therefore makes it more difficult to observe the permanent and underlying influences. It seems to me, therefore, that the study, say of English history, where we have a continuous growth over many centuries, where the disturbing influences of individuals or chance are in a greater degree cancelled by the general tendencies working beneath them, we have really a far more instructive field for political observation. This may help us to see what are the kinds of results which may be anticipated from sociological study undertaken in a serious spirit. The growth, for example, of the industrial system of England is a profoundly interesting subject of inquiry, to which we are even now only beginning to do justice. Historians have admitted, even from the time of Hume, that the ideal history should give less of mere battles and intrigues, and more account of those deeper and more continuous processes which lie, so to speak, beneath the surface. They have hardly, I think, even yet realised the full bearing and importance of this observation. Yet, of late, much has been done, though much still remains to do, in the way of a truly scientific study of the development of institutions, political, ecclesiastical, industrial, and so forth, of this and other countries. As this tendency grows, we may hope gradually to have a genuine history of the English people; an account--not of the virtues and vices of Mary Queen of Scots, or arguments as to the propriety of cutting off Charles I.'s head--but a trustworthy account of the way in which the actual structure of modern society has been developed out of its simpler germs. The biographies of great kings and generals, and so forth, will always be interesting; but to the genuine historian of the future they will be interesting not so much as giving room for psychological analyses or for dramatic portraits, but as indications of the great social forces which produced them, and the direction of which at the moment may be illustrated by their cases. I have spoken of the history of our industrial system. To know what was the position of the English labourer at various times, how it was affected by the political changes or by the great mechanical discoveries, to observe what grievances arose, what remedies were applied or sought to be applied, and with what result,--to treat all this with due reference to the whole social and intellectual evolution of which it formed a part, may well call forth the powers of our acutest and most thoroughgoing inquirers, and will, when it is done, give essential data for some of the most vitally important problems of the day. This is what I understand by an application of the scientific spirit to social and political problems. We cannot try experiments, it is said, in historical questions. We cannot help always trying experiments, and experiments of vast importance. Every man has to try an experiment upon himself when he chooses his career; and the results