ABSTRACT
In every science conceptions that relate to method are inseparable from those that relate to the doctrine under consideration. The method has to be so varied in its application, and so largely modified by the complexity and special nature of the phenomena, in each case, that any general notions of method would be too indefinite for actual use. If political theorists look with a philosophical eye upon the present state of social science, they cannot but recognize in it the combination of all the features of that theologico-metaphysical infancy that all the other sciences have had to pass through. The static study of sociology consists in the investigation of the laws of action and reaction of the different parts of the social system—apart, for the occasion, from the fundamental movement that is always gradually modifying them. Thus, we may concentrate the conditions of the spirit of positive social philosophy on the one great attribute of scientific prevision.
