244 COSMIC FBILOSOrHY. [ft. ii. 



continuous discij)line of social life, is theiefore the chief 

 proximate cause of social progress." 



It is worthy of note that Comte, in his later period, comes 

 partly around to this very point of view. At the beginning 

 of the " Politique Positive," we find him announcing that 

 the increasing tendency in the altruistic impulses to prevail 

 over the t^goistic impulses is the best measure by which 

 to judge of the progress of society.^ Yet the unsteadiness 

 with which he grasped this principle is revealed by the 

 somewhat misty statement, a few pages further on, that " the 

 co-ordination of human nature as a whole depends ultimately 

 upon the coordination of intellectual conceptions." A 

 similar fluctuation in opinion may be noticed in Mr. Buckle ; 

 and it was indeed hardly possible for the function of moral 

 feeling as a factor of progress to be thoroughly understood 

 by writers unacquainted with the laws of adaptation upon 

 which the scientific interpretation of that function is based. 

 But whatever Comte's latest opinions may have been, since 

 he never formulated any law to include the action of moral 

 feeling as a factor of progress, his claims to be regarded as 

 the founder of sociology must rest entirely upon his theory 

 of progress as announced and elaborately illustrated in the 

 " Philosophic Positive." 



That theory, as we now see, is much too incomplete to 

 serve as the foundation for a scientific study of history. 

 Civilization cannot be summed up in the correct formula 

 that men's occupations begin by being military and end by 

 being industrial, or in the incorrect formula that men's con- 

 ceptions of the world begin by being anthropomorphic and 

 end by being positive ; nor is it true that the former change 

 is determined by the latter. We need to add the formula 

 that men's feelings begin by being almost purely egoistic and 

 must end by being altruistic to a considerably greater extent 

 fchan will suffice to prevent individual interests from clashing, 

 * Politique Positive, torn. i. p. 16, 



