From the Natural Sciences to Social Science
In an age influenced by Realpolitik, Darwin’s revolutionary thought was part of a quest to find alternatives to the idea that the social order was created by God. French thinker Auguste Comte (1798–1857) developed positivism—a theory claiming that careful study of facts would generate accurate and useful, or “positive,” laws of society. Comte’s “sociology” inspired people to believe they could solve the problems resulting from economic and social changes. To accomplish this goal, tough-minded reformers founded study groups and scientifically oriented associations to dig up social facts such as statistics on poverty or the conditions of working-class life. Comte encouraged women’s participation in reform because he deemed “womanly” compassion and love as fundamental to social harmony as scientific public policy was. Positivism led not only to women’s increased public activism but also to the development of the social sciences in this period. Among them, sociology brought a new realism to the study of human society.
REVIEW QUESTION How did cultural expression and scientific and social thought help produce the hardheaded and realistic values of the mid-nineteenth century?
The celebrated English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) used Comte’s theories to advocate widespread reform and mass education. In his political treatise On Liberty (1859), Mill advocated the improvement of society generally, but he also worried that superior people would be brought down by the will of the masses. Influenced by his wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, as well as by Comte, he argued for women’s rights and introduced a woman suffrage bill into the House of Commons. The bill’s defeat led Mill to publish The Subjection of Women (1869), an influential work around the world. The Subjection of Women showed the family as a despotic institution, lacking modern values such as rights and freedom. To make a woman appear “not a forced slave, but a willing one,” he said, she was trained from childhood not to value her own talent and independence but to welcome her “submission” to men. Mill’s progressive thought was soon lost in a flood of Social Darwinist theories. Still, inspired by the social sciences, policymaking came to rely on statistics and fact gathering for building strong, unified nations.