To the previous discussion of this subject[2] the first portion of this
present title, "Civics as Concrete Sociology," would have been more
suitable than the second, (that of "Civics as Applied Sociology")
actually used. For its aim was essentially to plead for the concrete
survey and study of cities, their observation and interpretation on
lines essentially similar to those of the natural sciences. Since
Comte's demonstration of the necessity of the preliminary sciences to
social studies, and Spencer's development of this, still more since the
evolution theory has become generally recognised, no one disputes the
applicability of biology to [Page: 58] sociology. Many are, indeed,
vigorously applying the conceptions of life in evolution, in
geographical distribution and environment, in health and disease, to the
interpretations of the problems of the times; while with the
contemporary rise of eugenics to the first plane of interest, both
social and scientific, these lines of thought, bio-social and
bio-geographic, must needs be increasingly utilised and developed.
[2] "Sociological Papers," Vol 1., pp. 103-118.
But Comte and Spencer, with most other biologically-minded sociologists
have been more at home among biological generalisations and theories
than among the facts they arise from, and hence it is ever needful to
maintain and extend a first-hand contact with these. I seek, therefore,
to press home the idea that just as the biologist must earn his
generalisations through direct and first-hand acquaintance with nature,
so now must the sociologist work for his generalisations through a
period of kindred observation and analysis, both geographic and
historical; his "general laws" thus appearing anew as the abstract of
regional facts, after due comparison of these as between region and
region.
May not much of the comparative sterility of post-Comtean (or at any
rate post-Spencerian) sociology, which is so commonly reproached to us,
and to which the difficult formation and slow growth of sociological
societies and schools is largely due, be thus explained? Is it not the
case that many able and persuasive writers, not only knowing the
results, but logically using the generalisations of Comte or Spencer, as
of old of Smith or now-a-days of List in the economic field, are yet
comparatively sterile of fresh contributions to thought, and still more
to action? In fact, must we not apply to much of the literature of
recent sociology, just as to traditional economics, the criticism of
Comte's well-known law of three states, and inquire if such writers,
while apparently upon the plane of generalised science, are not really
in large measure at least arrested upon Comte's "metaphysical stage,"
Mill's "abstractional" one?
Conversely, the revival of sociological interest in this country at
present is obviously very largely derived from fresh and freshening work
like that of Mr Francis Galton and of the Right Hon. Charles Booth
especially. For here in Mr. Galton's biometrics and eugenics is a return
to nature, a keen scrutiny of human beings, which is really an orderly
fruition of that of the same author's "Art of Travel." Similarly, Mr.
Booth's "Survey of London" is as truly a return to nature as was
Darwin's Voyage, or his yet more far-reaching studies in his garden and
farmyard at home. [Page: 59] Is it not the main support of the subtle
theorisings and far-stretched polemic of Prof. Weismann that he can
plague his adversaries with the small but literal and concrete mice and
hydroids and water fleas with which his theories began? And is it not
for a certain lack of such concrete matter of observation that the vast
systematisations of M. de Greef, or M. de Roberty, or the original and
ingenious readings of Prof. Simon Patten leave us too often unconvinced,
even if not sometimes without sufficiently definite understanding of
their meaning? The simplest of naturalists must feel that Comte or
Spencer, despite the frequently able use of the generalisations of
biology, themselves somewhat lacked the first-hand observation of the
city and community around them, and suffered thereby; this part of their
work obviously not being on a level with the historic interpretations of
the one or the psychological productivity of the other. And if, without
warlike intent, I may yet strike a conspicuous shield or two within
these friendly lists, is it not this one element of concrete observation
and illustration which is sometimes lacking to give its full effect to
the encyclopædic learning and the sympathetic insight of one of our
recent papers, to the historic and poetic interpretations of another, or
to the masterly logic of a third?
Before the polemics of our educationists, the voluminous argumentation
and casuistic subtlety of our professors of economics and ethics, yet
more before the profound speculations of the epistemologists, the mere
naturalist observer can but feel abashed like the truant before his
schoolmasters; yet he is also not without a certain deep inward
conviction, born of experience, that his outdoor world is yet more real,
more vast, and more instructive than is theirs. And this impression
becomes strengthened, nay verified and established, when he sees that
the initiative thinkers from whom these claim to descend, have had in
each and every case no merely academic record, but also a first-hand
experience, an impulse and message from life and nature. Hence the
contributions of Locke, of Comenius, and of Rousseau. Hence the
Physiocrats found economics in peasant life; and thus too Adam Smith
renewed their science, with due academic logic, doubtless, but from his
experience of Glasgow and Kirkcaldy manufactures and trade. Even the
idealist Berkeley owed much of his theory to his iridescent tar-water;
while surely the greater ethicists are those who have not only been
dialecticians, but moral forces in the world of men.
In such ways, then, I would justify the thesis that civics is no
abstract study, but fundamentally a matter of concrete and descriptive
sociology--perhaps the greatest field of this. Next, that such orderly
study is in line with the preliminary sciences, and with the general
doctrine of evolution from simple to complex; and finally with the
general inquiry into the influence of geographical conditions on social
development. [Page: 60] In short, the student of civics must be first of
all an observer of cities; and, if so, of their origins and
developments, from the small and simple beginnings of which the tiniest
hamlet is but an arrested germ. The productive sociologist should thus
be of all investigators a wandering student _par excellence_; in the
first place, as far as possible, a literal tourist and traveller--and
this although like the homely Gilbert White or the world voyaging
Darwin, he may do his best work around his own home.