5. Estimate of Comte's contributions to social science.
a) He should be judged by his general aims rather than by his specific accomplishments.
b) Comte asserted with definiteness the sequence and causal continuity of social phenomena, and attempted to formulate laws of evolution.
c) He grasped the idea of the unity of nature and tried to organize all human knowledge in harmony with that theory.
d) He is the Copernicus rather than the Kepler or Newton of modern philosophy (Fiske).
IV. The Development of Biology and the Idea of Evolution.
The progress of the biological sciences, and the formulation of theories of organic development have influenced all contemporary thought, while the study of psychical phenomena has been greatly advanced. Both movements have had the highest significance to students of society.
a) The term evolution was first employed in biology in the first half of the 17th century, to describe the growth of embryos.
b) Harvey, Bonnet, Buffon and Wolff made contributions to embryology which under Von Baer, early in this century, reached a thoroughly scientific basis.
c) The idea of evolution may be applied either to an individual or to a sum of individuals. In the latter case the conception of development or evolution, approached by Descartes and Leibnitz, gradually increased in definiteness.
d) Treviranus and Lamarck early in the century published treatises which laid the foundations for the present theory.
e) In 1858 Charles Darwin published the Theory of Natural Selection which was followed in 1859 by his famous work on The Origin of Species. Thus the idea of adjustment to the environment as a determining factor in biological variation was announced.
