Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/38

 24 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

These three groups, to modify Comte's phrase, " three dualisms," may properly be characterized as the three trinities. The direc- tion of progress is indicated by the terms "organic," "animal," and "human," social progress being characterized by the gradual ascendency of humanity over animality; and throughout this dis- cussion Comte professes to view only the main stream of human progress, leaving out of consideration those nations which have not been primary movers in human advancement, and considering as the successors of a nation those peoples which have accepted and improved the highest products of the civilization to which they became heir. In another place Comte points out that progress moves from the intellectual through the social to the moral ; the rate of progress is dependent upon the relations which exist between the two factors of a "couple": man and the medium or environment. The first of the special factors is ennui, which corresponds to what the Germans call Fluch der Langweile ; the second is the duration of life, the brevity of human life being a promoter of human progress ; and the third is the natural increase of human life, or what Comte calls pro- gressive condensation. This would seem to indicate a line of thought not entirely in harmony with the essentials of Malthusi- anism. According to Comte, too, human and material progress are inseparable. Spencer's well-known law of universal progress, centering about the notion of a continued change from the homo- geneous to the heterogeneous, supplemented by his theory of the diffusion of forces, makes progress a "beneficent necessity." Human advancement is, therefore, not within human control, and laissez faire has thus found its philosophical basis. The factors of human progress Spencer divides into original and derived, the former being again subdivided into extrinsic and intrinsic. The extrinsic factors include climate, surface, flora, and fauna ; while the intrinsic ones embrace physical, emotional, and intellectual traits. The division between original and derived factors is scarcely logical, and not well defined. The five derived factors enumerated by Spencer follow in general the contents of those enumerated as original. It is worth while noticing that Spencer believes that resistance to human progress is greatest at a time