"A vague opinion prevails among men that society is moving onward to its appointed state by what is variously termed the 'force of circumstances,' 'the instinct of the race,' 'the general law of progress,' 'Divine guidance.' These loose opinions are speculative fancies adopted in the absence of real knowledge; whereas the fact is, that society can only reach its true state by the conscious and calculated efforts of human reason under the direction of an exact social science. Men act on this principle when they try to organize any part of the social system. When, from necessity, they are forced to frame political institutions and organize governments, as they often are after revolutions, they do so by conscious calculation and reasoning. True, being without a scientific guide, their institutions are imperfect and arbitrary; yet these efforts show that man recognizes the necessity of calculation and thought in one branch, at least, of the social organism. He knows that to have a government, he must think, plan and devise; but he does not know that the other branches of the social organism are subject to the same conditions, and can only be normally constituted by the exercise of conscious reason guided by scientific principles. Construction and organization--the same in principle in all departments of creation--can only be the work of mind, conscious of its operations, planning with forethought; analyzing, comparing and combining; adapting means to ends and calculating the relations of cause and effect. Instinct cannot organize; Divine Providence does not interfere to do the work of reason; no science is revealed to man; no constructions or other means are furnished him by nature. "When the human mind shall rise to the conception of the possibility of a scientific organization of society, it will at once undertake, as the work of paramount importance, the elaboration of a system of exact social science. First, however, the laws on which the science is to be based must be discovered and combined into a system that will enable the mind clearly to comprehend and apply them."