Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/802

 powell] SOCIOLOGY, OR THE SCIENCE OF INSTITUTIONS 73 *

The advanced nations of the earth are now making the experi- ment of intrusting government to a representative body, and it would be wisdom to consider how a representative body may be best chosen.

The history of mankind has been the constant theme of the ages, because it has been the subject in which men are most deeply interested. Especially has the rise and fall of nations, the rise and fall of dynasties, and the part which individuals have played in such affairs been the theme most attractive. Notwith- standing this fact, the outlines of history as they have heretofore been presented have consisted largely of a more or less bare statement of events in chronological order. Universal history has therefore been treated as annals. Special writers have attempted to treat of the different parts of history as the succes- sion of causations, but universal history has rather been a compendium of names and dates. Since the establishment of some of the laws of evolution and the overthrow of the ancient doctrine of degeneracy, a new impetus has been given to history, and now a multitude of men are engaged in scientific research having in view the discovery of the progress of mankind by re- vealing the causations involved. For this purpose the world is ransacked for the vestiges of human culture in all of the penta- logic departments of the humanities. Histories as a science is thus disclosing a vast body of facts relating to the evolution of pleasures, industries, institutions, languages, and opinions. Hitherto we have considered only the nature of institutions in attempting to set forth the four fundamental stages to be ob- served in their consideration.

The course of history in the evolution of institutions is the best nucleus about which to gather the data of progress in the other departments of history. The sketch we are attempting will not permit of any exhaustive treatment. We must content ourselves with only a brief reference to the evolution of pleasures, industries, languages, and opinions.

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