AUGUSTE COMTE 19 
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.t 
Comte considers that society is an organism but further that it 
is the reality whereas the mere individual is an abstraction? 
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.» 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.! 
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,® of nations in relays carrying 
forward the torch of progress; but Comte seems to consider also 
1 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 520, 521. Cf. Barth, op. cit., 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. * Tbid., ii, pp. 84-89. 
5 German Thought, Lecture I. 
