Social Forces in England and AmericaWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
Social Forces in England and America
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
England -- Social conditions -- 20th century; Social problems; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
This is typically shown in scientific research. The problem or the parts
of problems upon which the inquiry of an individual man is concentrated
are often much narrower than the problems that occupied Faraday or
Dalton, and yet the hard and fast lines that once divided physicist from
chemist, or botanist from pathologist have long since gone. Professor
Farmer, the botanist, investigates cancer, and the ordinary educated
man, familiar though he is with their general results, would find it
hard to say which were the chemists and which the physicists among
Professors Dewar and Ramsey, Lord Rayleigh and Curie. The classification
of sciences that was such a solemn business to our grandfathers is now
merely a mental obstruction.
It is interesting to glance for a moment at the possible source of this
mischievous confusion between specialisation and the division of labour.
I have already glanced at the possibility of a diabolical world
manufacturing gramophone records for our bishops and statesmen and
suchlike leaders of thought, but if we dismiss that as a merely elegant
trope, I must confess I think it is the influence of Herbert Spencer.
His philosophy is pervaded by an insistence which is, I think, entirely
without justification, that the universe, and every sort of thing in it,
moves from the simple and homogeneous to the complex and heterogeneous.
An unwary man obsessed with that idea would be very likely to assume
without consideration that men were less specialised in a barbaric state
of society than they are to-day. I think I have given reasons for
believing that the reverse of this is nearer the truth.
IS THERE A PEOPLE?
Of all the great personifications that have dominated the mind of man,
the greatest, the most marvellous, the most impossible and the most
incredible, is surely the People, that impalpable monster to which the
world has consecrated its political institutions for the last hundred
years.
It is doubtful now whether this stupendous superstition has reached its
grand climacteric, and there can be little or no dispute that it is
destined to play a prominent part in the history of mankind for many
years to come. There is a practical as well as a philosophical interest,
therefore, in a note or so upon the attributes of this legendary being.
I write “legendary,” but thereby I display myself a sceptic. To a very
large number of people the People is one of the profoundest realities in
life. They believe—what exactly do they believe about the people?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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