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 Method in Social Science

In its second edition, Method in Social Science was widely praised for its penetrating analysis
of central questions in social science discourse. This revised edition contains a new preface
with suggestions for further readings and a bibliography. The book is intended for students
and researchers familiar with social science but having little or no previous experiences of
philosophical and methodological discussion, and for those who are interested in realism
and method.

Andrew Sayer is Professor of Social Theory and Political Economy at Lancaster University.
He has a longstanding interest in philosophical issues relating to social science, but has
always combined this with research on substantive issues—primarily to do with political
economy and inequality. His other books include The New Social Division of Labor, with
R.A.Walker (Blackwell, 1992); Realism and Social Science (Sage, 2000); and The Moral
Significance of Class (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Method in Social Science
A realist approach

Revised Second Edition

Andrew Sayer
 First published in 1984 by Hutchinson
Second edition published in 1992
by Routledge

Revised second edition published 2010

by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of

Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks
please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

© 2010 Andrew Sayer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Sayer, R.Andrew.
Method in social science/by Andrew Sayer.—Rev. 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Social sciences—Methodology. I. Title.
H61.S353 2010
300.72–dc22
2009049685

ISBN 0-203-85037-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 13:978-0-415-58159-2 (pbk)

ISBN 13:978-0-203-85037-4 (ebk)

ISBN 10:0-415-58159-1 (pbk)

ISBN 10:0-203-85037-8 (ebk)
 Contents

Preface to the revised second edition page vii

Preface to the second edition xiii

Introduction 1
1 Knowledge in context 8
Some misconceptions about knowledge
Knowledge, work and communicative interaction
The relationship between subject and object
Some implications of subject-object relations
Verstehen
Critical theory and the relationship between subject and object
Conclusions
2 Theory, observation and practical adequacy 31
Knowledge and object
‘Theory’
The conceptual mediation of perception
Sense and reference and the conceptual and the empirical
Truth and practical adequacy
 elativism, inter-theory disputes and discontinuities in the
R
development of knowledge
‘Theorizing’ and the development of knowledge
Conclusions
3 Theory and method I: abstraction, structure and cause 58
Abstraction and structural analysis
Structure, agency and reproduction
Contentless abstractions
Generalization
 Contents v

Causation and causal analysis

Conclusions
4 Theory and method II: types of system and their
implications 80
Stratification and emergent powers
Closed and open systems and regularities
Laws in science: causal and instrumentalist
Prediction
Rational abstractions and ‘chaotic conceptions’
From abstract to concrete: the example of marxist research
The theoretical and the empirical revisited
Spatial form and abstract and concrete research
Conclusion
5 Some influential misadventures in the philosophy of science 104
Atomism and the problems of induction and causation
Necessity
The accusation of ‘essentialism’
The limits of logic
Popper and deductivism
6 Quantitative methods in social science 118
Quantification
Mathematics: an acausal language
Accounting and quasi-causal models
‘Theoretical’ and ‘empirical’ models and closed and open
systems
The role of assumptions in models
Statistical methods
Conclusions
7 Verification and falsification 137
Philosophical criticism
Existential hypotheses
Predictive tests
Causal explanations and explanatory tests
vi Contents

Interpretations—beyond evaluation?
Conclusions
8 Popper’s ‘falsificationism’ 152
9 Problems of explanation and the aims of social science 156
 xplanation and the question of difficulty: I orthodox con-
E
ception
Research design: intensive and extensive
 xplanation and the question of difficulty: II critical theory
E
conception
Appendix: Notes on realism, writing and the future of method in
social science 174
Narrative versus analysis
The neglect of description
The influence of rhetoric

Notes and references 180

Bibliography 202
Index 210
 Preface to the revised second edition

When I was writing the first edition of Method back in the early eighties, it was a time
of great interest in the philosophy and methodology of social science; indeed, surprising
though it may seem now, it was actually a fashionable topic, and there was a steady stream
of books on the subject. Where most of these were primarily critical reviews of established
philosophical ideas about social science, its nature and methods, Method sought to be
constructive and suggest how we should approach social research, instead of merely
presenting a critique of others’ ideas. Where others presented ‘toolkits of research methods’
without problematising their presuppositions or considering how we conceptualise and
theorise in social research, I saw such matters as fundamental. Where other books seemed to
be written for peers and potential reviewers, I wanted to write for students and researchers.
As the continued use of the book after 25 years shows, the recipe seems to have worked.
Apart from a few minor corrections, I have not changed the text of this edition from that
of the last. Of course, much has been written on the topic since then, and so I shall use this
opportunity to suggest some further reading here. But first, I want to make some general
points about ‘method’.
Since the previous editions there has been a growth in some quarters of scepticism
about the very idea of prescribing research methods. Surely there isn’t a method for doing
social research? Surely how we research something will depend on the subject and what
we want to find out? Surely no method can give us ‘a royal road to truth’? Of course there
isn’t a single method. If I thought there was, I would have called the book, ‘The Method
of Social Science’. I also use ‘method’ in the broad sense of ‘approach’. What I argue is
exactly that there are many methods or approaches, each having particular strengths and
weaknesses, each appropriate for different objects and research questions, and that many
research projects will require combinations of them. We also need to think about what is
involved in theorising, and recognise that metaphor plays a major role in scientific theories
and descriptions, that creativity is needed to find successively better metaphors, and that
the interpretation of meaning in society is central to social research. But while all of these
are necessary, there is no substitute for attentiveness to the object of study Although we
inevitably have to use existing ways of thinking to interpret our object, and while it usually
pays to stand on the shoulders of earlier writers, attentiveness to the object and careful
description, coupled with reflexivity about how we attend to the world, are vital. Hence not
everything about method can be codified.
My colleague John Law recently published a book called After Method, in which he
argues that the messiness of the social world is such that formal methods and theories have
only limited application in many kinds of social research (Law 2004). To some extent I
agree. One of the great myths of modernism is that all knowledge can be reduced to laws
and that any other kind of knowledge is inferior and dispensible. This belief in formal
rationality and a standardised method suitable for all subject matters reached its apogee
in social science in positivism in the 1960s and has been in slow decline ever since. As
viii Preface to the revised second edition
critical realists have shown, that model isn’t even appropriate for natural science, let alone
social science, for the world is open, and qualitative change, variation and different degrees
of irregularity are normal. And as Aristotle argued over two millennia ago, in addition to
theoretical knowledge we also need knowledge of particulars, which generally comes from
experience and practical involvement. Aristotle also warned students not to expect more
precision than the subject allows. Some subjects are fuzzy and continually changing; where
there are gradations there is no point in rendering them as sharp steps. We live in a world of
similarities and differences, stability and change, structures, order and mess, necessity and
contingency Often our more abstract, ‘thin’ concepts will identify certain basic common
features of particular kinds of society, but to apply them to concrete situations we are
likely to need to move to more concrete, thicker concepts, and to use ‘thick description’.
Sometimes we will need to forge new concepts to deal with novel developments. Hence,
conceptualisation, the move from abstract to concrete, and the relation of theory to empirics
remain central issues in social scientific methodology
Of course, social science, like natural science, cannot provide ‘a royal road to truth’. No
matter how well chosen our methods may be, our ways of thinking may still let us down.
Knowledge is fallible, that is, capable of being mistaken about its object. The truth or
adequacy of our ideas is a practical matter, and something that we can try to improve. To be
sure, we can only know things through existing ways of seeing, and can never escape from
these and get ‘sideways on’ to see how our ideas compare with the world. Nevertheless, in
many cases, we can still register counter-evidence to our beliefs, as when our expectations
fail to anticipate what happens, or when we crash into something. That the revised ideas that
might be developed in response to such failures are in principle fallible too doesn’t mean
there can be no progress. For example, feminist social science has continually revised its
claims, but this does not mean it has merely trodden water. It is precisely through continual
empirical and theoretical assessment and critique that it has come to enable us to see many
things that pre-feminist social science did not, and hence contributed to the development of
more true or adequate accounts of society The most simple and basic idea of realism is that
the nature of the world is largely independent of an observer’s ideas about it, and it is this that
explains both the adequacy and fallibility of our knowledge, such as it is. Whether climate
change is happening or not does not depend on my views on the matter. Neoconservatism
is a social construction, shaped by the ideas of its founders, but it is not my construction and
I seem to have failed to make any difference to it. It is whatever it is regardless of what I
think, and hence my beliefs about it may be more or less true. Violence against women has
clearly been influenced by ideas about women and men and what is legitimate in society at
large, but it is not merely a product of an observer’s view on the matter; many people do
not realise how common it is. If there were no objective situation about which we could be
mistaken, then we could just make up any ideas, and they would be infallible; Holocaust
denial would be as good as Holocaust confirmation. Realism does not, as many imagine,
involve a claim that we can achieve absolute, infallible knowledge. On the contrary,
realism and fallibilism presuppose one another. Progress towards greater truth or practical
adequacy is possible, but we should not expect perfection, whatever that might mean.
When research students ask me what theories and research methods they should use
in interpreting their chosen topic, I generally say use all you know—not only the theories
and methods you have learned in your subject, but what you know from your experience.
 Preface to the revised second edition ix
Theories are selective, one-sided, highlighting particular structures and properties; that is
their strength, but also their weakness. Further, not all theories relating to a particular topic
are direct rivals, but may be partially complementary, so it generally pays to be open to
this possibility and to compare different theories and perspectives, although we must also
beware of combining ideas that contradict one another. To be sure, everyday knowledge
and experience are frequently unexamined, and sometimes misleading, but while they
therefore need to be treated with caution, we should beware of the kind of theoreticist
elitism that dismisses them in advance as worthless and ideological. Their richness and
practical versatility can make them a useful source of insights. For some topics, there
may even be works of fiction and literature that provide useful insights, especially into the
nature of subjective experience, though of course their appropriateness would have to be
assessed in relation to the subject matter (Stones 1996).
There is one fundamental feature of the social world that Method and subsequent writing
on critical realism—and philosophy of social science more generally—has not addressed.
This concerns the model of human beings that social science either explicitly or implicitly
assumes. One of the distinctive features of critical realism is that it combines two models
that have often been imagined to be not merely different but incompatible—the human being
as causal agent, who makes things happen, the other as ‘meaning maker’, who interprets
the world in innumerable ways. However, although this is an improvement on approaches
which assume that we have to choose between these models, it still fails to confront our
nature as human animals, that is, beings who have continually to reproduce our conditions
of life to survive, and who are capable of flourishing and suffering. We might call this,
for want of a better term, a ‘needs-based conception of social being’ and action, viewing
people not only as causal agents and as self-interpreting, meaning makers, but as needy,
desiring beings (characterized by deficiency), dependent on others, having an orientation
to the world of care and concern. ‘Needs’ here is used as a shorthand that also covers lack,
wants and desire, and includes what might be termed ‘culturally acquired or emergent
needs’ deriving from involvement in and commitment to specific cultural practices, such
as the need of the religious to worship. Certainly needs and wants may sometimes be
fulfilled or satiated, whether through effort or luck, and they can change, so that we can
come to want and enjoy things we previously did not, but neediness in this broad sense is
fundamental to us as both biological and cultural beings. Failure to acknowledge human
neediness and vulnerability invites misattributions of causality or responsibility, so that, for
example, discourses are treated as capable on their own of motivating people. Hermeneutics
enables us to view people as meaning makers, but not to understand what it is about them
that makes anything matter to them. People do not merely have causal powers, like other
objects, or indeed understandings, but have a relation to the world of concern, in virtue of
their neediness, vulnerability and dependence.
The treatment of meaning within the needs-based model goes beyond that of hermeneutic
approaches in that it deals not only with signifiers and the signified, shared understandings
and rule-following, but significance or import. This is what people refer to when they talk
about ‘what something means to them’, such as what their friends mean to them or what
it means to be an immigrant (Sayer 2006). In such cases, they are not merely giving a
definition of those things or necessarily a thick description, but an indication of their import
or significance for them, how they value them, how such things impact on their well-
x Preface to the revised second edition
being or other things that they care about (Taylor 1985). Thus an ethnographic study might
explain, in a matter-of-fact way, how the members of a certain group understand and act
towards each other in terms of meanings primarily as conventions or shared interpretations,
but give little indication of just why some things have particular import or significance
for actors, that is, how they affect things they care about. To the extent that many social
scientific accounts ignore this they fail to give an adequate impression of what social life is
like from the inside. As I have argued elsewhere, they produce an alienated social science
(Sayer 2005; 2009). This is one of the outstanding problems that philosophy and social
science have to face.

Further reading
Much has been written on realism and method in social science since the second edition. Some
of this literature addresses rival approaches such as post-structuralism, post-modernism and
the turn to discourse, debating to what extent they are compatible with realism (e.g. López
and Potter 2001; Pearce and Fauley 2008; Joseph and Roberts 2003). My own Realism and
Social Science (Sayer 2000) deals with broader issues than Method, including responses to
post-modernism, discussions of space, narrative and social theory, values in social science
and critical social science. Theories of the relation between structure and agency have
been extensively debated, with key contributions from Margaret Archer, Rob Stones and
Dave Elder-Vass (Archer, 1995, 2000, and 2003; Elder-Vass 2005, 2008; Stones, 1996).
There have been many books and articles on ‘using’ realism in particular social sciences
and research fields. In addition to Danermark et al.’s book on explanation (Danermark
et al. 1997), there are collections covering several disciplines (Cruickshank 2003; Carter
and New 2004), and publications on realism in relation to anthropology (Davies 2008),
discourse analysis (Fairclough et al. 2003), economics (Lawson 1997; Fleetwood 1998)
feminism (New 1998, 2003, 2005), international relations (Patomaki 2001), law (Norrie
2009), organizational studies (Fleetwood and Ackroyd 2004), political economy (Jessop
2005), psychology (Parker 1999), and sociology (New 1995). Others have written on
realism in relation to more specific theories and topics, such as Marxism (Brown et al.
2001), concepts of nature (Benton 1993), the political theory of hegemony (Joseph 2002),
‘race’ (Carter 2000), quantitative methods (Morgan and Olsen 2005) and health research
(Clark et al. 2007). This is only a small sample of a rapidly growing literature. Wherever
readers are located in social science, they should be able to find discussions of critical
realism that relate to their interests
At a more philosophical level, discussions continue on basic arguments of critical realism,
such as objectivity and values (Collier 1994, 2003), causality (Groff 2008), new topics such
as ethics (Collier 1999; Norrie 2009), and the later work of Roy Bhaskar, the main founder
of critical realism. The International Association for Critical Realism and its Journal of
Critical Realism provides a forum for many of these debates (see also Archer et al. 1998).

References
Archer, M.S. (1995) Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Archer, M.S. (2000) Being Human, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Preface to the revised second edition xi
Archer, M.S. (2003) Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Archer, M.S., Bhaskar, R., Collier, A., Lawson, T. and Norrie, A. (eds). (1998) Critical Realism:
Essential Readings, London: Routledge.
Benton, T. (1993) Natural Relations, London: Verso.
Brown, A., Fleetwood, S. and Roberts, J.R. (2001) Critical Realism and Marxism, London:
Routledge.
Carter, B. (2000) Realism and Racism, London: Routledge.
Carter, B. and New, C. (2004) Making Realism Work, London: Routledge.
Clark, M., MacIntyre, P.D. and Cruickshank, J. (2007) ‘A critical realist approach to understanding
and evaluating heart health programmes’ Health, 11:4, 513–39.
Collier, A. (1994) Critical Realism: An Introduction, London: Verso.
Collier, A. (1999) Being and Worth, London: Routledge.
Collier, A. 2003 In Defence of Objectivity, London: Routledge.
Cruickshank, J. (ed) 2003 Critical Realism: The Difference it Makes, London: Routledge.
Davies, C.A. (2008) Reflexive Ethnography, London: Routledge.
Danermark, B., Ekström, M., Jakobsen, L. and Karlsson, J.C. (1997) Explaining Society: Critical
Realism in the Social Sciences, London: Routledge.
Elder-Vass, D. (2005). ‘Emergence and the realist account of cause’, Journal of Critical Realism,
4, 315–38.
Elder-Vass, D. (2008) ‘Searching for realism, structure and agency in actor network theory’. British
Journal of Sociology, 59:3, 455–73.
Fairclough N., Jessop B. and Sayer, A. (2003) ‘Critical realism and semiosis’ in J.Joseph and
J.R.Roberts (eds) Realism Discourse and Deconstruction, London: Routledge, pp. 23–42.
Fleetwood, S. (ed.) (1998) Critical Realism in Economics: Development and Debate, London:
Routledge.
Fleetwood, S. and Ackroyd, S. (2004) Critical Realist Applications in Organisation and Management
Studies, London: Routledge.
Groff, R. (ed.) (2008) Revitalizing Causality: Realism about Causality in Philosophy and Social
Science, London: Routledge.
Jessop, B. (2005) ‘Critical realism and the strategic relational approach’, New Formations, 56,
40–53.
Joseph, J. (2002) Hegemony: A Realist Analysis, London: Routledge.
Joseph, J. and Roberts, J.R. (eds.) (2003) Realism Discourse and Deconstruction, London:
Routledge.
Law, J. (2004) After Method: Mess in Social Science Research, London: Routledge.
Lawson, T. (1997) Economics and Reality, London: Routledge.
López, J. and Potter, G. (2001) After Postmodernism: An Introduction to Critical Realism, London:
Athlone.
Morgan, J. and Olsen, W. (2005) ‘Towards a critical epistemology of analytical statistics: realism in
mathematical method’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 35:3, 255–84.
New, C. (1995) ‘Sociology and the case for realism’, The Sociological Review, 43:4, 808–27.
New, C. (1998) ‘Realism, deconstruction and the feminist standpoint’, Journal for the Theory of
Social Behaviour, 28:4, 349–72.
New, C. (2003) ‘Feminisms, critical realism and the linguistic turn’, in Cruickshank, J. (ed.) Critical
Realism: The Difference that it Makes, London: Routledge, pp. 57–74.
New, C. (2005) ‘Sex and gender: a critical realist approach’, New Formations, 56, 54–70.
Norrie, A. (2009) Dialectic and Difference: Dialectical Critical Realism and the Grounds of Justice,
London: Routledge.
xii Preface to the revised second edition
Parker, I. (1999) ‘Against relativism in psychology, on balance’, History of the Human Sciences,
12:4, 61–78.
Patomaki, H. (2001) After International Relations: Critical Realism and the (Re) Construction of
World Politics, London: Routledge.
Pearce, F. and Fauley, J. (eds) (2007) Critical Realism and the Social Sciences: Heterodox
Elaborations, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Sayer, A. (2000) Realism and Social Science, London: Sage.
Sayer, A. (2005) The Moral Significance of Class, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sayer, A. (2006) ‘Language and significance—or the importance of import: implications for critical
discourse analysis’, Journal of Language and Politics, 5:3, 449–71.
Sayer, A. (2009) ‘Understanding lay normativity’, in Moog, S. and Stones, R. (eds) Nature, Social
Relations and Human Needs: Essays in Honour of Ted Benton, London: Palgrave Macmillan,
pp. 128–45.
Stones, R. (1996) Sociological Reasoning: Towards a Post-Modern Sociology, Macmillan.
Taylor, C. (1985) Human Agency and Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Preface to the second edition

In the 1980s, the ideas of realist philosophy began to make an impact on social science.
Yet the gulf between the more philosophical debates and the literature on how we should
do social research remains wide, spanned by only the most rudimentary of bridges. Sadly,
many social scientists can still only think of ‘method’ in terms of quantitative techniques,
and even though these are now commonly supplemented by qualitative techniques such as
participant observation and informal interviewing, the basic activity of conceptualization—
which no one can escape—remains unexamined. Of course realism has not had a monopoly
of innovations in philosophy and methodology in recent years. Particularly important has
been the growing interest in language, writing and rhetoric, for these affect not merely how
we re-present ideas for others but the very terms in which we think. Unfortunately these
advances have been affected or infected by idealist currents which appear to rule out the
possibility of any kind of empirical check on social science.
In view of this situation I believe that realism and the question of method remain very
much on the agenda and that there is still far to go in developing a constructive discussion
of method informed by realist philosophy. This remains the task of this second edition.
The book is intended both for students and researchers familiar with social science but
having little or no previous experience of philosophical and methodological discussions
and for those who are familiar with them but are interested in realism and method. These
two audiences have different interests and preferences regarding style and content. The
style and organization are emphatically geared towards the first group (reviewers please
note!). I have therefore deliberately avoided spattering the text with name-droppings that
would only alienate the first group even if they reassured the second. Issues are selected
on a need-to-know basis rather than on one of fashion; philosophical doctrines are only
discussed if they have had or are likely to have a major influence on the practice of social
science. At the same time I feel confident that the cognoscenti will find the realist ideas
developed here radically different from those dominant in the literature.
The two possible audiences are liable to ask different questions and raise different
objections. Those likely to come from the first type of reader are anticipated and answered
in the main text. Answers to probable objections from the cognoscenti are restricted to Notes
and to Chapters 5 and 8, which provide critiques specifically directed at certain orthodox
ideas. The point of this form of organization is to avoid the usual academic’s habit of
lapsing into writing only for specialists (including reviewers!). I should also perhaps point
out that although its arguments are often philosophical, this book is primarily about method
in social research, rather than about the philosophy of social science. Many fine books on
the latter already exist.1 While they offer excellent philosophical critiques they offer little
constructive comment on the practice of social science. It is this imbalance that I aim to redress.
A few words about revisions for those familiar with the first edition. Second editions are
an opportunity to update and another chance to get things right and this is no exception.
xiv Preface to the second edition
It’s common today to acknowledge that texts and the way they are interpreted can never be
fully controlled by their authors, and often I have been taken aback as much by supporters’
readings as by opponents’. But authors do have some responsibility for the reception of
their books, so besides adding new material I have tried to correct my own errors and to
block some of the misreadings apparent in reactions to the first edition.
The chief surprise to me about the reception of the first edition has been the selectivity of
interest. First, for reasons I still do not fully understand, the necessary-contingent distinction
introduced in Chapter 3 seems to have overshadowed much of the rest of the book. In
this second edition I have tried to clarify this distinction but I remain unconvinced that it
warrants the prominence within realism that some interpreters of the first edition gave it.
The second kind of selectivity involves a tendency to identify realism with extraordinarily
limited tendencies in social theory (e.g. particular angles on marxism) and highly restricted
areas of social research (e.g. research on localities). Whatever judgements were made of
this research—good or bad—seemed to have rubbed off onto perceptions of realism. Let
me therefore stress that, as any scan of the literature will show, realism is a philosophy of
and for the whole of the natural and social sciences.
Reactions from students have made it clear that a new and fuller Introduction was needed.
Apart from this, the main additions concern the nature of theory and its relation to empirical
research, practical knowledge, space and social theory, interpretive understanding, research
design and an appendix on realism and writing. Further revisions have been made in the
light of the experience of empirical research carried out in the last six years. Numerous
minor changes have been made to correct and clarify arguments, to add illustrations and to
improve accessibility.

Acknowledgements
The University of Sussex for sabbatical leave; the University of California, Los Angeles,
Ohio State University, the universities of Copenhagen, Roskilde and Lund and the
Copenhagen Business School, for their hospitality in providing me with new horizons; the
many graduate students in those places and the Sussex ‘Concepts, Methods and Values’
students for enduring my obsession with methodology; and John Allen, Bjørn Asheim,
Roy Bhaskar, Eric Clark, Kevin Cox, Simon Duncan, Steen Folke, Frank Hansen, Torsten
Hägerstrand, Peter Maskell, Doreen Massey, Kevin Morgan and Dick Walker, for their
support, encouragement and criticism. Finally, my love and thanks to Lizzie Sayer and
Hazel Ellerby.
 Introduction

The status of social science is seriously in doubt. Outsiders’ attitudes towards it are often
suspicious or even hostile, and social scientists themselves are deeply divided over what
constitutes a proper approach to social research. The uncertainty has been heightened
by increasing doubts in philosophy about traditional views of scientific objectivity and
progress. Arguments about whether social science should be like natural science no longer
take place on the basis of agreement about the nature and methods of the latter. However,
recent developments in realist philosophy have offered new and productive perspectives in
both areas that change the whole basis of discussion. In this book I shall try to explain these
and show how they can resolve some of the problems that have troubled social scientists.
One of the main difficulties of the existing literature on social theory and the philosophy
of the social sciences is that few constructive contributions have been made on the subject of
method in empirical research, while texts on methods have reciprocated this lack of interest
by ignoring developments at the philosophical level and in social theory. For example,
much has been written on theories of knowledge, but little about their implications for
empirical research. The result is that even where the philosophical critiques have been
accepted in principle they have failed to make much difference in practice; indeed, the
lack of work on alternative methods has actually discouraged some of the critics and their
supporters from even venturing into empirical research. Meanwhile, many of the empirical
researchers whose work has been under attack have been content to conclude that the
debate is not really relevant to them, or else that philosophical discussions in general
threaten empirical research and should therefore be avoided. To get beyond this impasse
we must decide whether the critiques imply that we can continue to use the usual empirical
methods of hypothesis formation and testing, the search for generalizations and so on, or
whether these must be displaced or supplemented by quite different ones. One of the chief
aims of this book is to answer these questions.
So much depends in social research on the initial definition of our field of study and
on how we conceptualize key objects. Examples of these initial orientations include the
adoption of lay categories and classifications in sociology, the equilibrium assumption
in economics, the concept of the subject in psychology, concepts like ‘interest group’ in
politics, and the selection of spatial units in human geography. All such starting points are
fraught with problems which, whether noticed or not, shape the course of research long
before ‘methods’ in the narrow sense of techniques for getting and interpreting information
are chosen. Once these questions of conceptualization are settled—and frequently the
answers are matters of habit rather than reflection—then the range of possible outcomes
of research is often quite limited. These matters are all the more difficult in social science
where our concepts are often about other concepts—those of the society that we study.
In view of this it is quite extraordinary to compare the attention given in social science
courses to ‘methods’ in the narrow sense of statistical techniques, interviewing and survey
2 Method in Social Science
methods and the like, with the blithe disregard of questions of how we conceptualize,
theorize and abstract. (‘Never mind the concepts, look at the techniques’ might be the
slogan.) Perhaps some would be content to dismiss these matters as questions of paradigms,
social theory or intuition, not method, but it is my belief that there is method not only in
empirical research but in theorizing, and that we need to reflect on it.
A second major impediment to the development of effective method in social science
concerns causation. So much that has been written on methods of explanation assumes
that causation is a matter of regularities in relationships between events, and that without
models of regularities we are left with allegedly inferior, ‘ad hoc’ narratives. But social
science has been singularly unsuccessful in discovering law-like regularities. One of the
main achievements of recent realist philosophy has been to show that this is an inevitable
consequence of an erroneous view of causation. Realism replaces the regularity model
with one in which objects and social relations have causal powers which may or may not
produce regularities, and which can be explained independently of them. In view of this,
less weight is put on quantitative methods for discovering and assessing regularities and
more on methods of establishing the qualitative nature of social objects and relations on
which causal mechanisms depend. And this in turn, brings us back to the vital task of
conceptualization.
Social scientists are invariably confronted with situations in which many things are
going on at once and they lack the possibility, open to many natural scientists, of isolating
out particular processes in experiments. Take an apparently simple social event such as a
seminar. It involves far more than a discussion of some issues by a group of people: there
is usually an economic relationship (the tutor is earning a living); students are also there
to get a degree; their educational institution gets reproduced through the enactment of
such events; relations of status, gender, age and perhaps race are confirmed or challenged
in the way people talk, interrupt and defer to one another; and the participants are usually
also engaged in ‘self-presentation’, trying to win respect or at least not to look stupid
in the eyes of others. This multi-dimensionality is fairly typical of the objects of social
science. The task of assessing the nature of each of the constituent processes without being
able to isolate them experimentally throws a huge burden onto abstraction—the activity
of identifying particular constituents and their effects. Though largely ignored or taken for
granted in most texts on method I believe it to be central.
I shall therefore take a broad view of ‘method’ which covers the clarification of modes
of explanation and understanding, the nature of abstraction, as well as the familiar subjects
of research design and methods of analysis. The terrain of the discussion is therefore the
overlap between method, social theory and philosophy of social science.
In view of this overlap many of the arguments have a philosophical character, involving
thinking about thinking. But while I believe social scientists can learn from philosophy
they should not be in awe of it, for they can also inform it. (Much damage has been done by
prescriptions made by philosophers who have little or no knowledge of what social science
involves.) Methodologists need to remember that although method implies guidance,
research methods are the medium and outcome of research practice;1 the educators
themselves have to be educated—with frequent refresher courses. Therefore philosophy
and methodology do not stand above the substantive sciences but serve, as the realist
philosopher Roy Bhaskar put it, as ‘underlabourer and occasional midwife’ to them.2 And
 Introduction 3
social scientists should certainly not fear that philosophical thinking will subvert empirical
research, though it may be heavily critical of certain kinds.
Method is also a practical matter. Methods must be appropriate to the nature of the
object we study and the purpose and expectations of our inquiry, though the relationships
between them are sometimes slack rather than tight. If we imagine a triangle whose corners
are method, object and purpose, each corner needs to be considered in relation to the other
two, For example, what do differences between the objects studied by social and natural
sciences imply for the methods they use and the expectations we have of their results? Is
the goal of prediction appropriate to an object such as an ideology? Can social scientific
method ignore the understandings of those whom it studies? How far would an interpretive,
ethnographic method be appropriate for assessing macro-economic change? To answer
such questions we shall have to consider all three corners of the triangle.
Although methodology needs to be critical and not merely descriptive I intend to counter
various forms of methodological imperialism. The most important kind, ‘scientism’, uses
an absurdly restrictive view of science, usually centring around the search for regularities
and hypothesis testing, to derogate or disqualify practices such as ethnography, historical
narrative or explorative research, for which there are often no superior alternatives. Another
kind of imperialism, formed in reaction to this is that which tries to reduce social science
wholly to the interpretation of meaning. A critical methodology should not restrict social
science to a narrow path that is only appropriate to a minority of studies.
The variety of possible objects of study in social science stretches beyond the scope
of a single model of research. Consequently, while this book is about method it is not a
recipe book, though it is intended to influence the construction of recipes for research,
by suggesting ways of thinking about problems of theorizing and empirical research.
Examples are therefore intended as just that—not as unique restrictive moulds to which all
realist research must conform.
But what is realism? First of all it is a philosophy not a substantive social theory like that
of Weber or neoclassical economics. It may resonate more with some social theories than
others (e.g. marxism more than neoclassical economics) but it cannot underwrite those
with which it appears to be in harmony. Substantive questions like ‘what causes inflation?’
are different from philosophical questions like ‘what is the nature of explanation?’
Things get more difficult when we try to define the content of realism. When confronted
with a new philosophical position for the first time it is impossible to grasp much of what
is distinctive and significant about it from a few terse statements of its characteristics.
Particular philosophies are not simple and self-contained but exist through their opposition
to a range of alternative positions. They involve loose bundles of arguments weaving
tortuously across wider fields of philosophical discourse. Nevertheless, readers may prefer
to have at least some signposts regarding the nature of realism, or rather my own view of it,
even if their meaning is limited at this stage. Some of the following characteristic claims of
realism may seem too obvious to be worth mentioning, but are included because they are
in opposition to important rival philosophies. Some may seem obscure, but they provide
at least some orientation to newcomers to realism. Fuller explanations will come later. The
wordings represent a compromise between what would be acceptable to those familiar with
philosophical discourse and what is likely to be accessible to those new to it.
4 Method in Social Science
1 The world exists independently of our knowledge of it.
2 Our knowledge of that world is fallible and theory-laden. Concepts of truth and falsity
fail to provide a coherent view of the relationship between knowledge and its object.
Nevertheless knowledge is not immune to empirical check, and its effectiveness in
informing and explaining successful material practice is not mere accident.
3 Knowledge develops neither wholly continuously, as the steady accumulation of facts
within a stable conceptual framework, nor wholly discontinuously, through simultaneous
and universal changes in concepts.
4 There is necessity in the world; objects—whether natural or social—necessarily have
particular causal powers or ways of acting and particular susceptibilities.
5 The world is differentiated and stratified, consisting not only of events, but objects,
including structures, which have powers and liabilities capable of generating events.
These structures may be present even where, as in the social world and much of the
natural world, they do not generate regular patterns of events.
6 Social phenomena such as actions, texts and institutions are concept-dependent.
We therefore have not only to explain their production and material effects but to
understand, read or interpret what they mean. Although they have to be interpreted by
starting from the researcher’s own frames of meaning, by and large they exist regardless
of researchers’ interpretations of them. A qualified version of 1 therefore still applies to
the social world. In view of 4–6, the methods of social science and natural science have
both differences and similarities.3
7 Science or the production of any other kind of knowledge is a social practice. For
better or worse (not just worse) the conditions and social relations of the production of
knowledge influence its content. Knowledge is also largely—though not exclusively—
linguistic, and the nature of language and the way we communicate are not incidental to
what is known and communicated. Awareness of these relationships is vital in evaluating
knowledge.
8 Social science must be critical of its object. In order to be able to explain and understand
social phenomena we have to evaluate them critically.

Amplifications of these points could fill many books but the list should provide some
orientation.
No book of this kind can expect to be exhaustive in its coverage of the range of
methodological issues of interest to social science or of the types of social research to
which they might be relevant. As regards the latter, it is quite extraordinary how sociology
has had the lion’s share of attention in the literature. (Some authors give the impression
that social science is reducible to sociology and sociology to the work of Durkheim, Weber
and Marx!) This has produced a deafening silence on the social research practice of those
in other disciplines such as economics, development studies, psychology and human
geography. While I cannot address all of these I shall try to counter the usual sociological
imperialism found in most books on method in social science.
Any author in this field works with implicit exemplars of particular areas of social
research. Mine are somewhat different from those of existing texts; they come mostly from
political economic theory and interdisciplinary studies of industry and urban and regional
systems, in which researchers tend to come from geography, sociology, economics,
 Introduction 5
political science and anthropology. However, no special knowledge of these is needed
to understand the examples I have used and indeed many of them come from everyday
arguments and events. I have deliberately avoided the philosopher’s irritating habit of
using trivial examples (‘the tree in the quad’, etc.). If a philosophical point is worth making
it may as well be illustrated by an example which not only gives clarification but suggests
its social and practical significance.
A few words are needed on terminology. At the centre of social science’s internal crisis
have been attacks on orthodox conceptions usually termed ‘positivist’ or ‘empiricist’. So
many different doctrines and practices have been identified with these terms that they have
become devalued and highly ambiguous, or even purely pejorative. Those who want to
continue using them increasingly find that they have to preface arguments with tiresome
digressions on ‘the real meaning of positivism’ and these often generate more heat than
what follows. I have therefore avoided using these terms for the most part. This need not
prevent one from discussing some of the issues covered by them and indeed it is liberating
to avoid the usual burden of unwanted associations that the terms bear. In general I have
minimized the use of technical terminology. (That’s what they all say, I know, but at least
the intention was there!)
The word ‘science’ needs special comment. There is little agreement on what kinds of
methods characterize science beyond the rather bland point that it is empirical, systematic,
rigorous and self-critical, and that disciplines such as physics and chemistry are exemplars
of it. Most users of the term obviously consider it to have strong honorific associations for
few are willing to cede its use to opponents. Those who want to stand apart from the futile
academic game of trying to appropriate and monopolize this descriptively vague but prized
label for their own favoured approaches are liable to be accused of the heresy of not caring
about science and, by implication, rigour and other virtues. While no one is likely to be
against virtue, the coupling with exemplars like physics is particularly unhelpful. Not only
is there little consensus on what their methods are, it is also not self-evident that they are
appropriate for the study of society; indeed, that very question has been at the heart of the
philosophical debates. The use of the word ‘science’ in this strong sense has allowed many
authors to prejudge precisely what has to be argued. I therefore want to make it clear that
‘science’, ‘natural science’ and ‘social science’ are used in this book simply as synonyms
for the disciplines that study nature and society. At the most, these subjects might be said
to distinguish themselves from everyday knowledge by their self-examined and inquisitive
character; but that does not say very much and proponents of the humanities may want to
include themselves in this description. In other words, my lack of commitment in the use
of the word ‘science’ does not, of course, entail any lack of commitment to the search for
rigorous and effective methods of study; rather it is intended to clear away an important
obstacle to their discovery.
In view of my attacks on the insulation of discussions of method from social theory and
philosophy of science, readers will not expect me to plunge immediately into a discussion
of particular methods or techniques. In Chapter 1 we look at knowledge in context,
situating social scientific knowledge in relation to other kinds and to practice. Any theory
of knowledge is handicapped from the start if it ignores this context for it is likely to ignore
how the internal structure and practices of science are shaped by this position. And it is a
particularly important consideration for studies of society, for everyday knowledge is both
Other documents randomly have
different content
distance of some seven degrees from the sun it showed no sign of
gibbosity. If it had then been at its greatest elongation it would have
appeared only half-full. But with the power Watson was using, which
enabled him to pronounce that the smaller body near Theta showed
no elongation, he would at once have noticed any such peculiarity of
shape. He could not have failed to observe any gibbosity
approaching to that of the moon when three-quarters full. Moreover
on July 29 a planet which has its points of crossing the ecliptic
opposite the earth's place on April 3 and October 6, could not
appear where Watson saw this body (fully two degrees from the
ecliptic) unless either its orbit were far wider than that which
Leverrier assigned to Vulcan, or else its inclination far greater.
Neither supposition can be reconciled with Lescarbault's observation.
With regard to planets 1 and 2, the case is equally strong against
the theory that Vulcan was observed. The same reasoning applies to
both these bodies. When I speak therefore of planet 1, it will be
understood that planet 2 also is dealt with. First, as this planet
appeared with a disc appreciably round, it is clear that it must have
been near the point of its orbit farthest from the earth, that is, the
point directly beyond the sun. It was then nearly at its brightest. Yet
it appeared as a fourth-magnitude star only. We have seen that
Lescarbault's Vulcan, even when only half-full, would appear as
bright as Mercury at his brightest, if Lescarbault's account can be
accepted in all its details. Situated as planet 1 was, Vulcan would
have shown much more brightly than an average first-magnitude
star. At a very moderate computation it would have been twice as
bright as such a star. But planet 1 appeared fainter than a fourth-
magnitude star. Assume, however, that in reality it was shining as
brightly as an average third-magnitude star. Then it shone with
much less than a twentieth of the lustre Vulcan should have had, if
Lescarbault's estimate were correct. Its diameter then cannot be
greater than a quarter of that which Leverrier assigned to Vulcan on
the strength of Lescarbault's observation. In fact, the apparent
diameter of planet 1, when in transit over the sun's face, could not
be more than a sixteenth of Mercury's in transit, or about two-fifths
of a second,—roughly, about a 5000th part of the sun's apparent
diameter. It is certain that Lescarbault could not have made so
considerable a mistake as this. Nay, it is certain, that with the
telescope he used he could not have seen a spot of this size at all on
the sun's face.
It will be seen that Lescarbault's observation still remains
unconfirmed, or rather, to speak more correctly, the doubts which
have been raised respecting Lescarbault's Vulcan are now more than
ever justified. If such a body as he supposed he saw really travels
round the sun within the orbit of Mercury, it is certain that the
observations made last July by those who were specially engaged in
seeking for Vulcan must have been rewarded by a view of that
planet. In July, Lescarbault's Vulcan could not have been invisible, no
matter in what part of his orbit it might be, and the chances would
have been greatly in favour of its appearing as a very bright star,
without telescopic aid.
But on the other hand it seems extremely probable,—in fact, unless
any one be disposed to question the veracity of the observers, it is
certain,—that within the orbit of Mercury there are several small
planets, of which certainly two, and probably three, were seen
during the eclipse of July 29, 1878. All these bodies must be beyond
the range of any except the most powerful telescopes, whether
sought for as bright bodies outside the sun (not eclipsed) or as dark
bodies in transit across the sun's face. The search for such bodies in
transit would in fact be hopeless with any telescope which would not
easily separate double stars one second of arc apart. It is with large
telescopes, then, and under favourable conditions of atmosphere,
locality, and so forth, that the search for intra-Mercurial planets in
transit must in future be conducted. As the observed disturbance of
Mercury's perihelion, and the absence of any corresponding
disturbance of his nodes (the points where he crosses the plane of
the earth's motion) show that the disturbing bodies must form a ring
or disc whose central plane must nearly coincide with the plane of
Mercury's path, the most favourable time for seeing these bodies in
transit would be the first fortnights in May and November; for the
earth crosses the plane of Mercury's orbit on or about May 8 and
November 10. I believe that a search carried out in April, May, and
June, and in October, November, and December, with the express
object of discovering very small planets in transit, could not fail to be
quickly rewarded,—unless the observations made by Watson and
Swift are to be wholly rejected.

[Since this was written, Professor Swift has expressed the

opinion that his planet cannot possibly have been the one seen
near Theta Cancri by Professor Watson,—who it seems saw
Theta in the centre of a large field of view, and must therefore
have seen Swift's planet had that object been placed either as
shown in fig. 2 or fig. 3. Hence Professor Swift considers that
both the stars he himself saw were planets, and that he did not
see Theta at all. The reasoning in the last five paragraphs of the
above essay would not be in the least affected if we adopted
Professor Swift's conclusion, that four and not three intra-
Mercurial planets were detected during the eclipse of July last.
Yet later Professor Peters of Clinton has indicated reasons for
believing that while Watson simply mistook for planets the two
fixed stars, Theta and Zeta Cancri, Professor Swift saw no
planets at all. This interpretation would account fully, though
not very satisfactorily, for all that is mysterious in the two
narratives.]

FOOTNOTES:
[3] Two observations of Uranus, by Bradley, were discovered by
the late Mr. Breen, and published in No. 1463 of the
Astronomische Nachrichten.
[4] Let the student make the following construction if he
entertains any doubt as to the statements made above. Having
traced the orbits of the earth and Uranus from my chart
illustrating the article 'Astronomy' in the Encyc. Brit., let him
describe a circle nearly twice as large to represent the orbit of
Neptune as Bode's law would give it. Let him first suppose
 Neptune in conjunction with Uranus in 1820, mark the place of
the earth on any given day in 1842, and the place of the fictitious
Neptune; a line joining these points will indicate the direction of
Neptune on the assumptions made. Let him next make a similar
construction on the assumption that conjunction took place in
1825. (From the way in which the perturbation of Uranus reached
a maximum between 1820 and 1825, it was practically certain
that the disturber was in conjunction with Uranus between those
years.) These two constructions will give limiting directions for
Neptune as viewed from the earth, on the assumption that his
orbit has the dimensions named. He will find that the lines include
an angle of a few degrees only, and that the direction line of the
true Neptune is included between them.
[5] The problem is in reality, at least in the form in which
Lescarbault attacked it, an exceedingly simple one. A solution of
the general problem is given at p. 181 of my treatise on the
Geometry of Cycloids. It is, in fact, almost identical with the
problem of determining the distance of a planet from
observations made during a single night.
[6] It may be necessary, perhaps, to explain to some why the
western side is on the right in the little maps illustrating this
paper, and not, as usual with maps, on the left. We are supposed
to look down towards the earth in the case of a terrestrial map,
and to look up from the earth in the case of a celestial map, and
naturally right and left for the former attitude become
respectively left and right for the latter.

RESULTS OF THE BRITISH TRANSIT EXPEDITIONS.

Another noteworthy attempt has been made to estimate the
distance which separates our earth from the mighty central orb
round which she travels with her fellow-worlds the planets. In other
words, the solar system itself has been remeasured; for the
measurement of any part of the system is in fact the measurement
of the entire system, the proportions of which, as distinguished from
its actual dimensions, have long been accurately known.
I propose briefly to describe the results which have been obtained
(after some three years of careful examination) from the
observations made by the British parties sent north, south, east, and
west to observe the transit of Venus on December 9, 1874; and then
to consider how these results compare with those which had before
been obtained. First, however, it may be well to remind the reader of
the unfavourable conditions under which the task of measuring our
distance from the remote sun must of necessity be attacked.
Not unfrequently we hear the measurement of the sun's distance,
and the various errors which astronomers have had to correct during
the progress of their efforts to deal with the problem, referred to in
terms which would imply that astronomy had some reason to be
ashamed of labours which are in reality among the most noteworthy
achievements of their science. Because, some twenty years ago, the
estimate of 95 million miles, which had for half a century held its
ground in our books of astronomy as the true distance of the sun,
was replaced for a while by an estimate of about 91½ million miles,
which has in turn been displaced for an estimate of about 92-1/3
million miles, it has been said that astronomy has very little claim to
be called the exact science. It is even supposed by some that
astronomy is altogether at sea respecting the sun's distance—which,
if the estimates of astronomers thus vary in the course of three-
quarters of a century, may in reality, it is thought, be very different
from any of the values hitherto assigned. Others suppose that
possibly the sun's distance may vary, and that the diminution of
three or four million miles in the estimates adopted by astronomers
may correspond to an approach of the earth towards the sun by that
amount, an approach which, if continued at the same rate, would,
before many centuries, bring the earth upon the surface of the sun,
to be consumed as fuel perhaps for the warming of the outer
planets, Mars, Jupiter, and the rest.
All these imaginings are mistaken, however. The exactness of
astronomy, as a science, does not depend on the measurement of
the sun's distance or size, any more than the accuracy of a clock as
a timekeeper depends on the exactness with which the hands of the
clock are limited to certain definite lengths. The skill with which
astronomy has dealt with this particular problem of celestial
surveying has been great indeed; and the results, when considered
with due reference to the conditions of the problem, are excellent:
but in reality, if astronomers had failed utterly to form any ideas
whatever as to the sun's distance, if for aught they knew the sun
might be less than one million, or more than a million millions of
miles from us, the exactness of astronomy as a science would be no
whit impaired. And, in the second place, no doubts whatever need
be entertained as to the general inference from astronomical
observations that the sun's distance is between 92 and 93 millions of
miles. All the measurements made during the last quarter of a
century lie between 90 and 95 millions of miles, and by far the
greater number of those made by the best methods, and under the
most favourable conditions, lie between 91 and 94 millions of miles.
All the very best cluster closely around a distance of 92-1/3 millions
of miles. We are not for the moment, however, concerned with the
question of the exact distance, but with the question whether
astronomy has obtained satisfactory evidence that the sun's distance
lies in the neighbourhood of the distances deduced by the various
methods lately employed. Putting the matter as one of probabilities,
as all scientific statements must be, it may be said as confidently
that the sun's distance lies between 85 millions and 100 millions of
miles as that the sun will rise to-morrow; and the probability that the
sun's distance is less than 90 millions, or greater than 95 millions of
miles, is so small that it may in effect be counted almost as nothing.
Thirdly, the possibility that the earth may be drawing nearer to the
sun by three or four millions of miles in a century may be dismissed
entirely from consideration. For, one of the inevitable consequences
of such a change of distance would be a change in the length of the
year by about three weeks; and so far from the year diminishing by
twenty days or so in length during a century, it has not diminished
ten seconds in length during the last two thousand years. If there
has been any change year by year in the earth's distance from the
sun, it is one to be measured by yards rather than by miles.
Astronomers would be well content if their 'probable error' in
estimating the sun's distance could be measured by thousands of
miles; so that any possible approach of the earth towards the sun
would go but a very little way towards accounting for the
discrepancies between the different estimates of the distance, even
if these estimates grew always smaller as time passed, which is
assuredly not the case.
But in truth, if we consider the nature of the task undertaken by
astronomers in this case, we can only too readily understand that
their measurements should differ somewhat widely from each other.
Let us picture to ourselves for a moment the central sun, the earth,
and the earth's path, not as they really are, for the mind refuses
altogether to picture the dimensions even of the earth, which is but
an atom compared with the sun, whose own proportions, in turn,
mighty though they are, sink into utter insignificance compared with
the enormous scale of the orbit in which the earth travels around
him. Let us reduce the scale of the entire system to one 500-
millionth part of its real value: even then we have a tolerably large
orbit to imagine. We must picture to ourselves a fiery globe 3 yards
in diameter to represent the sun, and the earth as a one-inch ball
circling round that globe at a distance of about 325 yards, or about
350 paces. The diameter of the earth's orbit would on this scale,
therefore, be somewhat more than a third of a mile. If we imagine
the one-inch ball moving round the fiery globe once in a year, while
turning on its axis once in a day, we find ourselves under a difficulty
arising from the slowness of the resulting motions. We should have
found ourselves under a difficulty arising from the rapidity of the
actual motions if we had considered them instead. The only resource
is to reduce our time-scale, in the same way that we have reduced
our space-scale: but not in the same degree; for if we did we should
have the one-inch ball circling round its orbit, a third of a mile in
diameter, sixteen times in a second, and turning on its axis five
thousand times in a second. Say, instead, that for convenience we
suppose days reduced to seconds. Then we have to picture a one-
inch globe circling once in rather more than six minutes about a
globe of fire 3 yards in diameter, one-sixth of a mile from it, and
turning on its axis once in a second. We must further picture the
one-inch globe as inhabited by some 1,500 millions of creatures far
too small to be seen with the most powerful microscope—in fact, so
small that the tallest would be in height but about the seven-
millionth of an inch—and we must imagine that a few of these
creatures undertake the task of determining from their tiny home
swiftly rotating as it rushes in its orbit around a large globe of fire,
325 yards from them—the number of yards really intervening
between that globe and their home. If we rightly picture these
conditions, which fairly represent those under which the astronomer
has to determine the distance of the sun from the earth, we shall
perceive that the wonder rather is that any idea of the sun's distance
should be obtained at all, than that the estimates obtained should
differ from each other, and that the best of them should err in
measurable degree from the true distance.
Anything like a full explanation of the way in which transits of Venus
across the sun's face are utilised in the solution of the problem of
determining the sun's distance would be out of place in these pages.
But perhaps the following illustration may serve sufficiently, yet
simply, to indicate the qualities of the two leading methods of using
a transit. Imagine a bird flying in a circle round a distant globe in
such a way that, as seen from a certain window (a circular window
suppose), the bird will seem to cross the face of the globe once in
each circuit. Suppose that though the distance of the globe is not
known, the window is known to be exactly half as far again from the
globe as the bird's path is, and that the window is exactly a yard in
diameter. Now in the first place, suppose two observers watch the
bird, one (A) from the extreme right side, and the other (B) from the
extreme left side of the window, the bird flying across from right to
left. A sees the bird begin to cross the face of the globe before B
does,—say they find that A sees this exactly one second before B
does. But A's eye and B's being 3 feet apart, and the bird two-thirds
as far from the globe as the window is, the line traversed by the bird
in this interval is of course only 2 feet in length. The bird then flies 2
feet in a second (this is rather slow for a bird, but the principle of
the explanation is not affected on that account). Say it is further
observed that he completes a circuit in exactly ten minutes or six
hundred seconds. Thus the entire length of a circuit is 1,200 feet,—
whence by the well-known relation between the circumference and
the diameter of a circle, it follows that the diameter of the bird's
path is about 382 feet, and his distance from the centre of the globe
191 feet. So that the distance of the globe from the window, known
to be half as great again, is about 286½ feet.
If we regard the globe as representing the sun; the window of
known size as representing our earth of known dimensions; the bird
travelling round in a known period and at a distance whose
proportion to the window's distance is known, as representing Venus
travelling in a known period round the sun and at a distance bearing
a known proportion to the earth's; this way of determining the
distance of a remote globe illustrates what is called Delisle's method
of determining the sun's distance. It requires that the two observers,
A and B, should each make exact note of the moment when the bird
seemed to begin to cross the disc of the remote globe; and in like
manner Delisle's method requires that two observers, widely
separated on the earth in a direction nearly parallel to that in which
Venus is travelling, should make the most exact note of the moment
when Venus begins to cross the sun's face. Also, as all I have said
about the bird's beginning to cross the face of the distant globe
would apply equally well if said about the end of his seeming
passage across that disc, so two observers, widely separated on the
earth, can determine the sun's distance by noting the end of her
transit instead of the beginning, if they are suitably placed for the
purpose. The window of our illustration remains unchanged during
the bird's imagined flight, but as the face of the earth turned
sunwards (which corresponds to that window) is all the time
changing with the earth's rotation, a different pair of stations would
have to be selected for observing the end of transit, than would be
suitable for observing the beginning.
So much for the method called Delisle's. The other is in principle
equally simple. In the imaginary experiment just described we
supposed the two observers at the right and left sides of the circular
window. Imagine them now to watch the bird from the top and
bottom of the window, 3 feet apart. Suppose they note that the two
tracks along which, as seen from these two points, the bird seems to
cross the face of the distant globe, lie at a distance from each other
equal to one-third of the globe's apparent diameter. Now, the bird
being twice as far from the globe as from the window, the two tracks
on the globe necessarily lie twice as far apart as the two points from
which they are seen—or they lie 6 feet apart. The globe's diameter
therefore is 18 feet. Knowing thus how large it is, and knowing also
how large it looks, the observers know how far from them it lies. So,
in the Halleyan method of determining the sun's distance by
observing Venus in transit, astronomers are stationed far north and
far south on the sunlit half of the earth, corresponding to the
window of the imaginary experiment. Venus corresponds to the bird.
The observers note along what track she travels across the sun's
face. (That they partially determine this by noting how long she is in
crossing, in no sense affects the principle of the method.) They thus
learn that such and such a portion of the sun's diameter equals the
distance separating them,—some six or seven thousand miles
perhaps,—whence the sun's diameter is known. And as we know
how large he looks, his distance from the earth is determined.
A peculiarity distinguishing this method from the former is that the
observers must have a station whence the whole transit can be
seen; for practically the place of Venus's track can only be
ascertained satisfactorily by timing her passage across the sun's
disc, so that the beginning and end must be observed and very
carefully timed. This is to some degree a disadvantage; for during a
transit lasting several hours the earth turns considerably on her axis,
and the face turned sunwards at the beginning is thus very different
from the face turned sunwards at the end of transit. It is often
exceedingly difficult to find suitable northern and southern stations
belonging to both these faces of the earth. On the other hand, the
other method has its peculiar disadvantage. To apply it effectively,
the observer must know the exact Greenwich time (or any other
selected standard time) at his station,—or in other words he must
know exactly how far east or west his station is from Greenwich (or
some other standard observatory). For all the observations made by
this method must be compared together by some absolute time
standard. In the Halleyan method the duration of transit only is
wanted, and this can be as readily determined by a clock showing
local time (or indeed by a clock set going a few minutes before
transit began and showing wrong time altogether, so only that it
goes at the right rate) as by a clock showing Greenwich, Paris, or
Washington time. The clock must not gain or lose in the interval. But
a clock which would gain or lose appreciably in four or five hours,
would be worthless to the astronomer; and any clock employed for
scientific observation might safely be trusted for an interval of that
length; whereas a clock which could be trusted to retain true time
for several days, is not so readily to be obtained.
We need not consider here the origin of the misapprehension (under
which our principal Government astronomer lay for some time), that
the Delislean method was alone available during the transit of 1874,
the Halleyan method, to use his words, 'failing totally.' The British
stations were selected while this misapprehension remained as yet
uncorrected. Fortunately the southern stations were suitable for both
methods. The northern were not: for this reason, simply, that one
set were so situated that night began soon after the beginning of
transit, which alone could be observed; while the other set were so
situated that night only came to an end a short time before the
transit ended, so that the end of transit only could be observed. No
doubt when the mistake just mentioned had been clearly recognised,
—as it was early in 1873,—measures would have been taken to
rectify its effect by occupying some suitable northern stations for
observing the whole transit, if Great Britain had been the only nation
taking part in the work. Fortunately, however, other nations might be
trusted to occupy the northern region, which had so long been
overlooked. England simply strengthened the southern observing
corps: this could be done without any change by which the
Government astronomers would have seemed to admit that 'some
one had blundered.' Thus the matter was arranged—America,
Russia, and Germany occupying a large number of stations
admirably suited for applying the method which had been supposed
to 'fail totally.' The British Official astronomers, on whom of course
responsibility for adequately observing the transit (or at least for
properly applying money granted by the nation for the purpose)
alone rested, did in reality all, or nearly all, that was necessary in
doubling some of the southern observing parties, and strengthening
all of them; for unquestionably other nations occupied suitable
northern stations in sufficiently strong force.
It is to be remembered, however, in estimating the probable value of
the result which has been deduced from the British observations,
that as yet only a portion of these observations has been effectively
dealt with. The British observations of the beginning of transit at
northern and southern stations give, when combined together, a
value of the sun's distance. The British observations of the end of
transit at other northern and southern stations give also, when
combined together, a value of the sun's distance. And both sets
combined give of course a mean value of the sun's distance, more
likely on the whole to be correct than either value taken separately.
But the British observations of the duration of transit as observed
from southern stations do not of themselves give any means of
determining the sun's distance. They must be combined with
observations of the duration of transit as observed from northern
stations; and no British party was stationed where such observations
could be obtained. The value, then, of these particular British
southern observations can only be educed when comparison is made
between them and the northern observations by American, German,
and Russian astronomers.
We must not, then, be disheartened if the results of the British
operations alone should not seem to be altogether satisfactory. For it
may still happen that that portion of the British operations which
only has value when combined with the work of other countries may
be found to possess extreme value. We had good reason for
doubting beforehand whether results of any great value could be
obtained by Delisle's method. It was only because Halley's was
supposed to fail totally that the Government astronomers ever
thought of employing that method, which the experience of former
transits had taught us to regard as of very little value.
It may be asked, however, how we are to form an opinion from the
result of calculations based on the Delislean operations during the
last transit, whether the method in satisfactory or not. If as yet the
sun's distance is not exactly determined, a result differing from
former results may be better than any of them, many will think; and
therefore the method employed to obtain it may be more
satisfactory than others. If, they may reason, we place reliance on a
certain method to measure for us a certain unknown distance, how
can we possibly tell from the distance so determined whether the
method is trustworthy or not?
Perhaps the readiest way of removing this difficulty, and also of
illustrating generally the principles on which the determination of the
most probable mean value of many different estimates depends, is
by considering a familiar experience of many, a case in which the
point to be determined is the most probable time of day. Suppose
that we are walking along a route where there are several clocks,
the time shown by our own watch being, for whatever reason, open
to question. We find, say, that as compared with our watch time,
one clock is two minutes fast, the next three minutes fast, the next
one minute slow, and so on, two or three perhaps being as much as
six or seven minutes fast, and two or three being as much as three
or four minutes slow as compared with the watch. We note,
however, that these wider ranges of difference occur only in the case
of clocks presumably inferior—cheap clocks in small shops, old
clocks in buildings where manifestly the flight of time is not much
noted, and so forth. Rejecting these from consideration, we find
other clocks ranging from one minute or so before our watch time to
four minutes or so after it. Before striking a rough average, however,
we consider that some among these clocks are placed where it is on
the whole better to be a minute or two before the time than a
second late,—as, for instance, at banks, where there may be
occasion to send out clerks so as to make sure of reaching certain
places (Clearing-House, General Post-office, and so forth) within
specified time limits. On the other hand, we note that others of
these clocks are placed where it is better to be a minute or two after
time than a second before it,—as at railway stations, post-offices,
and so on, where it is essential that the public should be allowed
time fully up to a specified hour, for some particular service. Taking
fair account of such considerations, we might find that most
probably the true time lay between half a minute before and two
minutes and a half after our watch time. And thus we might infer
that in reality the true time was one minute or so later than that
shown by our watch. But if we were well acquainted with the
characteristics of different clocks along our route, we might infer the
time (nay, we might to all intents and purposes know the time) far
more accurately than this. We might, for instance, pass six or seven
shop-windows where first-class specimens of horological work were
shown,—in each window, perhaps, several excellent clocks, with
compensated pendulums and other contrivances for securing perfect
working. We might find at one of these shops all such clocks
showing the same time within two or three seconds; at the next all
such clocks also agreeing inter se within two or three seconds, but
perhaps their mean differing from the mean at the last shop of the
kind by seven or eight seconds; and all six or seven shops, while
showing similar agreement as regards the clocks severally displayed
at each, agreeing also with each other so closely that ten or twelve
seconds would cover the entire range between their several mean
times. If this were observed, we should not hesitate to place entire
reliance on these special sets of clocks; and we should feel certain
that if we took the mean of all their means as the true time (perhaps
slightly modifying this mean in order to give due weight to the
known superiority of one or other of these clock-shops), we should
not be in error by more than five or six seconds, while most probably
we should have the time true within two or three seconds.
So far the illustration corresponds well with what had been done
during a quarter of a century or so before the last transit of Venus.
Several different methods of determining the sun's distance had
been applied to correct a value which for many reasons had come to
be looked upon with suspicion. This value—95,365,000 miles—was
known to be certainly too large. The methods used to test it gave
results varying between about 90 million miles and about 96 million
miles. But all the methods worthy of any real reliance gave results
lying between 91 million miles and 94 million miles. Not to enter
more fully into details than would here be suitable, we may pass on
at once to say that those most experienced in the matter recognised
seven methods of determining the distance, on which chief reliance
must be placed. Of these seven methods, six—each applied, of
course, by many different observers—were dealt with exhaustively
by Professor Newcomb, of the Washington Observatory, a
mathematician who has undoubtedly given closer attention to the
general problem of determining the sun's distance than any living
astronomer. The six methods give six several results ranging from
about 92,250,000 miles to about 92,850,000 miles; but when due
weight is given to those of the six methods which are undoubtedly
the best, the most probable mean value is found to be about
92,350,000 miles. The seventh method, conceived by Leverrier, the
astronomer to whom, with our own Adams, the discovery of
Neptune was due, and applied by him as he only could have applied
it (he alone possessing at once the necessary material and the
necessary skill), gives the value, 92,250,000 miles. From this it may
fairly be concluded that Newcomb's mean value, which has in fact
been accented by all American and Continental astronomers, is
certainly within 600,000 miles, and most probably within 300,000
miles of the true mean distance of the sun.
But now, to revert to our illustrative case, let us suppose that after
passing the windows of six or seven horologists, from whose clocks
we have obtained such satisfactory evidence as to the probable hour,
we bethought ourselves of a place where, from what we had heard,
a still more exact determination of the hour might be obtained.
While still on the way, however, we learn from a friend certain
circumstances suggesting the possibility that the clocks at the place
in question may not be so correct as we had supposed. Persisting,
however, in our purpose, we arrive at the place, and carefully
compare the indications of the various clocks there with the time
indicated by our watch, corrected (be it supposed) in accordance
with the results of our former observations. Suppose now that the
hour indicated by the various clocks at this place, instead of
agreeing closely with that which we had thus inferred, differs from it
by fully half a minute. Is it not clear that instead of being led by this
result to correct our former estimate of the probable hour, we should
at once infer that the doubts which had been suggested as to the
correctness of the various clocks at this place were fully justified?
The evidence of the other sets of clocks would certainly not be
invalidated by the evidence given by the set last visited, even if the
accuracy of these had not been called in question. But if, as
supposed, some good reason had been given for doubt on this point,
—as for instance, that of late the supervision of the clocks had been
interrupted,—we should not hesitate for a moment to reject the
evidence given by these clocks, or at least to regard it as only
tending to demonstrate what before we had been led to surmise,
namely, that these clocks could not be relied upon to show true
time. If however, furthermore, we found, not only that the mean of
the various times indicated by the clocks at this last-visited place
differed thus widely from the time which we had every reason to
consider very nearly exact, but that the different clocks here differed
as widely from each other, it would be absurd to rely upon their
evidence. The circumstance that there was a range of difference of
fully half a minute in their indications would of itself suffice to show
how untrustworthy they were, at least for the use of any one who
wished to obtain the time with great accuracy. Combined with the
observed difference between their mean time and that before
obtained, this circumstance would prove the inaccuracy of the clocks
beyond all possibility of doubt or question.
Now the case here imagined corresponds very closely with the
circumstances of the recent attempt to correct our estimate of the
sun's distance by Delisle's method. Our Government astronomers
bethought themselves of this method as likely to give the best
possible means for correcting, by observations of Venus in transit,
the estimate of the sun's distance which had been deduced by
Newcomb, and confirmed by Leverrier. While as yet their plans were
not finally decided upon, reasons for questioning this conclusion
were indicated to those officials by unofficial astronomers
entertaining very friendly feelings towards them. Retaining, however,
their reliance on the method thus called in question, they carried out
their purpose, though fortunately making provision, very nearly
sufficient, for the use of another method. Now, instead of the
estimate of the sun's distance obtained from the observations by
Delisle's method agreeing closely with Newcomb's mean value,—
about 92,350,000 miles,—it exceeds this value by about a million
miles. (See, however, note on the last page of this article.) According
to various ways of considering the results sent in by his observers,
the chief official astronomer obtains a mean value ranging from
about 93,300,000 miles to about 93,375,000 miles. The last named
estimate seems preferred on the whole; but if we take 93,350,000
miles, we shall probably give about the fairest final mean value. We
have seen, however, that the results of observations by seven
distinct methods give values ranging only between 92,250,000 miles
and 92,850,000 miles,—the six best methods giving values ranging
only between 92,250,000 miles and about 92,480,000 miles. The
new value thus lies 500,000 miles above the largest and admittedly
the least trustworthy of the seven results, 870,000 miles above the
next largest, a million miles above the mean value, and 1,100,000
miles above the least value. It certainly ranges 500,000 miles above
the largest admissible value from those seven trusted methods, dealt
with most skilfully, cautiously, and laboriously, by such
mathematicians as Newcomb and Leverrier.
Can we hesitate as to the inference we should deduce from this
result? We need not for a moment call in question the skill or care
with which the British observing parties carried out their operations.
Nor need we doubt that the results obtained have been most skilfully
and cautiously investigated by those to whom the work of
supervision and of reduction has been entrusted. We need not even
question the policy of devoting so large a share of labour and
expense to the employment of a method held in little favour by most
experienced Continental and American astronomers, and objected to
by many in England, including some even among official
astronomers. It was perhaps well that the method should have one
fair and full trial. And it is certain that all who have taken part in the
work have done their duty zealously and skilfully. Captain Tupman,
to whom Sir George Airy, our chief official astronomer, entrusted the
management of the calculations, has received, and justly, from his
official superior, the highest commendation for his energy and
discrimination. But beyond all manner of doubt the method
employed has failed under the test thus applied to it. I do not say
that hereafter the method may not succeed. Some of the conditions
which at present render it untrustworthy are such as may be
expected to be modified with the progress of improvement in the
construction of scientific instruments. But as yet the method is
certainly not trustworthy.
This might be safely concluded from the wide discrepancy between
the new result and the mean of those before obtained. Yet if all the
various observations made by the British observing parties agreed
closely together, the circumstance, though it could hardly shake our
inference on this point, would yet cause some degree of perplexity,
since, of itself, it would seem to imply that the method was
trustworthy. Fortunately we are not thus troubled by conflicting
evidence. The indications of the untrustworthy nature of the
method, derived from the discordance between the results obtained
by it and those before inferred, are not a whit clearer, clear and
convincing though they are, than are the indications afforded by
their discordance inter se. The distance derived from northern and
southern observations of the beginning of transit ought of course to
be the same as that derived from northern and southern
observations of the end of transit. If both sets of observations were
exactly correct, the agreement between the results would be exact.
The discordance between them could only be wide as a
consequence of some serious imperfection in this method of
observing a transit. But the discordance is very wide. The
observations of the beginning of transit by the British parties give a
distance of the sun exceeding by rather more than a million miles
that deduced from the observations of the end of transit.
I am well assured that neither Continental nor American
astronomers will accept the new estimate of the sun's distance,
unless—which I venture to predict will not be the case—the entire
series of transit observations should seem to point to the same value
as the most probable mean. Even then most astronomers will, I
believe, think rather that transits of Venus do not afford such
satisfactory means of determining the sun's distance as had been
supposed. This opinion, it is well known, was held by Leverrier,
insomuch that he declined to support with the weight of his
influence the proposals for heavy expenditure by France upon
expeditions for observing the recent transit and the approaching
transit of the year 1882.
I doubt whether many, even among British astronomers, will accept
the new value. Already the Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac
has given his opinion upon it in terms which cannot be regarded as
favourable. 'It is well known,' he says (I quote at least from an
article which has been attributed to him without contradiction on his
part), 'that some astronomers have not expected our knowledge of
the sun's distance to be greatly improved from the observations of
the transit of Venus. Many, we can imagine, will regard with some
suspicion' so great a value as 93,300,000 miles (I substitute these
words for technical expressions identical in real meaning).
'Nevertheless, whatever degree of doubt might be entertained by
competent authorities, it appears to have been felt by those
immediately responsible for action, in different civilised nations
where science is encouraged, that so rare a phenomenon as a transit
of Venus could not be allowed to pass without every exertion being
made to utilise it.'
Sir George Airy, very naturally, attaches more value to the result of
the British expeditions, or at least of that part of the operations for
which he was responsible, than others are disposed to do. In an
address to the Astronomical Society, he expressed the opinion that
'the results now presented are well worthy of very great
confidence.... Considering that the number of observers was
eighteen, and that they made fifty-four observations, and
considering also the degree of training they had, and their zeal, and
the extreme care that was taken in the choice of stations, I think,'
he said, 'that there will not be anything to compete with the value
which has been deduced.' This is, as I have said, very naturally his
opinion; and although ordinarily it is rather for the employers than
for the employed to estimate the value of the results sent in, yet at
least we cannot object to his just and generous praise of those who
have worked under his orders.
Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that on a former occasion
when equal satisfaction was expressed with the result of a rather
less costly but still a laborious and difficult experiment, the scientific
world did not accept (and has since definitely rejected) the
conclusion thus confidently advanced. I refer to the famous Harton
Colliery experiment for determining the mass of the earth. The case
is so closely analogous to that we are dealing with, that it will be
instructive briefly to describe its leading features. Maskelyne,
formerly the chief Government astronomer of this country, from
observations of the effect of the mass of Mount Schehallien in
deflecting a plumb-line, had inferred that the density of the earth is
five times that of water. Bouguer from observations in Chimborazo,
and Colonel James from observations on Arthur's Seat, had deduced
very similar results. From pendulum observations on high mountains,
Carlini and Plana made the earth's density very nearly the same.
Cavendish, Reich, and our own Francis Baily, weighed the earth
against two great globes of lead, by a method commonly known as
the Cavendish experiment, but really invented by Michell. These
experiments agreed closely together, making the earth's density
about 5½ times that of water, or giving to the earth a mass
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