NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 267
" Principal Characteristics of Positive Method in the Rational Study of Social Phenomena." It occupies 128 pages of the fourth volume of Littre's edition.
Professor Durkheim speaks of Comte's constructive work as being " philo- sophical " (that is, I suppose, metaphysical), rather than scientific ; as characterized by " general views and indifference to factual details and the researches of specialists," and, again, " as using speculative rather than observational methods."
Now, it seems to me that there is some danger of misconception here a misconception which it is important to avoid because it relates not merely to our judgment of Comte (a matter in which some of us here may not be interested), but to our whole method of procedure in this society.
This chapter of Comte to which I am referring deals with methods of observation in sociology. The whole purpose of his work being to raise political and social theory above the level of speculation spun from some individual brain, and lift it to the plane of scientific observation, the first question with him, as it must be with us, is what to observe, and how to observe.
Now, if there is one lesson which the history of scientific discovery forces on the student, it is the impossibility of observing accurately, of observing to any good purpose, without a guiding theory in other words, without a working hypothesis. This is true even in the advanced stages of a well-established science ; but the truth applies with far greater force to a science in its early stages. Here there is a sort of vicious circle. Without a theory you cannot observe ; and yet without observation you have no right to a theory. Comte dwells on the difficulty that besets the sociologist a difficulty much greater sixty years ago than now, but still extremely real of producing laws and observations simultaneously. Never- theless, this difficulty has to be faced. Without a rational working hypothesis you may pile up enormous accumulations of alleged facts, but they will be of little use, and indeed often worse than useless, because they will often incumber the process of scientific discovery.
On the other hand, when he has been armed with such a provisional hypoth- esis as to the interdependence and the succession of social events, the means of exploration open to the sociologist are, says Comte, more numerous and more various than in any other science. " He is not limited to the immediate inspection or direct description of events : the consideration of apparently insignificant customs, the examinations of monuments of every sort and kind, the analysis and comparison of languages, and numberless other modes of research of greater or less importance, provide sociology with useful channels of positive research. In a word, a rational observer, adequately trained, will be able, after sufficient practice, to transmute spontaneous impressions received from most of the 'occurrences of every-day social life into valuable indications of sociological truth. Penetrated with a sense of the universal interdependence of the various aspects of the social state, he will be able to see the connction of these familiar social events with the highest generalizations of the science."
From this literal translation of words used by Comte more than sixty years ago, it will be seen that he looked forward hopefully to the appearance of many of those important specialisms to which Professor Durkheim and Mr. Branford are now calling our attention. Professor Durkheim speaks of the revolution that has been effected during the last half-century, amounting, he says, to a creation or re-creation of these specialisms as departments of sociology ; and he remarks that one of the chief factors of this change has been the introduction of the historical and the comparative method. Here I find myself in entire agreement with Professor Durkheim. But I would point out that in the important chapter of Comte to which I have already referred, both these methods are fully expounded, and that the first of them the method of social filiation is for the first time brought into logical prominence, as one of the most potent instruments, perhaps on the whole more potent than any other, in sociological research. It is in the use of this method that Comte is principally distinguished from Spencer, who, in ignor- ing it, made, as I believe, a retrograde step in science. In any case no candid reader of the chapter of Comte's work to which I have referred can come to any other conclusion than that small justice is done to him by the assertion that he
