This book for a very long time has remained a primary introduction to the classics and the great authors who wrote them. The work is a recommended reading for freshmen courses in many colleges and universities across the world. The contents include ? Book I THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY Sir Francis Galton The Herd Spirit Gordon Childe Language and Reason William Peddie The Development of Knowledge Edward Westermarck The Meaning and Origin of Marriage Sir G. Elliot Smith The Origin of Agriculture Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie The Growth of Conscience Helen M. Wodehouse Woman and the Home BOOK II CONSOLIDATION AND DEVELOPMENT A. Berriedale Keith The Consolidation of Society Charles Darwin The Dawn of Religion T. A. N. Whitehead Religion and Social Unity Victor Cousin The Foundations of Law Plato How the State Began John Pym Law as the Safeguard of Liberty J. J. Rousseau The Social Contract Max Muller Language as Fossilized History Tyrone Guthrie Circumstance and Pomp Book III SOCIAL PROGRESS Gilbert Murray The Message of Socrates Francois Guizot Civilization and the Individual Jane Ellen Harrison Heresy and Humanity Werner Stark The Church in Society George Bernard Shaw Freedom Sir Hugh Walpole The Freedom of Books John Milton A Plea for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing Ralph Waldo Emerson Uses of Great Men Lord Macaulay The State of Society in the Seventeenth Century George Bernard Shaw Ruskin?s Politics Lord Horder Children in Our Time T. H. Huxley Education and Life Sir Richard Winn Livingstone Choosing the Educational Menu Sir Ronald Ross The Aim of Education Viscount Haldane Education and Democracy Lord Beveridge Our Greatest Strength Sir George Newman Fifty Years? Progress in Public Health Sir Winston Churchill Widows? Pensions Leonard Darwin The Aims of Eugenics BOOK IV MODERN PROBLEMS Bertrand Russell Social Cohesion and Government Kenneth Pickthorn The Future of Party Government Sir George Schuster Party Politics and Economic Issues Dingle Foot Freedom and the Rule of Law Aldous Huxley War Bronislaw Malinowski Race Relations in Africa Morris Ginsberg How Sociology can help Modem Society