OF SOCIETY. 535 



cusmical phenomena, as subject to one and the same 

 rule of change. In it society is considered to be 

 a higlier organism. Explanations and illustrations of 

 social conditions and of their past, present, and future 

 changes, are mostly derived by analogy from biological 

 phenomena. Professedly dealing with the origin of 

 social conditions, among which the ethical receive most 

 attention, it in reality deals only with their genealogy 

 and descent, leaving their origin, as it does the origin of 

 life and consciousness, unexplained. 



These three sociological views, the ideal of Hegel, the 

 positivist of Comte, and the evolutional of Spencer, have 

 each, to some extent, a national character. They also 

 agree in this, that they are based upon a close and 

 minute study of empirical and historical phenomena, 

 carried on in a methodical manner by secluded thinkers 

 who devoted their lives to speculation, and came only 

 slightly, or not at all, into contact with the actual 

 ordering and the labours of the social organism. 



III. 



Whilst Hegel, Comte, and Spencer carried on their n. 



Socialism. 



secluded speculations, forming important schools in social 

 philosophy, a fourth movement had arisen and was rapidly 

 gaining widespread influence. In contrast to the three 

 movements just referred to, it was not national but inter- 

 national, and it was not theoretical and methodical but 

 eminently practical. As Spencer had usurped and mon- 

 opolised the larger term of Evolution (used already by 



