ABSTRACT
The intervention has a final cause; the process has only efficient causes. For an intervention to have a chance of working, it must be of the same dimension as the process: the action of the intervening agent must balance the pull of the process. The understanding of processes is essential to an advisory forecast. Auguste Comte regarded political science as a "special physics"—a "social physics" that could "unveil the future" through observation of the past. The sciences of nature generally do not yield unconditional historical predictions, except in the case of future states recurring in virtue of the structure of a system proofed against our intervention. Indeed, it is clear that knowledge of what social system the elite of mankind is called to by the progress of civilization—knowledge forming the true practical object of positive science—involves a general determination of the next social future such as it results from the past.
