THE PRETENSIONS OF SOCIOLOGY 97
warrant than the tendency toward syncretism that always appears when a great scientific or philosophical system dominates the country of thought. There is, then, a strong propensity on the part of system-builders to bring their own possessions within the shelter of its massive parapets and bastions. In this way sociology has been annexed to Darwinism, but it does not belong there. The term was invented by Auguste Comte to designate those branches of "organic physics" which deal with human society. The volume of his Philosophie positive that introduced the word "sociology" was published in 1839 — twenty years before the publication of the Origin of Species. J. S. Mill, who was much influenced by Comte's speculations, started the use' of the term in England, employing it in his own writings as early as 1843. Harriet Mar- tineau's translation of Comte's works was published in 1853. She had great expectations of Comte's system, believing that in it stu- dents would find "at least a resting-place for their thought — a rallying-point of their scattered speculations — and probably an immovable basis for their intellectual and moral convictions." Both resting-place and rallying-point are still to seek. Professors Albion W. Small and George E. Vincent of the University of Chicago, in their manual for the study of sociology, expressly warn students not "to regard Comte as an authority in sociology." They remark that "all that is of permanent value in the six volumes of Positive Philosophy, and in the four later volumes entitled System of Posi- tive Polity, might be reported in a few paragraphs.
Darwin made no use of Comte's terminology, but this of itself is not significant, since he wrote strictly as a naturalist and never made the slightest attempt to formulate a system of philosophy. It is significant, however, that the term sociology has never com- mended itself to Darwinists, even when considering implications of the master's views on the origin and nature of humanity. Haeckel, whose systematic exposition was followed by Darwin him- self with lively interest, took a survey of the field claimed by sociology, but he proposed an entirely different terminology, which will be found in Table I of his Evolution of Man (1874). It may be doubted whether the use of the word sociology as a term desig- nating social science would have survived the impact of Darwinism if Herbert Spencer had not adopted it, which he did as early as 1859. In his Autobiography he referred to his borrowings from Comte rather regretfully:
