Page:Science and Citizenship.djvu/18

Science and Citizenship sciences deal, and finally attempt to explore in a scientific spirit and with scientific methods the world of mind and society with which the psychological and social sciences deal. And this, as already stated, is the normal progress of the mind. We see it exemplified by most of the great leaders. We see it, for instance, in Helmholtz, who began his career as a mathematician, passed through that to physiology, whence it was but a single step into psychology, and in the later period of his life he interested himself most in education and social questions. The same tendency is seen in Darwin's transition from the "Origin of Species" to the "Descent of Man." We have been told that the sociologist is an individual who has failed to make a career in one of the preliminary sciences, just as, according to Disraeli, the critic is a person who has failed in literature. In point of fact this doubtless is often true; but the contrary proposition still more widely holds, that the successful mathematician, physicist, or naturalist, is an arrested sociologist.

Returning to the question of legal and political definitions, we have to note that these, are to the psychologist and sociologist an essential part of the. raw material upon which he has to work. They are points of departure in his observations, and often supply valuable clues in his researches. What definitions of the City are available for the purpose? They differ, of course, from country to country, but whether propounded by a lawyer, by a politician, or by the man in the street, they 13