jEypenmental  Xegtslation  9
Erasmus  Darwin  ?  English  legislation,  no  doubt,
is  usually  preceded  by  a  great  amount  of  public
discussion  and  Parliamentary  wrangling.  Sometimes ­
  there  is  plenty  of  statistical  inquiry—plenty,
that  is,  if  it  were  of  the  right  sort,  and  conducted
according  to  true  scientific  method.  Nevertheless,
I  venture  to  maintain  that,  as  a  general  rule,
Parliament  ignores  the  one  true  method  of  appealing
directly  to  experiment.  Our  Parliamentary  Committees ­
  and  Royal  Commissions  of  Inquiry  pile  up
Blue  Books  full  of  information  which  is  generally
not  to  the  point.  The  one  bit  of  information,  the
actual  trial  of  a  new  measure  on  a  small  scale,  is  not
forthcoming,  because  Parliament,  if  it  enacts  a  law
at  all,  enacts  it  for  the  whole  kingdom.  It  habitually
makes  a  leap  in  the  dark,  because,  I  suppose,  it  is
not  consistent  with  the  wisdom  and  dignity  of
Parliament  to  grope  its  way,  and  confess  to  the
world  at  large  that  it  is  afraid  of  making  mistakes.
Now,  I  maintain  that,  in  large  classes  of  legislative
affairs,  there  is  really  nothing  to  prevent  our  making
direct  experiments  upon  the  living  social  organism.
Not  only  is  social  experimentation  a  possible  thing,
but  it  is  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom,  excepting
the  palace  of  St.  Stephen’s,  the  commonest  thing
possible,  the  universal  mode  of  social  progress.
It  would  hardly  be  too  much  to  say  that  social
progress  is  social  experimentation,  and  social
experimentation  is  social  progress.  Changes
effected  by  any  important  Act  of  Parliament  are