 
 STORY. Twentieth Edition. 159** Thou- 
 sand. Cr. too. BJ. d. net. 
 
 HOLY ORDERS : THE TRAGEDY OF A 
 QUIET LIFE. Third Edition. ixist 
 Thousand. Cr. too. &s. 6d. net. 
 
 THE MIGHTY ATOM. Thirty-sixth 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. 6d. net. 
 
 BOY : A SKETCH. Twentieth Edition. Cr. 
 too. 6s. net. 
 
 CAMEOS. Fifteenth Edition. Cr. too. 
 6s. net. 
 
 THE LIF E EVERLASTING. Eighth Edi- 
 tion. Cr. too. is. 6d. net. 
 
 Crockett (B. B.). LOCHINVAR. Illus- 
 trated. Fifth Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE STANDARD BEARER. Second 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Doyle (Sir A. Conan). ROUND THE RED 
 LAMP. Twe(fth Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 Dudeney (MM. H.). THIS WAY OUT. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Fry (B. and 0. B.). A MOTHER'S SON. 
 Fifth Edition Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Harraden (Beatrice). THE GUIDING 
 THREAD. Second Edition. Cr. too. 
 
 Jt. Hit. 
 
 Hicheni (Robert). THE PROPHET OF 
 BERKELEY SQUARE. Second Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 TONGUES OF CONSCIENCE. Fourth 
 Edition. Cr. Itw. jt. nut.
 
 26 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 FELIX : THKEF. YEARS IN A LIFE. Seventh 
 Edition. Cr. ?va. js. net. 
 
 THE WOMAN WITH THE FAN. Eighth 
 Edition. Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 BYEWAYS. Cr. Svo. is. net. 
 
 THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. Twenty- 
 sixth Edition. Illustrated. Cr. Svo. Ss. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 THE CALL OF THE BLOOD. Ninth 
 Edition. Cr. &vo. Ss. 6d. net. 
 
 BARBARY SHEEP. Second Edition. Cr. 
 
 Svo. 6s. net. 
 
 THE DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD. 
 Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 THE WAY OF AMBITION. Fifth Edi- 
 tion. Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 IN THE WILDERNESS. Third Edition. 
 Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 Hope (Anthony). A CHANGE OF AIR. 
 Sixth Edition. Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 A MAN OF MARK. Seventh Edition. Cr. 
 Svo. js. net. 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT AN- 
 TONIO. Sixth Edition. Cr. too. 7*. 
 net. 
 
 PHROSO. Illustrated. Ninth Edition. Cr. 
 Svo. js. net. 
 
 SIMON DALE. Illustrated. Ninth Edition. 
 Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 THE KING'S MIRROR, Fifth Edition. 
 Cr. Svo. js. net, 
 
 QUISANTE. Fourth Edition. Cr. Svo. 7*. 
 
 net. 
 
 THE DOLLY DIALOGUES. Cr. Svo. jt. 
 net. 
 
 TALES OF TWO PEOPLE. Third Edi- 
 tion. Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 A SERVANT OF THE PUBLIC. Illus- 
 trated. Fourth Edition. Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 MRS. MAXON PROTESTS. Third Edi- 
 tion. Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 A YOUNG MAN'S YEAR. Second Edition. 
 Cr. Zvo. js. net. 
 
 Hyne (C. J. Cntcliffe). MR. HORROCKS, 
 PURSER. Fifth Edition. Cr. Svo js. 
 net. 
 
 FIREMEN HOT. Fourth F.dition. Cr. 
 Svo. js. net. 
 
 CAPTAIN KETTLE ON THE WAR- 
 PATH. Third Edition. Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 RED HERRINGS. Cr. Svo. 6s.net. 
 
 Jacobs (W. W.). MANY CARGOES. 
 Thirty-third Edition. Cr. Zvo. 55. net. 
 Also Cr. &z>0. is. dd. net. 
 
 SEA URCHINS. Nineteenth Edition. Cr. 
 Svo. 55. net. 
 Also Cr. &vo, js. 6d. net. 
 
 A MASTER OF CRAFT. Illustrated. 
 Eleventh Edition. Cr. Svo. 51. net. 
 
 LIGHT FREIGHTS. Illustrated, fifteenth 
 Edition. Cr. &vo. $s. net. 
 
 THE SKIPPER'S WOOING. Twelfth 
 Edition. Cr. Svo. $s. net. 
 
 ATSUNWICHPORT. Illustrated. Eleventh 
 Edition. Cr. Zvo. 5*. net. 
 
 DIALSTONE LANE. Illustrated. Eighth 
 Edition. Cr. Svo 5*. net. 
 
 ODD CRAFT. Illustrated. Fifth Edition. 
 Cr. &DO. S.T. net. 
 
 THE LADY OF THE BARGE. Illustrated. 
 Tenth Edition, Cr. Svo. $s. net. 
 
 SALTHAVEN. Illustrated. Fourth Edition. 
 Cr. Svo. 5*. net. 
 
 SAILORS' KNOTS. Illustrated. Sixth 
 Edition. Cr. Svo. 5.?. net. 
 
 SHORT CRUISES. Third Edition. Cr 
 Sot. 5*. net. 
 
 King (Baill). THE LIFTED VEIL. Cr. 
 Svo. js. net. 
 
 Lethbridge (Sybil C.). ONE WOMAN'S 
 HERO. Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 London (Jack). WHITE FANG. Ninth 
 Edition. Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 Lowndes (Krs. Belloc). THE LODGER. 
 Third Edition. Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 Lucas (B. Y.). LISTENER'S LURE : AN 
 OBLIQUE NARRATION. Twelfth Edition. 
 Fcaf. Svo. 6s. net. 
 
 OVER BEMERTON'S: AN EASY-GOING 
 CHRONICLE. Sixteenth Edition. Fcap. 
 Svo. 6s. net. 
 
 MR. INGLESIDE. Thirteenth Edition. 
 Fcap. &vo. 6s. net. 
 
 LONDON LAVENDER. Twelfth Edition. 
 Fcap. Svo. 6s. net. 
 
 LANDMARKS. Fifth Edition. Cr. 8vo. 
 
 js. net. 
 THE VERMILION BOX. Fifth Edition. 
 
 Cr. Svo. js. net. 
 
 Lyall (Edna). DERRICK VAUGHAN, 
 NOVELIST. 44<h Thousand. Cr. 80*. 
 SS. net.
 
 FICTION 
 
 27 
 
 McKanna (Stephen). SONIA : BETWEEN 
 Two WORLDS. Sixteenth Edition. Cr. too. 
 Ss. net. 
 
 NINETY-SIX HOURS' LEAVE. Fifth 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE SIXTH SENSE. Cr. too. 6s.net. 
 
 MIDAS & SON. Cr. too. 8j. net. 
 
 Macnaughtan (8.). PETER AND JANE. 
 Fourth. Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Malet (Lucas). THE HISTORY OF SIR 
 RICHARD CALMADY: A ROMANCE. 
 Seventh Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE WAGES OF SIN. Sixteenth Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE CARISSIMA. Fifth Edition. Cr. 
 toe. js. net. 
 
 THE GATELESS BARRIER. Fifth Edi- 
 tion. Cr. too. Js. net. 
 
 Mason (A. E. W.). CLEMENTINA. 
 Illustrated. Ninth Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 Maxwell (W. B.). VIVIEN. Thirteenth 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE GUARDED FLAME. Seventh Edi- 
 tion. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 ODD LENGTHS. Second Edition. Cr. too. 
 js. net. 
 
 ILL RISE. Fourth Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 E REST CURE. Fourth Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. net. 
 
 Milne (A. A.). THE DAY'S PLAY. Sixth 
 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 ONCE A WEEK. Cr. too. js.ntt. 
 
 Morrison (Arthur). TALES OF MEAN 
 
 STREETS. Seventh Edition. Cr.too. Js. 
 
 net. 
 A CHILD OF THE JAGO. Sixth Edition. 
 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 THE HOLE IN THE WALL. Fourth 
 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 DIVERS VANITIES. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Oppenheim (E. Phillips). MASTER OF 
 
 MEN. Fifth Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 THE MISSING DELORA. Illustrated. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 THE DOUBLE LIFE OF MR. ALFRED 
 
 BURTON. Second Edition. Cr.too. js. 
 
 net. 
 A PEOPLE'S MAN. Third Edition. Cr. 
 
 too. js. net. 
 
 MR. GREX OF MONTE CARLO. Third 
 Edition. Cr. too. jt. net. 
 
 THE VANISHED MESSENGER. Second 
 Edition. Cr. Zvo. js. net. 
 
 THE HILLMAN. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Oxenham (John). A WEAVER OF 
 WEBS. Illustrated. Fifth Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. net. 
 
 PROFIT AND LOSS. Sixth Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE SONG OF HYACINTH, AND OTHER 
 STORIES. Second Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 LAURISTONS. Fourth Edition. Cr. too. 
 js. net. 
 
 THE COIL OF CARNE. Sixth Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN ROSE- 
 Fourth Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 MARY ALL-ALONE. Third Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. net. 
 
 BROKEN SHACKLES. Fourth Edition, 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 "1914." Third Edition. Cr.too. js.net. 
 
 Parker (Gilbert). PIERRE AND HIS 
 PEOPLE. Seventh Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 MRS. FALCHION. Fifth Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. net. 
 
 THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE. 
 Fourth Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD. Illus- 
 trated. Tenth Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTI AC : 
 THE STORY OF A LOST NAPOLEON. Seventh 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH: 
 THE LAST ADVENTURES OF ' PRETTY 
 PIERRE.' Fifth Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY. Illus- 
 trated. Twentieth Edition. Cr. too. js. 
 net. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG: A 
 ROMANCE OF Two KINGDOMS. Illustrated. 
 Seventh Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE POMP OF THE LAVILETTES. 
 Third Edition. Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. Fourth Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Perrln (Alice). THE CHARM. Fifth 
 Edition. Cr. toe. js. net. 
 
 Phlllpotts (Eden). CHILDREN OF THE 
 MIST. Sixth Edition. Cr. too. jt. net.
 
 28 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 THE HUMAN BOY. With a Frontispiece. 
 Seventh Edition. Cr. too. js. net, 
 
 SONS OF THE MORNING. Second Edi- 
 tion. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE RIVER. Fourth Edition. Cr.toe. js. 
 net. 
 
 THE AMERICAN PRISONER. Fourth 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 DEMETER'S DAUGHTER. Third Edi- 
 tion. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE HUMAN BOY AND THE WAR. 
 Third Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 Ridge (W. Pett). A SON OF THE 
 STATE. Third Edition. Cr. too. Js. 
 net. 
 
 THE REMINGTON SENTENCE. Third 
 Edition, Cr. 800. js. net. 
 
 MADAME PRINCE. Second Edition. Cr. 
 too. JS. net. 
 
 TOP SPEED. Second Edition. Cr. too. 
 js. net. 
 
 SPECIAL PERFORMANCES. Cr. too. 
 6s. net. 
 
 THE BUSTLING HOURS. Cr. Sew. jt. 
 
 net. 
 
 Rohraer (Sax). THE DEVIL DOCTOR. 
 Third Edition. Cr. too. -jt. net. 
 
 THE SI-FAN MYSTERIES. Second Edi- 
 tion. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 TALES OF SECRET EGYPT. Cr. too. 
 6s.net. 
 
 THE ORCHARD OF TEARS. Cr. too. 
 6s. net. 
 
 Swinnerton (F.). SHOPS AND HOUSES. 
 
 Cr. too, 71 . mt. 
 
 Wells (H. G.). BEALBY. Fifth Edition. 
 Cr. 8vo. js. net. 
 
 Williamson (C. M. and A. M.). THE 
 LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR : THE 
 STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A MOTOR CAR. 
 Illustrated. Twenty-second Edition. Cr. 
 too. js. net. 
 
 THE PRINCESS PASSES: A ROMANCE 
 OF A MOTOR. Illustrated. Ninth Edition. 
 Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER. 
 Nineteenth Edition. Cr. too. ji. net. 
 
 SCARLET RUNNER. Illustrated. Fourth 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 LORD LOVELAND DISCOVERS 
 AMERICA. Illustrated. Second Edition. 
 Cr. too. Js. net. 
 
 THE GOLDEN SILENCE. Illustrated. 
 Eighth Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE GUESTS OF HERCULES. Illus- 
 trated. Fourth Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 IT HAPPENED IN EGYPT. Illustrated. 
 Seventh Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 A SOLDIER OF THE LEGION. Second 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE SHOP GIRL. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTRESS. 
 Third Edition. Cr. too. 75. net. 
 
 SECRET HISTORY. Cr. too. js. net. 
 
 THE LOVE PIRATE. Illustrated. Third 
 Edition. Cr. too. js. net. 
 Also Cr. too. 3*. 6d. net. 
 
 CRUCIFIX CORNER, Cr. too. 6s. net. 
 
 WtlHOB (Homer). MARTIN SCHULER, 
 Cr. 8s*. ji. net. 
 
 GETTING WELL OF DOROTHY, THE. 
 
 \V. K. Clifford. 6s. net. 
 
 CTRL or THE PEOPLE, A. L. T. Meade. 
 HONOUR ABI.K Miss, THB. L. T. Meade. 
 
 Books for Boys and Girls 
 
 Illustrated. Crown &vo. 5*. net. 
 Mrs. 
 
 , MASTER ROCKAFKLLAR'S VOVAUE. W. Clai!: 
 Russell. 
 
 RED GRANGE, THE. Mrs. A' -lesworth. 
 
 THERE WAS ONCE A PKINCE. Mr?. M- K, 
 I Mann.
 
 FICTION 
 
 29 
 
 Methuen's Cheap Novels 
 
 Fcap. Svo. 2s. net. 
 
 ABANDONED. W. Clark Russell. 
 ADVENTURES OF DR. WHITTV, THE. George 
 A. Birmingham. 
 
 ANGLO-INDIANS, THE. Alice Perrin. 
 ANNA OF THB FIVE TOWNS. Arnold Bennett. 
 ANTHONY CUTHBERT. Richard Bagot. 
 BABES IN THE WOOD. B. M. Croker. 
 BAD TIMES, THE. George A. Birmingham. 
 BARBARY SHEEP. Robert Hichens. 
 BECAUSE OF THESE THINGS. . . . Marjorie 
 
 Bowen. 
 
 BELOVED ENEMY, THE. E. Maria Albanesi. 
 BELOW STAIRS. Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick. 
 
 BOTOK CHAPERON, THE. C. N. and A. M. 
 Williamson. 
 
 BOY. Marie CorellL 
 
 BRANDED PRINCE, THE. Weatherby Chesney. 
 
 BROKEN SHACKLES. John Oxenham. 
 
 BROOM SQUIRE, THE. S. Baring-Gould. 
 
 BURIED ALIVE. Arnold Bennett. 
 
 BYEWAYS. Robert Hichens. 
 
 CALL OF THE BLOOD, THE. Robert Hichens. 
 
 CAMEOS. Marie Corelli. 
 
 CARP, THE. Arnold Bennett. 
 
 CARISSIMA, THE. Lucas Malet. 
 
 CEASE FK. J. M. Cobban. 
 
 CHANCE. Joseph Conrad. 
 
 CHANGE IN THE CABINET, A Hilaire Belloc. 
 
 CHINK IN THE ARMOUK, THE. Mrs. Belloc 
 Lowndes. 
 
 CHRONICLES OF A GERMAN TOWN. The 
 Author of " Mercia in Germany." 
 
 COIL OF CARNK, THE. John Oxenham. 
 
 CONVERT, THE. Elizabeth Robins. 
 
 COUNSEL OF PERFECTION, A. Lucas Malet. 
 
 CROOKED WAY, THE. William Le Queux. 
 
 DAN RUSSEL THE Fox. E. CE. Somerville 
 and Martin Ross. 
 
 DARNELBY PLACE. Richard Bagot. 
 
 DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES. E. W. Hor- 
 nung. 
 
 Df METER'S DAUGHTER. Eden Phillpotts. 
 
 DEMON, THE. C N. and A. M. Williamson. 
 
 DESERT TRAIL, THE. Dane Coolidge. 
 DEVIL DOCTOR, THE. Sax Rohmer. 
 DOUBLE LIFE OF MR. ALFRED BURTON, 
 
 THE. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 DUKE'S MOTTO, THE. J. II. McCarthy. 
 EMMANUEL BURDEN. Hilaire Belloc. 
 END OF HER HONEYMOON, THE. Mrs. 
 
 Belloc Lowndes. 
 
 FAMILY, THE. Elinor Mordaunt. 
 FIRE IN STUBBLE. Baroness Orczy. 
 FIREMEN HOT. C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE. 
 FLOWER OF THE DUSK. Myrtle Reed. 
 GATE OF THE DESERT, THE. John Oxenham. 
 GATES OF WRATH, THE. Arnold Bennett. 
 GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER, THE. H. C. 
 
 Bailey. 
 
 GOLDEN CENTIPEDE, THE. Louise Gerard. 
 GOLDEN SILENCE, THE. C. N. and A. M. 
 
 Williamson. 
 
 GOSSAMER. George A. Birmingham. 
 GOVERNOR OF ENGLAND, THE. Marjorie 
 
 Bowen. 
 
 GREAT LADY, A. Adeline Sergeant. 
 GREAT MAN, A. Arnold Bennett. 
 GUARDED FLAME, THE. W. B. Maxwell 
 GUIDING THREAD, THE. Beatrice Harraden. 
 HALO, THE. Baroness von Hctten. 
 HAPPY HUNTING GROUND, THE. Alice 
 
 Perrin. 
 
 HAPPY VALLEY, THE. B. M. Croker. 
 HEART OF HIS HEART. E. Maria Albanesi. 
 HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD, THE. 
 
 Charles G. D. Roberts. 
 HEATHER MOON, THE. C. N. and A. M. 
 
 Williamson. 
 
 HERITAGE OF PERIL, A. A. W. Marchmont. 
 HIGHWAYMAN, The. H. C. Bailey. 
 HILLMAN, THE. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 HILL RISE. W. B. Maxwell. 
 
 HOUSE OK SERRAVALLB, THE. Richard 
 Bagot. 
 
 HYENA OF KALLU, THE. Louise Gerard. 
 ISLAND PRINCESS, His W. Clark Russell.
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 Methuen's Cheap Hoveli continued. 
 
 JANE. Marie Corelli. 
 JOHANNA. B. M. Croker. 
 JOSEPH. Frank Dan by. 
 
 JOSHUA DAVIDSON, COMMUNIST. E. Lynn 
 
 Linton. 
 
 Joss, THE. Richard Marsh. 
 KINSMAN, THE. Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick. 
 KNIGHT OF SPAIN, A. Marjorie Bowen. 
 
 LADY BETTY ACROSS THB WATER. C. N. 
 and A. M. Williamson. 
 
 LALAGE'S LOVERS. George A. Birmingham. 
 
 LANTERN BEARERS, THE. Mrs. Alfred Sidg- 
 wick. 
 
 LAURISTONS. John Oxenham. 
 LAVENDER AND OLD LACE. Myrtle Reed. 
 LIGHT FREIGHTS. W. W. Jacobs. 
 LODGER, THE. Mrs. Belloc Lowndes. 
 LONG ROAD, THE, John Oxenhun. 
 LOVE AND LOUISA. E. Maria Albanesi. 
 
 LOVE PIRATE, THE. C. N. and A. M. 
 Williamson. 
 
 MARY ALL-ALONE. John Oxenham. 
 MASTER OF THE VINEYARD. Myrtle Reed. 
 MASTER'S VIOLIN, THE. Myrtle Reed. 
 MAX CARRADOS. Ernest Bramah. 
 MAYOR OF TROY, THE. "Q." 
 MESS DECK, THE. W. F. Shannon. 
 MIGHTY ATOM, THE. Marie Corelli. 
 MIRAGE. E. Temple Thurston. 
 
 MISSING DELORA, THE. E. Phillips Oppen- 
 
 heim. 
 MR. GREX OF MONTE CARLO. E. Phillips 
 
 Oppenheim. 
 
 MR. WASHINGTON. Marjorie Bowen. 
 MRS. MAXON PROTESTS. Anthony Hope. 
 MRS. PETER HOWARD. Mary E. Mann. 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. W. Clark 
 
 Russell. 
 
 MY FRIEND THE CHAUFFEUR. C. N. and 
 A. M. Williamson. 
 
 MY HUSBAND AND I. Leo Tolstoy. 
 
 MY LADY OF SHADOWS. John Oxenham. 
 
 MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU, THE. Sax 
 Rohmer. 
 
 MYSTERY OF THE GREEN HEART, THE. 
 Max Peinberton. 
 
 NIKK DAYS' WONDBK, A, B. M. Croker. 
 
 NINE TO SIX-THIKTY. W. Peti Ridge. 
 OCEAN SLEUTH, THE. Maurice Drake. 
 OLD ROSE AND SILVER. Myrtle Reed. 
 PATHS or THE PRUDENT, THE. J. S. Fletcher. 
 PATHWAY or THE PIONEER, THE. Dolf 
 
 Wyliarde. 
 
 PEGGY OF THE BARTONS. B. M. Croker. 
 PEOPLE'S MAN, A. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 PETER AND JANE. S. Macnaughtan. 
 POMP OF THE LAVILETTES, THE. Sir Gilbert 
 
 Parker. 
 
 QUEST OF GLORY, THE. Marjorie Bowen. 
 QUEST OF THE GOLDEN ROSE, THE. John 
 
 Oxenham. 
 
 REGENT, THE. Arnold Bennett. 
 REMINGTON SENTENCE, THB. W. Pen 
 
 Ridge. 
 
 REST CURB, THE. W. B. Maxwell. 
 RETURN OF TARZAN, THE. Edgar Rice 
 
 Burroughs. 
 
 ROUND THE RED LAMP. Sir A. Conan Doyle. 
 ROYAL GEORGIB. S. Baring-Gould. 
 
 SA!D, THE FISHERMAN. Marmaduke Pick- 
 thall. 
 
 SALLY. Dorothea Conyers. 
 
 SALVING OF A DERELICT, THE. Maurice 
 Drake. 
 
 SANDY MARRIED. Dorothea Conyers. 
 SBA CAPTAIN, THE. H. C. Bailey. 
 SEA LADY, THE. H. G. Wells. 
 SEARCH PAKTY, THE. George A. Birmingham. 
 SECRET AGENT, THE. Joseph Conrad. 
 SECRET HISTORY. C. N. and A. M. William- 
 son. 
 SECRET WOMAN, THE. Eden Phillpotts. 
 
 SET IN SILVER. C N. and A. M. William- 
 son. 
 
 SEVASTOPOL, AND OTHER STORIES. Leo 
 
 Tolstoy. 
 
 SEVERINS, THE. Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick. 
 SHORT CRUISES. W. W. Jacobs. 
 SI-FAN MYSTERIES, THE. Sax Rohmer. 
 SPANISH GOLD. George A. Birmingham. 
 SPINNER IN THE SUN, A. Myrtle Reed. 
 STREET CALLED STRAIGHT, THE. Basil 
 
 King. 
 
 SUPREME CRIME, THE. Dorothea Gerard. 
 TALES OF MEAN STREETS. Arthur Morrison. 
 
 TARZAN OF THB APES. Edgar Rice Bur- 
 roughs.
 
 FICTION 
 
 -B Cbaap MOY! continued. 
 
 TERESA OK WATLING STREET. Arnold 
 
 Bennett. 
 
 THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN. Dolf Wyllarde. 
 TYRANT, THE. Mrs. Henry de la Pasture. 
 UNDER WESTERN EVES. Joseph Conrad. 
 UNOFFICIAL HONEYMOON, THE. Dolf 
 
 Wyllarde. 
 VALLEY OF THE SHADOW, THE. William 
 
 Le Queux. 
 
 VIRGINIA PERFECT. Peggy Webling. 
 WALLET OF KAI LUNG. Ernest Bramah. 
 WAR WEDDING, THE. C. N. and A. M. 
 
 Williamson. 
 
 WARE CASE, THE. George Pleydell. 
 WAY HOME, THE. Basil King. 
 
 WAY or THESE WOMEN, THE. E. Phillips 
 
 Oppenheim. 
 
 WEAVER OF DREAMS, A. Myrtle Reed. 
 WEAVER OF WEBS, A. John Oxenham. 
 WEDDING DAY, THE. C. N. and A. M. 
 
 Williamson. 
 
 WHITE FANG. Jack London. 
 WILD OLIVE, THE. Basil King. 
 
 WILLIAM, BY THE GRACE OF GOD. Marjorie 
 
 Bo wen. 
 WOMAN WITH THE FAN, THE. Robert 
 
 Hichens. 
 
 WOj. Maurice Drake. 
 WONDER OF LOVE, THE. E. Maria Albanesi. 
 YELLOW CLAW, THE. Sax Rohmer. 
 YELLOW DIAMOND, THE. Adeline Sergeant. 
 
 Methuen's One and Threepenny Novels 
 
 Fcap. Svo. is. $d. net 
 
 BARBARA RESELL. Mrs. Belloc Lowndes. 
 BY STROKE OF SWORD. Andrew Balfour. 
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST. Edna 
 Lyall. 
 
 HOUSE OF WHISPERS, THE. William Le 
 Queux. 
 
 INCA'S TREASURE, THE E. Glanville. 
 
 KATHERINB THE ARROGANT. Mrs. B. M. 
 Croker. 
 
 MOTHER'S SON, A. B. and C. B. Fry. 
 PROFIT AND Loss. John Oxenham. 
 RED DERELICT, THB. Bertram Mitford. 
 SIGN OF THE SPIDER, THE. Bertram Mitford. 
 
 27/6/19. 
 
 PRINTED UY 
 
 ISON AND GTI!B LIMITED, EDINBURGH
 
 METHUEN'S POPULAR NOVELS 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. each 
 AUTUMN 1916 
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS The Human Boy and the War 
 
 C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNB Captain Kettle on the War Path 
 
 AUGUST 
 
 RICHARD MARSH The Adventures of Judith Lee 
 
 LUCY NICHOLSON The Temperament of Thomaslna 
 
 JENNETTE LEE Aunt Jane 
 
 KATHARINE PULLERTON QEROULD .... The Great Tradition 
 
 BASIL KINO The Side of the Angels 
 
 SEPTEMBER 
 
 LADY TROU BRIDGE Mrs. Vernon's Daughter 
 
 Mrs. A. SIDGWICK Salt and Savour 
 
 ST. JOHN LUCAS April Folly 
 
 B. V. LUCAS The Vermilion Box 
 
 H. C. BAILEY The Gamesters 
 
 C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON . . . . The Lightning Conductress 
 
 W. PETT RIDOE Madame Prince 
 
 JOHN OXENHAM "1914" 
 
 BEATRICE HARRADEN The Guiding Thread 
 
 STACY AUMONIER Olga Bardel 
 
 MARGARET WESTRUP The Moulding Loft 
 
 OCTOBER 
 
 MARJORIE BOWEN William, by the Grace of God 
 
 H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON The Affair on the Island 
 
 Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net 
 
 C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON . ... This Woman to this Man 
 C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON The War Wedding 
 
 THE HUMAN BOY AND THE WAR. By Eden Phillpotts. 
 
 No writer can draw a British schoolboy with such an unerring hand as Mr. Phill- 
 potts, and the great success of his previous works of this kind testifies to this effect. 
 
 CAPTAIN KETTLE ON THE WAR-PATH. By C. J. 
 
 Cutcliffe Hyne, Author of 'Firemen Hot.' 
 
 Every one will be glad to know that Mr. Cutcliffe Hyne, who, with wise pre- 
 vision, has always retained that popular hero Captain Kettle in the pink of condition 
 in his periods of retirement, has plunged him into a series of new adventures 
 associated with the great struggle. These make a thrilling and amusing book. 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF JUDITH LEE. By Richard Marsh. 
 
 With such a gift it is no wonder that the results are astonishing. ' The present 
 volume contains the second series of her exploits. 
 
 [P.T.O.
 
 THE TEMPERAMENT OF THOMASINA. By Lucy Nicholson. 
 
 In this story the question of heredity versus education and upbringing is lightly touched 
 upon. The main thread of the story is the evolution of Thomasma, so named in the 
 hope that she might turn out an eminently practical person. 
 
 AUNT JANE. By Jennette Lee. 
 
 Aunt Jane is a woman of the guardian-angel type, the mainspring of a big hospital and 
 a terrible disciplinarian. But underneath her sense of duty she has a romantic heart which 
 leads her not only to help the love affairs of others but at last to succumb herself. 
 
 THE GREAT TRADITION. By Katharine Fuller-ton Qerould. 
 
 A collection of short stories. The analysis of character and temperament in this book 
 is fearless and searching. The modern woman has never come under a more powerful len*. 
 
 THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS. By Basil King, Author of 'The 
 Wild Olive.' 
 
 This new novel by the author of Tin Inner Shi int is again a study of a man and woman 
 in, or nearly in, love, but divided by incomplete understanding of each other. In the 
 present case the man is handicapped by an uncompromising leaning towards rectitude 
 (hence the title) which limits his sympathy. But all ends happily. 
 
 MRS. VERNON'S DAUGHTER. By Lady Troubridge, Author 
 of 'The Evil Day.' 
 
 In this novel Lady Troubridge works out a real life problem, out of which develops a 
 most poignant situation, when Damaris Vernon, who has worshipped her mother as the best, 
 the wisest, and most successful of her sex, discovers that her idol is neither a great artist 
 nor a woman who can be received in ordinary society ; that, in fact, she is a lady with a 
 particularly lurid past. 
 
 SALT AND SAVOUR. By Mrs. A. Sidgwick, Author of 'The 
 Severins.' 
 
 This is the story of the English wife of a German officer, who goes with him to Berlin, 
 where she finds herself, a year before the war, in an alien and hostile atmosphere. She is 
 very unhappy until a turn of fate brings her back to her own country. Airs. Sidg-wick's 
 peculiar knowledge of Germany and the Germans gives the book a special value. 
 
 APRIL FOLLY. By St. John Lucas, Author of 'The First Round.' 
 
 The story of the adolescence of an impressionable, romantic, and Quixotic musician, and 
 the emotional calamities that fall to htm. Readers of the same author's novel The Pint 
 Round will find old friends in the present volume, which is also of London Bohemia. 
 
 THE VERMILION BOX. By E. V. Lucas, Author of 'Over 
 Bemerton's.' 
 
 In this story Mr. Lucas returns to the manner of Listener's Lure, and develops plot 
 and character in a series of letters which were written after the declaration of war in 1914. 
 Incidentally they illustrate social England during the great struggle. 
 
 THE GAMESTERS. By H. C. Bailey, Author of ' The Sea Captain.' 
 
 An exciting and fantastic story of the Prussia of Frederick the Great, and the strange 
 adventures therein of a romantic brother and sister. 
 
 THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTRESS. By C. N. and A.M. William- 
 son, Authors of 'The Lightning Conductor.' 
 
 In this sparkling story the authors are again true to their old and trusted source of 
 inspiration, the car. And as before, the car is also the theatre of romance.
 
 MADAME PRINCE. By W. Pett Ridge, Author of 'Nine to Six- 
 Thirty.' 
 
 Madame Prince is a widowed milliner with three daughters and one son. The story 
 follows their fortunes with much humour and human sweetness. 
 
 " 1914. " By John Oxenham, Author of ' Broken Shackles.' 
 
 " 1914 " is the record of two families caught unexpectedly, like the rest of the world, hy 
 the sudden outbreak of the war. It shows the effect on the various members, making some 
 and breaking some, and is a true account of such happenings as took place in thousands of 
 English homes in those first dark days, and of the general bracing up to the necessities of 
 the times. 
 
 THE QUIDINO THREAD. By Beatrice Harraden, Author of 
 'Ships that Pass in the Night.' 
 
 The central idea of Miss Harraden's new book is the breaking away of a young wife 
 from the intellectual bondage imposed on her by her historian husband. She is evidently 
 intended by the author to be symbolic of the modern young upsprin.ging woman of the 
 finest type, with new virtues, new faults, new needs, new fearlessness, the natural product 
 of the age, and not the result of inculcated principles. 
 
 OLQA BARDEL. By Stacy Aumonier. 
 
 This deeply human, sympathetic book is the story of a musician's life and love, and it 
 carries her from her cramped and stifled childhood to the heights of success and beyond 
 them the woman always being remembered with the artist and the artist with the woman. 
 
 THE MOULDING LOFT. By Margaret Westrup (Mrs. W. 
 Sydney Stacey), Author of 'Tide Marks.' 
 
 A charming story of love and mystery. The scene is laid mainly in a Cornish village by 
 the sea. 
 
 WILLIAM, BY THE GRACE OF QOD. By Marjorie Bo wen, 
 Author of ' I Will Maintain.' 
 
 This romance carries the same writer's Prince and Heretic to a later stage. Tt deals 
 with the fortunes of William of Orange from their lowest, depth to the establishment of the 
 Dutch Republic, and the struggle between Spain and her rebel Provinces till the final 
 freedom of the latter. 
 
 THE AFFAIR ON THE ISLAND. By H. B. Marriott Watson, 
 
 Author of ' As It Chanced.' 
 
 A romance of adventure circling about an island on the greatest river in the world. The 
 central figure is a filibuster who, rising against the Government, involves certain British 
 interests on the island, and the fate of a pleasure yacht and its passengers, among whom is 
 a beautiful girl. 
 
 THIS WOMAN TO THIS MAN. By C. N. and A. M. William- 
 son. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 An ever-changing and exciting romance of modern life which, starting in the restaurant 
 of a great London hotel, takes the reader breathlessly about the world. As a serial in a 
 London evening paper this story, by two such practised hands, created a great sensation. 
 
 THE WAR WEDDING. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson. 
 
 Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. net.
 
 METHUEN'S GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 THE KINO'S HIGH WAS. By John Oxenham. Small pott 
 8vo, is. net. Also in leather yapp, 25. 6d. net. 
 
 BEES IN AMBER. By John Oxenham. With 8 Illustrations in 
 colour by MARY BREDALL. Fcap. 8vo, 35. 6d. net. 
 
 ALL'S WELL. By John Oxenham. With 8 Illustrations in colour 
 by MARY BREDALL. Fcap. 8vo, 35. 6d. net. 
 
 POEMS. By Hope Fairfax Taylor. Crown 8vo, 55. net. 
 
 IN LONELY WALKS. By Llewellyn Bullock. Fcap. 8vo, 
 35. 6d. net. 
 
 APPLES OF GOLD. By Octavia Gregory, Author of " Dreams of 
 Arcady." Crown 8vo, as. 6d. net. 
 
 A NAVAL MOTLEY: Verses written at Sea during the War 
 and before it. By Lieut. N. M. F. Corbett, R.N. Fcap. 8vo, 
 
 is. net. 
 
 THE WRACK OF THE STORM. By Maurice Maeterlinck. 
 
 Crown 8vo, 55. net. 
 
 CLOUD AND SILVER. A New Volume of Essays. By E. V. 
 Lucas. Fcap. 8vo, 55. net. 
 
 THE WAY OF PEACE. By Augusta Kirby. Fcap. 8vo, 35. 6d. net. 
 GLIMPSES. By Charlotte Pearson. Fcap. 8vo, 55. net. 
 
 CHASING THE BLUE BIRD. By Mary Innes. Fcap. 8vo, 
 35. 6d. net. 
 
 THE MEMOIRS OF ADMIRAL LORD BERESFORD. With 22 
 Illustrations. Demy 8vo, IDS. 6d. net, 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE FATHERLAND. By Anne Topham, 
 
 Author of "Memories of the Kaiser's Court." With 12 Illustrations. 
 Demy 8vo, los. 6d. net. 
 
 A FARMER IN SERBIA. By Miss E. Chivers Davies. With a 
 Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6s. net. 
 
 A NEW BOOK. By Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S. Demy 8vo, 75. 6d. net. 
 
 SECRETS OF EARTH AND SEA. By Sir Ray Lankester, 
 K.C.B., F.R.S. With many Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6s. net. 
 
 CROWLEY'S HYGIENE OF SCHOOL LIFE. By C. W. Hutt, 
 M.A., M.D.(Cantab), D.P.H.(Oxon.). With Diagrams and Illus- 
 trations. Second and Revised Edition. Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net. 
 
 THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND RE-UNION. By Arthur 
 
 Chandler, M.A., Lord Bishop of Bloemfontein, Author of " Ara Coeli." 
 Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net. 
 
 RUFINI COMMENTARIUS IN SYMBOLUM APOSTOLORUM. 
 Edited by E. F. Morison, B.D.(Oxon.), Incumbent of Rosslyn 
 
 Chapel, Author of "St. Basil and His Rule." Crown 8vo, as. 6d. net. 
 Also a Translation of the above. Crown 8vo, is. 6d. net. 
 
 LONDON REVISITED. By E. V. Lucas. With 16 Illustrations in 
 colour by HORACE MANN LIVENS, and 16 in monotone. Crown 8vo, 6s. net. 
 
 ENGLAND. IN SHAKESPEARE'S TIME. By P. H. Ditchfield 
 M.A., F.S.A., F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S., Author of "The Parish 
 Clerk." With 12 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6s. net. 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND. By Joseph E. Morris. With 32 Illustra- 
 tions, Maps, and Plans. Small pott 8vo, gilt top, 25. 6d. net. Little Guides.
 
 A 000 981 804 8