n
of science must be measured by his only original work in that
department,--the construction, namely, of the new science of society.
This work is accomplished in the last three volumes of the _Positive
Philosophy_, and the second and third volumes of the _Positive Polity_.
The Comtist maintains that even if these five volumes together fail in
laying down correctly and finally the lines of the new science, still
they are the first solution of a great problem hitherto unattempted.
"Modern biology has got beyond Aristotle's conception; but in the
construction of the biological science, not even the most
unphilosophical biologist would fail to recognize the value of
Aristotle's attempt. So for sociology. Subsequent sociologists may have
conceivably to remodel the whole science, yet not the less will they
recognize the merit of the first work which has facilitated their
labours."--_Congreve._

Sociological conceptions.

Method.

We shall now briefly describe Comte's principal conceptions in
sociology, his position in respect to which is held by himself, and by
others, to raise him to the level of Descartes or Leibnitz. Of course
the first step was to approach the phenomena of human character and
social existence with the expectation of finding them as reducible to
general laws as the other phenomena of the universe, and with the hope
of exploring these laws by the same instruments of observation and
verification as had done such triumphant work in the case of the latter.
Comte separates the collective facts of society and history from the
individual phenomena of biology; then he withdraws these collective
facts from the region of external volition, and places them in the
region of law. The facts of history must be explained, not by
providential interventions, but by referring them to conditions inherent
in the successive stages of social existence. This conception makes a
science of society possible. What is the method? It comprises, besides
observation and experiment (which is, in fact, only the observation of
abnormal social states), a certain peculiarity of verification. We begin
by deducing every well-known historical situation from the series of its
antecedents. Thus we acquire a body of empirical generalizations as to
social phenomena, and then we connect the generalizations with the
positive theory of human nature. A sociological demonstration lies in
the establishment of an accordance between the conclusio