HISTORICAL MRTIIOD. 587 



the three states of human intellect which it distinguishes, an<l with (-ach 

 successive modification of those three states, the correlative coiuliiion 

 of all other social phenomena. 



But whatever decision competent judges may pronounce on the 

 results arrived at hy any individual incpiirer, the method has been fiiuiid 

 by which an indeHnite lunnhcr of the derivative laws both of social 

 order and of social jiroi^ress may in time be asciMtaini'd. l?y the aid 

 of these we may hereafter succeed not only in lookiii'^ far forward into 

 the future history of the human race, but in determiiiini; what artificial 

 means may be used, and to what extent, to accelerate the natural pro- 

 gress in so far as it is beneficial ; to compensate for whatever may be 

 its inherent inconveniences or disadvantages; and to guard against the 

 dangers or accidents to which our species is exposed fnmi tlie neces- 

 sary incidents of its progression. Such j)racticai instructions, founded 

 on the highest branch of speculative sociology, will form the noblest 

 and most beneficial portion of the Political Art. 



That of this science and art even the foundations are but beginning 

 to be laid, is sufficiently evident. But the most powerfiil and accom- 

 plished minds of the present age are fairly turning themselves towards 

 that object, and it is the point towards wliich the speculative tenden- 

 cies of mankind have now for some time been converging. For the 

 first time, it has become the aim of the greatest scientific thiiik<Ms to 

 connect by theories tlu5 facts of universal history : for the first time it 

 is acknowledged, that no social doctrine is of any value unless it can 

 explain the whole and every part of history, so far as the data exist ; 

 and that a Philosophy of History is at once the verification, and the 

 initial form, of the Philosophy of the Progress of Society. 



If the endeavors now making in all the more cultivated nations, and 

 beginning to be made even in England (generally the hust to adopt 

 whatever does not originate with herself), for the construction of a 

 Philosophy of History, shall be directed and controlled by those views 

 of the nature of sociological evidence which I have atte]nj)ted to state, 

 but which hitherto are to my knowledge exemplified nowhere but in 

 the writings of M. Comte ; they caimot fail to give birth to a sociologi- 

 cal system widely removed from the vague and conjectural chai-actor 

 of all former attempts, and worthy to take its place, at last, among 

 established sciences. When tliis time shall come, no important branch 

 of human affairs will be any longer abandoned to empiricism and un- 

 scientific surmise : the circle of huiuan knowledge will be complete, 

 and it can only thereafter receive further enlargement by perpetual 

 expansion from within. 



