Man's action on the exter

evolution does proceed, it must be supposed subject to the same essential laws, and varying only in its speed, as it traverses the stages of which it is composed, without their succession or their final tendency being ever changed. Such a change would be beyond the power of even biological causes. If, for instance, we admitted some marked alterations in the human organism, or, what comes to the same thing, conceived of the social development of another animal race, we must always suppose a common course of general development. Such is the philosophical condition imposed by the nature of the subject, which could not become positive, except in as far as it could be thus conceived of; and this is much more conspicuously true in regard to inorganic causes. As to the rest, this is only another illustration of what we have so often seen in the course of our survey of the scientific hierarchy,—that if the less general phenomena occur under the necessary preponderance of the more general, this subordination cannot in any way alter their proper laws, but only the extent and duration of their real manifestations. One consideration remains, of the more importance because it applies especially to physico-chemical knowledge, which we seem to have rather neglected in this sketch nal world. for astronomical doctrine: I mean the consideration of Man's action on the external world, the gradual development of which affords one of the chief aspects of the social evolution, and without which the evolution could not have taken place as a whole, as it would have been stopped at once by the preponderance of the material obstacles proper to the human condition. In short, all human progress, political, moral, or intellectual, is inseparable from material progression, in virtue of the close interconnection which, as we have seen, characterizes the natural course of social phenomena. Now, it is clear that the action of Man upon nature depends chiefly on his knowledge of the laws of inorganic phenomena, though biological phenomena must also find a place in it. We must bear in mind, too, that physics, and yet more chemistry, form the basis of human power, since astronomy, notwithstanding its eminent participation in it, concurs not as an instrument for modifying the medium, but by prevision. Here we have another ground on which to exhibit the impossibility of any rational study of social development otherwise than by combining sociological speculations with the whole of the doctrines of inorganic philosophy.

It cannot be necessary to repeat here that which has been estabNecessary lished as true with regard to the other sciences, and Education. which is more conspicuously true as each science becomes more complex,-that an adequate general knowledge of all the preceding sciences in the hierarchy is requisite to the understanding of the one that follows. In the case of sociology the absence of this preparation is the obvious cause of the failure of all attempts to regenerate the science. We desire to recognize in it a

REQUISITE EDUCATION.

99

positive science, while we leave the conditions of positivity unfulfilled. We do not even form a just idea of the attributes of positivism, of what constitutes the explanation of a phenomenon, of the conditions of genuine investigation, or of the true intention in which hypotheses should be instituted and employed. We must thoroughly understand all these conditions, and use them in the natural order of the development of the sciences, venturing neither to select nor transpose, but following up the increasing complexity of the sciences, and recognizing the increase of resources which accompanies it, from astronomy with its simplicity of phenomena and of means of research, to sociology with its prodigious complexity and abundance of resources. Such discipline as this may be difficult; but it is indispensable. It is the only preparatory education which can introduce the positive spirit into the formation of social theories.

It is clear that this education must rest on a basis of mathematical philosophy, even apart from the necessity of Mathematical mathematics to the study of inorganic philosophy. preparation. It is only in the region of mathematics that sociologists, or anybody else, can obtain a true sense of scientific evidence, and form the habit of rational and decisive argumentation; can, in short, learn to fulfil the logical conditions of all positive speculation, by studying universal positivism at its source. This training, obtained and employed with the more care on account of the eminent difficulty of social science, is what sociologists have to seek in mathematics. As for any application of number and of a mathematical law to sociological problems, if such a method is inadmissible in biology, it must be yet more decisively so here, for reasons of which I have already said enough. The only error of this class which would have deserved express notice, if we had not condemned it by anticipation, is the pretension of some geometers to render social investigations positive by subjecting them to a fanciful mathematical theory of chances. This error is in analogy with that of biologists who would make sociology to be a corollary or appendix to their own science by suppressing the function of historical analysis. The error of the geometers is however by far the worst of the two, in itself, as well as because mathematicians are peculiarly tenacious of error, from the abstract character of their labours, which dispenses them from the close study of nature. Gross as is the illusion, we must remember its excusable origin. It was James Bernouilli who first conceived the notion; and the notion affords evidence of the nascent need to subject social theories to some kind of positivity. None but a high order of mind could have so early felt the need; and if the expedient was vicious, there was no better way discernible by any possibility at that time. The error was much less pardonable when the notion was reproduced by Condorcet, in a more direct and syste

Pretended theory of chances.

matic way; and his expectation from it, as manifested in his celebrated posthumous work, shows the fluctuating state of his mind in regard to the primary conception of social science. But there is no excuse for Laplace's repetition of such a philosophical mistake, at a time when the general human mind had begun to discern the true spirit of political philosophy, prepared as it was for the disclosure by the labours of Montesquieu and Condorcet himself, and powerfully stimulated besides by a new convulsion of society. From that time a succession of imitators has gone on repeating the fancy, in heavy algebraic language, without adding anything new, abusing the credit which justly belongs to the true mathematical spirit; so that, instead of being, as it was a century ago, a token of a premature instinct of scientific investigation, this error is now only an involuntary testimony to the absolute impotence of the political philosophy that would employ it. It is impossible to conceive of a more irrational conception than that which takes for its basis or for its operative method a supposed mathematical theory, in which, signs being taken for ideas, we subject numerical probability to calculation, which amounts to the same thing as offering our own ignorance as the natural measure of the degree of probability of our various opinions. While true mathematical theories have made great progress, for a century past, this absurd doctrine has undergone no improvement, except in some matters of abstract calculation which it has given rise to. It still abides in the midst of its circle of original errors, while mankind are learning, more and more, that the strongest proof of the reality of speculation in any science whatever is the fruitfulness of the conceptions belonging to it.

It is with a feeling of shame that I revert so often to the great maxims of philosophical pursuit, and dwell on them so long; that I should have to announce at this time of day that we must study simpler phenomena before proceeding to the more complex; and that we should acquaint ourselves with the agent of any phenomenon, and with the medium or circumstances, before we proceed to analyse it. But so different has been the course of political study pursued in the metaphysical school, that I rather apprehend that this high scientific connection will be exactly the part of my philosophical doctrine which will be least appreciated, and perhaps most contested, even after all the confirmation which I am about to offer. The reason of this apprehension is that the positive method is in direct opposition to our political habit of appealing to all sorts of minds on social questions, which they are expected to judge of, without any regular preparation, as if these problems were occasions for inspired decision. It is this consideration which makes me attach so special an importance to an explanation of the relation of Sociology to the other sciences.

REACTION OF SOCIOLOGY.

ΙΟΙ

To complete the account of these encyclopedic relations, we must look at the connection in an inverse way, estimating Reaction of the philosophical reaction of social physics on all the Sociology. foregoing sciences, in regard both to doctrine and method.—It must be at the end of the work that I must treat of Sociology as completing the whole body of philosophy, and showing that the various sciences are branches from a single trunk; and thereby giving a character of unity to the variety of special studies that are now scattered abroad in a fatal dispersion. In this place I can only point out, in a more special manner, the immediate reaction of Sociology on all the rest of natural philosophy in virtue of its own scientific and logical properties.

As to doc

trine.

In regard to the doctrine, the essential principle of this reaction. is found in the consideration that all scientific speculations whatever, in as far as they are human labours, must necessarily be subordinated to the true general theory of human evolution. If we could conceive of such a thing as this theory being so perfected as that no intellectual obstacle should limit the abundance of its most exact deductions, it is clear that the scientific hierarchy would be, as it were, inverted, and would present the different sciences, in an à priori way, as mere parts of this single science. We have no power to realize such a state of things; but the mere supposition may enable us to comprehend the legitimate general intervention of true social science in all possible classes of human speculation. At first sight, it appears as if this high intervention must belong to the biological theory of our nature; and it was by that avenue that philosophers first caught a glimpse of the conception: and it is perfectly true that the knowledge of the individual man must exert a secret, but inevitable influence over all the sciences, because our labours bear the ineffaceable impress of the faculties which produce them. But a close examination will convince us that this universal influence must belong more to the theory of social evolution than to that of individual Man, for the reason that the development of the human mind can take place only through the social state, the direct consideration of which must therefore prevail whenever we are treating of any results of that development. This is, then, in the briefest form, the first philosophical ground of the intellectual intervention of social physics in the cultivation of all the parts of natural philosophy. There will be more to say about it hereafter.

It is evident that Sociology must perfect the study of the essential relations which unite the different sciences, as this inquiry constitutes an essential part of social statics, directly intended to disclose the laws of such a connection, in the same way as in all cases of connection between any of the elements of our civilization. The most marked instance of this operation of social science is in the direct study of social dynamics, in virtue of the principle, so familiar

to us by this time, that true co-ordination must be disclosed by the natural course of the common development. All scientific men who have viewed their own particular subject in a large way have felt what important benefit might be afforded by corresponding historical information, by regulating the spontaneous expansion of scientific discoveries, and warning away from deceptive or premature attempts. I need not set forth the value that there would be in a history of the sciences, which is keenly felt by all who have made any important discovery in any science whatever: but, as my last chapter proves, no real scientific history,-no theory of the true filiation of eminent discoveries, at present exists, in any form or degree. We have only compilations of materials more or less rational, which may be of some provisional use, but which cannot be afterwards employed in the construction of any historical doctrine without strict revision, and which are certainly in their present state unfit to yield any happy scientific suggestions. When a true social science shall have been founded, such labours will assume the philosophical direction of which they are at present destitute, and will aid that development of human genius which now, in the form of unorganized erudition, they merely impede. If we remember that no science can be thoroughly comprehended till its history is understood, we shall see what special improvements this new science must introduce into each of the rest, as well as into the coordination of them all.

As to Method.

This leads us to consider the reaction of sociology on the other sciences in regard to Method. Without entering at present upon the great subject of a general theory of the positive method, I must just point out the established truth that each of the fundamental sciences specially manifests one of the chief attributes of the universal positive method, though all are present, in more or less force, in each science. The special resource of sociology is that it participates directly in the elementary composition of the common ground of our intellectual resources. It is plain that this logical co-operation of the new science is as important as that of any of the anterior sciences. We have seen that sociology adds to our other means of research that which I have called the historical method, and which will hereafter, when we are sufficiently habituated to it, constitute a fourth fundamental means of observation. But, though sociology has given us this resource, it is more or less applicable to all orders of scientific speculation. We have only to regard every discovery, at the moment it is effected, as a true social phenomenon, forming a part of the general series of human development, and, on that ground, subject to the laws of succession, and the methods of investigation which characterize that great evolution. From this starting-point, indisputable in its rationality, we comprehend immediately the whole necessary universality of the historical method, thenceforth disclosed in all its