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Auguste Comte (1798–1857) saw the science of society – which he termed ‘sociology’ – as essentially similar to the natural sciences. His positivist approach was based on the principle of direct observation, with theoretical statements aimed at establishing causal, law-like generalizations. The task of sociology was to gain reliable knowledge of the social world in order to make predictions about it and, on the basis of those predictions, to intervene and shape it in progressive ways. Comte’s positivist philosophy was clearly inspired by the achievements of the natural sciences, which were producing reliable knowledge with very practical applications.

But could such reliable, predictive knowledge ever be achieved in relation to human behaviour? Most sociologists today think it cannot, and very few would call themselves ‘positivist’ in Comte’s sense. Comtean positivism is rejected because it seems to suggest that people can be shaped and controlled, a notion that many view as impossible, dangerous or both. Self-conscious human beings cannot be studied in the same way as, say, frogs, because they are capable of acting in ways that deliberately confound our predictions about them. Even if Comte was right and humans could be scientifically studied, their behaviour forecast and positive interventions made, who would do the intervening? Scientists? Politicians? Religious authorities? Would central direction of this kind be compatible with democratic politics?

See chapter 1, ‘What is Sociology?’, for a longer discussion of Comte’s ideas.

Comte’s version of sociology has little support today, but it is important to remember his formative role in establishing the case for a science of society. His theory of the development of the sciences inspired many others, and positivism was influential into the late nineteenth century. Comte saw the dominant forms of human knowledge passing through three stages: the theological (or religious), the metaphysical (or philosophical) and, finally, the positive (or scientific). The history of the sciences demonstrated this gradual movement, and, as social life was the last area to move into the positive stage, sociology was destined to be the final scientific discipline.

The English philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) drew on Comte’s ideas and was among the first to argue that, as the world of nature was subject to biological evolution, so societies were subject to social evolution. This took the form of structural differentiation, through which simple societies develop into more complex forms with an increasingly diverse array of social institutions, and functional adaptation, as societies accommodate themselves to the external environment. Spencer argued that the industrial societies of the nineteenth century were essentially exhibiting social evolution, emerging out of the more static and hierarchical societies that preceded them. Spencer also thought that the ‘survival of the fittest’ applied in social as well as biological evolution and was against state intervention to support the vulnerable or disadvantaged (M. W. Taylor 1992).

Although Spencer’s theory of social evolution was generally well received, the twentieth century saw evolutionary theories fall into decline, and few sociology courses today make more than passing reference to them. This stands in stark contrast to another of the grand ‘evolutionary’ theorists of the nineteenth century, Karl Marx, whose influence on sociology, politics and world history is impossible to overestimate.