the only
agent able to reorganise society. The positive philosophy will regard
social phenomena as it regards other phenomena, and will apply to the
renovation of society the same scientific spirit found effective in
other departments of human knowledge. It will bring to politics the
conception of natural laws, and deal with delicate social questions on
impartial scientific principles. It will show that certain wrongs are
inevitable, and others curable; and that it is as foolish to try to cure
the incurable in social as in biological and chemical matters. A spirit
of this kind will encourage reform, and yet obviate vain attempts to
redress necessary evils.

It will thus make for intellectual order. It will likewise make for
progress and for true liberty by substituting genuine convictions
founded on scientific principles for constitutional artifices and the
laws of arbitrary wills; it will reconcile the antagonism of class
interests by moral and scientific considerations. Revolutionary
outbursts there still will be, but they will merely clear the ground for
positive reconstruction on a moral and intellectual basis.

Strangely enough, the scientific class are not likely to assist in the
positive reconstruction of society. They shrink from the irrational
methods of modern polities, and, further, they are so restricted in
their narrow horizons that they are unable to grasp the wide
generalisations of positive philosophy.

_III.--Social Statics_

There can be no doubt that society originated in social instincts, and
was not merely the result of utilitarian considerations. Indeed, the
social state could manifest its ability only when well developed, and in
the early ages of humanity the advantages to the individual of
association would not be obvious.

What, then, are the human instincts and requirements which give society
its fundamental characters? In the first place, it must be noted that in
man the intellectual is subordinate to the affective. In most men the
intellectual faculties are easily fatigued, and require a strong and
constant stimulus to keep them at work. In the majority of cases the
stimulus is derived from the needs of organic life; but in more highly
endowed individuals the incitement may proceed from higher affective
impulses. This subordination of the intellectual to the affective
faculties is beneficent in that it gives a permanent end and aim to the
intellectual activity.

In the second place