I will not linger over the glaring inconsistency involved in the conclusion thus arrived at, of appealing, for the verification of empirical generalizations, to a species of deduction confessed to be impracticable for want of the requisite materials. I prefer to show that from Comte's own premises, as rendered by Mr. Mill, necessarily results a separate conclusion, absolutely fatal to his sociologically creative pretensions. According to him, as we have seen, the laws of elementary social facts, or of human actions and feelings, are the laws of universal human nature, which latter can, of course, be no other than whatever habits of invariably, in given circumstances, feeling and acting in given modes, may be common to all mankind. But it is admitted that the particular generation of human beings at any time existing must, by the accumulated influence of preceding generations, have been rendered very different from every preceding generation: and nothing is more certain than that two generations differing widely from each other in character, would, in many given circumstances, not only not feel and act in precisely the same, but would inevitably feel and act in widely different, manners. Nor is this all. The circumstances by which any generation is surrounded have been partly shaped for it by preceding generations, partly modified by itself—so that it is not possible for any two generations ever to find themselves in the same circumstances. Wherefore, as there never can be a repetition of either men or of circumstances precisely the same, it is manifestly impossible for any habits of feeling and thinking, in given modes in given circumstances, to be common to any two generations of men, still less to universal mankind. In other words, there cannot possibly be any laws of human nature: and if no laws of human nature, then no laws of elementary social facts; and if no laws of elementary social facts, then no laws of complex social facts; and if no laws of social facts, elementary or complex, then no single particle of material wherewith to build up the Science of Society or Sociology.
[49] 'Auguste Comte and Positivism,' pp. 133-4.
[50] 'Auguste Comte and Positivism,' pp. 25-8.
[51] 'Fortnightly Review' for June 1868, 'Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses.'
[52] 'Statistical Enquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer,' by Francis Galton, in Fornightly Review,' for August 1872.
[53] 'Contemporary Review,' July 1872. 'The Prayer for the Sick. Hints towards a serious attempt to estimate its value.' Communicated by Prof. Tyndall.
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