tem might undergo being disregarded, since these belonged to the dynamic point of view. The conditions of equilibrium of the social system, as of every system, can therefore be represented by equations—a fact which indicates that the system is susceptible neither of translation in any direction whatever nor of rotation in any manner.

Although perhaps this assimilation of social statics with mechanical statics has been nowhere set forth in all its rigor, yet it represents the dominating conception of the oldest and most learned sociological school, and this school has exerted its influence up to the present time in all the social sciences from economics to politics.

In the history of the sciences, statics was naturally developed before dynamics; in fact, the first is only the simplest, most general, and most abstract part of the second. It is, therefore, not astonishing that in sociology, as in mechanics, the dynamic point of view appeared and was developed until at last (with Herbert Spencer, for example) it became almost the exclusive point of view.

Auguste Comte has fully shown that the distinction between statics and dynamics extends to all phenomena whatever; for example, to biology, in which one rationally distinguishes between the anatomical point of view, relating to organization, and the physiological point of view, properly speaking, relating to ideas of life. He added, however, that there would be danger of neglecting the indispensable permanent combination of those two general points of view, which, in reality if not in analysis, are as indissolubly united as are order and progress.

Sociology being abstract or concrete, social statics will likewise be both abstract and concrete. It will have for its object the study of societies considered in a state of repose, either in a determined period of time and at a given place in space (concrete statics), or independently of time and space (abstract statics). As for dynamic sociology, it has for its subject the science of the evolution of societies, which is likewise considered from this double point of view.

After many others, Corte, in L'expérience des peuples,' denies

IP. 41.

the utility, if not the possibility, of establishing an abstract sociology, and, consequently, an abstract statics also. Appealing to the example of Auguste Comte, he asserts that

In order to formulate such a social metaphysics, it would be necessary to deal with data so general and so lacking in precision that one could not draw from them either any explanation of existing facts or any prevision of future phenomena, still less any practical conclusion. For example, it would be necessary to limit ourselves to showing, like Auguste Comte, that, in addition to the preliminary condition of language, the bases of social order are family, property, and religion; but giving to the word "family" a sense so general that it includes government; to the word "property" a sense so extended that it embraces all possible forms of appropriation, including property in common; finally, to the word "religion" so unaccustomed a sense that it includes polytheism and monotheism, determinism or scientific atheism, along with fetichism. Thus generalized, sociology would be without framework, it would have neither form nor consistency. Inoffensive as it would remain in its indefiniteness, it would have the serious disadvantage of inclining minds irresistibly disposed to reach conclusions to the belief that the fundamental institutions of all society are everywhere identical and immutable.

The author concludes:

I think, therefore, that it is necessary to limit ourselves to a semiconcrete, schematic sociology, generalizing the data furnished by selection from history, giving preference to the great civilized nations.

Indeed, since the attempt (including that of Auguste Comte) to construct, de planu, an abstract sociology without concrete, verifiable foundations, it has been the general practice to make sociology both incompletely abstract and incompletely concrete by making a selection of historical facts. The result has been a double failure, both scientific and philosophic. It is necessary to begin, on the contrary, with the study of social elements considered especially from the statical point of view; then to advance to the particular historical institutions in which these elements are blended; then to study the particular societies in their ensemble; then, finally, but only then, to look among these elementary and concrete facts for the general relations which they have in common, independently of their transitory forms in space and time. Such is the only scientific method, the only method capable of avoiding the difficulties pointed out with rea

son by the author, and especially the only one capable of escaping the double error into which he falls, in turn with many others -the error, on the one hand, of making an arbitrary historical selection, and consequently a bad concrete sociology, and, on the other hand, of at least partly disclaiming to found an abstract philosophy of societies, under the vain pretext that the concrete bases are insufficient. The true method, that of all the sciences, that also of their particular philosophies as well as their general philosophy, requires that these bases be sufficient. The illustrative schematic methods, the methods of historical sampling, are only the palliatives of a demi-science. How does one dare to recommend these methods for sociology when the scholar who would permit himself to recommend the same in the antecedent sciences would by that very fact be disqualified? That the rigorous method is one of extreme difficulty no one denies, but this is always the case. Besides, the work to be undertaken is a work of co-operation, and the specialist in abstract sociology will have the privilege and the duty of borrowing the materials which will be furnished him by the specialists, properly so called. At the very least, it is necessary that he be acquainted with these materials, in order that the facts may not contradict the theory. Abstract sociology, even in its exemplative and schematic capacity, may be excused from recalling the facts to mind, but on condition of disowning any abstract law which is at variance, not merely with the concrete, but also with the elementary facts of science. Nevertheless, from the point of view of clearness and of demonstration, abstract sociology will state with advantage the particular laws upon which it founds its general theory, and, as far as possible, the principal data underlying these particular laws.

Moreover, abstract social statics is connected with concrete sociology in this, that, although the latter studies societies in certain parts of space and time, yet it also seeks to disengage the social facts relative to particular civilizations from relatively general, constant, and necessary relations, neglecting the accessory variations. In brief, concrete sociology is an intermediate step between history, properly speaking, and abstract sociology.

Yet it is necessary never to lose sight of the fact that in reality no society is in a state of repose, that is to say, a state of fixed, absolute equilibrium; absolute repose would be the cessation of social life, absolute death. But, whatever the movements may be, there always exist constant and necessary conditions of equilibrium for these movements. The term "structure" is also more appropriate in this connection than the term "statics," because the former takes account in a more obvious manner of this continued equilibrium of organized bodies in movement. It is the investigation of these constant and necessary conditions of equilibrium, which are common to all social states, that constitutes the domain of abstract social statics, or, to use a better term, of the general structure of societies.

Just as concrete sociology is always relatively abstract, so likewise abstract social statics is in part descriptive and concrete, since its bases necessarily present these latter characteristics. It is therefore apparent that sociology, and consequently abstract statics, are a regular development of the inductive method.

Again, abstract social statics is in part descriptive for another capital reason; it embraces in its domain, not merely a study of elementary phenomena considered independently of the social tissues, organs, and bodies in whose formation they unite, according to the analysis that we made of them in part I, but it likewise includes the study of these tissues, organs, groups of organs, systems, etc. Now, the study of these aggregates is, in reality, necessarily descriptive. Thus, observation of the social elements will give rise especially to the consideration of quantitative relations and quantitative laws founded upon statistical data, while observation of forms, of special as well as general social structures, will in the main furnish the material for qualitative relations and laws. This distinction supports another consideration, namely, that quantity is itself one of the first constituent elements of qualitative differentiations; an increase of mass is not only favorable to differentiations, but it, by itself, constitutes the simplest of differentiations. The sociological laws are, then, abstract or concrete; the quantitative laws are naturally more

abstract than the qualitative sociological laws. Any science may be considered as formed when it is in possession of its special methods, when the boundaries of its domain are well marked, and when the formulæ of its abstract laws can be quantitatively expressed. Thus the law of gravitation has a completely positive formula: all bodies attract each other in direct proportion to their mass and in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. In sociology, an example borrowed from circulatory phenomena may be given; the useful effect is in inverse proportion to the dead weight and in direct proportion to effort.

The most exact abstract sociological laws are, then, both qualitative, or descriptive, and quantitative; hence the necessity of statics—that is to say, the analytic study and the classification of the social elements- -as a basis. The method of observation with its numerous inductive processes, variable in different sciences, but identical at bottom, is the only possible method. Deduction can be applied only in sciences already formed, and from one science to another; in the latter case, great caution must be exercised in order to avoid error, especially in passing from biology, with its psychic dependence, to sociology.

Sociology, even abstract sociology, was naturally descriptive in the beginning. At least this statement seems to us to be true in the case of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, to cite only the most eminent founders of social science. But positive sociology will be established in reality only when it shall rest upon the statistical and concrete facts of all the special social sciences, particularly economics. Auguste Comte was in error when, inverting the order of the positive method, he contended that in sociology and biology the whole is known before the parts. This pretended knowledge of the whole before that of the constituent elements was uniquely empirical, superficial, and plausible. It is to this deplorable error of method that we must ascribe his tendency to attribute essential and permanent characteristics to transitory historical forms. His entire hierarchic and absolute conception of societies has for its point of departure this error in method, the consequences of which have been further amplified