Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/635

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 619

thought about society without knowing it as it is. We shall comment upon certain typical proposals of sociological method, for the purpose of illustrating this last proposition.

A. The importance of classification. — Disregarding earlier prophets of scientific method, we may consider Comte (1798- 1857). It is worth while to emphasize the contribution of Comte to the method of sociology, not because his method in his own hands accomplished much that is in itself memorable, but because he made the inevitable problem more obvious. He defined it more precisely than it had been defined before. His point of departure is indicated in the following propositions :

It cannot be necessary to prove to anybody who reads this work that ideas govern the world or throw it into chaos ; in other words, that all social mechanism rests upon opinion. The great political and moral crises that societies are now undergoing are shown by a rigid analysis to arise out of intellectual anarchy. While stability in fundamental maxims is the first condition of genuine social order, we are suffering from an utter disagreement which may be called universal. Till a certain number of general ideas can be acknowledged as a rallying-point of social doctrine, the nations will remain in a revolutionary state, whatever palliatives may be devised ; and their insti- tutions can only be provisional. But whenever the necessary agreement on first principles can be obtained, appropriate institutions will issue from them without shock or resistance; for the causes of disorder will have been arrested by the mere fact of the agreement. It is in this direction that those must look who desire a natural and regular, a normal state of society. {Pos Phil., Introd.)

Accordingly, Comte attempted to classify the sciences. His fundamental principle was described as follows :

We may derive encouragement from the example set by recent botanists and zoologists, whose philosophical labors have exhibited the true principle of classification, namely, that the classification must proceed from the study of the things to be classified, and must by no means be determined by a priori considerations. The real affinities and natural connections presented by objects being allowed to determine their order, the classification itself becomes the expression of the most general fact. {Idem, Book I, chap, ii.)

Upon this basis Comte classified the sciences in his well- known hierarchy: astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology, and social physics ; mathematics being treated as antecedent to all the sciences.