"CURE the world by science!" said an irate old gentleman to us this year in Dublin. "Don't talk to me of your Social Science! Make people read their Bibles, and teach their children, and keep their houses clean, and attend to their business instead of the alehouse; but don't talk balderdash about social science! Science indeed! social science! pshaw!"

Yain would it have been, no doubt, to try to persuade that excellent practical philanthropist that, like M. Jourdain, who had been " talking prose all his life without ever suspecting it," so he had been similarly studying Social Science; and that it even takes no small share of the same to teach people all the good things he desired. Equally hopeless would it be to argue with one who should question whether the evils of pauperism, crime, and vice were more likely to be cured by chance and isolated efforts, than by the intelligent method. and co-operation of persons devoted to the task, and studying, as a science, the solemn problems of human misery, and its possible relief. The late meeting in Dublin of the Association for the Promotion of Social Science may be counted so definitely a success, as to establish the right of such congresses to be ranked among the more prominent institutions of our times. We think ourselves accordingly fully justified in inviting our readers to a careful con

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sideration of the various aspects of such meetings, and their probable bearings on our present condition and future prospects.

At the first blush it is obvious that there are in them many points of unquestionable hopefulness and promise. We cannot promise to discuss the subject from the empyrean heights of wholly uninterested criticism. We feel, on the contrary, somewhat puzzled to conceive the mental state of the man who can do so; who witnesses without one glow of human sympathy so many persons assembled from every part of the kingdom, and even from distant countries, with the one recognised object of contributing what may lie in their power towards the common cause of

peace on earth, and good-will to man." Only in our age could such a purpose serve to collect such an assembly. War, indeed, has its councils, even among Caffres and Mohawks. The impenetrable mysteries of scholastic theology have called a thousand synods to determine the most recondite secrets of our great Maker's nature. Physical science, art, and literature have had their academies and institutions beyond numbering, in modern Europe. But it was reserved for the later half of our century to find even a name for that pursuit which directly tries to make mankind more good and happy, and fulfil as best they may, the second great

commandment in the Law. The mistakes, the failures, the displays of human folly and weakness (if such there should appear) at a congress like this, would make a lover of his kind rather inclined to grieve than to laugh, to lament any defect in a noble work rather than to glory over the weakness displayed by the workers.

On the other hand, there are some pertinent questions to be asked, and, perhaps, doubts to be entertained, respecting the existing mode of conducting these assemblies. We confess that on the face of it the idea is rather alarming of a large association of ladies and gentlemen, enjoying rights of membership on the qualification of a small subscription, and meeting together annually to read wholly independent and disjointed lucubrations, which, unless quite inadmissible in their character, the courteous secretary will hardly be willing to reject. That section of the community whose office in the social machine is that of the drag, and who unfortunately perform their functions whenever it is going up hill no less than down-these good persons have not failed to fasten themselves tightly on this new wheel of progress.

"In every otherscience," they remark, "some period "of apprenticeship is admitted to be 66 necessary. But Social Science would "appear to be a Minerva, springing "fully armed out of the head of Jupiter. "People are surely made 'sociologists' "the moment they have taught a "child, or sent a thief to jail, or given "tea to an old woman. Nay, they "need not have practically done so “much as this. They may have evolved

some gigantic scheme for the benefit "of the universe merely, like the cele"brated 'idea' of the camel, 'out of the

minutes) and to know that nobody can

"indeed, applaud, but the laws of "Social Science utterly forbid all sibila"tion." In other words, it is manifestly absurd to expect that any good can come of meetings so constituted.

We will endeavour, if possible, to obtain a correct idea of what Social Science itself purposes to be, what are its legitimate objects and necessary limitations. Then we shall briefly describe the past history and present condition. of the Association for the promotion of this science; and, lastly, offer such replies as may seem just to the more prominent objections brought against it from various quarters.

The debate, whether Morals properly form a deductive or an inductive science, has occupied some of the greatest minds of the world. Do we obtain the laws of social and personal duty from certain principles implanted by our Creator in our natures; or must we seek for them among the experienced results of actions upon the happiness or misery of ourselves and mankind? Are we to deduce from the intuitive axiomatic principles of "Love thy neighbour," and "Be perfect," the remoter propositions which are to determine our special obligations, or are we to induce from the largest attainable basis of experience the generalizations which we may then erect into canons of morality? On the one side (that of ethics being independent of the happiness test) we have a grand array of noble names-Plato and Zeno, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Antoninus, Chrysostom, St. Bernard, Abelard, Cudworth, Jeremy Taylor, Shaftesbury, Clarke, Balguy, Hutcheson, South, Law, Fichte, and the two greatest moralists of any ageBishop Butler and Immanuel Kant. And on the other side (that of ethics being the result of experience) we have another array, yet hardly of such names as on the former roll-Epicurus, Aristippus, Democritus, Machiavelli, Pomponatius, Gassendi, Sharrock, Cumberland, Locke, Grotius, Puffendorf, Paley, Bentham, and the one living great champion, John Stuart Mill. Again, on the one hand, different theories have

nature, and limits of the Intuitive or Innate ideas, or Moral Sense of right and wrong. On the other hand, the nature of the Happiness test, and the persons who are to enjoy the same, are most variously stated. It may be either the Evovuía, the intrinsic happiness of the mens conscia recti, to be found in virtue itself, which we are (according to Democritus, Cumberland, and More) to note and follow; or it may be the dovǹ, the mere "pleasure," of Aristippus; or the evapovía, the general "felicity," present or future, of Epicurus or Paley. And, again, we may apply ourselves to the discovery of what will give us, individually, such Pleasure or Happiness here or hereafter; or we may merge our own interests in that of the mass of mankind, and inquire only what will produce "the Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number." This last doctrine (so different from the selfish system of Paley, and illustrated with such power by Bentham and Mill) stands at this moment as the sole surviving representation of the inductive school of morals. Its lesson is even ostentatiously lucid"Obtain from statistics the largest pos"sible basis of facts, the most extensive "accumulation of results of actions on "the happiness of the community, and "then induce therefrom the laws which, "when so obtained, must be accounted "to possess the sanctity of moral obligations."

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We have been thus explicit in stating the great ethical problem, because we believe that a misapprehension exists as to the relation of social science to this controversy. It is supposed that all researches into the conditions of public welfare necessarily imply that we consider the results so obtained as ultimate principles of morals, beyond which there is no higher sanction of duty. Thus those to whom the names of Plato, Butler, and Kant, convey an impression not to be shared by Democritus, Paley, and Bentham, are unjustly prejudiced against a science which, in truth, involves no such concession. "What other view, then, can we hold ?" Why, simply this

The nature of all exact science is to teach us abstract universal principles. It cannot possibly descend below these to practical applications. By geometry I learn that a triangle is equal to half a rectangle under the same base and altitude, but no geometry can teach me whether one of my fields be a triangle with equal base and altitude with the adjoining rectangle. To know this I must see and measure them, and then geometry will tell me that the one contains half as many acres as the other. Likewise in morals, Intuition teaches me the axiom that I must love my neighbour, and reflection will deduce the proposition that I must relieve the wants of the poor to the best of my ability. But no deductive science of morals can teach me what are the wants of John Styles, nor whether he will be best relieved by alms or by employment. Where deductive science stops the inductive one must meet it, and, by a process which modern logicians have named traduction, we pass from one order of reasoning to another, and complete a science of ethics practically applicable to every detail of life.

But because induction has this great work to do, because the field which experience is to measure is of vast extent, because we need it to show us how to obey the moral law in our hearts, not therefore must it be mistaken for that law itself. Because it has taught us how to confer happiness on our neighbour, it must not set up happiness as the sole end of morality; because it has advised our benevolence what is expedient, it must not make benevolence a matter of expediency. Let the experimentalist, by all means, teach us how to educate the masses, but let him not ask the utility of enlarging the capacity for virtue in rational souls. Let him teach us how to emancipate the slave, but let him not to dare to question whether restoring to one sixth of a community the rights of manhood will, on the whole, conduce to "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."

We believe the utilitarian system to be philosophically untenable and morally

nature, and limits of the Intuitive or Innate ideas, or Moral Sense of right and wrong. On the other hand, the nature of the Happiness test, and the persons who are to enjoy the same, are most variously stated. It may be either the εὐθυμία, the intrinsic happiness of the mens conscia recti, to be found in virtue itself, which we are (according to Democritus, Cumberland, and More) to note and follow; or it may be the dovỳ, the mere "pleasure," of Aristippus; or the evapovía, the general "felicity," present or future, of Epicurus or Paley. And, again, we may apply ourselves to the discovery of what will give us, individually, such Pleasure or Happiness here or hereafter; or we may merge our own interests in that of the mass of mankind, and inquire only what will produce "the Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number." This last doctrine (so different from the selfish system of Paley, and illustrated with such power by Bentham and Mill) stands at this moment as the sole surviving representation of the inductive school of morals. Its lesson is even ostentatiously lucid"Obtain from statistics the largest pos"sible basis of facts, the most extensive "accumulation of results of actions on "the happiness of the community, and "then induce therefrom the laws which, "when so obtained, must be accounted "to possess the sanctity of moral ob"ligations."

We have been thus explicit in stating the great ethical problem, because we believe that a misapprehension exists as to the relation of social science to this controversy. It is supposed that all researches into the conditions of public welfare necessarily imply that we consider the results so obtained as ultimate principles of morals, beyond which there is no higher sanction of duty. Thus those to whom the names of Plato, Butler, and Kant, convey an impression not to be shared by Democritus, Paley, and Bentham, are unjustly prejudiced against a science which, in truth, involves no such concession. "What other view, then, can we hold ?" Why, simply this

The nature of all exact science is to teach us abstract universal principles. It cannot possibly descend below these to practical applications. By geometry I learn that a triangle is equal to half a rectangle under the same base and altitude, but no geometry can teach me whether one of my fields be a triangle with equal base and altitude with the adjoining rectangle. To know this I must see and measure them, and then geometry will tell me that the one contains half as many acres as the other. Likewise in morals, Intuition teaches me the axiom that I must love my neighbour, and reflection will deduce. the proposition that I must relieve the wants of the poor to the best of my ability. But no deductive science of morals can teach me what are the wants of John Styles, nor whether he will be best relieved by alms or by employment. Where deductive science stops the inductive one must meet it, and, by a process which modern logicians have named traduction, we pass from one order of reasoning to another, and complete a science of ethics practically applicable to every detail of life.

But because induction has this great work to do, because the field which experience is to measure is of vast extent, because we need it to show us how to obey the moral law in our hearts, not therefore must it be mistaken for that law itself. Because it has taught us how to confer happiness on our neighbour, it must not set up happiness as the sole end of morality; because it has advised our benevolence what is expedient, it must not make benevolence a matter of expediency. Let the experimentalist, by all means, teach us how to educate the masses, but let him not ask the utility of enlarging the capacity for virtue in rational souls. Let him teach us how to emancipate the slave, but let him not to dare to question whether restoring to one sixth of a community the rights of manhood will, on the whole, conduce to "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."

We believe the utilitarian system to be philosophically untenable and morally