Transcribed from the 1887 Tomas Y. Crowell “What todo?” edition ,
The object of a census is scientific. A census is asociological investigation. And the object of the scienceof sociology is the happiness of the people. This scienceand its methods differ sharply from all other sciences.
Its peculiarity lies in this, that sociological investigationsare not conducted by learned men in their cabinets, observatoriesand laboratories, but by two thousand people from thecommunity. A second peculiarity is this, that theinvestigations of other sciences are not conducted on livingpeople, but here living people are the subjects. A thirdpeculiarity is, that the aim of every other science is simplyknowledge, while here it is the good of the people. One manmay investigate a nebula, but for the investigation of Moscow,two thousand persons are necessary. The object of the studyof nebulæ is merely that we may know about nebulæ;the object of the study of inhabitants is that sociological lawsmay be deduced, and that, on the foundation of these laws, abetter life for the people may be established. It makes nodifference to the nebula whether it is studied or not, and it haswaited long, and is ready to wait a great while longer; but it isnot a matter of indifference to the inhabitants of Moscow,especially to those unfortunates who constitute the mostinteresting subjects of the science of sociology.
The census-taker enters a night lodging-house; in the basementhe finds a man dying of hunger, and he politely inquires hisprofession, his name, his native place, the character of hisoccupation, and after a little hesitation as to whether he is tobe entered in the list as alive, he writes him in and goes hisway.
And thus will the two thousand young men proceed. Thisis not as it should be.
Science does its work, and the community, summoned in thepersons of these two thousand young men to aid science, must doits work. A statistician drawing his deductions fromfigures may feel indifferent towards people, but wecensus-takers, who see these people and who have no scientificprepossessions, cannot conduct ourselves towards them in aninhuman manner. Science fulfils its task, and its work isfor its objects and in the distant future, both useful andnecessary to us. For men of science, we can calmly say,that in 1882 there were so many beggars, so many prostitutes, andso many uncared-for children. Science may say this withcomposure and with pride, because it knows that the confirmationof this fact conduces to the elucidation of the laws ofsociology, and that the elucidation of the laws of sociologyleads to a better constitution of society. But what if we,the unscientific people, say: “You are perishing in vice,you are dying of hunger, you are pining away, and killing eachother; so do not grieve about this; when you shall have allperished, and hundreds of thousands more like you, then,possibly, science may be able to arrange everything in anexcellent manner.” For men of science, the census hasits interest; and for us also, it possesses an interest of awholly different significance. The interest andsignificance of the census for the community lie in this, that itfurnishes it with a mirror into which, willy nilly, the wholecommunity, and each one of us, gaze.
The figures and deductions will be the mirror. It ispossible to refrain from reading them, as it is possible to turnaway from the looking-glass. It is possible to glancecursorily at both figures and mirror, and it is also possible toscrutinize them narrowly. To go about in connection withthe census as thousands of people are now about to do, is toscrutinize one’s self closely in the mirror.
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