188 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



this to an understanding of the nature and life of 

 society, i.e., of a community of rational beings. In fact 

 Comte opposed the sensational and analytic philosophy 

 current in France before his time, which had grown up 

 under the influence of English thought. 



35. Two main influences assisted in the moulding of 



that Comte's ideas : he lived during the age of the great 



moulded 



his ideas. French mathematicians who brought about the con- 

 summation of the Newtonian system of mechanics 

 applied to cosmic molar and latterly also to molecular 

 phenomena. He lived also in the age when the 

 biological sciences had been reformed by such intellects 

 as Cuvier, de Blainville, and Bichat. But he also came 

 under the influence of historical philosophers such as 

 Turgot and Condorcet, and of social reformers such as 

 Saint Simon. The former influences taught him what 

 he considered to be the final and correct method of 

 thought, the mathematical or exact method ; they also 

 taught him the great difference between the phenomena 

 of inanimate and animated nature. The latter directed 

 his attention to the problems of the regeneration of 

 society. This he looked upon as a phenomenon to be 

 studied biologically and historically. As biology had 

 been added to physics, so sociology had to be added to 

 biology. 



Comte did not accept the theory of descent then 

 vaguely conceived by Geoffroy and fancifully elaborated 

 by Lamarck, but he adopted the law of progress and of 

 the perfectibility of the human race as put forward with 

 eloquence and fervour by Condorcet. In looking for an 

 explanation of this characteristic of the human as dis- 



