The temporary predilection of men's minds for political economy is, in truth, a new and strong illustration of the instinctive need which prevails to subject social researches to positive methods; and if that were once done, the interest in political economy would disappear. Various other signs of the times testify to the same disposition, which indeed pervades the whole action of our intelligences. I will refer to only one among the multitude of those signs; but it is one which aids in bringing about the satisfaction of the need. I mean the growing inclination for historical study, and the great improvement in that kind of research within two centuries.

Growth of

1

Bossuet was, unquestionably, the first who historical proposed to survey, from a lofty point of study. view, the whole of the past of society. We cannot adopt his explanations, easily derived from theological resources; but the spirit of universality, so thoroughly appreciated, and, under the circumstances, so wonderfully sustained, will always preserve this admirable composition as a model, suggesting the true result of historical analysis;— the rational co-ordination of the great series of human events, according to a single design; which must however be more genuine and complete than that of Bossuet. There is no doubt that this fine piece of instruction has contributed, during both the past and the present century, to the improvement in the character of the chief historical compositions, especially in France and England, and afterwards in Germany. Still, history has more of a literary and descriptive than of a scientific character. It does not yet establish a rational filiation in the series of social events, so as to admit (as in other sciences, and allowing for its greater complexity) of any degree of systematic prevision of their future succession. Perhaps the imputation of rashness cast upon the mere proposal of such a treatment of history is the strongest confirmation we could have of its present unscientific character: for such prevision is everywhere else admitted to be the ultimate scientific test. Another evidence exists in the easy credit daily obtained by misty historical theories which explain nothing, and

1 "Discourse on Universal History."

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which testify to the literary and metaphysical bias under which history is studied, by minds unacquainted with the great scientific movement of modern times. Again, another evidence is the dogmatic separation which it is attempted to keep up between history and politics. Still, we must admit the growing taste of our age for historical labours to be a happy symptom of philosophical regeneration, however the inclination may be wasted upon superficial and misleading works, sometimes written with a view to immediate popularity by ministering to the popular taste. One of the most promising incidents of the time is the introduction into the highly metaphysical class of jurists of an historical school which has undertaken to connect, during every period of history, the whole of its legislation with the corresponding state of society.

If the preceding chapter disclosed the destination of the great philosophical creation of which I am treating, the present exhibits its necessity, and the opportuneness of the time. Attempts to constitute a science of society would not have been so obstinate, nor pursued in ways so various, if an instinctive need of it had not been deeply felt. At the same time, the general analysis of the chief efforts hitherto made explains their failure, and convinces us that the whole enterprise remains to be even conceived of in a manner which will secure its accomplishment. Nothing now prevents our going on to the fulfilment of this proposed task, by entering, in the next chapter, on the study of the method in Social Physics. We have so ascertained and cleared our ground, by first taking a survey of our condition from a political point of view, and then reviewing the preparation made, that we are at full liberty to follow the speculative development that will prevail throughout the rest of this book, which will close with the co-ordination between the theory and practice of Social Physics.

CHAPTER III.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POSITIVE METHOD IN ITS
APPLICATION TO SOCIAL PHENOMENA.

IN every science conceptions which relate to method are inseparable from those which relate to the doctrine under consideration. The method has to be so varied in its application, and so largely modified by the complexity and special nature of the phenomena, in each case, that any general notions of method would be too indefinite for actual use. If, therefore, we have not separated the method from the doctrine in the simpler departments of science, much less should we think of doing so when treating of the complex phenomena of social life, to say nothing of the great feature of this last case, its want of positivity. In the formation of a new science the general spirit of it must be seized before its particular parts can be investigated: that is, we must have some notion of the doctrine before examining the method, and then the method cannot be estimated in any other way than by its use. Thus, I have not to offer a logical exposition of method in social physics before proceeding to the science itself; but I must follow the same plan here as in the case of the anterior sciences,―ascertaining its general spirit, and what are the collective resources proper to it. Though these subjects may be said to belong to the science itself, we may consider them as belonging to the method, as they are absolutely necessary to direct our understandings in the pursuit of this difficult study.

In the higher order of sciences,-in those which are the simplest and the most advanced, the philosophical definition of each was almost sufficient to characterize their condition and general resources, to which no doubt could attach. But the case is otherwise with a recent and extremely complex study, the very nature of which has to be settled by laborious discussions, which are happily

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needless in regard to the preceding sciences. In treating of Biology, we found it necessary to dwell upon preparatory explanations which would have seemed puerile in any of the foregoing departments, because the chief bases of a science about which there were still so many disputes must be indisputably settled before it could take rank in the positive series. It is evident that the same process is even more needful, and must be more laborious, in the case of the science of social development, which has hitherto had no character of positivity at all, and which some of the ablest minds of our time sentence never to have any. We must not be surprised then if, after applying here the simplest and most radical ideas of positive philosophy, such as would indeed appear trivial in their formal application to the more advanced sciences, the result should appear to many, even among the enlightened, to constitute too bold an innovation, though the conditions may be no more than the barest equivalent of those which are admitted in every other case.

If we look with a philosophical eye upon Infantile state the present state of social science, we cannot of social but recognize in it the combination of all the science. features of that theologico-metaphysical infancy which all the other sciences have had to pass through. The present condition of political science revives before our eyes the analogy of what astrology was to astronomy, alchemy to chemistry, and the search for the universal panacea to the system of medical studies. We may, for our present purpose, consider the theological and the metaphysical polities together, the second being only a modification of the first in its relation to social science. Their attributes are the same, consisting, in regard to method, in the preponderance of imagination over observation; and, in regard to doctrine, in the exclusive investigation of absolute ideas; the result of both of which is an inevitable tendency to exercise an arbitrary and indefinite action over phenomena which are not regarded as subject to invariable natural laws. In short, the general spirit of all speculation at that stage is at once ideal in its course, absolute in its conception, and arbitrary in its application; and these are unquestionably the prevailing characteristics of social speculation at present,

regarded from any point of view whatever. If we reverse all the three aspects, we shall have precisely the spirit which must actuate the formation of positive sociology, and which must afterwards direct its continuous development. The scientific spirit is radically distinguished from the theological and metaphysical by the steady subordination of the imagination to observation; and though the positive philosophy offers the vastest and richest field to human imagination, it restricts it to discovering and perfecting the co-ordination of observed facts, and the means of effecting new researches: and it is this habit of subjecting scientific conceptions to the facts whose connection has to be disclosed, which it is above all things necessary to introduce into social researches; for the observations hitherto made have been vague and ill-circumscribed, so as to afford no adequate foundation for scientific reasoning; and they are usually modified themselves at the pleasure of an imagination stimulated by the most fluctuating passions. From their complexity, and their closer connection with human passions, political speculations must be detained longer than any others in this deplorable philosophical condition, in which they are still involved, while simpler and less stimulating sciences have successively obtained emancipation; but we must remember that all other kinds of scientific conception have gone through the same stage, from which they have issued with the more difficulty and delay exactly in proportion to their complexity and special nature. It is, indeed, only in our own day that the more complex have issued from that condition at all, as we saw to be the case with the intellectual and moral phenomena of individual life, which are still studied in a way almost as anti-scientific as political phenomena themselves. We must not, then, consider that uncertainty and vagueness in observation are proper to political subjects. It is only that the same imperfection which has had its day throughout the whole range of speculation is here more intense and protracted; and the same theory which shows how this must be the case gives us full assurance of a philosophical regeneration in this department of science analogous to that which has taken place in the rest, though by means of severer intellectual difficulty, and the embar