feeling that men of their order have public duties to perform, and that the absolutely-idle among them are blameworthy. Clearly, then, we have grounds for inferring that, along with the progress to a regulative organization higher than the present, there will be a change of the kind indicated in the conception of honour. It will become a matter of wonder that there should ever have existed those who thought it admirable to enjoy without working, at the expense of others who worked without enjoying.

But the temporarily-adapted mental state of the ruling and employing classes, keeps out, more or less effectually, thoughts and feelings of these kinds. Habituated from childhood to the forms of subordination at present existing regarding these as parts of a natural and permanent order-finding satisfaction in supremacy, and conveniences in the possession of authority; the regulators of all kinds remain unconscious that this system, made necessary as it is by the defects of existing human nature, brings round penalties on themselves as well as on those subordinate to them, and that its pervading theory of life is as mistaken as it is ignoble.

Enough has been said to show that from the class-bias arise further obstacles to right thinking in Sociology. As a part of some general division of his community, and again as a part of some special sub-division, the citizen acquires adapted feelings and ideas which inevitably influence his conclusions about public affairs. They affect alike his conceptions of the past, his interpretations of the present, his anticipations of the future.

Members of the regulated classes, kept in relations more or less antagonistic with the classes regulating them, are thereby hindered from seeing the need for, and the benefits of, this organization which seems the cause of their grievances; they are at the same time hindered from seeing the need for, and the benefits of, those harsher forms of industrial regulation that existed during past times; and they are also hindered

from seeing that the improved industrial organizations of the future, can come only through improvements in their own natures. On the other hand, members of the regulating classes, while partially blinded to the facts that the defects of the working-classes are the defects of natures like their own placed under different conditions, and that the existing system is defensible, not for its convenience to themselves, but as being the best now practicable for the community at large; are also partially blinded to the vices of past social arrangements, and to the badness of those who in past social systems used class-power less mercifully than it is used now; while they have difficulty in seeing that the present social order, like past social orders, is but transitory, and that the regulating classes of the future may have, with diminished power, increased happiness.

Unfortunately for the Social Science, the class-bias, like the bias of patriotism, is, in a degree, needful for social preservation. It is like in this, too, that escape from its influence is often only effected by an effort that carries belief to an opposite extreme-changing approval into a disapproval that is entire instead of partial. Hence in the one case, as in the other, we must infer that the resulting obstacle to well-balanced conclusions, can become less only as social evolution becomes greater.

CHAPTER XI.

THE POLITICAL BIAS.

EVERY day brings events that show the politician what the events of the next day are likely to be, while they serve also as materials for the student of Social Science. Scarcely a journal can be read, that does not supply a fact which, beyond the proximate implication seized by the party-tactician, has an ultimate implication of value to the sociologist. Thus à propos of political bias, I am, while writing, furnished by an Irish paper with an extreme instance. Speaking of the late Ministerial

defeat, the Nation says:—

"Mr. Gladstone and his administration are hurled from power, and the iniquitous attempt to sow broadcast the seed of irreligion and infidelity in Ireland has recoiled with the impact of a thunderbolt upon its authors. The men who so long beguiled the ear of Ireland with specious promises, who mocked us with sham reforms and insulted us with barren concessions, who traded on the grievances of this country only to aggravate them, and who, with smooth professions on their lips, trampled out the last traces of liberty in the land, are to-day a beaten and outcast party."

Which exhibition of feeling we may either consider specially, as showing how the "Nationalists" are likely to behave in the immediate future; or may consider more generally, as giving us a trait of Irish nature tending to justify Mr. Froude's harsh verdict on Irish conduct in the past; or may consider most generally, after the manner here appropriate, as a striking

example of the distortions which the political bias works in men's judgments.

When we remember that all are thus affected more or less, in estimating antagonists, their acts, and their views, we are reminded what an immense obstacle political partizanship is in the way of Social Science. I do not mean simply that, as all know, it often determines opinions about pending questions; as shown by cases in which a measure reprobated by Conservatives when brought forward by Liberals, is approved when brought forward by their own party. I refer to the far wider effect it has on men's interpretations of the past and of the future; and therefore on their sociological conceptions in general. The political sympathies and antipathies fostered by the conflicts of parties, respectively upholding this or that kind of institution, become sympathies and antipathies drawn out towards allied institutions of other nations, extinct or surviving. These sympathies and antipathies inevitably cause tendencies to accept or reject favourable or unfavourable evidence respecting such institutions. The well-known contrast between the pictures which the Tory Mitford and the Radical Grote have given of the Athenian democracy, serves as an instance to which many parallels may be found. In proof of the perverting effects of the political bias, I cannot do better than quote some sentences from Mr. Froude's lecture on "The Scientific Method applied to History."

"Thucydides wrote to expose the vices of democracy; Tacitus, the historian of the Cæsars, to exhibit the hatefulness of Imperialism.” 1

"Read Macaulay on the condition of the English poor before the last century or two, and you wonder how they lived at all. Read Cobbett, and I may even say Hallam, and you wonder how they endure the contrast between their past prosperity and their present misery.” 2

"An Irish Catholic prelate once told me that to his certain knowledge two millions of men, women, and children had died in the great famine of 1846. I asked him if he was not including those who had emigrated. He repeated that over and above the emigration two millions had actually died; and added, 'we might assert that every one of

these deaths lay at the door of the English Government.' I mentioned this to a distinguished lawyer in Dublin, a Protestant. His grey eyes lighted up. He replied: 'Did he say two millions now-did he? Why there were not a thousand died-there were not five hundred.' The true number, so far as can be gathered from a comparison of the census of 1841 with the census of 1851, from the emigration returns, which were carefully made, and from an allowance for the natural rate of increase, was about two hundred thousand." 3

Further insistance on this point is needless. That the verdicts which will be given by different party-journals upon each ministerial act may be predicted, and that the opposite opinions uttered by speakers and applauded by meetings concerning the same measure, may be foreseen if the political bias is known; are facts from which anyone may infer that the party politician must have his feelings greatly moderated before he can interpret, with even approximate truth, the events of the past, and draw correct inferences respecting the future.

Here, instead of dilating on this truth, I will call attention to kindred truths that are less conspicuous. Beyond those kinds of political bias indicated by the names of political parties, there are certain kinds of political bias transcending party-limits. Already in the chapter on "Subjective Difficulties-Emotional," I have commented on the feeling which originates them-the feeling drawn out towards the governing agency. In addition to what was there said respecting the general effects of this feeling on sociological inquiry, something must be said about its special effects. And first, let us contemplate a common fallacy in men's opinions about human affairs, which pervades the several fallacies fostered by the political bias.

Results are proportionate to appliances-see here the tacit assumption underlying many errors in the conduct of life, private and public. In private life everyone discovers the untruth of this assumption, and yet continues to act as though he had not discovered its untruth. Reconsider a moment, under this fresh aspect, a familiar experience lately dwelt upon.