ism"; but if Mr. Harrison will refer to "Social Statics," p. 443 and p. 453, he will find it used at a time when, as I have said, Comte was to me but a name. If Mr. Harrison alleges that anybody who writes about Social Evolution (in past days called Social Progress) must be indebted for the idea to Comte, he is simply illustrating afresh that which all observers are now remarking, that he and his co-disciples find Comte everywhere. As to "Social Environment," I have, I believe, occasionally used the expression; but it makes so little figure that I should be puzzled where to look for it. That the name Sociology was introduced by Comte is doubtless true, and that I have avowedly adopted it is also true: true also that I have been blamed for using this hybrid word. But though the word is his, the idea is not. In its crude form it can be traced as far back as Plato; and long before the time of Comte it assumed a considerable development in the work of Vice—"Scienza Nuova."
"The conception that all things social are amenable to invariable laws and have modes of life analogous to those of physical organisms is one of the most transcendent steps taken in modern thought," says Mr. Harrison. To the first of these statements I have to reply, that if Mr. Harrison will refer to a pamphlet on "The Proper Sphere of Government," written by me when twenty-two, he will find this same conception distinctly expressed and argued from. And to the second I have to reply, 1. That the analogy between the individual organism and the social organism is traceable in Greek thought; and, 2. That it was set forth elaborately, though very erroneously, by Hobbes. To say that "Comte is the unquestioned author of the thought" illustrates afresh the way in which his disciples are possessed by him.
The adoption of the word "Altruism" from Comte is referred to by Mr. Harrison. Here he is perfectly right. I have acknowledged the adoption; and I have also defended it as a very useful word.
Mr. Harrison claims for Comte the distinction between the militant phase of social life and the industrial phase. Is he sure that no one recognized it before? But that I do not owe the conception to him is again sufficiently shown by reference to "Social Statics," pp. 419-434 (original edition), where the essentially different traits of predatory societies and peaceful societies are contrasted, though the words "industrial" and "militant" are not used. Moreover, Comte's conception and mine, respecting the types of social organization proper to the two, are radically opposed.
In the "Principles of Biology," vol. i, p. 74, is a note which, by implication, refutes the statement that I owe the definition of life to Comte. Comte evidently made in the "Positive Philosophy" an approach to the truth, but he strangely missed it. How little he himself regarded what he there said as a definition of life is proved by the fact that he adopted De Blainville's definition. Dir. Bridges says he
