sociology would have to be gone through from the “Tableau Economique” of the Physiocratic School to the “Sociological Tables” of Mr. Spencer, and still more fruitfully to more recent writers.  Among these, besides here recognising specially the work of Mr. Booth and its stimulus to younger investigators, I would acknowledge the helpful and suggestive impulse from the group of social geographers which has arisen from the initiative of Le Play[7], and whose classification, especially in its later forms[8], cannot but be of interest and value to everyone whose thought on social questions is not afloat upon the ocean of the abstract without chart or bearings.

[7] La Nomenclature Sociale (Extrait de La Revue, “La Science Sociale,” Dec. 1886) Paris, Firmin-Diact, 1887.

[8] Demoulins, La Science Sociale d’apres F. Le Play 1882-1905; Classification Sociale, “La Science Sociale,” Jan. 1905.

Yet with all respect to each and all these classifications and methods, indeed with cordially acknowledge personal obligation and indebtedness to them from first to last, no one of these seems fully satisfactory for the present purpose; and it is therefore needful to go into the matter afresh for ourselves, though utilising these as fully as we can.

E—­THE CITY-COMPLEX AND ITS USUAL ANALYSIS

In the everyday world, in the city as we find it, what is the working classification of ideas, the method of thought of its citizens?  That the citizens no more think of themselves as using any particular sociological method than did M. Jourdain of talking prose does not really matter, save that it makes our observation, both of them and it, easier and more trustworthy.

They are speaking and thinking for the most part of [Page:  68] People and of Affairs; much less of places.  In the category of People, we observe that individuals, self and others, and this in interest, perhaps even more than in interests, commonly take precedence of groups.  Institutions and Government are, however, of general interest, the state being much more prominent than is the church; the press, for many, acting as the modern substitute for the latter.  In the world of Affairs, commerce takes precedence of industry, while sport runs hard upon both.  War, largely viewed by its distant spectators as the most vivid form of sport, also bulks largely.  Peace is not viewed as a positive ideal, but essentially as a passive state, at best, of non-war, more generally of latent war.  Central among places are the bank, the market (in its financial forms before the material ones).  Second to these stand the mines then the factories, etc.; and around these the fixed or floating fortresses of defence.  Of homes, that of the individual alone is seriously considered, at most those of his friends, his “set,” his peers, but too rarely even of the street, much less the neighbourhood, at least for their own sake, as distinguished from their reaction upon individual and family status or comfort.