us there is emerging more and more clearly
for sociological studies in general, for their concrete fields of
application in city after city, the conception of a scientific centre of
observation and record on the one hand, and of a corresponding centre of
experimental endeavour on the other--in short of Sociological
Observatory and Sociological Laboratory, and of these as increasingly
co-ordinated. Indeed, is not such association of observations and
experiments, are not such institutions actually incipient here and
elsewhere? I need not multiply instances of the correlation of science
and art, as of chemistry with agriculture, or biology with medicine.
Yet, on the strictly sociological plane and in civic application they
are as yet less generally evident, though such obvious connections as
that of vital statistics with hygienic administration, that of
commercial statistics with politics, are becoming recognised by all. In
the paper with which this Society's work lately opened, the intimate
connection between a scientific demography and a practical eugenics has
been clearly set forth. But this study of the community in the aggregate
finds its natural parallel and complement in the study of the community
as an integrate, with material and immaterial structures and functions,
which we call the City. Correspondingly, the improvement of the
individuals of the community, which is the aim of eugenics, involves a
corresponding civic progress. Using (for the moment at least) a parallel
nomenclature, we see that the sociologist is concerned not only with
"demography" but with "politography," and that "eugenics" is inseparable
from "politogenics." For the struggle for existence, though observed
mainly from the side of its individuals by the demographer, is not only
an intra-civic but an inter-civic process; and if so, ameliorative
selection, now clearly sought for the individuals in detail as eugenics,
is inseparable from a corresponding civic art--a literal
"Eupolitogenics."
A--THE GEOGRAPHIC SURVEY OF CITIES
Coming to concrete Civic Survey, where shall we begin? Not only in
variety and magnitude of civic activities, but, thanks especially to the
work of Mr. Charles Booth and his collaborators in actual social survey
also, London may naturally claim pre-eminence. Yet even at best, does
not this vastest of world cities remain a less or more foggy labyrinth,
from which surrounding [Page: 105] regions with their smaller cities
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