580 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



there is now little difference of opinion among sound thinkers. From 

 whichever of the social elements we choose to set out, we may easily 

 recognize that it has always a connexion, more or less immediate, with 

 all the other elements, even with those which at first sight appear the 

 most independent of it. The dynamical consideration of the progress- 

 ive development of civilized liumanity, affords, no doubt, a still more 

 efficacious means of effecting this interesting verification of the consen- 

 sus of the social phenomena, by displaying the manner in which every 

 chan,"-e in any one part, operates immediately, or very speedily, upon 

 all the rest. But this indication may be preceded, or at all events 

 followed, by a confirmation of a purely statical kind; for, in politics 

 as in mechanics, the communication of motion fi-om one object to 

 another proves a connexion between them. Without descending to 

 the minute interdependence of the different branches of any one 

 Bcience or art, is it not evident that among the different sciences, as 

 well as among most of the arts, there exists such a connexion, that if 

 the state of any one well-marked division of them is sufficiently knowix 

 to us, we can with real scientific assurance infer, from their necessary 

 cori'elation, the contemporaneous state of every one of the others ] By 

 a further extension of this consideration, we may conceive the neces- 

 sary relation which exists between the condition of the sciences in 

 general and that of the arts in general, except that the mutual depen- 

 dence is less intense in proportion as it is more indirect. The same is 

 the case when, instead of considering the aggregate of the social phe- 

 nomena in some one people, we examine it simultaneously in different 

 contemporaneous nations ; between which the perpetual reciprocity of 

 influence, especially in modern times, cannot be contested, although 

 the consensus must in this case be ordinarily of a less decided charac- 

 ter, and must decrease gradually with the affinity of the cases and the 

 multiplicity of the points of contact, so as at last, in some cases, to 

 disappear almost entirely ; as for example between Western Europe 

 and Eastern Asia, of which the various general states of society appear 

 to have been hitherto almost independent of one another," 



M. Comte proceeds to illustrate, with his usual sagacity and discrimi- 

 nation, one of the most important, and until lately, most neglected, of 

 the great principles which, in this division of the social science, may 

 be considered as established; namely, the necessary coiTelation be- 

 tween the foiTn of government existing in any society, and the contem- 

 poraneous state of civilization : a natural law, which stamps the endless 

 discussions and innumerable theories respecting fonns of government in 

 the abstract, as fruitless and worthless, save only (in some few of the 

 more remarkable cases) as a preparatory treatment of some small 

 portion of what may be afterwards used as material for a better 

 philosophy. 



As already remarked, one of the main results of the science of social 

 statics would be to ascertain the requisites of stable political imion. 

 There are some circumstances which, being found in all societies with- 

 out exception, and in the greatest degree where the social union is 

 roost complete, may be considered (when psychological and ethological 

 laws confirm the indication) as conditions of the existence of society. 

 For example, no society has ever been held together without laws, or 

 usages equivalent to them ; without tribunals, and an organized force 

 of some sort to execute their decisions. There have always been a 



