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III

The only indication of what is meant by the term fact as used by Comte we obtain from its regular conjunction with the adjective observed, together with his discussion of what he means by observation. This is of great importance for its meaning in the field with which we are concerned, the study of human and social phenomena. ``True observation,'' we are told, ``must necessarily be external to the observer'' and the ``famous internal observation is no more than a vain parody of it, `` which presupposes the ``ridiculously contradictory situation of our intelligence contemplating itself during the habitual performance of its own activity.''16.15 Comte accordingly consistently denies the possibility of all psychology, that ``last transformation of theology,''16.16or at least of all introspective knowledge of the human mind. There are only two ways in which the phenomena of the individual mind can properly become the object of positive study: either through the study of the organs which produce them, that is, through ``phrenological psychology'';16.17 or, since ``affective and intellectual functions'' have the peculiar characteristic of ``not being subject to direct observation during their performance, '' through the study of ``their more or less immediate and more or less durable results''16.18---which would seem to mean what is now called the behaviorist approach. To these only two legitimate ways of studying the phenomena of the individual mind is later added, as the result of the creation of sociology, the study of the ``collective mind,'' the only form of psychology proper which is admitted into the positive system.

As regards the first of these aspects we need here say no more than that it is remarkable that even Comte should have fallen so completely under the influence of the founder of ``phrenology,'' the ``illustrious Gall'' whose ``immortal works are irrevocably impressed upon the human mind,''16.19as to believe that his attempt at localizing particular mental ``faculties'' in particular parts of the brain should provide an adequate substitute for all other forms of psychology.

The ``behaviorist'' approach in Comte deserves rather more attention, because in this primitive form it shows particularly clearly its weakness. Only a few pages after Comte has confined the study of the individual mind to the observation of its ``more or less immediate and more or less durable results'' this becomes the direct observation of ``the series of intellectual and moral acts, which belongs more to natural history proper'' and which he seems to regard as in some sense objectively given and known without any use of introspection or any other means different from ``external observation.'' Thus Comte not only tacitly admits intellectual phenomena among his ``facts,'' which are to be treated like any objectively observed facts of nature; he even admits, to all intents and purposes, that our knowledge of man, which we possess only because we are men ourselves and think like other men, is an indispensable condition of our interpretation of social phenomena. It can only mean this when he emphasizes that wherever we have to deal with ``animal'' life (as distinguished from merely vegetative life, that is, those phenomena which appear only in the higher part of the zoological scale) ,16.20 investigation cannot succeed unless we begin with ``the consideration of man, the sole being where this order of phenomena can ever be directly intelligible.''16.21


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Next: IV Up: Sociology: Comte and His Previous: II   Contents