24 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



fundamental laws, whether statical or dynamical, which regu- 

 late the harmony of the social elements, and the filiation of their 

 successive variations. There is no disturbing influence, exterior 

 or hiunan, which can make incompatible elements co-exist in the 

 political system, nor change in any way the natural laws of the 

 development of humanity. What then are the modifications of 

 which the social organism and social Hfe are susceptible, if noth- 

 ing can alter the laws either of harmony or of succession ? The 

 answer is that modifications act upon the intensity and second- 

 ary operation of phenomena, but without affecting their nature or 

 their filiation. In the intellectual order of phenomena, for in- 

 stance, there is no accidental influence, nor any individual 

 superiority, which can transfer to one person the discoveries 

 reserved for a subsequent age, in the natural course of the human 

 mind; nor can there be a reverse case of postponement." ^ This 

 gives rise to his theory of opportuneness which, though carried too 

 far, contains a truth that needs to be re-emphasized in these days 

 of legislative radicalism. 



Comte's theory of social control is tersely expressed in these 

 words: " It is the social function of mind to struggle perpetually, 

 in its own way, to modify the necessary rule of material power, by 

 subjecting it more and more to respect for the moral laws of 

 universal harmony, from which all practical activity, public and 

 private, is apt to revolt, for want of loftiness of view and gener- 

 osity of sentiment. Regarded in this way, legitimate social 

 supremacy belongs neither to force nor to reason, but to morality, 

 governing alike the actions of the one and the counsels of the 

 other. . . . This spiritual authority will be naturally kept 

 within bounds by the very nature of its functions, which will be 

 those of education, and the consultative influence which results 

 from it in active life; and again, by the conditions imposed on 

 their exercise, and the continuous resistance which must be 

 encountered, — the authority itself being founded on free assent, 

 within the limits necessary to guard against abuse. . . . The 

 disposition to seek in political institutions the solution of all 

 difficulties whatever is a disastrous tendency of our time.''^ 

 1 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 90-92. 2 j^id., ii, p. 471. 



