14 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
Comte was not so much an original thinker as a system builder, 
but so well did he do his task that social philosophy since his day 
has done little more than to fill in his outline and correct and sup- 
plement his method. Thus the Positive Philosophy may not in- 
aptly be termed a prolegomenon to sociology, and the more so 
as the conscious aim of his work was introductory rather than 
exhaustive or even technically scientific. 
A brief survey of his social philosophy is necessary for an appre- 
ciation of his place as the founder of the new science and of his 
contribution to the doctrine of adaptation as a theory of social 
progress. 
Of first importance is Comte’s emphasis on the necessity of a 
social philosophy as the basis of social reorganization.?, This was 
the natural outcome of the reaction of such a character on such an 
age. It was a period, as he well observed, of intellectual, moral 
and social anarchy,* and he felt that these were vitally related 
and that for social adjustment and moral vigor there must be 
Saint-Simon, see Barth, Philosophie der Geschichte als Sociologie, pp. 56, 57. He 
mentions the following contributions of Saint-Simon to social philosophy, most of 
which were made use of by Comte: (1) Politics is a positive science, i. e., a science 
depending on observations as positive as those of physics. (2) The total condition 
of society and not merely the constitution of the state is its object. (3) The 
process of the development of the human mind follows a fixed direction parallel with 
the philosophy of life, — from theology through metaphysics more and more to 
positive science, and in practical life from militarism to industrialism. [Though 
this thought is found in Turgot, Whittaker, Comte and Mill, p. 14, claims it was an 
independent discovery on the part of Comte.] (4) Each philosophical system is 
bound up with a political system which is grounded upon it, at every stage of the 
process of this spiritual development. But besides this every political system 
rests also on a certain arrangement (Ordnung) of property rights and method of 
production which results in a definite class formation. (5) He gives for the first 
time a sketch of the history of this class formation in which he confines himself to 
France with side glances to England. (6) He desires thus to raise history from 
literature to science. ‘‘ Almost every one of these items,” says Barth, ‘“‘ became a 
suggestion to new thoughts and investigations for Saint-Simon’s scholar, A. Comte, 
who endeavored to build up the science proposed by Saint-Simon, and to carry out 
to complete unity what flitted before the mind of the other in merest outline.” The 
last part of (4) and (5) which were fundamental with Saint-Simon were almost 
ignored by Comte. Cf. also, Ferras, Etude sur la Philosophie, pp. 313 ff. 
1 Positive Philosophy, i, ch. II. 
2 Tbid., i, pp. 14, 16; ii, pp. 31, 41 ff., 165, 489-522. A General View, ch. II. 
3 Positive Philosophy, ii, pp. 9, 30, 31. 
