THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
284
tory, like Livy's, nor with a biographical history like Carlyle's; he will look
in human history for those general lines of development, those causal
sequences, those illuminating correlations, which transform the wilderness
of facts into the chart of science. What biography is to anthropology, his-
tory is to sociology. 52 Of course there are a thousand obstacles that the
overcome before it can deserve the name of
study of society must yet
science. 53 The young study is harassed by a multitude of prejudices
personal, educational, theological, economic, political, national, religious;
and by the * 6
ready omniscience of the uninformed. There is a story of a
Frenchman who, having been three weeks here, proposed to write a book
on England; who, after three months, found that he was not quite ready;
and who, after three years, concluded that he knew 5*
nothing about it."
Such a man was ripe to begin the study of sociology. Men prepare them-
selves with life-long study before becoming authorities in physics or
chemistry or biology; but in the field of social and political affairs every
grocer's boy is an expert, knows the solution, and demands to be heard.
Spencer's own preparation, in this case, was a model of intellectual
conscience. He employed three secretaries to gather data for him, and
to classify the data in parallel columns giving the domestic, ecclesiastical,
professional, political, and industrial institutions of every significant
people. At his own expense he published these collections in eight large
volumes, so that other students might verify or modify his conclusions;
and the publication being unfinished at his death, he left part of his little
savings to complete the undertaking. After seven years of such preparation,
the first volume of the Sociology appeared in 1876; not until 1896
was the last one ready. When everything else of Spencer's has become
a task for the antiquarian, these three volumes will still be rich in reward
for every student of society.
Nevertheless, the initial conception of the work is typical of Spencer's
habit of rushing into generalizations. Society, he believes, is an organism,
having organs of nutrition, circulation, coordination and reproduction, 55
very much as in the case of individuals. It is true that in the individual,
consciousness is localized, while in society each of the parts retains its
own consciousness and its own will; but the centralization of government
and authority tends to reduce the scope of this distinction. "A social
organism is like an individual organism in these essential traits: that it
grows; that while growing it becomes more complex; that while becoming
more complex, its parts acquire increasing mutual dependence; that
**Tke Study of Sociology, New York, 1910; p. 52.
**Tke Principles of Ethics, New York, 1910; i, 464. If Spencer's critics had read
ibis passage they would not have accused him of over-rating sociology.
"Study, 9.
B Cf. budding with colonization, and sexual reproduction with the inter-marriage
of races.