After this article was put in type, the writer received a letter from a friend, a distinguished member of the Positive School, in which occurs the following sentence:
'I notice in your ... article on 'Buckle, Draper, and a Science of History,' one inaccuracy. You say: 'History, while it is the source whence the proof of his (Comte's) fundamental positions is drawn, finds no place in his scientific schedule.' In the positive Hierarchy of Science History _is_ included: it constitutes the Dynamic Branch of Sociology. As in the Science of Life, Anatomy constitutes Biological Statics and Physiology Biological Dynamics, in Sociology we have Social Statics--the Theory of Order, Social Dynamics--the Theory of Progress = the Philosophy (Science) of History.'
The kindly criticism of the writer arises from that fruitful source of misunderstanding--a wrong apprehension of terms.
History, as it has been hitherto written, has been--_First_, a narration of the supposed facts of the past, without any especial attempt to investigate the proximate causes of national characteristics or mundane progression. _Secondly_, an account of the life and vicissitudes of states and communities, accompanied with an inquiry into the proximate causes of national peculiarities. These two Branches of Investigation have been included under the common appellation of _History_, when they related to a special portion of the globe; and of _General_ or _Universal History_ when, theoretically at least, the whole earth was under consideration. _Thirdly_, the examination of the past progress of the Race, with a view to the discovery of the fundamental Cause or Causes which control or direct the Evolutions of Time, or the Principles in accordance with which nations and civilizations have developed. This Department is denominated _The Philosophy of History_. From it are excluded all those investigations of an individual or national character which comprise _History_ in the ordinary acceptation of the word.
Such a complete and exhaustive consideration of the Facts and Causes of Human Progress as would suffice for the construction of a _Science of History_, would necessarily include _all_ the Branches of Inquiry above mentioned. While, therefore, _History_, as it has been used in these papers, and as it is especially exhibited in the present one, has had this comprehensive signification, the term is not applied by Comte to any of the Departments of which he treated; and a very different meaning, and one much more circumscribed, attaches to the qualified expression which he uses in its stead. The Dynamic Branch of Sociology does not appertain, even in his own estimation, to _History_ proper, but to _The Philosophy of History_, which is the title by which he designates it. Strictly speaking, it does not appertain to that, in any broad sense. It is mainly an inquiry into the Theological, Political, and Social Principles of the Past and Future, and leaves unnoticed many questions of equal importance with those discussed, and which, in the constitution of a comprehensive _Philosophy of History_, would occupy an equally important place.