he more thoroughly we shall be convinced that _a universal
social policy has no validity except on paper_, and can never be carried
into successful practice. The conditions of German society are
altogether different from those of French, of English, or of Italian
society; and to apply the same social theory to these nations
indiscriminately is about as wise a procedure as Triptolemus Yellowley's
application of the agricultural directions in Virgil's "Georgics" to his
farm in the Shetland Isles.

It is the clear and strong light in which Riehl places this important
position that in our opinion constitutes the suggestive value of his
books for foreign as well as German readers. It has not been
sufficiently insisted on, that in the various branches of Social Science
there is an advance from the general to the special, from the simple to
the complex, analogous with that which is found in the series of the
sciences, from Mathematics to Biology. To the laws of quantity comprised
in Mathematics and Physics are superadded, in Chemistry, laws of quality;
to these again are added, in Biology, laws of life; and lastly, the
conditions of life in general branch out into its special conditions, or
Natural History, on the one hand, and into its abnormal conditions, or
Pathology, on the other. And in this series or ramification of the
sciences, the more general science will not suffice to solve the problems
of the more special. Chemistry embraces phenomena which are not
explicable by Physics; Biology embraces phenomena which are not
explicable by Chemistry; and no biological generalization will enable us
to predict the infinite specialities produced by the complexity of vital
conditions. So Social Science, while it has departments which in their
fundamental generality correspond to mathematics and physics, namely,
those grand and simple generalizations which trace out the inevitable
march of the human race as a whole, and, as a ramification of these, the
laws of economical science, has also, in the departments of government
and jurisprudence, which embrace the conditions of social life in all
their complexity, what may be called its Biology, carrying us on to
innumerable special phenomena which outlie the sphere of science, and
belong to Natural History. And just as the most thorough acquaintance
with physics, or chemistry, or general physiology, will not enable you at
once to establish the balance of life in your private vivariu