have wished to treat of in connection with those here embraced. The field, however, is all but unlimited, and the publication would be open to the same charge of incompleteness though there were added a third or a half more to its contents. Yet imperfect and incomplete as these Essays are, perhaps thoughtful persons will find in them as much of a suggestive nature as may lead them to acquit the writer of impertinence in presenting them to the public in this collected form. ABERDEEN, December 1, 1863. MODERN CIVILIZATION. I. INTRODUCTORY. WERE a competent observer called on to point out that branch of human inquiry which had, within the last few years, risen most rapidly in importance, he would, undoubtedly, name that which is somewhat loosely designated "Social Science." From being nowhere-or only dawning on the view of two or three closet theorists and dreamers-it has come, within a period so brief as to be full in the recollection of comparatively young men, to engage the earnest attention of many of the most highly endowed and gifted minds of the age; whilst the study is stimulated, authenticated, and invested with public eclat, by a great associative organisation, which, in its peripatetic annual session already divides public interest with the British Association for the Advancement of Physical Science itself. This sudden development of a great branch of inquiry is remarkable. In itself very remarkable, but still more so in the main cause to which it is due. The inquiry has not been a matter of choice-of taste, or of voluntary application-with the far greater number of those who have engaged in it. The investigation had become inevitable. It has been forced upon us. Curious and strange though it be, it is nevertheless true that, while it is the last to which he is drawn. How distasteful self-inquiry is to the most is well-known; and men have been scarcely less reluctant to investigate the laws and conditions of social action than the springs of their own individual actions. But social questions could not be longer put by. The new elements and forces introduced into society by the progress of physical knowledge, discovery, and invention, induced a development of social diseases and evils which were coming rapidly to an alarming head. Drunkenness, pauperism, crime,-dense and growing masses of ignorance and heathenism in our large towns, immorality and returning barbarism in the country-required to be vigorously assailed. To deal with social evils had become matter of life-and-death importance to society. And how deal with them effectively, without tracing them to their sources? The treatment, otherwise, must be purely empirical; and, whilst inducing temporary alleviation, might only aggravate the cause. The practical exigency became thus the parent of the speculative investigation. The cause is obvious; it lies in the sudden practical pressure of startling social phenomena. The course, however, which the investigation has taken, or is taking, is due, in great measure, to the type of inquiry popular and prevalent at the time. Physical studies, and the investigation of physical phenomena, have now for a long period most largely engaged the attention of scientific inquirers. The domain of physical nature is not only more accessible than that of mind and moral activity, but the results are much more definite, direct, and tangible. The success with which physical inquiries have been prosecuted in recent times, and the conspicuous results which have accrued from them-the command over the forces of nature which they have given us, and the scope and range they have afforded the inventive power-have made them specially popular. Those vast realisations-in the form both of scientific truth and practical power-have served to exalt physical and discredit moral science. Hence, as one cause, the tendency, so manifest, to pursue science on the physical rather than on the moral side. But the study of social phenomena is a mixed study. From the compound nature of man it is of necessity so, as well as from his contact, as a social being, and at so many points, with the physical world. But here the physicist, engaging in such inquiries, is peculiarly liable to mistake-specially open to the danger of adopting a hasty style of generalization. Because science has achieved so much in the region of physical nature-because it has so vastly extended the range of human power-he is apt to jump to the conclusion that it can accomplish everything. It is forgotten that society is moved by moral forces, or it is assumed that these can be subjected to the same criteria-and ordinated under the same organon--which we have applied with so much success to physical phenomena. Hence such titles as Social Statics," ," "Science of Society," and "Social Science" itself. In these and like current phrases, it is assumed that social questions may be dealt with as physical questions are dealt with,-tacitly, therefore, that they do not embrace any essentially different or irreducible element. This is one danger to the integrity and comprehensiveness of modern social inquiries; the danger from the physical side-viz., that moral causes should be discredited or ignored. Many of our theologians, preachers, and moralists err on the other side-by treating man as if he were purely a spiritual being, and expecting by this exclusive treatment to cure our social maladies and evils. Neither the one course nor the other can be successful, and because either displaces or altogether leaves out half the data. A "Science of Society," or more, properly, Social |