The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-13 00:00:00

i4oN DON, TUESDAY EVENING, OC I OBER 13, 16t)7

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR VII?
PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SCIANCE.

BIRMINGHAM, MONDAY EVENING.
The National Association for the Promotion of
Social Science was commenced at a private meeting
held at Lord Brougham's house in London in May
last ; but its formal inauguration was deferred un-
til the present month, and was fixed to take place
in Birmingham, several gentlemen from that town
having been present at the preliminaiy meeting,
and having proposed to Make the necessary arrange-
ments for the Birmingham meeting. The model of
the association was suggested by that of the British
A.ssociation for the Advancement of Science, but
in some respects the plans of the British Association
have bleu deviated from, and the new society has
been mapped out into five broad divisions, under
which are grouped the various objects comprised
under the denomination of Social Science. ['hese
divisions ale Jurisprudence, Education, Reforma-
tion and Punishment, Public Health, and Social
EcoLomy. Under these heads persons engaged in
all depart meuts ,f philanthropic work, whether deal-
ing with moral or material interests, may be brought
together in order to compare the progress made in
the subjects in which they were interested, and to
devise improved modes of action in prosecuting
thsir common objects. This, indeed, is the main
purpose of the association ; but it also proposes to
follow the example of the British Association in
singling out, for consideration by the members dur-
ing the year, certain topics of general interest,
especially on subjects affecting commercial law, or
dealing with the improvement of public health. It
is hoped that the association will thus provide for
'the societies interested in social science, such a
meeting -place as the British Association furnishes
to those engaged in promoting physical science.
The noblemen and gentlemen who are expected
to be present at this meeting include the names of
most of those who have been engaged in promoting
education, and who are known as leaders in the
various great social enterprises which characterise
the present day. It is evident that any selection
from such a list must be very imperfect,Yut we may
mention that the list of visitors will probably include
the following noblemen and members ofParliament:
—Lord Brougham, Earl Talbot, the Earl of Har-
rowby, Lord Calthorpe, Lord Ward, Lord Rather-
ton, Lord J. Russell, Lord Raynham, M.P., Lord
Stanley, M.P., Lord A. Churchill, M P., Sir J.
Pakington, M.P., Sr J. K. Shuttleworth, Bart.,
Sir T. E. Winnington, Bart., M.P., the Deans of
Bristol- and Salisbury, Mr. W. Scholefield, M. P.,
Mr. R. Spooner, M.P., Mr. Adderley, M.P., Mr.
Marsh, M.P., Mr. Slaney, M. P., Mr. Whitbread,
M.P., Mr. H. B. Sheridan, M.P., Mr. Tite, M.P.,
Mr. R. Hanbury, M.P., Mr. E. Akroyd, M.P.,
the Right Hon. J. Napier, M.P., the Right Hon.
W. eowper, M.P., the Rev. Dr. Guthrie, Mr. A.
Helps, Dr. Browne (one of the Scotch Lunacy
Commissioners), the Lord Mayor of. London, Mr.
R. Chambers, Dr. Conolly, Dr. Farr, Sir J. Forbes,
M.D , Sir C. Hastings, M D., Sir S. Smith, Capt.
Crofton, Mr. Simon, F.R.S., Mr. Sergt. Woolrych,
Mr. E. Chadwick, C. 8., Dr. L. Playfair, Professor
Pillans, the Rev. S. Turner, Asc. The Bishop of
London, Lord Lyttleton, and the Earl of Shaftes-
bury, all of whom were expected, ale unable to at-
tend.

Lord Brougham arrived this morning at 2 a.m.
His lordship is the guest of J. F. Winfield, Esq. ;
Lord J. Russell and Lord Stanley are to be the
guests of the Mayor, and Sir J. Pakington of the
Hon. and Rev. G. M. Yorke.

regarded, and the facilities for its cultivation, from'
the nature of the evidence,it rests on, are duly con-
sidered, it has struck observers whose efforts are
directed towards human improvement as somewhat
extraordinary that the course should not have been
taken which has proved So advantageous in assist-
ing the progress ofsinquiry en that other great de-
, pertinent of knowledge—natural philosophy.; and
they have Wrongly recommended the plan of as-
sembling together occasionally, perhaps periodically,
the various individua's and bodies whose attention
is devoted to the ascertainment, illustration, and
general exposition of moral and political doctrines.
It is very possible that in the end this object may be
attained,
and that the association which we are met
here to open may bear as wide a relation to moral
and political science as the British Acsociation, which
has now been in successful action for considerably
More thane quarter of a century, deem to mathemati-
cal:and political science. At present, however, a
limited view is taken. It proposed that five of the
most important branches of moral and political in=
quire, should be singled out—those which especially
form the portals of sociel science—comprehending
the plans-both in their details and in the principles
that should govern theta for furthering the improve-
tneht and securitig the stability of the social system,
correcting the faults, and suppl)ing the defects, of
our institutions upon sound, rational, and tempo-
, rate views, and rendering desperate all attempts
either to check the progress of improvement, or to
gratify the wild desires of those who would destroy
rather than amend ; in a word, steering the middle
course between these who regsrd all change as per-
nicious and those whom no change will satisfy.
But if our subjectreave in some tmeasure limited,
the scope of our deliberations is anything rather
than narrow, it embraces the greatest temporal in-
terests of mankind. In the first rank, indeed, at
at the head of the whole, must be deservedly placed
jurisprudence, described by one who was not with-
out prejudices against the prOfeesore of the science,
wholly unworthy of his enlarged understanding—
Mr. Burke—as the pride of the human intellect, and
with all its defects, red midanties, errors, the collected
reason of ages, combining the principles of original
justice with the infinite variety of human concerns.
But among those redundancies and errors very many
are, and almost of necessity are, the growth of
time, the great innovator. Lord Bacon said it
changes, though slowly, even imperceptibly, yet
surely and without any intermission, the circum-
stances of society ; while a reluctance, grounded on
a wholesome dread of rash alteration, hut carried
oftentimes to excess, hinders us from adapting our
laws to the now stet, of things, and this makes the
retention of the old rule occasion the very shock,
the very violence, which it was wished to avert, as
the steersman too anxious to avoid the stream may
be s randed on its bank. It is impossible to make
any arrangement of even the subordinate branches
of a great subject which shall keep each entirely
separate from the rest, because all are so rela'ed as
to run into each other. Thus the repression of
crime and the reformation of offenders is intimately
connected with jurisprudence, and cannot be fully
considered in one point of view, at least, apart from
the preventive operation of the law for punish-
ing crimee and of the provisions for detecting
them ; the two great departments of criminal juris-
prudence,. penalty and police, being the third.
But much remains to be considered with respect
to the prevention of offences and the reformation
of offenders, and entirely independent of these
branches of the criminal law.
Again we come to the
great subject of education; we find its broad founda-
tions conuected witlithedepattment just adverted to
—the preventive and reformatory system. Yet,
whatever relates to instruction, the planting of
schools and training of teachere, the methods of
instructing, the care of children independent of im-
parting the kin I of knowledge which we term learn-
ing, the limits within whicti the state may safely
act for encouraging education, the right or even the
duty of the state to enforce the acquirement of
goo 1 habits and useful information, when it se-
verely punishes for the cert•du consequences of the
want of them—tbess important matters may be
handled as a separate branch of inquiry and of
legislaion without breaking in on the other de-
partment. Perhaps the great subject of sanitary
policy stands more in a state of separation than any
of those which have been mentioned, but that it is
as truly itisuleted cannot be affirmed. s Education
has no little bearing upon some of its essential
chaptere, the action of Government upon °there,
police most materially .'upon some, and the positive
laws respecting 11(111th—both those for regulating
foreign commerce and those relating to the home
trade—are intimately connected with several parts
of the subject. It meet, nevertheless, be considered
that much more depends ender this head uponin-
dividuals acting separately or in bodies, than upon
either the enactment or the execution of the law.
The very important head of social economy, on the
other hand, is the one most of all connected with
the sister departments, we may say with allof them;
and it would not be easyto over-rate the magnitude
of the several
ty and its members fixing the point at
subjects which fill under this head.
B. tit it is by no means hard to point out its connec-
tion';
t
with problems the most delicate and of most
difficult solution. As tracing the line which sepa-
rates the
nanni province of the lav7eivec from that of the
which st ,te interference ought step ; often reject-
ing as much the unjust advice to go further or the
remonstrance against any action whatever ; the
counsel of those who are averse to all interposition
where it may be not (ally expedient, but necessary,
and of those who -would bs constantly meddling,
turtiing the exception into the rule. Of these op-
posite creels we may well prefer
described by Dry 1
311 on a eery different subject,
and say— the middle course
(-

------ Equal folly all
Balievito• th• i•• all "
no or lava. .
The difficulty which we have found in endeavour-
ing to make a logical division of the various de-
partnents of inquiry arise, from that truth, so un-
deniable in itself, and so happy in its consequence.,
the intimate connection
that butoists amonpt all
the arts, the sciences, the inquiries which touch the
interests of mankied. All, as was long ago said by
one of the greatest statesmen and philosophers of
antiquity, are beund-together by a common tie, and
own, as it were, the mutual relationship of kindred.
"Wines arses qua) ad hueeanitatem pertinent, col-
ligantur quodatu commune vincula, et quasi cogna-
tione quadam inter se
con tinentur. From tbat
blanch of the family which here occupies us, we
cannot exclude even the natural sciences, and we
may observe that the British AssociationAssociationpays
”
homage to this principle by
having a class for poli-
tical economy and statistics. Indeed, it was
even carried so far by the wisest of the ancients,
that he ascribed the surpassing eloquence of the
greatest orator who had before his time appeared,
to the circumstance of his having studied natural
philosophy as well as moral. But it is manifest we
are taking a tight, in some sort a necessary course,
together those who chiefly devote
to promote these inquiries, and to
measures
this position appears to rest upon inostsolid grounds
themselves
ebsrnleiivge bringing
gnnected with social improvement ; and
both from considerations common to all joint under-
taking., and from the peculiar nature of the sub-
ject itself. Of the former description is the great
advent ige which must accrue from the mutual help
afforded to one another as fellow-labourers in the
same cause ; the increased efficacy thus given to the
efforts of each ; the lights struck out by full discus-
sion, with the valuable suggestions thus produced—
the experience, the reflections ofj each individual
being made, as it were, commonto all ; the security
against err.a. by timely examination of each plan
before its author's preposseesiens
have been too
deeply rooted, and before he has been committed ;
to its details the authority given to proposals
ultimately, and after mature deliberation persevered
in, even if not sanctioned by the consent of others ;
the influence which may be acquired in various ways
when that sanction has been declared. Those u '
ad-
vantages attend all such nione, and may be cited
in favour of any combined operations, whatever be
the nature of the subject. But there is a peculiar
expediency—it may be rather be said necessity—for
such a common or united action when a great variety
of opinion is likely t o exist upon many matters, pos-
sibly no univei sal concurrence upon all the particu-
lars of any one. Placing all prejudices arising from
diversity of political party or religious sect entirely
out of view,
and
assuming every per on to be in-
spired with the pure and single desire of performing
his duty towards the community, it is still unavoid-
able that men should view the same subject in dif-
ferent lights, and that the absence of such standards
from demonstration or experiment, as the reasoners
on other sciences can appeal to, should create
doubts and introduce diversities of opinion. In
some cases these differences may yield to full dis-
cussion, but in not a few instances they will remain;
and here is precisely the inestimable advantage of
such an union as ours. That discussion and expla-
nation may often remove the grounds of dissent is
undeniable. We have classical authority for observ-
ing that how widely soever men may differ in their
reasonings upon human conduct it is singular how
seldom they differ much in the judgments they form
respecting it. We may go further and affirm that
there is less diversity of opinion than might be sup-

posed even upon general subjects ; . and that .igno
ranee or misinformation, or inattentive, and there-
fore inaccurate observation, of ~eareless reflect;on
and hasty declaration, is the cauSe`of most of these
differences. Once upon a time; sayi,the old Eastern
legend, two knights met in a plain where stood a
shield upright, and one said. it was a white shield,
the other affirming it was black, whereupon they
were about to fight after the fashion of that age,
Still not wholly exploded in
,our own, ,tliough hap-
pily becoming more out of vogue. But a dervise or
priest approached, and having learnt the cause of
their quarrel, suggested that they had better look
at both sides of tine shield, when they found that
each was right, the one face .beirik pure white, the
other jet black—the minister of peace performed
his duty well and wisely. Some among us even in
the present day, with groundless apprehensions of
danger, if all persons knew the whole truth ; or, it
may be, with a supposed interest in the 'dispute
continuing, would have the shield covered up and
the fray go on. Had the dervise„ even-without any
sinister motive; only like the Levite in the parable.
kept aloof and passed upon the other side while the
work of Mischief was doing he would grievously
have neglected his duty and made himself answer-
able for the consequences. .Now, this is a respon-
sibility which we will not undertake. We summon
those who honestly differ in opinions, because they
regard the
,same subject from different poiuts of
view' to look at both 'sides, when possibly they
may be found to agree. But it may often happen
that, alter all, the difference of opinion • continues,
and there are no doubt subjects that involve prin-
ciples on which men of great sagacity and. good in-
formation may conscientiously take different, even
opposite-views. Thus it is of incalculable import-
ance
that those points upon which they are agreed
should be separated from the rest, and the mea-
, sures approved regarding which no material dif-
ference exists, in which is only another form of the
same proposition, the measures to be so modified by
national concession on the centroverted grounds,
as what all approve should be adopted. Such. a
wise and most useful proceeding implies no aban-
donment of principle, because nothing is more
common than the instance 'of the eame practical
course being with -entire _consistency pursued,
whichever of two conflicting doctrines way be held
the.sounder.- This happens more frequently in
political than in physical. diffe.reuces_of opinion, but
even' in theie we take the same course peactizally,
whatever may be the diversi, y oft avotheories, be-
cause there is enough common to both upon which
the practical result may be grounded.- No one, in
constructing tables, ever stopped to examine the
well-known controversybetween two of the greatest
analysts on the logarithms of negative quantities.
But in the science of contingent truth there are of -
course many more instances'of conflicting theories ;
yet the wide 'difference betweeen the theories of
electricity and ,Of. magnetism is altogether dis-
regarded by those who would frame the mechanism
of the telegraph: The maker of -the telescope in-
quires not into the comparative merits of the New-
tonian and the undulating doctrine of light ; and if
that illustrious man, the ornament of the neighbour-
hood, had waited until the various theories of heat
could be reconciled, or one system bo adopted to
which none could object, his immortal discoveries
and inventions would not to this day have armed
man with-the vast power which he now
,possesses,
and changed so entirely the face of the world—that
world beneficially created for our admiration, and
worthy of it, though partially disfigUred- it be by
our follies and our crimes. Upon the beneficial
effects of united action in its different applications
I can venture to speak from an experience of some
duration and considerably varied. It may suffice
to mention two instances of this successful opera-
tion. About 30 years ago the society was founded
for diffusing useful knowledge ; its object being to
bring the different branches of science and literature
within the reach of the great bulk of the community,
by reducing the cost of books. maps, and pens, to a
very moderate scale, and by preparing several works
at once didac'ic and at•rac ivo. The committee
who carried on these operations consisted of 60
persons, among the most eminent in science and
literature, ancient and modern, with members of
the three learned professions, and distinguished
statesmen. Regular meetings were lalld to receive
the reports of the sub-committees charged with
preparing the various works composed either by
their own members, or by others who were em-
ployed. EVery matter was discussed by the
general committee, both on the writings submitted,
and on the works to be undertaken. The most
severe examination had to be applied by the sub-
committee, but the proof-sheets were from them
submitted to the whole of the members, who had
to consider both the substance and the manner of
treating it ; and even those who on any subject might
not feel competent to criticise the scientific part,
exercised a vigilant superintendence over the style,
so that errors in composition, and'off.fnees against
correct, even severe taste, were sure to be detected
Now, the great number of our members, profiting,
moreover, by the communications of about 70 local
committees, and the advantage of constant inter-
course among this members of the central body, en-
abled the society in the twenty years of i's active
operations, to publish not only with al.solute regu-
larity treatises twice a month, but various other
works not given periodically. Above 200 volumes
have thus appeared. The circulation of the scien-
tific works frequently reached 25,000 ; of those in
more general use, 40,000 ; while of the preliminary
discourse, the circulation. wasl6o,ooo • and of the
weekly or penny magazine it exceeded 200,000 ;
and this gave rise to works of a like description, as
did also the scientific treatises ; so, that lie effects
of the society's labours were not circumscribed
within the classes among whom i• s works circulated.
And it further had the satisfaction of finding that
the price of books, maps, and prints was exceed-
ingly lowered, while their numbers were greatly
multiplied, and cheap literature was found to be
the true interest of authors as well as publishers,
and was no longer confined to light reading but ex-
tended to works of science and art, conducting with
unremitting attention to the explanation -of all
technical terms, and all obscure. allusions, and re-
moving whatever other obstructions are found in
the path of the learner ; so that the youth of limn-
ble station could nolonger be met by those distr.:a-
ging difficulties, both in expense and in the want
of truly didactic works—difficulties.which had be-
fore made the pursuit of self-education all but
hopeless. A still more important service, however,
was rendered by teaching professional authors and
publishers that there is a market for true and sub-
stantial knowledge among the people at large,
which, even, if they had suspected its existence,
they never had felt confident enough to prepare
books for it. Other important, though incidental
advantages accrued from the society's labours ;
many works, some of them .periodical, remarkable
for their ignorance and folly ; and others filled with
ribaldry and scurrility, and of a hurtful tendency,
and which lowered the inter( sts laoth of church and
state, were discontinued ; and the translation of
the society's works into many. European languages,
as of the preliminary discourses into six of them,
and some Oriental tongues, was fellowed by the
establishment in some countries—as France, Hol-
land, and America—of ins' itutions on a similar prin-
ciple, giving rise to similar publications. It has
been inaccurately stated that the society had ceased
to exist. It is a body incorporated by royal charter
and cannot be extinguished unless by a forfeiture.
In few, although for some years it has not been in
active operation, becauses all the purposes of its in-
stitution had been amply fulfilled, as soon as its
interposition was required, then it stood forward,
and I had the honour of presenting to the
House .of Lords its petition against the re-
moval of the Great Exhibition from Loudon
to Sydenham, a proceeding which was felt, and the
result has proved justly felt, to deprive the work-
ing, and even the middle classes of the helps to the
acquisition of knowledge furnishedrto the Exhibi-
tion while it remained in town. There is even less
foundation for the other charge brought, against the
so&ety that classical studies are undervalued in its
publications. Books issued under the superinten-
dence of the first scholars of the day—the Mattys,
the Arnolds, the Thirlwalls, as well as the professor
of Latin and Greek in one of our universities, are
not likely to be the just objet's of this grave re-
proach ; and all the members of the committee well
know that they had been repeatedly but falsely ac-
cused of too great a devotion to classical subjects.
But the other experience to which referintoetastay be
made is that of the body whose ol.jec'eapproach
most nearly to our own—the Society for Vroniciting
the Amendment of the Law. So many of ite'inem-
bers are now present that there may be no neces-
sity for entering as fully as in the case of the Useful
Knowledge Society into the evidence which its en-
tire success affords in favour of combined action.
Like that society, however, it has done good in fur-
thering what is beneficial and in preventing what
is hurtful. It would not be easy to describe the
many previous attempts at legislation which it has
stopped in their earlier s'ages—attempts tending
to the injury, not the amendment, of the law ;
and, if ending in failure and its attendant expo-
sure, calculated to bring the great cause of legal
improvement into disrepute. But is more pleasing