Problems of Life and Mind #224297

The credit of this conception is due to Auguste Comte. Others before him had Of course recognised the fact that social conditions greatly influenced mental evolution; the fact was transparent, but no one had seized its full significance. Nor do I think that even Comte saw more than its general range. His abstention from analysis and detailed investiga tion kept him from specifying the mode of operation of the social factor; and his cerebral theory, so unsatisfactory in its method, and so fantastic in its anatomy, could not supply what he left unspecified.