14 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



which it is adequately linked, it seems isolated and solitary. The 

 failure clearly to aflQliate mind upon life is not its worst fault. From 

 the standpoint of the sociologist the most glaring defect is the absence 

 of all recognition of the psychologic basis of social phenomena. Neither 

 in the " Psychology " nor in the " Sociology " which follows is there 

 to be found any attempt to show what are the underlying causes of 

 social phenomena. The nature of social energy which moves the world 

 is nowhere set forth, the distinct roles played by feeling and thought, 

 as the motor and rector^^ agencies of both the individual and society 

 are not recognized, and both psychology and sociology are thus reduced 

 to mere descriptive sciences. Much the same may be said of his failure 

 to recognize a vital energy in biology with motility as the dynamic 

 agent, which also leaves biology in the descriptive stage. Life and 

 mind are forces, and organic, psychic and social structures are 

 magazines of energy. Any system that fails to recognize this is not a 

 full-fledged science. 



It may be said that Spencer constantly insisted that it was feeling 

 and not ideas that moved the world, as opposed to Comte's statement 

 that ideas govern or overthrow the world. It is clear that he mis- 

 understood Comte, who held the same view as Spencer, and that the 

 two statements are not antagonistic.^'^ Spencer also said that "the 

 will is a product of predominant desires to which the reason serves 

 merely as an eye."^^ This is very true, and Schopenhauer had said it 

 forty years before him. But such scintillations of the truth do not 

 make a science nor justify us in saying that he thereby furnished 

 sociology with a psychologic basis. 



Coming now to the " Principles of Sociology," we find that the 

 work was not hampered by any previous work, and, as in the " Biology," 

 the field was clear for a new start in a most alluring direction. If the 

 order in which the volumes of the " Synthelic Philosophy " stand is 

 the order of nature, marking the course of evolution, we should expect 

 to find the " Sociology " opening Avith a chapter or an introductory 

 part setting forth the causal connection between sociology and psy- 

 chology. But, just as no causal connection was shown between biology 

 and psychology, so none appears binding psychology and sociology 

 together. This confirms what was said of the isolated condition of 

 the " Principles of Psychology." What we do find, however, is a rather 

 definite intimation that it is biology rather than psychology that forms 

 the natural basis of sociology. How could any one be expected to doubt 

 this when nothing is said in the first volume of the " Sociology " about 

 its relation to psychology, while, after the long treatise on the beliefs, 



^° Used by Fourier in this sense (" moteur et recteur ") . 



" Cf. Applied Sociology, pp. 41-43. 



" Westminster Review, January 1, 1860, p. 93. 



