There is an elusiveness here and there in this paper which has helped to
confirm me in the opinion that it is well to emphasise the fact that
Prof. Geddes is not only a dreamer of lofty dreams but a doer and a
practical initiator. He has expressed himself not only in words but in
art and in architecture, and in educational organisation; and he has in
many ways, sometimes indirectly, influenced scholastic and civic
activities.

If from the Outlook Tower he dreams of an idealised Edinburgh he has
only to reply to the scoffer who asks, "What have you done?"
"_Circumspice!_" There stand the settlements he initiated, the houses
beautiful, bright, delectable; and the tower itself is an embodiment of
his ideas, an encyclopædia in stone and in storeys.

We must, in criticising this paper, take into account these attempts
towards realisation of its principles. The sociological evolutionist is
"concerned primarily with origins, but ultimately and supremely with
ideals," we were reminded in a recent paper read before this Society.
And in the same paper it was affirmed that, "through the formulation of
its larger generalisations as ideals, sociology may hope to achieve the
necessary return from theory to practice." Thus, if Civics is applied
Sociology, we must rest its claims on these criteria. What, then, we
have to ask is:--(1) What actually are the generalisations of the
present paper? (2) How far they are warranted by verifiable sociological
testimony, and (3) What results do they yield when transformed by the
touch of emotion into ideals of action? To attempt an adequate answer to
these questions would perhaps transcend the limits of this discussion.
But merely to raise these questions of presupposition should tend to
clarify the discussion. Coming to detail, I may say, as one whose
occupation is demographic, I regret the unavoidable briefness of the