1 6 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



struction. 1 In his earlier investigations he seems to have sought 

 a principle of unity in social phenomena as all-comprehensive as 

 the law of gravitation in physics 2 but he failed and later repu- 

 diated the idea insisting only on unity of thought, 3 unity of feel- 

 ing, 4 unity of purpose 5 and unity of method. 6 



Comte's philosophy of history of which he makes large use as a 

 support to his social philosophy is based primarily on the law of 

 the three stages, 7 but in a lesser degree on the phenomenalism 

 of Hume and some of the French materialists, on Pascal's fiction 

 of all humanity from earliest times to the present conceived as a 

 living, learning personality, 8 on Condorcet's device of consider- 

 ing all nations and peoples as forming one society, 9 and onHobbes' 

 conception of humanity as a gigantic organism. 10 It is thus 

 largely deductive, logical and abstract rather than inductive and 

 scientific, although Comte advocates the scientific methods of 

 observation, experiment and comparison supplemented by the 

 historic, with the expression of hope of large future contributions 

 from biology. 11 He combines the deductive and inductive 

 methods most ingeniously yet not in a way to satisfy the de- 

 mands of science today. Indeed he is accused by Barth of dis- 

 torting facts to fit his theory. 12 



The law of the three stages, suggested by Turgot and Saint- 

 Simon, becomes fundamental with Comte. He makes use of it to 

 prove that the time is ripe for a reorganization of society based on 

 science; that this science of social phenomena which he calls 



1 Positive Philosophy, i, ch. I; ii, pp. 51, 157 f., 495-497. Barth, op. cit., p. 26; 

 A General View, pp. 23, 79 £.; cf., however, his emphasis on " heart " and " love " 

 in his Polity. 



2 Positive Philosophy, i, pp. 3, 16; cf. Levy-Bruhl, op. cit., pp. 378, 379. 



3 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 504, 511, 521. * A General View, p. 13. 

 6 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 498, 521; A General View, p. 26. 



6 Positive Philosophy, i, p. 17. 



7 Ibid., i, ch. I; ii, pp. 158 ft. Cf. Flint, op. cit., i, pp. 267 f. 



8 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 54, 95; A General View, p. 372. This figure was 

 used by Perrault, Fontennelle, Abbe 1 de St. Pierre, as well as by Saint-Simon and 

 Littr6-Flint, History of the Philosophy of History, pp. 213 f. 



9 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 58, 83. 10 Ibid., ii, p. 509. 

 11 Ibid., ii, pp. 96 ff. 



a Barth, op. cit., p. 26; cf. Mill, op. cit., p. 60; Mackintosh, From Comte to 

 Benjamin Kidd, p. 41. 



