If a sociological theory, collected from historical
evidence, contradicts the established general laws of human nature; if
(to use M. Comte's instances) it implies, in the mass of mankind, any
very decided natural bent, either in a good or in a bad direction; if it
supposes that the reason, in average human beings, predominates over the
desires, or the disinterested desires over the personal; we may know
that history has been misinterpreted, and that the theory is false. On
the other hand, if laws of social phaenomena, empirically generalized
from history, can when once suggested be affiliated to the known laws of
human nature; if the direction actually taken by the developments and
changes of human society, can be seen to be such as the properties of
man and of his dwelling-place made antecedently probable, the empirical
generalizations are raised into positive laws, and Sociology becomes a
science.
Much has been said and written for centuries past, by the practical or
empirical school of politicians, in condemnation of theories founded on
principles of human nature, without an historical basis; and the
theorists, in their turn, have successfully retaliated on the
practicalists.
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