244 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [ PT . n. 



continuous discipline of social life, is theiefbre the chief 

 proximate cause of social progress.&quot; 



It is worthy of note that Corrite, in his later period, comes 

 partly around to this very point of view. At the beginning 

 of thu &quot; Politique Positive,&quot; we find him announcing that 

 the increasing tendency in the altruistic impulses to prevail 

 over the egoistic impulses is the best measure by which 

 to judge of the progress of society. 1 Yet the unsteadiness 

 with which he grasped this principle is revealed by the 

 somewhat misty statement, a few pages further on, that &quot;the 

 co-ordination of human nature as a whole depends ultimately 

 upon the coordination of intellectual conceptions.&quot; A 

 similar fluctuation in opinion may be noticed in Mr. Buckle ; 

 and it was indeed hardly possible for the function of moral 

 feeling as a factor of progress to be thoroughly understood 

 by writers unacquainted with the laws of adaptation upon 

 which the scientific interpretation of that function is based. 

 But whatever Comte s latest opinions may have been, since 

 he never formulated any law to include the action of moral 

 feeling as a factor of progress, his claims to be regarded as 

 the founder of sociology must rest entirely upon his theory 

 of progress as announced and elaborately illustrated in the 

 &quot; Philosophic Positive.&quot; 



That theory, as we now see, is much too incomplete to 

 serve as the foundation for a scientific study of history. 

 Civilization cannot be summed up in the correct formula 

 that men s occupations begin by being military and end by 

 being industrial, or in the incorrect formula that men s con 

 ceptions of the world begin by being anthropomorphic and 

 end by being positive ; nor is it true that the former change 

 is determined by the latter. We need to add the formula 

 that men s feelings begin by being almost purely egoistic and 

 must end by being altruistic to a considerably greater extent 

 than will suffice to prevent individual interests from clashing. 

 1 Politique Positive, too. i p. 16. 



