14 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



Comte was not so much an original thinker as a system builder, 

 but so well did he do his task that social philosophy since his day 

 has done little more than to fill in his outline and correct and sup- 

 plement his method. Thus the Positive Philosophy may not in- 

 aptly be termed a prolegomenon to sociology, and the more so 

 as the conscious aim of his work was introductory rather than 

 exhaustive or even technically scientific.^ 



A brief survey of his social philosophy is necessary for an appre- 

 ciation of his place as the founder of the new science and of his 

 contribution to the doctrine of adaptation as a theory of social 

 progress. 



Of first importance is Comte's emphasis on the necessity of a 

 social philosophy as the basis of social reorganization.^ This was 

 the natural outcome of the reaction of such a character on such an 

 age. It was a period, as he well observed, of intellectual, moral 

 and social anarchy,^ and he felt that these were vitally related 

 and that for social adjustment and moral vigor there must be 



Saint-Simon, see Barth, Philosophie der Geschichte als Sociologie, pp. 56, 57. He 

 mentions the following contributions of Saint-Simon to social philosophy, most of 

 which were made use of by Comte: (i) Politics is a positive science, i. e., a science 

 depending on observations as positive as those of physics. (2) The total condition 

 of society and not merely the constitution of the state is its object. (3) The 

 process of the development of the human mind follows a fixed direction parallel with 

 the philosophy of life, — from theology through metaphysics more and more to 

 positive science, and in practical life from militarism to industrialism. [Though 

 this thought is found in Turgot, Whittaker, Comte and Mill, p. 14, claims it was an 

 independent discovery on the part of Comte.] (4) Each philosophical system is 

 bound up with a political system which is grounded upon it, at every stage of the 

 process of this spiritual development. But besides this every political system 

 rests also on a certain arrangement (Ordnung) of property rights and method of 

 production which results in a definite class formation. (5) He gives for the first 

 time a sketch of the history of this class formation in which he confines himself to 

 France with side glances to England. (6) He desires thus to raise history from 

 literature to science. " Ahnost every one of these items," says Barth, " became a 

 suggestion to new thoughts and investigations for Saint-Simon's scholar, A. Comte, 

 who endeavored to build up the science proposed by Saint-Simon, and to carry out 

 to complete unity what flitted before the mind of the other in merest outline." The 

 last part of (4) and (5) which were fundamental with Saint-Simon were almost 

 ignored by Comte. Cf. also, Ferras, Etude sur la Philosophie, pp. 313 fif. 



1 Positive Philosophy, i, ch. II. 



2 Ibid., i, pp. 14, 16; ii, pp. 31, 41 ff., 165, 489-522. A General View, ch. II. 

 ' Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 9, 30, 31. 



