CHAPTER IV - RELATION OF SOCIOLOGY TO THE OTHER DEPARTMENTS OF POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY

Summary

The conditions of the positive philosophy with regard to this science are not fulfilled till its relations with the other sciences are ascertained. Its establishment in its proper place in the hierarchy is a principle of such importance that it may be seen to comprehend all the philosophical requisites for its institution as a science: and it is for want of this that all attempts in our time to treat social questions in a positive manner have failed. Whether we consider the indispensable data of various kinds supplied to sociology by the other sciences, or the yet more important requisite of the sound speculative habits formed by the preparatory study of them, the daily spectacle of abortive attempts to construct a social science leaves no doubt that this grand omission is the cause of the failure, and of the wrong direction always taken, sooner or later, by minds which seemed fitted to accomplish something better. We must, then, review the relation of this last of the sciences to all the rest; but our examination of each of them, and of biology especially, has so anticipated this part of my subject, that I may pass over it very briefly. It is a new idea that the science of society is thus connected with the rest: yet in no case is the relation more unquestionable or more marked. Social phenomena exhibit, in even a higher degree, the complexity, speciality, and personality which distinguish the higher phenomena of the individual life.