Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/750

 734 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of nature, by a continuous series of steps, by an unbroken chain of evidence. This is the sacred way of science. In most, if not all, great religions of the East, a peculiar sanctity attaches to the conception of the "way." That a mystic flavor should cling to methodology will not therefore be surprising to those who hold that science is a culture form of natural religion.

X. Having provisionally agreed upon our scientific criterions, we have 236 definitive objects that exist in space and time under the designation of "city." From this proposition, it follows that, by taking adequate precautions, cities can be seen. It is true that to see even a single city is a feat which few of us ever achieve. Few of us ever succeed in seeing even our own city, let alone others. Hence the widespread illusion that cities consist of shops, factories, and dwellings, with public houses at the corners these being the objects presented to the eye as one passes along the open tunnels called streets. But there are certain animals, like birds, butterflies, and some human beings, that have the habit of viewing terrestrial objects from a height. And it is obvious that it is in vertical perspective only that a city can be visualized. The habit of viewing objects both terrestrial and celestial from a height was apparently much commoner among the human species in for- mer than in the present times. Otherwise how explain the wide occurrence of special facilities for the purpose? The mounds, the pyramids, the towers of many kinds which past civilizations have erected in such abundance have doubtless various origins. But when facilities occur, as they generally do, for reaching the sum- mits and thence making observations, we are bound to infer that we are dealing with real observatories, and deliberately planned for that purpose ; whatever other purposes, religious, ceremonial, com- memorative, aesthetic, these constructions may also have served. Our recent and contemporary civilizations continue to adorn or supplement our buildings with towers as inevitably, and one is inclined to say as automatically, as the beavers build their dams and the bees their hives. But more often than not we do not provide a stairway to the summit ; or, if we add that, how seldom are facilities provided for observation from the summits ! Even