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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRODUCTION i. Method It is my aim, in the present essay, to inquire to what extent the principles of the development of the individual mind apply also to the evolution of society.1 This thesis being the main one, it naturally falls into two main inquiries:2 what are the principles which the individual shows in his mental life, ? principles of organization, growth, and conduct? ? and what additional principles, if any, does society exhibit in its forms of organization, progress, and activity ? There are three more or less ' scientific' methods by which this general problem might be investigated, which I may name in order: First, the Anthropological or Historical method, which aims to discover in the history of society the same principles as those which individual mental growth shows. Its question is: Does the individual in his progress recapitulate, in any sense, the progress of society as shown in its history from the earliest forms of organization to the latest ? Second, the Sociological or Statistical method, which aims, by analytical and inductive examinations of society, 1 Compare the remarks (apropos of the contents of the work) in the Preface to the first edition. 2 Books I. and II. respectively. That is, in contrast with deductive, speculative, and philosophical inquiries about society. to find out the principles of its organization and the method of its growth; the results to be compared with those of descriptive psychology. Third, the Genetic method, which has application in two fields of investigation: 1. The psychological development of the individual examined for light upon the social elements and movements of his nature, whereby he finds himself in social organization with his fellows. This may be called the Psychogenetic method....