CHAP, ii COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING 13 



discuss the conditions of stability in actual life, not 

 in some ideal world, where the properties of things 

 have been modified out of all recognition. Lastly, 

 the phrase social dynamics ought in accuracy to be 

 social kinetics. By rights the name dynamics covers 

 the whole field of mechanics, studying the conditions 

 both of stability and of movement, and thus including 

 as its two branches statics and kinetics. As for the 

 name mechanics, it is usually extruded by men of 

 science from the field of theory, and confined to prac- 

 tice. However, the words dynamics and dynamical 

 are so identified in sociological usage with that half 

 of the subject which deals with motion, or, in other 

 words, with historical change and growth, that it does 

 not seem wise to attempt to disturb the inaccurate 

 but well-established phraseology of tradition. 



The later book, the Polity, not only has a fuller 

 discussion of sociology, but a greater number of 

 topics or heads or subdivisions. First, there is a 

 general sketch of Positivism. Secondly, there is an 

 outline of the principles to be fully developed in what 

 follows. Thirdly, there is an account of Social Stat- 

 ics, i.e. of permanent conditions of social order ; 

 very much fuller than in the Positive Philosophy, and 

 therefore not merely naming or sketching in brief 

 the Family, the State, and the Church or Human- 

 ity, but treating the last specially at greater length, 

 and adding discussions upon Language and upon 

 Art. Fourthly, we have Social Dynamics, Comte's 

 Philosophy of History. This had been given with 

 disproportionate fulness in the early treatise ; but its 

 discussion is a good deal enlarged in the later volume, 

 though other points are still more enlarged. Lastly, 



