which remains pretty much the same, and increases only gradually as civilization advances. As a consequence, the leading vital interests differ also from each other by reason of the relations in which they stand to the conception and views of the world ripe at a given period. Thus sociology is able to follow psychology in its method. In the division of mental qualities into a few principal groups, science, in spite of their highly composite character, starts from the proposition, that the difference of ideas and emotions observable in different individuals arises relatively but in a slight degree from the difference of external influences and impressions, which are on the average identical or very similar with everybody, but may be rather traced to the various modes in which they are associated, and to the results arising therefrom. In a like manner the bonds of human community can be resolved into a few groups of a conspicuous character, and their great variety recorded in history may be reduced to a few principal types, by adopting a classification, in which the characteristic peculiarities of the conception of the world current at given periods, and of the various degrees of culture are accepted as a basis for the division, due regard being paid to those modes of activity and of satisfaction of wants, by which the endeavours prevailing during those given periods are principally and immediately engrossed. The sum of interests exhibiting these peculiarities figures thus in every case as a chief and independent aim, while the subordinate and secondary wants and wishes only appear as modifying them more or less. These propositions hold true in spite of the fact that more than a single conception of the world may obtain with a body of individuals attached to some vital interest affording a foundation for a society, and that such a body does not always attain the same level of culture at all times and places. For the measure of man's rule over nature, and the degree of the attendant human consciousness are connected in such a way with the social relations of men and their capacity for organization and discipline, and the mental and moral qualities of men as

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well as of communities are so inter-dependent, that the influence of uniform motives and modes of activity upon character and upon the ideals ensuing from them, fixes identical limits to the several societies composed of individuals subject to those influences and to the complex currents of ideas which regulate their further development.

In this way the various views of life which may casually start up within all the societies attached to a particular vital interest resemble each other much more closely than those based upon identical theoretical principles, but presenting themselves in societies different in kind. The direction in which any system of civilization advances, is invariably connected with the character of the fundamental interest of the society representative of it; whilst the degree to which culture attains, always corresponds with the degree of the development of the society in which it prevails, and is therefore apt to be developed by means of the fullest maturity of such a society; although in the case of societies of a lower order, their civilization, too, can, under the most favourable circumstances, rise to a but low level. Hence the divergence between the results of human endeavours during different periods of history and with different populations is incomparably greater than that between the pains they have taken and the physical and mental exertions they have made to advance their objects. For success, for the most part, depends not upon the quantity of power employed to ensure it, but rather upon. the purposes towards which the endeavours have been directed; that is, upon the importance attributed to those aims in connection with the rest of the interests of human life.

§ 80. Hence, the series of vital interests and spheres of society afford the spectacle of a sequence, in which the conceptions, the conduct and the co-operation of mankind are being adapted to the requirements of those ideals of humanity which figure as its leading aims and correspond with its wants of a progressively higher order. Accord

ingly, the incipient phases of development acknowledged the mastery of such a vital interest as was capable of being asserted within the most primitive, the most universal, and the narrowest, but yet the most completely intimate, sphere-a vital interest only to be realized in absolute community of life, and such as can only be conceived within the narrow limits of consanguineous ties, and within the confined, but closely-cemented frame of the society of kinship. This is followed by the aims to be realized within the sphere of local contiguity, and which, in addition to the postulates of external security and of conduct conforming to rules of traditional usage, alike consolidated during the predominance of the ties of consanguinity, also require the establishment of conscious and individual division of labour and of a sense of harmonious life; thus calling into existence the tribal and the communal society. Subsequently, the interests involved in the amassing of wealth for consumption, in selfish conquest for plunder, in the indulgence in luxury and in the gratification of the sense of power, become overwhelming, and in the society of conquest seek food for a greed of enjoyment knowing no bounds.

The impossibility of allaying this hunger for unlimited power over others, on the one hand, and the burden of oppression, on the other, give rise, again, to ascetic aspirations; and now the religious interest, striving after other worldly ideals, assumes a concrete form in the structure of the ecclesiastical society. The energy and self-reliance, however, manifesting themselves in the qualities embodied in nationality, which create the national society, find themselves soon cramped in the austere and confined domain of the ecclesiastical society. The empire, again, which the national society, through the agency of science (perfected by independent investigation, and by the free formation and expression of convictions), acquires over nature, seems whilst producing an instinctive sense of a general harmony of interest-to promise a future satisfying of all the economical demands within a society of a still larger

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sphere than that of nationality; there seems to be held out the prospect of an era, although distant and uncertain, fondly looming up through the hopes of all times and nations, in which it will become possible to fully realize the moral ideals of mankind in the bosom of a universal society of humanity embracing and assuring the fulfilment of the loftiest of human aims.

§ 81. All these fundamental principles of societies, and the societies clustering around them, become successively, and in turn, dominating; the evidence of history, the highest tribunal of corroboration, thus bearing witness to the inferences of theory. History is a testimony, however, to which systems of the most opposite character are in the habit of appealing; as a rule, even the boldest and most abstract system of metaphysics gladly accepts, for the purpose of illustration, examples taken from the vicissitudes. of mankind. But here, where it is not a question of reasoning based on principles asserted to be independent and standing above experience, but one of inquiry as to whether the propositions deduced from the concrete attributes of human nature do actually correspond with the phenomena disclosed by the entire past of mankind, the comparison of the result of this inquiry with history must be effected in quite another way, and from a different point of view. We are not permitted to proceed arbitrarily, and to explain the facts in the sense of the theory; we must prove beyond a doubt that the theory, in its classifications and principles, does actually correspond with the groups and links of the phenomena; and whenever the two are found to disagree, and history speaks more forcibly and with a clearer voice than the theory, the latter must yield and submit to correction.

True historical proof distinguishes itself from the arbitrary use of historical instances in this, that, whereas, in the latter proceeding, only a few cases tallying with the theory to be supported are taken into consideration, proper historical induction takes in as far as possible the whole range of all the phenomena; brooks no exceptions,

and claims to be perfect testimony only if it succeeds in showing that the evidence thus obtained is both in harmony with novel and seemingly inexplicable phenomena, and capable of illustrating them; the phenomena thus elucidated shedding, in their turn, a new and instructive light.

A fundamental difficulty in the way of this sort of corroboration by facts of our present theory is presented by the observation that, to the cursory glance, the changes occurring in states are not seen to follow everywhere the changing sequence of the vital interests and of the societies attached to them; nay, that in certain states, the societies respectively embraced by them, as well as the fundamental principles forming their common bond, do not admit of being clearly distinguished. In reality, however, there is nothing in the claims of the theory to justify such an objection. For the society of the state is never constructed strictly in conformity with its own principles; the character of its form is always influenced by the reaction experienced from the subordinate societies, and especially from that subordinate society which has preceded the actually dominant society in ruling, and the organization of which has been appropriated by the latter on its becoming dominant. And as, in addition, it undergoes further modifications in its connection with neighbouring dominant societies surrounding it, we can as little expect the society of the state to exhibit in its concrete phenomena merely such agencies as have entered into the reasoning of the theory, as we can, for example-to use a scientific instance-by previous calculations trace the actual orbit in which any heavenly body moves, though it may be approximately anticipated. There are other causes besides-such as violent conquests, the exhaustion of nations, the contact between cultures of various degrees and tendencies, and their mutual interaction, the perishing of civilizations which are either effete or confined only to a few privileged persons amidst an overwhelming mass of savage assailants, and the alternations of the phases of intensive and extensive