Patrick Geddes

An Analysis of the Principles of Economics.

In a paper read nearly three years ago to this Society, I have attempted (1) To review the existing state of statistics ; (2) To define the nature of the subject, and its relation to history and the sciences; (3) Broadly to group and co-ordinate the whole body of existing and possible statistics, in relation to the respective statistical sciences ; and (4) In accordance with the preliminary sciences to frame a classification embracing all existing and possible sociological statistics. Moreover, (5) This was shown to involve, or rather actually to constitute, an aspect of the pressing problem of the systematisation of the literature of economics, of which (6) The existing schools were briefly criticised ; (7) The relation of the conceptions of scientific economics to practical economics was outlined ; (8) As also their relation to ethics.

B. THE MAPPING OF LIFE

So Nature has power to exalt the spirit of Man— t̂o fiU him indeed with av̂ re and reverence, but to excite also his admiration for her majesty and glory and irresistibly to attract him by her sweetness, delicacy and grace. She fills man with love for her till he craves to make himself one in purpose and in spirit with her, to rival her in strictness of self-discipline and to strive with her to achieve the highest perfection—and this he now reaUses she can only do through him, the latest of her offspring.

City Deterioration and the Need of City Survey

conclusions on the subject set before me as I have reached-say rather such inquiries as I am wont to prosecute-can be far more satisfactorily stated if something of their concrete origins and their individual development be at first clearly expressed. I therefore venture to make this paper primarily a statement of some of my own experiences of cities. My earliest impressions of a city throughout childhood and youth were fortunately synoptic outlooks in the most literal sense, and thus so far anticipated, no doubt initially determined, the conception I have been seeking ever since, and in many countries, to elaborate, that of the Survey of Cities-the correlation of concrete observation in many aspects, with general views from distinctive points, and this for city by city, and in region after region. My home was on the hill-slope above Perth, and its windows and treetops, and still more the walks over moor and through wood above, and from crofts and cliff-edges to southward, gave an ever-delightful variety of impressions, near enough for detail, yet broad enough for picture. Clear as on a map, just at the tidal and navigable limit of its river lies the city, neatly bounded between two ancient parks, the grassy &dquo;Inches,&dquo; which run back from the river on either hand.

THE CHARTING OF LIFE

THE Ascent of Man, in its deeper and higher aspects, is still far from adequately outlined. Biologists agree, in the main, as to main lines of the evolution of plant and animal life ; and even, in a general way, as to the descent of man : but no comparable consensus has yet been reached among the psychologists, even those evolutionary in tendency. Hence, despite all endeavours, and even advances, the evolution of the religious nature of man, with its emotional intensity, its doctrinal and symbolic systems, most of all remains without any generally accepted presentment. Similarly, our ideas as to the mathematical, sdentific and philosophical endeavours and achievements of humanity are still without an evolutionary consensus. And likewise thc^e of the imaginative endeavours, the esthetic efforts and achievements of maiiind, highly though we value them. For the doctrine of the survival of theologians, of mathematidans and philosophers, of dreamers, poets, artists, as variant forms successfully adapting themselves to the stmggle for existence, plainly does not help us far ! How seldom does it help even for the technical inventor!

THE LATE MR. J. S. STUART GLENNIE.

[Mr. John Stuart Stuart-Glennie, who died recently at Florence, was the son of Alexander Gtennie, of Maybank, Aberdeen. His mother was the daughter of John Stuart of Inchbreck, Professor of Greek in the University of Aberdeen. He was educated at the Grammar School and the University of Aberdeen and at the University of Bonn. After graduating, he traveled widely in Europe and America, was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple, and practiced in the court of his kinsman, the Vice-Chancellor Sir John Stuart. Then, giving up practice, he undertook a series of journeys of historical exploration in the East, the fruit of which was a long series of books and papers beginning with the “New Philosophy of History” (1873), and including numerous contributions to the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, the British Association, the Congresses of Orientalists, the Folklore Congress, the Sociological Society, etc.]

THE VILLAGE WORLD: ACTUAL AND POSSIBLE*

IN recent papers we outlined views and offered suggestions on th& Coal Crisis. These of course have been as yet little considered, since our sociological and civic approaches are not as yet familiar, much less congenial, to the types of mind—those of the pecuniary and the political culture—which have been predominant, both among the disputants and their would-be reconcilers alike. Yet for this very rea^n, we must here all the more keep at our sociological metho(k of interpretation and our civic proposals towards practice : hence now some suggestions towards the better understanding and treatment of yet more essential units of every society, than even its coal-mines— the rural villages, in which there quietly goes on the fundamental labour of the nations, and even the mass-life of most as well; while in all cases they are the main nurseries for the recruitment of the cities.

Wardom and Peacedom: Suggestions towards an Interpretation

1 CITE from a friend’s letter before me : “ Write your thoughts about this War. Can there be wars of progress? Is this the end of Capitalism, or, as some think, the destruction of our civilisation ? What does it all mean, and whither are we drifting ?” W e cannot answer such questions, it will be said; but let us at any rate go on asking them. Is it not through asking all manner of questions that we find the right questions, the questions answerable by research or by reflection? SO each new science grows. Why not then a science of war-a branch of sociology of course, but still a distinctive arid rational strategology; or, more exactly, a description of wars or strateography, with an interpretation of their significance-as far as may be indeed, a strategosophy. Let us at least ask a few of the questions for beginning the inquiries of p c h a science. What have been the main and characteristic wars of history, particularly of recent history ? Can any order be observed in their recurrence; and if so, of what kind or kinds? In what regions have wars especially prevailed, and where have they been rarest? How far are they related to racial and anthropological origins ; how far to predominant occupational activities, such as hunting and fishing, as compared with pastoral life and the labours of the peasant, and all these in various conditions of climate, production, etc. ? Why, for instance, have the hunter and warrior Assyrian vanished, while their contemporaries, the peaceful Chinese peasants, still inhabit the earth in ever-increasing multitude ? There is a large popular literature of War, and all of great pretensions-with Bernhardi, and others too numerous to mention, €or its prophets ; and a pro-sociology, however inadequate, mythic, or false, cannot but be suggestive. Such writers have long made affirmations-in the name of anthropology and history, of human psychology and the rest-as to the eternal and ultimate combativeness of man ; so that by sheer iteration, if not argument, a majority of the public seem to have come to believe them. Yet where, in any scientific forms, are their arguments to be found ? And where the answers of the clamantly bellicose writers to such reasoned and vividly stated arguments as those, for instance, of Kropotkin or Tolstoi? Rut of the vast literature of war and peace our poor society has practically nothing-not from its plentiful lack of

5. History and Theory of Spermatogenesis

The development of spermatozoa has been for the last twenty years the subject of prolonged research and controversy, which cannot yet be said to have resulted in satisfactory solution of the involved problems. In view of the intrinsic difficulties of the subject, and the discrepant results and nomenclature of different authorities, it is the object of the present paper to recapitulate the history of investigation, to collate the results and the nomenclature, and to propose a theory which will explain and rationalise the maze of apparently conflicting observations.