Civics: as Applied Sociology Part 4

To interpret then our tangle of ideas, both of the city and its citizens, let us now bring more fully to our transverse valley sections, and to each occupation separately, the geographical view-point which we have found of service to elucidate the development of towns and cities upon its longitudinal [Page: 64] slope. But this is neither more nor less than the method of Montesquieu, whose cla.s.sic "Esprit des Lois"

antic.i.p.ates and initiates so much of that of later writers--Ritter, Buckle, Taine, or Le Play. Once more then let their common, or rather their resultant, doctrine be stated in terms expressing the latest of these more fully than the first. Given the region, its character determines the nature of the fundamental occupation, and this in turn essentially determines the type of family. The nature and method of the occupation must normally determine the mode of its organisation, e.g., the rise and character of a specialised directive cla.s.s, and the nature of these occupational chiefs as contrasted with the people and with each other. Similarly, the types of family tend to develop their appropriate types of inst.i.tutions, e.g., for justice, guidance, and of course notably in response to social environment as regards defence or attack.

Thus at this point in fact we seem to be pressing upon the student of sociology the essential argument of geographical and evolutionary determinism, in fact inviting him to adopt a view, indeed to commit himself to a method, which may be not only foreign to his habits, but repugnant to his whole view of life and history. And if able advocacy of this determinist view of society for at least the past five generations has not carried general conviction, why raise so controversial a suggestion, in the guise too of a method professing to harmonise all comers? Yet this is advisedly done; and as no one will deny some civil importance to geographical factors, let patience be granted to examine this aspect of the city's map and shield, and to get from it what it can teach, under the present a.s.surance to the philosophic and idealist critic that his view of other factors, higher and deeper, as supreme in human life, and therefore in city making, will not be forgotten, nor excluded from consideration when we come to them. All that is really insisted upon here is that if anything of naturalistic method of evolutionary conception is to be permitted at all, we must obviously proceed from this simple towards the more complex, and so begin with it here and now.

It is the appropriate slope or steppe, the needful rainfall, that conditions the growth of gra.s.s, this which conditions the presence of herds or flocks, and these again which determine the very existence of shepherds. These granted then, not only do the pastoral arts and crafts arise, but the patriarchal type and family develop, and this not only with their hospitality and other virtues, with their nomadic tendencies, at any rate, their unfixed land-tenure, very different from the peasant's, but their slow and skilful [Page: 65] diplomacy (till the pasture is bared or grown again, as the negotiator's interests incline).

The patriarch in his venerable age, the caravaneer in his nomadic and exploring youth, his disciplined maturity, thus naturally develop as different types of chief and leader; and it is therefore not until this stage, when all is ready for the entry of Abraham or Job, of Mohammed the camel-driver, or Paul the tent-maker, that any real controversy can arise between the determinist and his opponent, between the democratic and the great-man theories of history, towards which these respectively incline.[6] And at that stage, may not the controversy stimulate a fruitful a.n.a.lysis? After all, what is the claim of free-will but to select among the factors afforded by a given set of circ.u.mstances? And the utmost stretch of determinism to which geography and civics may lead us obviously cannot prove the negative of this. But whether the psychologic origins of new ideals be internal to the mind of genius, or imparted by some external source, is a matter obviously beyond the scope of either the geographer or the historian of civics to settle. Enough surely for both controversialists if we use such a means of tabulating facts as to beg the question for neither view; and still better if we can present the case of each without injustice to either, nay, to each with its clearness increased by the sharp edge of contrast. If the geographical determinist thesis on one hand, and its ethical and psychological ant.i.thesis on the other, can thus clearly be defined and balanced, their working equilibrium is at hand, even should their complete synthesis remain beyond us.

[6] A fuller study, upon this method, of the essential origins of pastoral evolution, and of its characteristic modern developments, will be found in the writer's "Flower of the Gra.s.s," in _The Evergreen_, Edinburgh and Westminster, 1896. See also "La Science Sociale,"

_pa.s.sim_, especially in its earlier vols. or its number for Jan. 1905.

D--NEED OF ABSTRACT METHOD FOR NOTATION AND FOR INTERPRETATION

Not only such general geographical studies, but such social interpretations as those above indicated have long been in progress: witness the labours of whole schools of historians and critics, among whom Montsquieu and his immediate following, or in more recent times Buckle and Taine, are but the most prominent; witness the works of geographers like Humboldt, Ritter, Reclus, or of developmental technologists like Boucher de Perthes and regional economists like Le Play. The main lines of a concrete and evolutionary sociology (or at [Page: 66] least _sociography_) have thus been laid down for us; but the task now before us, in our time, in such a society as this--and indeed in such a paper as the present one--its that of extracting from all this general teaching its essential scientific method, one everywhere latent and implicit, but nowhere fully explicit, or at least adequately systematised.

It is in fact only as we can agree upon some definite and orderly method of description that our existing literature of social surveys can be adequately compared or new ones co-operatively undertaken. Hence the importance of discussions of scientific method such as those who have so largely occupied our first volume. Yet, I submit, here lies the means of escaping from these too abstract (and consequently too static) presentments of the general methodology of social science into which sociologists are constantly falling; and to which must be largely ascribed the prevalent distaste for sociology so general in this would-be practical-minded community in which we find ourselves, as indeed also the comparative unattractiveness of our studies to the body of specialist scientific workers, not even excepting those within what we consider sociological fields.

The history of each science, be it mathematics or astronomy, botany, zoology or geology, shows us that it is not enough to have the intelligent observer, or even the interpretative thinker with his personally expressed doctrine. This must be clearly crystallised into a definite statement, method, proposition, "law" or theory, stated in colourless impersonal form before it is capable of acceptance and incorporation into the general body of science. But while astronomer and geologist and naturalist can and do describe both the observational results and their general conceptions in literary form, requiring from the ordinary reader but the patience to master a few unfamiliar terms and ideas, they also carry on their work by help of definite and orderly technical methods, descriptive and comparative, a.n.a.lytic and synthetic.

These, as far as possible, have to be crystallised beyond their mere verbal statement into formulae, into tabular and graphic presentments, and thus not only acquire greater clearness of statement, but become more and more active agencies of inquiry--in fact, become literal _thinking-machines_. But while the mathematician has his notations and his calculus, the geographer and geologist their maps, reliefs and sections, the naturalist his orderly cla.s.sificatory methods, it has been the misfortune and delay of political economy, and no small cause of that "notorious discord and sterility" with which Comte reproached it, that [Page: 67] its cultivators have so commonly sought to dispense with the employment of any definite scientific notations; while even its avowed statisticians, in this country especially, have long resisted the consistent use of graphic methods.

I submit, therefore, for discussion, as even more urgent and pressing than that of the general and abstract methodology of the social sciences, the problem of elaborating a concrete descriptive method readily applicable to the study and comparison of human societies, to cities therefore especially. To do justice to this subject, not only the descriptive labours of anthropologists, but much of the literature of sociology would have to be gone through from the "Tableau Economique" of the Physiocratic School to the "Sociological Tables" of Mr. Spencer, and still more fruitfully to more recent writers. Among these, besides here recognising specially the work of Mr. Booth and its stimulus to younger investigators, I would acknowledge the helpful and suggestive impulse from the group of social geographers which has arisen from the initiative of Le Play[7], and whose cla.s.sification, especially in its later forms[8], cannot but be of interest and value to everyone whose thought on social questions is not afloat upon the ocean of the abstract without chart or bearings.

[7] La Nomenclature Sociale (Extrait de La Revue, "La Science Sociale,"

Dec. 1886) Paris, Firmin-Diact, 1887.

[8] Demoulins, La Science Sociale d'apres F. Le Play 1882-1905; Cla.s.sification Sociale, "La Science Sociale," Jan. 1905.

Yet with all respect to each and all these cla.s.sifications and methods, indeed with cordially acknowledge personal obligation and indebtedness to them from first to last, no one of these seems fully satisfactory for the present purpose; and it is therefore needful to go into the matter afresh for ourselves, though utilising these as fully as we can.

E--THE CITY-COMPLEX AND ITS USUAL a.n.a.lYSIS

In the everyday world, in the city as we find it, what is the working cla.s.sification of ideas, the method of thought of its citizens? That the citizens no more think of themselves as using any particular sociological method than did M. Jourdain of talking prose does not really matter, save that it makes our observation, both of them and it, easier and more trustworthy.

They are speaking and thinking for the most part of [Page: 68] People and of Affairs; much less of places. In the category of People, we observe that individuals, self and others, and this in interest, perhaps even more than in interests, commonly take precedence of groups.

Inst.i.tutions and Government are, however, of general interest, the state being much more prominent than is the church; the press, for many, acting as the modern subst.i.tute for the latter. In the world of Affairs, commerce takes precedence of industry, while sport runs hard upon both.

War, largely viewed by its distant spectators as the most vivid form of sport, also bulks largely. Peace is not viewed as a positive ideal, but essentially as a pa.s.sive state, at best, of non-war, more generally of latent war. Central among places are the bank, the market (in its financial forms before the material ones). Second to these stand the mines then the factories, etc.; and around these the fixed or floating fortresses of defence. Of homes, that of the individual alone is seriously considered, at most those of his friends, his "set," his peers, but too rarely even of the street, much less the neighbourhood, at least for their own sake, as distinguished from their reaction upon individual and family status or comfort.

This set of views is obviously not easy of precise a.n.a.lysis of exact cla.s.sification. In broad outline, however, a summary may be made, and even tabulated as follows:--

THE EVERYDAY TOWN AND ITS ACTIVITIES.

PEOPLE AFFAIRS PLACES (a) INDIVIDUALS (a) COMMERCE (a) MARKET, BANK, etc.

(Self and others). INDUSTRY, etc. FACTORY, MINE, etc.

SPORT.

(b) GOVERNMENT(S) (b) WAR (b) FORT, FIELD, etc.

Temporal and Spiritual and Peace (State and Church). (Latent War).

Next note how from the everyday world of action, there arises a corresponding thought-world also. This has, [Page: 69] of course, no less numerous and varied elements, with its resultantly complex local colour; But a selection will suffice, of which the headings may be printed below those of the preceding scheme, to denote how to the objective elements there are subjective elements corresponding--literal reflections upon the pools of memory--the slowly flowing stream of tradition. Thus the extended diagram, its objective elements expressed in yet more general terms, may now be read anew (noting that mirror images are fully reversed).

PEOPLE AFFAIRS PLACES

"TOWN" (a) INDIVIDUALS (a) OCCUPATIONS (a) WORK-PLACES (b) INSt.i.tUTIONS (b) WAR (b) WAR-PLACES

"SCHOOLS" (b) HISTORY (b) STATISTICS AND (b) GEOGRAPHY ("Const.i.tutional") HISTORY ("Military") (a) BIOGRAPHY (a) ECONOMICS (a) TOPOGRAPHY

Here then we have that general relation of the town life and its "schools," alike of thought and of education, which must now be fully investigated.

Such diagrammatic presentments, while of course primarily for the purpose of clear expression and comparison, are also frequently suggestive--by "inspection," as geometers say--of relations not previously noticed. In both ways, we may see more clearly how prevalent ideas and doctrines have arisen as "reflections upon" the life of action, and even account for their qualities and their defects--their partial truth or their corresponding inadequacy, according to our own appreciative or depreciative standpoint. Thus as regards "People," in the first column we see expressed briefly how to (a) the individual life, with the corresponding vivid interest in biography, corresponds the "great man theory" of history. Conversely with _(b)_ alone is a.s.sociated the insistance upon inst.i.tutional developments as the main factor. Pa.s.sing to the middle column, that of "Affairs," we may note in connection with _(b)_ say the rise of statistics in a.s.sociation with the needs of war, a point connected with its too empiric character; or note again, a too common converse weakness of economic theory, its inadequate inductive [Page: 70] verification. Or finally, in the column of "Place," the long weakness of geography as an educational subject, yet is periodic renewal upon the field of war, is indicated. We might in fact continue such a comparison of the existing world of action and of ideas, into all the schools, those of thought and practice, no less than those of formal instruction; and thus we should more and more clearly unravel how their complexity and entanglement, their frequent oppositions and contradictions are related to the various and warring elements of the manifold "Town" life from which they derive and survive.

Such a fuller discussion, however, would too long delay the immediate problem--that of understanding "Town" and its "School" in their origins and simplest relations.

F--PROPOSED METHODICAL a.n.a.lYSIS

(1) THE TOWN

More fully to understand this two-fold development of Town and School we have first of all apparently to run counter to the preceding popular view, which is here, as in so many cases, the precise opposite of that reached from the side of science. This, as we have already so fully insisted, must set out with geography, thus literally _replacing_ People and Affairs in our scheme above.

Starting then once more with the simple biological formula:

ENVIRONMENT ... CONDITIONS ... ORGANISM

this has but to be applied and defined by the social geographer to become

REGION ... OCCUPATION ... FAMILY-type and Developments

which summarises precisely that doctrine of Montesquieu and his successors already insisted on. Again, in but slight variation from Le Play's simplest phrasing _("Lieu, travail, famille")_ we have

PLACE ... WORK ... FOLK

It is from this simple and initial social formula that we have now to work our way to a fuller understanding of Town and School. [Page: 71]

Immediately, therefore, this must be traced upward towards its complexities. For Place, it is plain, is no mere topographic site. Work, conditioned as it primarily is by natural advantages, is thus really first of all _place-work_. Arises the field or garden, the port, the mine, the workshop, in fact the _work-place_, as we may simply generalise it; while, further, beside this arise the dwellings, the _folk-place_.

Nor are these by any means all the elements we are accustomed to lump together into Town. As we thus cannot avoid entering into the manifold complexities of town-life throughout the world and history, we must carry along with us the means of unravelling these; hence the value of this simple but precise nomenclature and its regular schematic use.

Thus, while here keeping to simple words in everyday use, we may employ and combine them to a.n.a.lyse out our Town into its elements and their inter-relations with all due exact.i.tude, instead of either leaving our common terms undefined, or arbitrarily defining them anew, as economists have alternately done--too literally losing or shirking essentials of Work in the above formula, and with these missing essentials of Folk and Place also.

Tabular and schematic presentments, however, such as those to which we are proceeding, are apt to be less simple and satisfactory to reader than to writer; and this even when in oral exposition the very same diagram has been not only welcomed as clear, but seen and felt to be convincing. The reason of this difficulty is that with the spoken exposition the audience sees the diagram grow upon the blackboard; whereas to produce anything of the same effect upon the page, it must be printed at several successive stages of development. Thus our initial formula,

PLACE ... WORK ... FOLK

readily develops into