inquiry, widely informed in the subject-matter of investigation, and determined to push it forward in new directions, and arrive at trustworthy and valid results. Social science is to be promoted, if promoted at all, in this manner, and by such men. It implies the systematic treatment of social phenomena, with the view of reaching a definite, coherent, and settled body of social truths, by the collection, analysis, and classification of the proper data of the subject. If the science is in its infancy, and has as yet been only roughly outlined, the work of its cultivators must needs be elementary, and the proceedings of any body of its true promoters will necessarily be characteristic of the stage or state of the subject. In the growth of all the sciences there has been an inevitable order of mental procedure, an advance from simplicity to complexity, from the uniform to the multiform, from the lower to the higher; but though this method has been necessarily followed, mental power has been immensely wasted by ambitious essays to resolve the larger and more difficult aspects of phenomena first. Yet the sciences have been actually and only built up by laying the foundations first and erecting the superstructures afterward.
But all this is of small account to the members of the "Association for the Promotion of Social Science." They do not seem, in fact, to know what the science is that they have assumed the task of promoting. They were in a muddle about it at starting ten years ago, and, if we may judge from the secretary's report, they are much in the same condition still. At any rate, they have little notion of plodding among the rudiments of the subject.
There were able disquisitions at Detroit on Finance, International Law, Life-insurance, Ideal Education, Medical Charities, Immigration, State Churches, Steamship-lines, etc., etc., but they had none of them any more to do with the science of the social relations of mankind than the proceedings of any other convention of thoughtful men called to deliberate upon important public affairs.
We make these remarks in no captious spirit, and we cordially concede the usefulness and importance of much of the work done by this organization: we are only speaking in the interest of that which the Association professes to do, but really does not even recognize; and what it pledges itself to do or to attempt, by the very title it takes, we hold to be far more important than all it accomplishes. The working out of the principles of social science, of the natural laws of the social state, into a clear, comprehensive, and authoritative form, is a matter of great moment, both because the state of knowledge at the present time makes it more possible and practicable than ever before, and because the results of even its partial accomplishment will be of immense value in the management of social affairs. And because of its grave importance, we strenuously object to any perversion or misappropriation of the term to illegitimate uses. We object to its employment as merely a dignified title for miscellaneous speculations on human affairs. Social science is a something yet to be achieved—a well-defined branch of inquiry yet to be elaborated by the prolonged efforts of painstaking thinkers; and we protest against its use as a kind of imposing category for the schemes of philanthropists and the projects of reformers. It may seem a matter of small importance what name an association chooses to adopt, but it is not so in the present case. The misuse of terms leads to false views that are liable to produce the most injurious consequences. No one can be better aware of the potent misleading influence of words upon the public mind than the distinguished president of the Detroit meeting, Hon. D. A. Wells. He perfectly understands that only a few people go beyond the word to the qual-
