OF SOCIETY. 



519 



writings were already occupied with setting forth to what 

 extent this analogy holds good, and how it may be used 

 to understand the structure and the growth of the social 

 organism. He also pointed to the essential difference 

 which exists between the higher organisms and social 

 organisations the former having a centre of conscious- 

 ness, whereas the consciousness of the latter resides only 

 in the individual members of which it is composed. But 

 it has been pointed out that in the sequel Spencer is by 

 far more interested in elaborating those resemblances 

 than in recognising this essential difference ; and that 

 he, in the end, entangles himself in a contradiction 

 which becomes more evident as he introduces the prin- 

 ciple of natural selection. This, according to Darwin, 

 reigns supreme in the world of living things, which are 

 subject to a much greater multiplication than the means 



representative of this line of 

 thought, misses or only very in- 

 adequately appreciates one import- 

 ant aspect which runs through 

 the whole of Comte's biological 

 and sociological philosophy ; the 

 insistence on proceeding from the 

 whole to the parts, or what he 

 terms the vue d'ensemble, the neces- 

 sarily synoptic spirit which must 

 always guide these sciences. It 

 appears that in spite of the great- 

 prominence given by Spencer to 

 organic or super-organic evolution, 

 he never really breaks with the 

 underlying conviction, fixed prob- 

 ably in his mind through his 

 engineering education, that purely 

 mechanical principles are sufficient 

 to explain not only changes but 

 also progress in nature, mind, 

 and society. Comte was aware of 

 the impossibility of this deduction 

 from the beginning, and does not 



pretend that sociology is merely a 

 sequel to biology, and his personal 

 quarrels with some of the promi- 

 nent geometricians of his time seem 

 to have strengthened his early 

 conviction that the purely ana- 

 lytical and synthetical methods 

 of the abstract sciences are not 

 sufficient for the comprehension of 

 the actual phenomena of nature. 

 There are many points in Spencer's 

 ' First Principles ' which might 

 have suggested a similar scepticism. 

 And quite independent of all this, 

 we must note that Lotze already, 

 during the fourth and fifth decades 

 of the century, had very fully 

 expounded the capabilities as well 

 as the shortcomings of a purely 

 mechanical construction, which he 

 defined much more clearly than 

 Spencer did, who remained en- 

 tangled in the old-fashioned con- 

 ception of "Force." 



