SOCIAL SCIENCE
Investigates, in an orderly, scientific manner, the principles of association, and whatever relates to the interests and improvement of men in communities. It has its basis in psychology, as that science of the soul reveals most clearly the elements of a social nature. By instinctive longings for sympathy and fellowship, men are drawn together, and readily consent to the restraints of society, whose earlier tacit agreements and maxims are at length formulated into rules and laws for their better government.
Civil governments, incomplete at first, and encountering many hindrances, often progress but slowly, and sometimes even recede from vantage ground that has been gained. Some known in history have made but little advancement during the nineteenth century, and still fail to adjust their political machinery to the wants and demands of the people. They will hardly survive much longer without some promise of better progress in the future. All really good governments are not equally good, and that is regarded best which secures the greatest liberty to the individual citizen, consistent with the rights of others and the public security. That end, when honestly proposed, may be, to some extent, secured under very different charters or constitutions, and very much depends on the wisdom of the administration. When the governing power is in the hands of one man, and he irresponsible for his manner of exercising it, it is called an autocracy, or despotism. When vested in one person, whose executive functions are exercised by ministers responsible to a legislative assembly or parliament, it is a constitutional monarchy. If the nobility, or a few principal men govern by a right, in some way claimed, and conceded to them, it is an oligarchy, or an aristocracy. If the power is in the hands of the people themselves, or their immediate representatives, as in the United States, it is a democracy, or republic.
Social science embraces a wide range of subjects of more than ordinary importance. It discusses both principles and facts, the principles that underlie all social institutions, and the practical, economic regulations that are wisely adopted in well ordered, prosperous communities. If the institutions are established, its province is to examine theories, collect, arrange, and generalize facts, that may have some bearing on any proposed corrective and reformatory measures. It scrutinizes public crimes, penal codes, judicial decisions, and prison discipline, with whatever else pertains to social life. It shows the relation of men to men, of the ruler to the governed, of the employer to his employes, of the rich to the poor, the fortunate to the unfortunate, and by its expositions instructs men how to act in their various relations. If the science were much better understood, the dangerous classes would be less dangerous; and the troublesome problems of pauperism, the liquor traffic, Mormonism, and the social evil, would be less appalling to average legislators and judges.
The experience of ages shows that the ameliorating, helpful agencies and influences that lift communities up to higher levels, often operate silently as the leaven, till the whole lump is leavened. In many tribes the advance from savagery and the usurpation by irresponsible leaders, of absolute power toward complete civil liberty and personal rights, has been slow. The change has come by means almost imperceptible, or by struggles that seemed at the time fruitless. The improved condition of society does not bring entire security, or freedom from assault. The yoke once taken from the neck, and the heavy burdens from the shoulders, new ideas of property, justice, and personal rights are developed. The spirit of enterprise is awakened, because each finds himself in the position of affluence and influence, to which his talents, industry and self-denial entitle him. Men become competitors, and inequalities of condition are inevitable. Incompetence, idleness, and extravagance bring want and misery. Wealth and poverty exist side by side, the rich growing richer, and the poor poorer. Class distinctions become odious. Capital and labor, that should be allies, are often in conflict, to the great injury of both. There may be occasion for complaint against those “who oppress the hireling in his wages,” and “grind the faces of the poor.” But many are envious without cause, and suffer only the penalty of their idleness and extravagance, become enemies of the community, and are deaf to remonstrance if they see, or think they see, any way of relieving themselves at the expense of those who have acted more wisely, and possess large estates. Here come in the functions of government, that is of society, with its better notions of right and justice, and power to enforce them. True “social science,” founded on the experience of ages, recognizes the necessity of government, the obligations of the citizen, and the right of all to the property they have lawfully and honestly acquired. It demonstrates that real progress is in the way of a safe conservatism, while it admits the possibility of change and improvement, fully justifying the work of the reformer where reformation is needed. If existing institutions are inadequate because of some radical defect, have outlasted their usefulness, or become oppressive, revolution may be demanded. But any government, though unjust and despotic, is better than anarchy, and should be repudiated only when it is, under all the circumstances, possible to establish a better. When legitimate authority is resisted in the spirit of lawlessness or efforts at revolution prompted by an evil ambition, the actors are guilty. There have been many attempts, mostly abortive, to solve the problem of government, and reconstruct the social fabric. Some of them by good men, whose schemes were simply theoretical and impractical; others by malcontents and destructionists who mistake license for liberty. Plato, a man of probity and justice, but lacking the wisdom of the statesman, prepared a constitution for a model republic, which had too many defects for adoption; a republic with advantages for a select class, but slavery for the masses doomed to manual labor, which was made despicable. More wrote his “Utopia,”[4] regarded by some as a kind of program for a needed social reform. It had little influence with his countrymen, most of whom ranked it with works of the imagination, where it belonged, whether so intended or not. Campanella,[5] a radical communist of Stilo, in Calabria, wrote his Utopia, called “The City of the Sun,” a sensual paradise, in which there was to be a community of goods and of wives. For more than a century socialistic and communistic publications were numerous; many of them denouncing property as a sin, and advocating the greatest license in the intercourse of the sexes. Rousseau, in his discourse on the “Origin and Grounds of Inequality Amongst Men,” speaks with approval of “a state of nature,” something like that among our American Indians before they had any knowledge of civilization. He seems to have supposed there was no inequality, no vice, no misery, among untutored savages, and advised those who could, to return to a state of nature.
The skeptical Owen,[6] and the philosophical Fourier,[7] more practical than others, attempted to establish communities as models or examples of what could be accomplished on their theory, but failure attended their enterprises, or the communities were saved from utter disintegration by the tacit admission of principles that were once disavowed.
Modern socialism, akin to communism, and in all its tendencies subversive of good government, declaims over the poverty and misery of the unhappy masses, laments their insufficient shelter, food, and clothing, is sentimental on the subject of labor and wages, and seeks to rouse the abject sufferers to a sense of their sad condition. Its pictures of suffering are in many cases not overdrawn, and the greatest efforts can hardly exaggerate the facts. But socialism is not “social science.” It is utterly and perversely unscientific; it discusses effects, carefully leaving causes out of view; and would reform communities by corrupting and debasing individuals. With a vague notion that every man has a natural right to whatever he needs, it allows that the problem of equalization may be solved by violence, and thus all brought to a common level. The crimes against society, which have lately appalled us, are doubtless the result of the pernicious principles and teaching of “socialistic reformers.” But a reaction is sure to come, and the better instincts of the race will yet destroy the corrupt tree whose fruit is evil.