Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/477

 REVIEWS 463

intolerance, and, in a word, of the unfathomable (insondable) mediocrity of the old teaching bodies, maintained in complete dependence upon the classes in power ; disgusted and rebellious, but not discouraged, these truly superior minds founded the University Nouvelle, which, from the manner of its origin, from its principles, from its international character, from the instruction free from all unscientific preoccupation that has been given there for two years, is striving to deserve its early reputation as a great intellectual focus and a sure asylum for the com- plete liberty of research."

The work is divided into twelve chapters which approach the prob- lem as above stated from as many distinct points of view. The main contention is that the whole of scientific morality is summed up in sociality, that the two are one and cannot be kept separate. He insists, and correctly, as I believe from a prolonged study of the Politiquc Positive, that Comte virtually taught this. In adding morals to his hierarchy, as the latest and highest term of the series, he was therefore simply expanding his conception of sociology, which formed the high- est term in his Philosophic Positive. Viewed in this light the chief criticism upon this action of his falls to the ground. By morality or ethics he means an entirely different thing from the popular concep- tion. He means the principle of association, as distinguished from the facts, phenomena, and history of association. He means the force that draws men together, the principle of cohesion, which in its devel- oped aspects becomes the humanitarian sentiment, the love of man for man " amour pour principe" Those, therefore, who have supposed that the founder of sociology had in his later writings given a subor- dinate place to that science, may now see that all he did was to subdi- vide that science and call its active principle by another name. Altru- ism is only the most advanced stage of the socializing process. The collective idea comes to predominate to so great a degree that the original motive of self-protection is lost sight of.

It is only possible to point out here this one leading characteristic of this work. The reader will find much of special interest to sociol- ogy in every chapter. The author is profoundly learned and widely read in all the broad subjects of the age. He has laid under tribute not only all the sociologists, but the philosophers of all ages from Plato to Nietsche, and the notes appended to the work carry the reader into a wide range of collateral discussion. No sociologist should be deterred by the title from acquainting himself with the work, and it is almost