4 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD CHAP. 



with the objective and involuntary tendencies of 

 social conduct economics or political economy. 

 This was on the ground before modern sociology, 

 and Comte, who gave the latter science its name and 

 claimed to be its author, regarded economics as a 

 fragment of social science, wrongly studied in isola- 

 tion from the rest, and therefore resulting in mistaken 

 practical conclusions. In point of fact, one of the 

 great difficulties or ambiguities of sociology arises 

 no less plainly in economics. How make the transi- 

 tion from study of facts to maxims for conduct ? In 

 other words, is political economy an art or a science ? 

 The accepted view nowadays regards political econ- 

 omy as a science the science of wealth ; and in 

 spite of Comte' s protest, it is recognised as a distinct 

 science, independent, in a sense, of sociology ; and 

 that, mainly -because more definite conclusions are 

 possible in regard to wealth than in regard to the 

 wider social interests of mankind. On the other 

 hand, it is fully recognised that, if you wish to frame 

 maxims for conduct, you have to take much into 

 account besides the economic tendencies of action. 

 And it is also confessed that in its " palmy days " 

 political economy had identified itself with a system 

 of individualism with a hard doctrine of individual 

 rights, more especially rights of property which 

 may well be thought a menace to the public interests. 

 Nevertheless such is the irony of circumstances! 

 practically the same system has reappeared in all 

 its stringency in the form of Mr. Herbert Spencer's 

 sociology. 



Thirdly : Professor Mackenzie's Introduction to 

 Social Philosophy adds another distinction that of 



