ogy," are set forth the general facts, structural
and functional, gathered from a survey of societies and their changes;
in other words, the empirical generalizations that are arrived at by
comparing different societies, or successive stages of the same
societies. The author then examines the evolution of governments,
general and local, as this is determined by natural causes; their
several types and metamorphosis; their increasing complexity and
specialization, and the progressive limitation of their functions. From
political the author turns to ecclesiastical organization. He traces the
differentiation of religious government from secular; its successive
complications and the multiplication of sects; the growth and continued
modification of religious ideas, as caused by advancing knowledge and
changing moral character; and the gradual reconciliation of these ideas
with the truths of abstract science. A good deal of space is devoted to
what the author calls ceremonial organization, by which he means that
third kind of government which, having a common root with the others,
and slowly becoming separate from and supplementary to them, serves to
regulate the minor actions of life. Finally, Mr. Spencer discusses
industrial organization; that is to say, the development of productive
and distributive agencies, considered in its necessary causes,
comprehending not only the progressive division of labor and the
increasing complexity of each industrial agency, but also the
successive forms of industrial government as passing through like phases
with political government.

Many pages would be requisite adequately to describe the result of the
inquiries prosecuted by Mr. Spencer during some twenty years, and
embodied in the three volumes entitled "Principles of Sociology." The
ultimate conclusions reached, however, may be summed up in a few
paragraphs. It is the author's final conviction that, if the process of
evolution, which, unceasing throughout past time, has brought life to
its present height, continues throughout the future, as we cannot but
anticipate, then, amid all the rhythmical changes in each society, amid
all the lives and deaths of nations, amid all the supplantings of race
by race, there will go on that adaptation of human nature to the social
state which began when savages first gathered together into hordes for
mutual defence,--an adaptation finally complete. Mr. Spencer foresees
that many will think this a wild