SOCIOL'OGY, social science, or the science of society, according to the Posi• tire Philosophy of M. Compte, It treats of the general structure of human society, the laws of its development, and the progress of actual civilization. Sociology is the most complex of all the sciences, and consists of derivative truths, verified by experience from psychology and the laws of ethology, or the science of the formation of character. The laws of social phenomena are nothing but the laws of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of men united together in the social state ; and these laws are approximate generalizations obtained from the past history and present observation of all stages of civilization. And as men's thoughts, feelings, and actions are sub ject to fixed laws, that is, uniform se quences, so must also the phenomena of society, that is, of aggregates of men. The fundamental problem of society is to discover the laws by which any state of society produces the state which follows it, and takes its place, and to show by deduction that these laws are derivative from those of human nature. The sub
ject matter of the sciences of man, and of society, is peculiar in varying from age to age, and in being progressive. The laws of human nature, and of the ex ternal circumstances in which men are placed, form their characters, and men themselves in turn mould and shape cir cumstances for themselves and their pos terity. The institutions of a people are the results of their ideas, and as society advan ces, mental qualities tend more and more to prevail over and aggregates of men over individuals. The elements of permanent social union are education through life, which is always a restrain ing discipline, the feeling of allegiance or loyalty to something fixed and perma nent, and a strong and active principle of nationality or union for common in I terest. Such are some of the leading I principles of sociology ; but to understand the science aright, it is necessary to have recourse to M. Corepte's great work. " COW'S de Philosopflie Positive," and the last book of Mill's System of Logic.