Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/717

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 693

but the moment it is a question of morals, as a standard of social conduct, the latter can have for object only the social being in his relations with the entire environment, comprehending that of the other men. Therefore morality is forced into the domain of sociology. It becomes by permanent right individuo-social, without ever being separated from this double character. I have indicated the place of morality in my classification. Its place is naturally found between collective psychology and, notably, collective knowledge, on the one hand, and law on the other. It is less general than the first and less special than the second, which is, however, a natural derivation of it.

Comte, in the pursuit of a subjective social synthesis, came necessarily to end by making morality the beginning of this synthesis. According to him, the inevitable and necessary dual- ism of the inorganic world and of the sociological world was the greatest possible concentration of philosophy, and consequently unity could be only subjective ; and so with morality. We think, on the contrary, that the philosophical synthesis ought to and can be neither subjective nor objective, but total and positive. Universal unity is real. The materials of whatever exists are throughout the same, without, however, all of the simple bodies entering into all of the combinations at the same time, save the most complex organisms, which are precisely the societies in which the elementary combinations alone vary, producing divers textures and structures naturally more numerous than in biology, considering the greater quantity and multiplicity of the materials.

This unitary and positive character of sociology appears in every manifestation, in every social form whatever, small or great, simple or complex, local or universal. In every thing nature enters into intimate communion with man, the latter is not in opposition to it, but is the continuation of it. It forms with man a single body, a single life, a unity, a synthesis of relations, implying and supposing the subject and the object; no longer face to face, as in a duel, but blended. In sociology nature is human and humanity is natural.

Let us remark that Comte, placing, by reason of his synthe- sis, subjective morality at the top of society, incarnates this