SOCIOLOGY 



The French have made many important contributions 

 to the development of sociology as a science. The term 

 itself was invented by Auguste COMTE, who may be re- 

 garded as the founder of systematic sociology. While a 

 young man of about twenty, Comte became associated 

 with SAINT-SIMON, who exercised a decisive influence on 

 the direction which his speculation in the field of social 

 philosophy took. He was in no sense a follower of 

 Saint-Simon; but (to use his own word) Saint-Simon 

 "launched" him by suggesting the two starting-points 

 of what was later developed into the Comtist system 

 first, that political phenomena are as capable of being 

 grouped under laws as other phenomena; and second, 

 that the true destination of philosophy must be social, 

 and the true object of the thinker must be the reorgan- 

 ization of the moral, religious, and political systems. 

 Although he later broke with Saint-Simon on account of 

 the latter's sentimental schemes of social reconstruction, 

 Comte was nevertheless indebted to him for these ideas, 

 and others of less importance, which he developed into 

 a philosophical structure, that has had a profound in- 

 fluence on all subsequent sociological thinking. 



Prior to Comte, sociological studies everywhere had 

 been largely fragmentary and polemical. He undertook 

 to discover a principle of unity in society that would 

 mean for sociology what the law of gravitation meant for 



1 [Drafting Committee: T. N. CARVER, Harvard University; 

 F. S. DEIBLER, Northwestern University; F. H. GIDDINGS, Columbia 

 University; E. A. Ross, University of Wisconsin. ED.] 



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