RELATION OF SOCIOLOGY TO BIOLOGY. 425 



ing, he has no longing to transcend them. He sees that his field of 

 research lies between the problems, " What are matter and force ? " on 

 the one hand, and " How do matter and force think ? " on the other ; out- 

 side of this field he knows only that he knows nothing, can know no- 

 thing, and will know nothing. Standing without vertigo on this moun- 

 tain-summit of Pyrrhonism, he scorns to people the vacuity round about 

 him with the images of his own phantasy and surveys unappalled the 

 unpitying drift of nature without gods. He is not disheartened at the 

 thought that he stands face to face with eternal enigmas. He does 

 not, like an Empedocles, cast himself into the physical abyss whose 

 secrets he is vmable to fathom ; nor, like a Faust, into the ethical 

 abyss, although no unworthy trammels restrain him from yielding to 

 its temptations. For he contemns not reason and science, though it 

 be denied him to recognize the first cause of things. Like Lessing, 

 he holds the higher good to consist not in the possession but in 

 the pursuit of truth ; and therefore does he find solace and exalta- 

 tion in labor which increases the store of human knowledge ; which by 

 healthy effort enhances the powers and the capacities of our race, ex- 

 tends our dominion over nature, ennobles our being by enriching our 

 mind, and beautifies it by multiplying our joys. 



From the disheartening conclusion, " Ignorahhnxis^'^ the student of 

 nature recovers as he pronounces the stirring countersign given by the 

 dying Septimius Severus to his legionaries — ' 



" Laboremus ! " 



SCIENTIFIC RELATION OF SOCIOLOGY TO 



BIOLOGY. 



By Professor JOSEPH LE CONTE. 



II. 



BIOLOGICiVL Methods applicable to Sociology. — We have thus 

 shown the use in sociology of the ideas and doctrines character- 

 istic of biology. We have shown that they are applicable, but with 

 some limitations and modifications imposed by the presence of a nature 

 higher than the animal. We come now to show the use of biological 

 methods in the cultivation of sociology. 



The great characteristic method of biology is the method of com- 

 parison. The reason is obvious. The phenomena of life are so com- 

 plex that it is impossible to reduce them to law without simplifying 



' Jussit deinde signum tribuno dari Laboremus^ quia Pertinax quando in imperium 

 adscitus est signum dederat Militemus. — " Scriptores Hist. August, ab Hadr. ad Nume- 



VOL. xiy. — 28 



