233 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pt. n. 



steady growth of altruism at tlie expense of egoism, ■which 

 renders possible a more complete social aggregation, renders 

 possible also a more complete development of individual 

 liberty. So that what in one age is a needful control 

 exercised by the community over its members becomes in 

 the next age an undue control. All this is expressed in the- 

 law of progress, as here formulated ; but it is not expressed, 

 ■with any approach to accuracy, in the crude statement that 

 the protective spirit is an obstacle to civilization. 



Indeed the longer we study this general formula, the more 

 we shall be convinced that it includes and justifies all sound 

 inductions which can be derived from a survey of historical 

 phenomena. As we apply it to the facts of history one after 

 another, we shall see ever more clearly that its very abstract- 

 ness is its excellence, and that the initial difficulty in 

 thoroughly realizing its import arises from its very fulness of 

 meaning. And we shall become ever more deeply impressed 

 with the belief that no amount of mere historic induction 

 can give us a universally applicable law of social progress, 

 unless our results be deductively interpreted as corollaries 

 from the general laws of life. 



We are now in a position to examine the claims of Comte 

 to be regarded as the founder of sociology. And first let us 

 note tbat a law of social progress answering so many require- 

 ments as are met by the law above expounded could not 

 have been obtained earlier than the present generation or 

 even than the present decade. 



To conceive of sociogeny as a specialized branch of psy- 

 chogeny, itself a specialized branch of biogeny, was not pos- 

 sible until a general science of genesis had been at least 

 partially instituted. The very idea of a science of genesis 

 as applied to organic phenomena was not elaborated until 

 the appearance of Von Baer's great treatise in 1829 

 And the conception was then altogether too novel to be 

 worked into the "web of philosophy which Comte was weav* 



