iv. A completely new vista reveals itself to the student of social theory when he turns from biological analogies and economic conditions to consider the wealth of experience and of ideas which is furnished to him by Jurisprudence and the Science of Right. He knows, indeed, by this time, that the obvious aspect of a province of fact will not be the only one, and that a unity will certainly be traceable between all the facets of social existence. But none the less, he will be able to restrain the itch to explain things away, and he will fairly and candidly give weight to the significance and suggestiveness of the mass of history and of reflection which is now brought before him. _a_. For here, as the plainest and most unmistakable data of experience, we are confronted with _ideal facts_. The vast mass of documents which form the basis of the Science of Right--a more complete and comprehensive set of records, perhaps, than any other branch of social science can boast--bears witness in every case to one social phenomenon at least, to a formal act of mind and will, aimed at maintaining some relative right or {35} hindering some relative wrong, and stamped with what in some sense and in some degree amounts to a social recognition. Theorists have said too hastily, though with a sound meaning, that right is independent of fact. It would be as true to say that reason is independent of civilisation, or the soul independent of culture. Right is not exhausted in the facts of past history; but it is at every moment embodied in facts; and to comprehend that the social phenomena which are among the most solid and unyielding of our experiences, are nevertheless ideal in their nature, and consist of conscious recognitions, by intelligent beings, of the relations in which they stand, is to make a great step towards grasping the essential task of science in dealing with society. From the beginning of social theory the facts of law have been set in opposition to the idea of a natural growth. It has been observed that, as a definite institution maintained by formal acts of will, society is artificial, conventional, contractual. We all know to-day that there is much more than this to be said about the nature and principles of social growth. Nevertheless, it remains true that the social whole has an artificial aspect, an aspect of will and of design, of the agreement and mutual recognition of free conscious beings. And in so far as the history of law has resulted in the conception of natural right, this in no way derogates from the artificial or ideal character of society as above understood. For “natural” right belongs to a “nature” which includes and does not exclude that action of intelligence in virtue of which society may be termed artificial; and is {36} merely the revelation of the principle towards which the social will is working, and which in some degree it has always embodied.