Thus the subject-matter of sociology, regarded as a speculative science, consists of those points in which the members of any given social aggregate resemble one another. The subject-matter of sociology, regarded as a practical science, consists of those points in which the members, or {16} certain groups of members, of any given social aggregate differ from one another. And here we come to the reason why sociology, as a practical science, has failed. It has failed because hitherto it has not realised this distinction, and has persisted in applying to the phenomena, involved in practical social problems, the same terminology, the same methods of observation and reasoning, which it has applied to the phenomena involved in speculative social problems. By so doing, though it has dissipated many popular errors, it has, in the most singular manner, given a new vitality to others. It has indeed supplied a pseudo-scientific sanction to the most abject fallacies that have vitiated the political philosophy of this century; and it has thus been instrumental in keeping alive and encouraging the most grotesquely impossible hopes as to what may be accomplished by legislation, and the most grotesquely false views as to the sources of social and political power. To expose these fallacies, and the defective reasoning on which they rest, is the object of the present volume. The nature of that peculiarity in the procedure of modern sociology which has just been described, and to which all its errors are due, forms a very curious study, and it will be essential to exhibit it with the utmost plainness possible. In the following chapter, therefore, the reader shall be presented with examples of it. {17} CHAPTER II THE ATTEMPT TO MERGE THE GREAT MAN IN THE AGGREGATE Let us take any book we please, by any modern writer, who is attempting to deal with any social subject scientifically, and whenever he is calling attention to the great intellectual triumphs which have caused the progress of civilisation, or to any developments of human nature which have marked it, we shall find that these triumphs or developments are always attributed indiscriminately to the largest mass of people with whom they have any connection—sometimes to “the nation,” sometimes to “the age,” sometimes to “the race,” and more frequently still to “man.”