Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/18

 2 B. BOSANQUET : Sociology? The philosophical principle of the science is " that social phenomena are subject to natural laws, ad- mitting of rational prevision ". l The essential novelty of the conception in its author's eyes was, in short, that there could be, in the strict sense, a general science of social phenomena ; that natural laws of progress could be ascer- tained, and that the science of society could thus take its place as part, and the most important part, of the indivisible organism of real and natural knowledge. The present is big with the future. 2 This enunciation of the principle of con- tinuity, drawn from Leibnitz, is adopted by Comte as expressing the true spirit of social dynamics ; and is inter- preted by him as involving the idea that the social movement is subject to invariable natural laws rather than to any will whatever. A general theory of the co-existence and succes- sion of social phenomena according to " natural" laws such is the ideal, the need and the aspiration to which Comte gave form and currency under the name of Social Science, Social Physics, or Sociology. Philosophy has entered upon the study of man in society from a different point of view. According to the simile of Plato, which has never ceased to be applicable, the philo- sopher has tried to read in society the larger expression of what man the individual man has it in him to become, and therefore of what he really is. He has investi- gated the state, or the social whole, as he has investigated other achievements and expressions of the human mind, in order to learn in its doings what that mind really is and what are its powers of self-assertion or its necessities of self- surrender in face of its human and its natural environment. There is always a bias in his research, or at least a definite problem before him. He tests the life of man by its relation to reality, by its harmony, comprehensiveness and coherence. He wants to ascertain how the highest life exhibits itself in the social organisation, or what elements have been contri- buted by the great nations of history to the fulness of human nature, or how the natural surroundings of a race have stimulated its expressive or constructive activity. The philosopher has dealt, by preference, with what have com- monly been accepted as the highest types of civilisation, and has drawn in the less mature phases of evolution and the action of material and economic influences mainly as acces- sory considerations. It is needless to labour the contrast further. I proceed to point out its consequence. 1 Martineau's Positive Philosophy, ii., 62. 2 /6., p. 69.