and employed; what were the agencies for distributing commodities; what were the means of communication; what was the circulating medium.  Accompanying all which should be given an account of the industrial arts technically considered:  stating the processes in use, and the quality of the products.  Further, the intellectual condition of the nation in its various grades should be depicted; not only with respect to the kind and amount of education, but with respect to the progress made in science, and the prevailing manner of thinking.  The degree of aesthetic culture, as displayed in architecture, sculpture, painting, dress, music, poetry, and fiction, should be described.  Nor should there be omitted a sketch of the daily lives of the people—­their food, their homes, and their amusements.  And lastly, to connect the whole, should be exhibited the morals, theoretical and practical, of all classes:  as indicated in their laws, habits, proverbs, deeds.  These facts, given with as much brevity as consists with clearness and accuracy, should be so grouped and arranged that they may be comprehended in their ensemble, and contemplated as mutually-dependent parts of one great whole.  The aim should be so to present them that men may readily trace the consensus subsisting among them; with the view of learning what social phenomena co-exist with what other.  And then the corresponding delineations of succeeding ages should be so managed as to show how each belief, institution, custom, and arrangement was modified; and how the consensus of preceding structures and functions was developed into the consensus of succeeding ones.  Such alone is the kind of information respecting past times which can be of service to the citizen for the regulation of his conduct.  The only history that is of practical value is what may be called Descriptive Sociology.  And the highest office which the historian can discharge, is that of so narrating the lives of nations, as to furnish materials for a Comparative Sociology; and for the subsequent determination of the ultimate laws to which social phenomena conform.

But now mark, that even supposing an adequate stock of this truly valuable historical knowledge has been acquired, it is of comparatively little use without the key.  And the key is to be found only in Science.  In the absence of the generalisations of biology and psychology, rational interpretation of social phenomena is impossible.  Only in proportion as men draw certain rude, empirical inferences respecting human nature, are they enabled to understand even the simplest facts of social life:  as, for instance, the relation between supply and demand.  And if the most elementary truths of sociology cannot be reached until some knowledge is obtained of how men generally think, feel, and act under given circumstances; then it is manifest that there can be nothing like a wide comprehension of sociology, unless through a competent acquaintance