THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 595 



"An Essay on the History of Civil Society," published a century ago 

 by Dr. Adam Ferguson. In it the first part treats " Of the General 

 Characteristics of Human Nature." Section I., pointing out the uni- 

 versality of the gregarious tendency, the dependence of this on certain 

 affections and antagonisms, and the influences of memory, foresight, 

 language, and communicativeness, alleges that " these facts must be 

 admitted as the foundation of all our reasoning relative to man." 

 Though the way in which social phenomena arise out of the phenom- 

 ena of individual human nature is seen in but a general and vague 

 way, yet it is seen there is a conception of causal relation. 



Before this conception could assume a definite form, it was neces- 

 sary both that scientific knowledge should become more comprehen- 

 sive and precise, and that the scientific spirit should be strengthened. 

 To M. Comte, living when these conditions were fulfilled, is due the 

 credit of having set forth with comparative definiteness the connec- 

 tion between the Science of Life and the Science of Society. He saw 

 clearly that the facts presented by masses of associated men are facts 

 of the same order as those presented by groups of gregarious creatures 

 of inferior kinds ; and that in the one case, as in the other, the indi- 

 viduals must be studied before the assemblages can be understood. 

 He therefore placed Biology before Sociology in his classification of 

 the sciences. Biological preparation for sociological study he re- 

 garded as needful, not only for the reason that the phenomena of cor- 

 porate life, arising out of the phenomena of individual life, can be 

 rightly coordinated only after the phenomena of individual life have 

 been rightly coordinated, but also for the reason that the methods of 

 inquiry which Biology uses are methods to be used by Sociology. In 

 various ways, which it would take too much space here to specify, he 

 exhibits this dependence very satisfactorily. It may, indeed, be con- 

 tended that certain of his other beliefs prevented him from seeing all 

 the implications of this dependence. When, for instance, he speaks 

 of " the intellectual anarchy which is the main source of our moral 

 anarchy " when he thus discloses the faith pervading his " Course of 

 Positive Philosophy," that true theory would bring right practice it 

 becomes clear that the relation between the attributes of citizens and 

 the phenomena of societies is incorrectly seen by him : the relation is 

 far too deep a one to be changed by mere change of ideas. Again, 

 denying, as he did, the indefinite modifiability of species, he almost 

 ignored one of the cardinal truths which Biology yields to Sociology 

 a truth without which sociological interpretations must go wrong. 

 Though he admits a certain modifiability of Man, both emotionally 

 and intellectually, yet the dogma, of the fixity of species, to which he 

 adhered, kept his conceptions of individual and social change within 

 limits much too specific. Hence arose, among other erroneous pre- 

 conceptions, this serious one, that the different forms of society, pre- 

 sented by savage and civilized races all over the globe, are but differ- 



