it would bring universal decay-when it is seen that the mischiefs entailed by disregard of these truths, though they may be slow, are certain; there comes a conviction that social policy must be conformed to them, and that to ignore them is madness.

Did not experience prepare one to find everywhere a degree of irrationality remarkable in beings who distinguish themselves as rational, one might have assumed that, before devising modes of dealing with citizens in their corporate relations, special attention would be given to the natures of these citizens individually considered, and by implication to the natures of living things at large. Put a carpenter into a blacksmith's shop, and set him to forge, to weld, to harden, to anneal, etc., and he will not need the blacksmith's jeers to show him how foolish is the attempt to make and mend tools before he has learnt the properties of iron. Let the carpenter challenge the blacksmith, who knows little about wood in general and nothing about particular kinds of wood, to do his work, and unless the blacksmith declines to make himself a laughing-stock, he is pretty certain to saw askew, to choke up his plane, and presently to break his tools or cut his fingers. But while everyone sees the folly of supposing that wood or iron can be shaped and fitted, without an apprenticeship during which their ways of behaving are made familiar; no one sees any folly in undertaking to devise institutions, and to shape human nature in this way or that way, without a preliminary study of Man, and of Life in general as explaining Man's life. For simple functions we insist on elaborate special preparations extending through years; while for the most complex function, to be adequately discharged not even by the wisest, we require no preparation!

How absurd are the prevailing conceptions about these matters, we shall see still more clearly on turning to consider that more special discipline which should precede the study of Sociology; namely, the study of Mental Science.

CHAPTER XV.

PREPARATION IN PSYCHOLOGY.

PROBABLY astonishment would make the reporters drop their pencils, were any member of Parliament to enunciate a psychological principle as justifying his opposition to a proposed measure. That some law of association of ideas, or some trait in emotional development, should be deliberately set forth as a sufficient ground for saying “aye or "no" to a motion for second reading, would doubtless be too much for the gravity of legislators. And along with laughter from many there would come from a few cries of "question:" the entire irrelevancy to the matter in hand being conspicuous. It is true that during debates the possible behaviour of citizens under the suggested arrangements is described. Evasions of this or that provision, difficulties in carrying it out, probabilities of resistance, connivance, corruption, &c., are urged; and these tacitly assert that the mind of man has certain characters, and under the conditions, named is likely to act in certain ways. In other words, there is an implied recognition of the truth that the effects of a law will depend on the manner in which human intelligence and human feeling are influenced by it. Experiences of men's conduct which the legislator has gathered, and which lie partially sorted in his memory, furnish him with empirical notions that guide his judgment on each question raised; and he would think it folly to ignore all this unsystematized knowledge about people's characters and actions. But at the same time he regards as foolish

the proposal to proceed, not on vaguely-generalized facts, but on facts accurately generalized; and, as still more foolish, the proposal to merge these minor definite generalizations in generalizations expressing the ultimate laws of Mind. Guidance by

intuition seems to him much more rational.

Of course, I do not mean to say that his intuition is of small value. How should I say this, remembering the immense accumulation of experiences by which his thoughts have been moulded into harmony with things? We all know that when the successful man of business is urged by wife and daughters to get into Parliament, that they may attain a higher social standing, he always replies that his occupations through life have left him no leisure to prepare himself, by collecting and digesting the voluminous evidence respecting the effects of institutions and policies, and that he fears he might do mischief. If the heir to some large estate, or scion of a noble house powerful in the locality, receives a deputation asking him to stand for the county, we constantly read that he pleads inadequate knowledge as a reason for declining: perhaps hinting that after ten years spent in the needful studies, he may have courage to undertake the heavy responsibilities proposed to him. So, too, we have the familiar fact that when, at length, men who have gathered vast stores of political information, gain the confidence of voters who know how carefully they have thus fitted themselves, it still perpetually happens that after election they find they have entered on their work prematurely. It is true that beforehand they had sought anxiously through the records of the past, that they might avoid legislative errors of multitudinous kinds, like those committed in early times. Nevertheless when Acts are proposed referring to matters dealt with in past generations by Acts long since cancelled or obsolete, immense inquiries open before them. Even limiting themselves to the 1126 Acts repealed in 1823-9, and the further 770 repealed in 1861, they find that to learn what these aimed at, how they worked, why they failed, and whence arose the mischiefs they wrought, is an arduous task, which yet

they feel bound to undertake lest they should re-inflict these mischiefs; and hence the reason why so many break down under the effort, and retire with health destroyed. Nay, more- -on those with constitutions vigorous enough to carry them through such inquiries, there continually presses the duty of making yet further inquiries. Besides tracing the results of abandoned laws in other societies, there is at home, year by year, more futile law-making to be investigated and lessons to be drawn from it; as, for example, from the 134 Public Acts passed in 1856-7, of which all but 68 are wholly or partially repealed.' And thus it happens that, as every autumn shows us, even the strongest men, finding their lives during the recess over-taxed with the needful study, are obliged so to locate themselves that by an occasional day's hard riding after the hounds, or a long walk over the moors with gun in hand, they may be enabled to bear the excessive strain on their nervous systems. Of course, therefore, I am not so unreasonable as to deny that judgments, even empirical, which are guided by such carefully-amassed experiences must be of much worth.

But fully recognizing the vast amount of information which the legislator has laboriously gathered from the accounts of institutions and laws, past and present, here and elsewhere; and admitting that before thus instructing himself he would no more think of enforcing a new law than would a medical student think of plunging an operating-knife into the human body before learning where the arteries ran; the remarkable anomaly here demanding our attention is, that he objects to anything like analysis of these phenomena he has so diligently collected, and has no faith in conclusions drawn from the ensemble of them. Not discriminating very correctly between the word "general" and the word "abstract," and regarding as abstract principles what are in nearly all cases general principles, he speaks contemptuously of these as belonging to the region of theory, and as not concerning the law-maker. Any wide truth that is insisted upon as being implied in many narrow truths, seems to him remote from reality and unimportant for guidance. The

the proposal to proceed, not on vaguely-generalized facts, but on facts accurately generalized; and, as still more foolish, the proposal to merge these minor definite generalizations in generalizations expressing the ultimate laws of Mind. Guidance by intuition seems to him much more rational.

Of course, I do not mean to say that his intuition is of small value. How should I say this, remembering the immense accumulation of experiences by which his thoughts have been moulded into harmony with things? We all know that when the successful man of business is urged by wife and daughters to get into Parliament, that they may attain a higher social standing, he always replies that his occupations through life have left him no leisure to prepare himself, by collecting and digesting the voluminous evidence respecting the effects of institutions and policies, and that he fears he might do mischief. If the heir to some large estate, or scion of a noble house powerful in the locality, receives a deputation asking him to stand for the county, we constantly read that he pleads inadequate knowledge as a reason for declining: perhaps hinting that after ten years spent in the needful studies, he may have courage to undertake the heavy responsibilities proposed to him. So, too, we have the familiar fact that when, at length, men who have gathered vast stores of political information, gain the confidence of voters who know how carefully they have thus fitted themselves, it still perpetually happens that after election they find they have entered on their work prematurely. It is true that beforehand they had sought anxiously through the records of the past, that they might avoid legislative errors of multitudinous kinds, like those committed in early times. Nevertheless when Acts are proposed referring to matters dealt with in past generations by Acts long since cancelled or obsolete, immense inquiries open before them. Even limiting themselves to the 1126 Acts repealed in 1823-9, and the further 770 repealed in 1861, they find that to learn what these aimed at, how they worked, why they failed, and whence arose the mischiefs they wrought, is an arduous task, which yet