The only security against this
narrowness is a liberal mental cultivation, and all it proves is that
a person is not likely to be a good political economist who is nothing
else.
Thus far, we have had to do with M. Comte, as a sociologist, only in his
critical capacity. We have now to deal with him as a constructor--the
author of a sociological system. The first question is that of the
Method proper to the study. His view of this is highly instructive.
The Method proper to the Science of Society must be, in substance, the
same as in all other sciences; the interrogation and interpretation of
experience, by the twofold process of Induction and Deduction. But its
mode of practising these operations has features of peculiarity. In
general, Induction furnishes to science the laws of the elementary
facts, from which, when known, those of the complex combinations are
thought out deductively: specific observation of complex phaenomena
yields no general laws, or only empirical ones; its scientific function
is to verify the laws obtained by deduction. This mode of philosophizing
is not adequate to the exigencies of sociological investigation.
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