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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . > is ^ ttii 8 &&assB « 3 gggg ¦ & « SJBS £ W » # SS * K fSHT * It is impossible to ackhoNyledge the mass ° * { e * t r * . r ®™ ceive . Their insertion is often delayed , owing to * . press of matter ; and when omitted . it « frequently from reasons quite independent of the merits of the commumcaw " cannot undertake to return rejected communications .
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? , WHAT IS SOCIAL . SCIENCE ? The many days' talk at Liverpool ended as it began in fulsome panegyric . Noble Lords and Hon . Gentlemen seemed to compensate themselves for a simulated hostility in Parliament by an equally simulated friendship in the If all devoted to social science . We should be unjust to the public if we said that one single gleam of light broke from the many orations there on this universally important subiect . One or two useful statistical papers were
read , but statistics are no more social science than a catalogue of the stars is astronomy . The orators only usurped its name to shed a lustre over their own trivial or worthless pursuits , and covered it with a confused mass of every-day polities . We , however , cannot allow the opportunity of the public attention , being called to the subject to pass away without attempting to draw from it some- more instruction than the members of the Social Science Association gave , or were able to give , the public .
Some persons deny the existence of social science , and in reply to them a contemporary said , " There is no doubt a science actual or possible underlying all questions of social economy , " Our fail li is much more vivid than that of the Saturday Review Not only does , the science exist , it has been largely cultivated , and has done as good service to the art of government as ever astronomy did for the art of navigation . Our contemporary admits that the truths established by Adam Smith and others
informed the exertions of the Anti-Coru-law League , which ended in the abolition of the corn laws . Adam Smith ' s principles , too , in opposition to Adam Smith ' s teaching , led other students of the science to reflect on the navigation laws , to observe their effects , and to procure the abolition of them . Our contemporary practically does implicit hpmage to social science , while theoretically he expresses , in opposition to others , merely a faint belief in its possible existence .
Supplying , however , an example of what another contemporary ( Die Economist ) professedly regards as the master vice of our popular literature , and , he might have added , of our statesmanship , " hasty judgment on g ^ rcat questions , " the Saturday Review represents social science as like a struggle for existence , while * the physical soionces " march like a conqueror to take possession of new realms . " Tlio comparison is very inappropriate , it is an example of hasty judgment once passed and assumed as a point of departure for future argument ; and wo shall show , in opposition to it , that social scicnoe has already conquered vast realms , and is
continuphilosophers , but the bulk of mankind , have learned that revolutions began in violence are fatal to freedom . Despotism cannot be put down by despotism taking the name and assuming the colours of freedom . Men may hate it all the more on this account , despise it all the more , discountenance all the more everything that bears a resemblance to it —relying with confidence that , like Protection and Intolerance , it will in due time hang itself , —but by violence it cannot be extinguished . The results of the attempts to mend society by this means since 1780 have indelibly impressed a great truth on mankind . ...
Has not the establishment of a republican government in the United States taught us another equally important lesson ? It was iramed by the wisest men of the time . It has theoretically received the approbation of most of the succeeding wise men of the United States and of Europe . The present result of that government , however , is continual political turmoil , and vast political corruption , scarcely to be surpassed by the corruption m Russia , or the corruption that goes forth from our own Treasury without the turmoil . The constitution and government of the States , then , are no longer respected , if we may not with truth say
they have fallen into general contempt both abroad and at home . But the people of the States have prospered amazingly notwithstanding , and have advanced so rapidly in knowledge , skill , and the practice of many useful arts , as to teach even us many valuable lessons , while they have actually shamed other Europeans into adopting many of their improvements . No human being can attribute this to habitual log-rolling in Congress , or habitual barter of office for political support . Accordingly , no reflecting man now in this country would risk his head and aim at exciting a popular insurrection , like the estimable but mistaken members of the
Constitutional Society in 1793 , in order to ' establish . in England a republic like that of the United" States ' The short-comings , the extravagance , the vices of our own government are readily recognised , but we should gain nothing by adopting that of the United States . Corruption and extravagance , then , are not peculiar to aii } r form of government ; they are the properties of all modern governments , as conquest and brutal . coercion were the properties of ancient governments . Removed from the ordinary and mutual influence of man over man , which is the basis of all justice , they only endure by violence or
corruption . We have now therefore learned that constitutions are of far less importance than the spirit in which they arc worked . When men rely on them , they are beguiled into apathy . Only by incessant vigilance can freedom be preserved , and the despotism or corruption proper to government be effectually resisted . For the shrine of liberty to be safe , it must be watchfully guarded by living men . Dead angels will not suffice ; and we have no worse enemies than those who would lull political vigilance to sleep , and instruct us to trust implicitly to them and to constitutions .
end going—departing more and more from conservatism , till conservatism itself has become a hurried flight to innovation . The emancipation of the Catholics , Parliamentary Reform , the abolition of numerous laws to protect class interests , went step after step in wriggling progress , spite of the conservatism which all statesmen adopt and adore , towards unrestricted freedom . Old prejudices yet make the people believe , in opposition to Goldsmith ' s well-known lines , that legislation can cure all evils , and they demand , continual legislation . Statesmen know better , but they have a strong interest in fostering these prejudices , and , backed by ignorant to loolisn
public writers , they continually yield petitions , which tend to preserve or enlarge then power . They are already working under a responsibility they are unable to bear ; but , gluttons of power , they grasp after more . In one important particular all the cases now mentioned are very different from the discoveries of physical truths . These are generally ascertained by the exertions of individuals directed to one object ; and the fortunate man who binds them into one general deduction imprints on it his name and ob » tains the honour of having made a great discovery . But the social truths are arrived at by the
observations and exertions of a far greater number of persons than engage in physical discoveries . ; and the politician who is obliged to give effect to them , though he be praised by ignorant partisans , only hands down to posterity his own disgrace by giving his name to the concession . When the late Sir Robert Peel gave way to the pressure for commercial reform and the abolition of the Corn Laws , he branded his previous life , much devoted to opposing such measures , as completley misemployed . While every discovery in physical science confers honour on the discoverer , the unfortunate politician who lends his name to any social progress only stigmatises his art and himself .
To theorise- - these-Tacts and demonstrate that the march of social science is as irresistible and certain as the march of the physical sciences * we must remind the reader of the admitted fact that" the chief impulse to action is appetite or passion . The pre servation of the species and the progress of society are not entrusted to reason or-knqwiedge which is limited to the past , but to more vulgar and active motives . Humanity has not to wait for statesmanship . Actions are all followed by consequences , as certain and invariable , as closely connected , in the relation of cause and effect , as events in the physical world . All these consequences , too , are good or
evil , and they impress themselves on the senses . We must notice them , though we may not learn them all at once . The knowledge of them as they affect society , systematically arranged , is social science . This science must be learnt , and we need not inform those who are conversant with the doctrines of political economy that a very great progress has been made in it in modem times . Nowhere is a writer now to be found who doubts that the productive power of labour is increased by knowledge of the material world and by division of labour , or doubts that both these latter are increased by intercommunication ; or doubts ,
In like manner , threat victories have been gamed at home over political ignorance . The inefficiency of the Parliamentary rotorm of 1832 and the present design to give us a further reform , the wasteful and even wanton extravagance of the ministries subsequent'to that period , their disgusting selfishness , tlio terrible distressed" 1 S 39-1 S 4 .. 1 , and the great comparative- prosperity , since the work of abolishing restrictions began , havo convinced all politicians that measures very difl'crent from making new constitutions arc necessary to socuro the ' welfare of the pcoiilo and the safety of society . The nation latterly lias made a very great progress , but nobody
therefore , that exchange or trade is as necessary to the welfare of society as division of labour and increase of knowledge . Not only are the social sciences making certain progress commensurate with the physical sciences , the knowledge of them , from their very nature , is sure to be diftused . Social science necessarily advances , too , as the population of the earth multiplies . There are more observers and more persons in communication . Tlio consequences of actions become more and more is multitudes
regular ; there . no caprice m —as wo learn from averages and statistics—as in individuals . All the impulses , all the passions , all the appetites assume more the character of general laws as people becoino numerous , giving more and more to all actions the characteristics of certainty and necessity , such as wo acknowledge in tho material world and in tho physical sciences . Wo have gained then as many victories in the sooial scioncos as have been achieved over the outer world , and may hope for as many more
attributes this to the Parliament . On tlio contrary , its proceedings , like thos 6 of Congress , havo been very generall y condemned . Though , we all see the advantages of having tho Government controlled by the popular sentiments—bringing it under the same kind of mutual inuueuco which is tho basis of all justice betwixt individuals—no ones expeots , sinco wo havo boon taught by the o&umplo of America , Hint legislation will necessarily becomo wise because it is made by t ho whole people . To us this seems a great acquisition in social science , us certain to bo preserved and to guide conduct as any discovery of Mr . Faraday or Professor Owen .
Social reformers who have any knowledge of sooial science—not tho politioal talkers at Liverpool , who wittingly or unwittingly oonfuso the subject tlio / talk ubout—and not tlio ignorant indomitable polltical quaoks , who fancy that they havd olily to suggest a restriction , and improvement follows , and therefore arc always suggesting restriction ^ — sooml reformers do not suppose tmt ovi can bo got r d of They know that evil , like good , 13 inherent in
Since 1 S 28 , when tho strong administration of the Duke of Wellington , was obliged to abolish tho Tost Acts , the inarch of government has boon a continual wriggle between a determination to stop and a compulsion to go" on , like that of n half-diunkon man in tho hands of tho poMco , but always hi tho
ally conquering new ones . The first French Revolution was an attempt to get rid of bad government or despotism by violonco , and it endod in the establishment of violcnoo . Evory successive revolution in Franco and on the Continent , and every attempt at revolution by the same means with a view to tho same end , has led to similar results . Honco a great sooial truth has been taught mankind , and become as sure a guide to future action as any , physical truth whatever . They cannot get rid of bad government b y violonco . The violonco that overthrows it is itself bad govomment or despotism , There may bo a change of names and poisons j tho thing is unaltered . Not merely a low
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SATURDAY , OCTOBER 23 , 1858 .
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.. - — There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —Dr . Arnold .
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No . 448 , n ™™ . * M . 1868 . 1 THE REAPER . 1129
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 23, 1858, page 1129, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2265/page/17/
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