HISTORICAL METHOD.

103

eminent intellectual dignity. We can even see that, by this method, scientific discoveries become in a certain degree susceptible of rational prevision, by means of an exact estimate of the anterior movement of the science, interpreted by the laws of the course of the human mind. The historical prevision can hardly become very precise; but it may furnish preparatory indications of the general direction of the contemporary progress, so as to save the vast waste of intellectual forces which is occasioned by conjectural attempts, usually doomed to failure. By this process of comparison of the present with the past, in regard to each science, it must become possible to subject the art of discovery to a kind of rational theory which may guide the instinctive efforts of individual genius, which cannot hold its course apart from the general mind, however persuaded it may be of its separation. The historical method will thus, by governing the systematic use of all other scientific methods, impart to them an amplitude of rationality in which they are now deficient, by transferring to the whole that regulated progression which at present belongs only to the details: and the choice of subjects for investigation, till now almost arbitrary, or at least thoroughly empirical, will acquire, in a certain degree, that scientific character which now belongs only to the partial investigation of each of them.-The method itself must, if it is to accomplish these purposes, be subject to the philosophical conditions imposed by the positive spirit of sociology. It must never consider the development of each complete science separately from the total progression of the human mind, or even from the fundamental evolution. of humanity. Thus social physics, which supplies this method, must superintend its gradual application, at least, in so far as the general conception of human development is concerned. Every partial or isolated use of this method of investigation, such as suits the desultory character of research in our day, would be either wholly ineffectual, or would realize but little good. There are some traces in existing science of this superior means of speculation, the positive method being uniform, and therefore to be found everywhere if anywhere; but its complexity and its recent origin prevent our being able to point to examples at once marked and varied enough to afford a decisive manifestation. Throughout the whole range of our positive knowledge, I know of only one unquestionable example; and that will be found, where we should naturally look for it, in mathematical science. We find it in the sublime prefatory chapters of the different sections of the 'Analytical Mechanics,' so little appreciated by ordinary geometers because they do not contain a single formula, but, in my opinion, proving the eminent philosophical superiority of Lagrange to all mathematicians since Descartes and Leibnitz. By his exposition of the filiation of the chief conceptions of the human mind in regard to rational mechanics, from the origin of the science to our own time, Lagrange certainly

anticipated the general spirit of the historical method; because he made this estimate the basis of the whole of his own scientific speculations. These remarkable writings are admirable food for meditation not only to geometers, but to all philosophical minds, which may find here the only example of what may properly be called History, though their author made no pretension to the common title of historian.

Thus we see that the reaction of Sociology on the other sciences is as important in a logical as in a scientific view. On the one hand, positive sociology mutually connects all the sciences, and on the other hand, it adds to all resources for investigation, a new and a higher method. While, from its nature, dependent on all that went before, Social Physics repays as much as it receives by its two kinds of service towards all other knowledge. We can already perceive that such a science must form the principal band of the scientific sheaf, from its various relations, both of subordination and of direction, to all the rest. It is in this way that the homogeneous co-ordination of real sciences proceeds from their positive development, instead of being derived from any anti-scientific conceptions of a fanciful unity of different phenomena, such as have hitherto been almost exclusively resorted to.

Social science must always remain inferior in all important Speculative speculative respects to all the other fundamental rank of sciences. Yet we cannot but feel, after this review Sociology. of its spirit, its function, and its resources, that the abundance of its means of investigation may establish it in a higher position of rationality than the present state of the human mind might seem to promise. The unity of the subject, notwithstanding its prodigious extent, the conspicuous interconnection of its various aspects, its characteristic advance from the most general to more and more special researches, and finally the more frequent and important use of à priori considerations through suggestions furnished by the anterior sciences, and especially by the biological theory of human nature, may authorize the highest hopes of the speculative dignity of the science,-higher hopes than can be excited by such an imperfect realization as I propose to sketch out, the purpose of which is to embody, in a direct manner, and by sensible manifestations, the more abstract view which I have now taken of the general nature of this new political philosophy, and of the scientific spirit which should regulate its ulterior construction.

CHAPTER V.

SOCIAL STATICS; OR, THEORY OF THE SPONTANEOUS ORDER

OF HUMAN SOCIETY.

THOUGH the dynamical part of Social Science is the most interesting, the most easily intelligible, and the fittest to disclose the laws of interconnection, still the Statical part must not be entirely passed We must briefly review in this place the conditions and laws of harmony of human society, and complete our statical conceptions, as far as the nascent state of the science allows, when we afterwards survey the historical development of humanity.

over.

Three aspects.

Every sociological analysis supposes three classes of considerations, each more complex than the preceding: viz., the conditions of social existence of the individual, the family, and society; the last comprehending, in a scientific sense, the whole of the human species, and chiefly, the whole of the white race.

1. The Individual.

Gall's cerebral theory has destroyed for ever the metaphysical fancies of the last century about the origin of Man's social tendencies, which are now proved to be inherent in his nature, and not the result of utilitarian considerations. The true theory has exploded the mistakes through which the false doctrine arose, the fanciful supposition that intellectual combinations govern the general conduct of human life, and the exaggerated notion of the degree in which wants can create faculties. Independently of the guidance afforded by Gall's theory, there is a conclusive evidence against the utilitarian origin of society in the fact that the utility did not, and could not, manifest itself till after a long preparatory development of the society which it was supposed to have created. We shall the better see how the supposition involves us in a vicious circle if we attend to the character of the early ages of humanity, in which the individual advantages of association are very doubtful, if indeed we may not safely say that, in many cases, the burdens are greater than the resources, as we see only too plainly in the lowest ranks of the most advanced societies. It is thus evident that the social state would never have existed if its rise had depended on a conviction of its individual utility, because the benefit could never have been anticipated by individuals of any degree of ability, but could only manifest itself

after the social evolution had proceeded up to a certain point. There are even sophists who at this day deny the utility, without being pronounced mad; and the spontaneous sociability of human nature, independent of all personal calculation, and often in opposition to the strongest individual interests, is admitted, as of course, by those who have paid no great attention to the true biological theory of our intellectual and moral nature.

Passing over some elementary considerations which belong rather to a special treatise on the physiological conditions, such as the natural nakedness of the human being, and his helpless and protracted infancy,-which have been much exaggerated as social influences, since they exist in some animal races without producing the same social consequences,-I proceed to estimate the influence of the most important attributes of our nature in giving to society the fundamental character which belongs to it, and which remains permanent through all degrees of its development. In this view, the first consideration is of the preponderance of the affective over the intellectual faculties, which, though less remarkable in Man than in other animals, yet fixes the first essential idea of our true nature. Though continuous action is, in all cases, an indispensable condition of success, Man, like every other animal, has a natural dislike to such perseverance, and at first finds pleasure only in a varied exercise of his activity,-the variety being of more importance to him than moderation in degree, especially in the commonest cases, in which no strongly-marked instinct is concerned. The intellectual faculties being naturally the least energetic, their activity, if ever so little protracted beyond a certain degree, occasions in most men a fatigue which soon becomes utterly insupportable; and it is in regard to them chiefly that men of all ages of civilization relish that state of which the dolce far niente is the most perfect expression. Nevertheless, it is on the persevering use of these high faculties that the modifications of human life, general and individual, depend during the course of our social development, so that we are met at once by the melancholy coincidence that Man is most in need of precisely the kind of activity for which he is the least fit. His physical imperfections and moral necessities compel him, more than any other animal, to employ his reason in amending his primitive condition; while his reason is so far from being adequate to its work that it is subject to an irresistible fatigue which can be moderated only by strong and constant stimulus. Instead of lamenting over this discordance, we must receive it as a first authentic information supplied to social science by biology, and one which must radically affect the general character of human society first, and afterwards the rate of the social evolution. The consequence which immediately concerns us here is, that almost all men are naturally unfit for intellectual labour, and devoted to material activity; so that the speculative state cannot well be produced, much less

GRADATION OF FACULTIES.

107

sustained, in them but by some impulse of another kind, kept up by lower but stronger propensities. However important individual differences in this respect may be, the differences are of degree only, so that the most eminent natures hold their place in the comparison; and men must be classed, in a scientific sense, by the nobleness or increasing speciality of the affective faculties by which the intellectual incitement is produced. If we observe the ascending scale of these faculties, upon Gall's theory, we see that, among the generality of men, the intellectual tension is (with some exceptions of that speculative impulse to which all human beings are liable) habitually supported only by the strong stimulus derived from the needs of the organic life, and the commonest instincts of the animal. life, the organs of which lie at the back of the brain. The individual nature of man becomes lofty in proportion as the incitement proceeds from propensities which are of a higher order, more peculiar to our species, and placed, anatomically, further forward in the brain, while yet the activity of the intellectual region can never, in the noblest cases, be independent of such stimulus, unless the habit of meditation has actually become preponderant,-a case too rare to be considered in a general view.-Lest we should form a false philosophical estimate of our case, I may observe that, however we may regret the degree in which our intellectual faculties are less active than the lower, we must beware of wishing that the case was reversed. If our affective faculties were subordinated to the intellectual, all idea of improving the social organism would be merely senseless. It would be like polishing our roads, instead of merely diminishing their friction, which would not improve the accustomed locomotion, but render its mechanism contradictory to the fundamental laws of motion. For our affective faculties must preponderate, not only to rouse our reason from its natural lethargy, but to give a permanent aim and direction to its activity, without which it would be for ever lost in vague abstract speculation. Even under our actual conditions, which subject the wildest reveries to more or less control of reality, we see how the most mystical efforts of pious ecstasy to conceive of an ideal state, exempt from organic wants and from all human passions, have issued, even in the highest minds, in conceptions of a sort of transcendental idiotcy, eternally absorbed in a foolish and almost stupid contemplation of the divine majesty. Our social organism is, then, what it ought to be, except as to degree; and we must observe and remember that it is in our power, within certain narrow limits, to rectify this degree of difference; or rather, that the rectification takes place in proportion to the steady development of civilization, which tends to subordinate our propensities to our reason, more and more, without giving us any cause to apprehend a reversal of the order at any future time.

The second consideration is that, besides the preponderance of the affective over the intellectual life, the lowest and most personal