much of the comparative sterility of post-Comtean (or at any
rate post-Spencerian) sociology, which is so commonly reproached to us,
and to which the difficult formation and slow growth of sociological
societies and schools is largely due, be thus explained? Is it not the
case that many able and persuasive writers, not only knowing the
results, but logically using the generalisations of Comte or Spencer, as
of old of Smith or now-a-days of List in the economic field, are yet
comparatively sterile of fresh contributions to thought, and still more
to action? In fact, must we not apply to much of the literature of
recent sociology, just as to traditional economics, the criticism of
Comte's well-known law of three states, and inquire if such writers,
while apparently upon the plane of generalised science, are not really
in large measure at least arrested upon Comte's "metaphysical stage,"
Mill's "abstractional" one?

Conversely, the revival of sociological interest in this country at
present is obviously very largely derived from fresh and freshening work
like that of Mr Francis Galton and of the Right Hon. Charles Booth
especially. For here in Mr. Galton's biometrics and eugenics is a return
to nature, a keen scrutiny of human beings, which is really an orderly
fruition of that of the same author's "Art of Travel." Similarly, Mr.
Booth's "Survey of London" is as truly a return to nature as was
Darwin's Voyage, or his yet more far-reaching studies in his garden and
farmyard at home. [Page: 59] Is it not the main support of the subtle
theorisings and far-stretched polemic of Prof. Weismann that he can
plague his adversaries with the small but literal and concrete mice and
hydroids and water fleas with which his theories began? And is it not
for a certain lack of such concrete matter of observation that the vast
systematisations of M. de Greef, or M. de Roberty, or the original and
ingenious readings of Prof. Simon Patten leave us too often unconvinced,
even if not sometimes without sufficiently definite understanding of
their meaning? The simplest of naturalists must feel that Comte or
Spencer, despite the frequently able use of the generalisations of
biology, themselves somewhat lacked the first-hand observation of the
city and community around them, and suffered thereby; this part of their
work obviously not being on a level with the historic interpretations of
the one or the psychological productivity of the other. And if,