I am sincerely glad to be able to express myself in substantial
agreement with the majority of my critics, only asking them in turn to
recognise that this is but the first half of my subject--an outline of
civics as in the first place a matter of science, a geographic and
historic survey of past conditions, a corresponding census of present
ones--here discussed and insisted on as affording the needful base for
their demands upon civics as an art, that of effective social service.

In this respect various critics have in fact anticipated large elements
of this future portion of my paper, so that in general views, at least,
critics and writer are not so far apart as would appear were the
preceding pages submitted as a comprehensive outline of the subject,
instead of as its scientific introduction merely.

Of criticisms strictly applicable to this paper as it stands, there are
really very few. I am confident that the chairman must be quite alone in
too modestly applying to his great work that description of London
itself, with which the paper (Section A, pp. 104-107) opens, since his
volumes offer really our first effective clue to the labyrinth, and his
method of intensive and specialised regional survey, the intensest
searchlight yet brought to bear upon it.

Taking, however, a concrete point of criticism, such as that of the
monumental planning of modern Paris as derived from forest rides, the
critic need only walk through any French forest, or even to consult a
Baedeker, or other guide-book, with its maps of any historic dwelling
and its surroundings, from Chantilly or Fontainebleau to minor ones, to
see that this plan, originally devised for the pleasure, success and
safety [Page: 137] of the hunt, and later adapted to domination and
defence, became next appreciated as affording the finest possible