How to Observe: Morals and MannersMartineau, Harriet
Science
How to Observe: Morals and Manners
Martineau, Harriet
Manners and customs; Observation (Psychology); Social psychology -- Methodology
He must have made up his mind as to what it is that he wants to know. In
physical science, great results may be obtained by hap-hazard
experiments; but this is not the case in Morals. A chemist can hardly
fail of learning something by putting any substances together, under new
circumstances, and seeing what will arise out of the combination; and
some striking discoveries happened in this way, in the infancy of the
science; though no one doubts that more knowledge may be gained by the
chemist who has an aim in his mind, and who conducts his experiment on
some principle. In Morals, the latter method is the only one which
promises any useful results. In the workings of the social system, all
the agents are known in the gross--all are determined. It is not their
nature, but the proportions in which they are combined, which have to be
ascertained.
What does the traveller want to know? He is aware that, wherever he
goes, he will find men, women, and children; strong men and weak men;
just men and selfish men. He knows that he will everywhere find a
necessity for food, clothing, and shelter; and everywhere some mode of
general agreement how to live together. He knows that he will everywhere
find birth, marriage, and death; and therefore domestic affections. What
results from all these elements of social life does he mean to look for?
For want of settling this question, one traveller sees nothing truly,
because the state of things is not consistent with his speculations as
to how human beings ought to live together; another views the whole with
prejudice, because it is not like what he has been accustomed to see at
home; yet each of these would shrink from the recognition of his folly,
if it were fully placed before him. The first would be ashamed of having
tried any existing community by an arbitrary standard of his own--an act
much like going forth into the wilderness to see kings' houses full of
men in soft raiment; and the other would perceive that different
nations may go on judging one another by themselves till doomsday,
without in any way improving the chance of self-advancement and mutual
understanding. Going out with the disadvantage of a habit of mind
uncounteracted by an intellectual aim, will never do. The traveller may
as well stay at home, for anything he will gain in the way of social
knowledge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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