SOCIOLOGY. The word was introduced in 1837 by Auguste Comte in the lectures which resulted in the publication of his "Positive Philosophy." Comte's intention in introducing the word has been widely misunderstood. It has been confused with the suggestions of practical change in polity and in religion, which, in the later part of his life, he advocated.
The circumstances out of which the word and the idea arose are these. Comte considered himself to be in succession with a line of thinkers historically beginning with Thales and Pythagoras, contin uing with Bacon and Descartes, and culminating in Hume's "Trea tise of Human Nature," which attempted to unify and evaluate the total available knowledge of Man. Between the publication of Hume's "Treatise" in 1739 and Comte's attempt at a fresh synthesis, almost exactly a century intervened. It was a century in which the range of verifiable knowledge was enormously ex tended in all departments of investigation. It was a period of im mense activity, analytic and synthetic, in the mathematical and physical sciences-witness the names of Fourier, Lagrange and Laplace, of Carnot, Coulomb and Volta, of Scheele, Lavoisier, Cavendish, Davy, Berthollet and Dalton. But as affecting the genesis of sociology, the main features of the century were, in the first place, the creation of the Biological Sciences as definite systems of study, and in the second place the growth of the con ception of a Science of History. In whole or in part belong to this period the labours of Linnaeus, Haller and Jussieu, of Buffon and Cuvier; and finally, the attempt of Bichat, of Lamarck and of Treviranus to institute a general science of the phenomena of life, for which both the latter used the title Biology. The idea of a science of Human History, if it belongs to any individual, belongs to Vico, who held that he had established it by his "New Science" in 1725. This idea, in the interval between Hume's "Treatise," and Comte's "Positive Philosophy," had been notably developed by Montesquieu, Turgot, Condorcet and Saint-Simon, by Lessing, Herder and Kant, by Adam Smith, Ferguson and Millar.
Comte's Aim.-The immediate task which Comte proposed to himself was to survey with the eye of philosophy the scientific and historical labours of this prolific century intervening between Hume and himself. His attempted unification was propounded under the name of the Positive Philosophy, and, for that portion of the Positive Philosophy which set forth the bearing of the new scientific and historical knowledge on the conceptions of Human Nature and Society, he proposed the name sociology.
Between Vico's "New Science" and Comte's "Sociology," the infiltration of the phrase social science marks a general tendency towards the expansion of science into the field of humanistic studies. Among Comte's contemporaries J. S. Mill (only eight years younger than Comte) declared (in 1836) that the time was ripe for marking off from other studies-both scientific and philosophical-a general social science, and for this he used such phrases as Social Philosophy, Social Science, Natural History of Society, Speculative Politics and Social Economy. After the appearance of the "Positive Philosophy," Mill abandoned both the phrases he had previously recommended as being the most suitable titles—Social Economy and Speculative Politics. He even denied to the latter any right to exist as a separate depart ment of scientific studies. The word sociology he sanctioned by frequent use in the final book of his "Logic"; that "On the Logic of the Moral Sciences." Herbert Spencer.—For a long time the word sociology made little headway, and this notwithstanding Mill's sanction and usage of it, and the rapid acquisition and long maintenance by his "Logic," of classic rank throughout the western world; carrying as it did the new term into quarters—notably in Germany and America—where the "Positive Philosophy" did not penetrate. It was not in fact till more than half a century had passed, that the word could be said to be accepted as part of the international vocabulary of the learned world. To this end, Spencer contributed much by his book "The Study of Sociology," which won recog nition in almost every civilized country during the two decades be tween 187o and 189o. The first volume of Spencer's "Principles of Sociology" appeared in 1876 and the last in 1896. Though comparatively neglected by British universities, Spencer's socio logical work has been extensively studied in German and still more in American universities. In France, too, Spencer's in fluence has tended to the dissemination of the idea and the word sociology; for he is there considered as a continuator of the philosophical and scientific work of Comte.