PAUL EARTH, Die Philosophic der Geschichte als Sociologie. 115 This, however, is almost the only instance in which the author comes into conflict with Wundt, and the book may not unfairly be regarded as the attempt of a disciple to work out the principles of the Wundtian Psychology on the field of human life generally. The "Critical Survey" is divided into three sections. The first deals with the sociological systems ; the second with such " philo- sophies of history " (using the term in the older sense) as retain a significance for present-day thinking, but which, in the author's view, manifest their one-sidedness ; the third with the question whether human society really lends itself to scientific treatment. The first section opens with an analysis of the writings of St. Simon, to whom the origin of sociology as a science is credited. This is followed by an account of the first system of sociology, that of Auguste Comte, and the succeeding chapters deal with the three diverging currents of sociological doctrine that have sprung from the Comtian system, viz., (1) that based on the method of classifica- tion (Littre, De Eoberty, De Greef, Lacombe) ; (2) the biological system (Spencer, Lilienfeld, Schaffle, Fouillee, Worms) ; and (3) the dualistic system (Ward, Mackenzie, Haurion, Giddings). Of these, the systems of Comte and Spencer receive the fullest treat- ment, and the critical remarks of the author are often penetrating and suggestive. In reference to Comte, for example, he is particularly successful in showing how far from being fulfilled is the claim of having pre- sented a purely objective account of historical development. View- ing the history of humanity as an immanent teleological process, subordinate to the attainment of one end, viz., the age of Posi- tivism, Comte was logically bound to regard the various stages of the process as means to this end, and the means themselves as a series of causally (presumably in Wundt's sense of " psychical causality ") connected factors. As instance of failure to satisfy this requirement, the unsatisfactory position of the metaphysical, as the intermediary link between the theological and the positivistic, stage, in the celebrated " Law," is cited. " The way in which Meta- physics arises out of Monotheism ought," says the author, "to have been deduced as a necessary consequence from the nature of the human intellect. But no such deduction is given. It is simply contended that intermediary links are necessary, that tran- sitions do not take place directly, but why exactly metaphysics should form the link between theology and positivism is left wholly unexplained." The chapter on Spencer, for the most part a reproduction of a review article, published in 1893, contains some interesting criti- cism upon the carrying out of the biological analogy. The author contends that Spencer has failed to note both many essential like- nesses and many essential unlikenesses, of the social and animal organisms. He has failed to observe that the unit of society re- garded from the point of view of growth differs from the unit of society regarded from the point of view of structure. The former
