=2. The Problem of the Conception of History.= The contrast in the Kantian teaching between nature and mind became an antagonism in the nineteenth century. When psychology was no longer a purely mental science, social life in its historical development at first withstood the vigorous march of the natural science of the nineteenth century. But the inroads of science in psychology were duplicated in the field of sociology, and thus the problem of society was only the problem of the soul on a larger scale. The first form that this problem took arose from the opposition in France between the traditional conception of society and that of the philosophy of the Revolution. The nineteenth century French philosophy has, however, a religious coloring that differentiates it from that of the Revolution. Auguste Comte[75] (1798–1857) stands as the chief representative of this scientific reduction of society. He pushed the doctrines of Hume and Condillac to their extreme in his positivist system of social science. He maintained that human knowledge had as its objects phenomena in their reciprocal relations, but that there is nothing absolute at the basis of these phenomena. The only absolute principle is, All is relative. There is a hierarchy of sciences in which sociology is highest. Sociology includes all the preceding sciences, and yet it is the original fact. The first social phenomenon is the family. The stages of the development of society are (1) theological, (2) metaphysical, and (3) positivistic or scientific. All mental life in detail, and human history as a whole, are subject to these stages of growth. In the positivistic stage mankind will be the object of religious veneration, and the lives of great men will be justified because they have raised the lives of common men. The democracy to which Comte looks is one ruled by great minds, and is not a socialism. In contrast to Comte’s theory is that of Buckle, who would study history by discovering the mechanical laws governing society.