not follow the precedent of Aristotle, and accept Utopias as material?

There used to be in my student days, and probably still flourishes, a
most valuable summary of fact and theory in comparative anatomy, called
Rolleston's "Forms of Animal Life." I figure to myself a similar book, a
sort of dream book of huge dimensions, in reality perhaps dispersed in
many volumes by many hands, upon the Ideal Society. This book, this
picture of the perfect state, would be the backbone of sociology. It
would have great sections devoted to such questions as the extent of the
Ideal Society, its relation to racial differences, the relations of the
sexes in it, its economic organisations, its organisation for thought
and education, its "Bible"--as Dr. Beattie Crozier would say--its
housing and social atmosphere, and so forth. Almost all the divaricating
work at present roughly classed together as sociological could be
brought into relation in the simplest manner, either as new suggestions,
as new discussion or criticism, as newly ascertained facts bearing upon
such discussions and sustaining or eliminating suggestions. The
institutions of existing states would come into comparison with the
institutions of the Ideal State, their failures and defects would be
criticised most effectually in that relation, and the whole science of
collective psychology, the psychology of human association, would be
brought to bear upon the question of the practicability of this proposed
ideal.

This method would give not only a boundary shape to all sociological
activities, but a scheme of arrangement for text books and lectures, and
points of direction and reference for the graduation and post graduate
work of sociological students.

Only one group of inquiries commonly classed as sociological would have