the names of men, or even of nations, if it were not necessary to avoid all such puerile affectation as there would be in depriving ourselves of the use of names which may elucidate our exposition, or consolidate our thought. The further we look into this branch of science, as well as others, the more we shall find that natural history, essentially synthetic, requires, to become rational, that all elementary orders of phenomena should be considered at once whereas, natural philosophy must be analytical, in order to discover the laws which correspond to each of the general categories. Thus the natural history of humanity involves the history of the globe and all its conditions, physical, chemical, and everything else: while the philosophy of society cannot even exist till the entire system of preceding sciences is formed, and the whole mass of historical information offered as material for its analysis. The function of Sociology is to derive, from this mass of unconnected material, information which, by the principles of the biological theory of Man, may yield the laws of social life; each portion of this material being carefully prepared by stripping off from it whatever is peculiar or irrelevant, all circumstances, for instance, of climate, locality, etc.,-in order to transfer it from the concrete to the abstract. This is merely what is done by astronomers, physicists, chemists, and biologists, in regard to the phenomena they have to treat; but the complexity of social phenomena will always render the process more delicate and difficult in their case, even when the positivity of the science shall be universally admitted. As for the reaction of this scientific treatment on History itself, I hope that the following chapters will show that it sets up a series of immutable landmarks throughout the whole past of human experience; that these landmarks afford direction and a rallying-point to all subsequent observations; and that they become more frequent as we descend to modern times, and social progression is accelerated. Abstract inquiry into laws. As the abstract history of humanity must be separated from the concrete, so must the abstract inquiry into the laws of society be separated from questions of concrete Sociology. Science is not yet advanced enough for this last. For instance, : ABSTRACT INQUIRY INTO LAWS. 5 geological considerations must enter into such concrete inquiry, and we have but little positive knowledge of geology and the same is true of questions of climate, race, etc., which never can become positively understood till we can apply to them the sociological laws which we must attain through the abstract part of the study. The institution of social dynamics would be in fact impossible, if we did not defer to a future time the formation of concrete sociology; and ready as we are to pursue this course in regard to other sciences, there can be no reason why we should resist it here.-As an instance of this necessity, let us take the most important sociological inquiry that presents itself, the question of the scene and agent of the chief progression of the race. Why is Europe the scene, and why is the white race the agent, of the highest civilization? This question must have often excited the curiosity of philosophers and statesmen; yet it must remain premature, and incapable of settlement by any ingenuity, till the fundamental laws of social development are ascertained by the abstract research. No doubt, we are beginning to see, in the organization of the whites, and especially in their cerebral constitution, some positive germs of superiority; though even on this naturalists are not agreed: and again, we observe certain physical, chemical, and biological conditions which must have contributed to render European countries peculiarly fit to be the scene of high civilization: but if a trained philosophical mind were to collect and arrange all the material for a judgment that we possess, its insufficiency would be immediately apparent. It is not that the material is scanty or imperfect. The deficiency is of a sociological theory which may reveal the scope and bearing of every view, and direct all reasoning to which it may give rise: and in the absence of such a theory, we can never know that we have assembled all the requisites essential to a rational decision. In every other case is the postponement of the concrete study as necessary as in this: and if the novelty and difficulty of my creative task should compel me occasionally to desert my own logical precept, the warning I have now given will enable the reader to rectify any errors into which I may lapse. Coexistence of successive states. One more preliminary consideration remains. We must determine more precisely than I have yet done the regular mode of definition of the successive periods which we are about to examine. The law of evolution, no doubt, connects the chief historical phases with the corresponding one of the three periods: but there is an uncertainty of a secondary kind for which I must provide a solution. It arises out of the unequal progression of the different orders of ideas, which occasions the coexistence, for instance, of the metaphysical state of some intellectual category with the theological state of a later category, less general and less advanced,or with the positive state of a former category, less complex and more advanced. The apparent confusion thus produced must occasion perplexing doubts in minds which are not in possession of the explanation about the true philosophical character of the corresponding times: but the hesitation may be obviated or relieved by its being settled what intellectual category is to decide the speculative state of any period. On all accounts, the decision must be grounded on the most complex and special; that is, the category of moral and social ideas,-not only on account of their eminent importance, but from their position at the extremity of the encyclopedical scale. The intellectual character of each period is governed by that order of speculations; and it is not till any new mental régime has reached that category that the corresponding evolution can be regarded as realized, beyond all danger of a return to the prior state. Till then, the more rapid advance of the more general categories can only establish in each phase the germs of the next, without its own character being much affected; or can, at most, introduce subdivisions into the period. For instance, the theological period must be regarded as still subsisting, as long as moral and political ideas retain a theological character, though other intellectual categories may have passed into the metaphysical state, and some few of the simplest into the positive. Under this method of proceeding, the essential aspect of each period will remain as marked as possible, while freely admitting of the preparation of the following. We may now proceed to a direct examination of the successive FETICHISM. periods, estimating the rational character of each, on the one hand; and, on the other, exhibiting its filiation to the preceding, and its tendency to prepare for the following; so as to realize by degrees the positive concatenation whose principle has been already established. Fetichism. The theological period of humanity could begin no otherwise than by a complete and usually very durable state of pure Fetichism, which allowed free exercise to that tendency of our nature by which Man conceives of all external bodies as animated by a life analogous to his own, with differences of mere intensity. This primitive character of human speculation is established by the biological theory of Man in the à priori way; and in the opposite way, by all the precise information that we can obtain of the earliest social period; and again, the study of individual development confirms the analysis of the collective. Some philosophers set out in the inquiry, as a matter of course, with the supposition that polytheism was the first stage; and some have been so perverse as to place monotheism furthest back, and fetichism as a corruption of polytheism: but such inversions are inconsistent with both the laws and the facts of human history. The real starting-point is, in fact, much humbler than is commonly supposed, Man having Starting-point everywhere begun by being a fetich-wor- of the human shipper and a cannibal. Instead of indulging race. our horror and disgust of such a state of things by denying it, we should admit a collective pride in that human progressiveness which has brought us into our present state of comparative exaltation, while a being less nobly endowed than Man would have vegetated to this hour in his original wretched condition. Another supposition involves an error less grave, but still requiring notice. Some philosophers suppose a state prior even to fetichism; a state in which the human species was altogether material, and incapable of any speculation whatever;-in that lowest condition in which they now conclude the natives of Tierra del Fuego and some of the Pacific Islanders to be. If this were true, there must have been a time when intellectual wants did not exist in Man: and we must suppose a moment when they began to exist, without any prior manifestation ;—a notion which is in direct contradiction to biological principles, which show that the human organism, in all times and places, has manifested the same essential peeds, differing only in their degree of development and corresponding mode of satisfaction. This is proof enough of the error of the supposition: and all our observation of the lowest idiotcy and madness, in which Man appears to be debased below the higher brutes, assures us that a certain degree of speculative activity exists, which obtains satisfaction in a gross fetichism. The error arises from the want of knowing what to look for; and hence, the absence of all theological ideas is hastily concluded wherever there is no organized worship or distinct priesthood. Now, we shall see presently that fetichism may obtain a considerable development, even to the point of star-worship, before it demands a real priesthood; and when arrived at star-worship, it is on the threshold of polytheism. The error is natural enough, and excusable in inquirers who are unfurnished with a positive theory which may obviate or correct any vicious interpretation of facts. : On the ground of this hypothesis, it is said that Man must have begun like the lower animals. The fact is so,allowing for superiority of organization; but perhaps we may find in the defects of the inference a misapprehension of the mental state of the lower animals themselves. Several species of animals afford clear evidence of speculative activity and those which are endowed with it certainly attain a kind of gross fetichism, as Man does,—supposing external bodies, even the most inert, to be animated by passion and will, more or less analogous to the personal impressions of the spectator. The difference in the case is that Man has ability to raise himself out of this primitive darkness, and that the brutes have not,-except some few select animals, in which a beginning to polytheism may be observed, obtained, no doubt, by association with Man. If, for instance, we exhibit a watch to a child or a savage, on the one hand, and a dog or a monkey, on the other, there will be no great difference in their way of regarding the new object, further than their form of expression :each will suppose it a sort of animal, exercising its own tastes and inclination: and in this they will hold a common : |