AUGUSTE COMTE 1 9 



inorganic nature; but further, no species of any kind can spring 

 from a different kind, either inferior or superior. The limits of 

 the exception to this rule are very narrow, and are as yet but little 

 known. There is then a really impassible gulf between the worlds 

 of life and of matter, and, even though less broad, between dif- 

 ferent forms of vitality. This view strengthens our position 

 that any simply objective synthesis is impossible. But it in no 

 way impairs the subjective synthesis, in every case the result of a 

 very gradual ascent towards the type of man." This subjective 

 synthesis, then, as we have noted above, is merely a logical classi- 

 fication according to a pre-determined plan, although based on 

 scientific observation, and does not necessarily represent a his- 

 torical order of development, much less a real causal order. 

 Comte does not always hold to the above distinction, to be sure, 

 and in places seems to hold that the subjective order represents 

 the objective. 1 



Comte considers that society is an organism but further that it 

 is the reality whereas the mere individual is an abstraction. 2 

 His doctrine of society is developed under the two-fold aspect of 

 static and dynamic, the former corresponding to order, the latter 

 to progress. By static he seems to mean a cross-section of social 

 evolution showing the " consensus," " interconnections," " con- 

 currence," " harmony," " co-operation " of the parts under the 

 laws of co-existence. 3 By dynamic he means the same phe- 

 nomena viewed as a process of development under the laws of 

 antecedents and consequents. The one is a sort of social anat- 

 omy, the other a sort of social physiology. 4 



Comte's conception of all humanity as a developing organism 

 is, as we have noted, a logical fiction, yet with sufficient basis in 

 fact to form a suggestive working hypothesis. It corresponds to 

 the figure used by Hildebrand, 6 of nations in relays carrying 

 forward the torch of progress; but Comte seems to consider also 



1 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 520, 321. Cf. Barth, op. cil., pp. 25-27. 



2 Positive Philosophy, i, p. 363; ii, pp. 508-509; A General View, p. 370. The 

 general mind is regarded as prior to the individual mind, and the latter can be 

 understood only by reference to the former. 



3 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 74-84. * Ibid., ii, pp. 84-89. 

 6 German Thought, Lecture I. 



