Thomas N. Carver, whose work will be referred to again in subsequent chapters, has developed an interesting population theory which is partly Malthusian.[XII-13] The increase in population from both immigration sources and the birth rate should be cut down, thereby decreasing the percentage of unskilled labor. Further, persons should be trained out of the unskilled group into the skilled group and then into the _entrepreneur_ class. Thus, by greatly decreasing the number of unskilled laborers and by increasing the number of entrepreneurs, wages will advance and profits will be increasingly subdivided. The poor will become well-to-do, and poverty as it is now known will tend to disappear. This theory underestimates the importance of psychological motives and of social attitudes under a system where a marked degree of competition is encouraged. In conclusion, it may be stated that the principle of population as given by Malthus is fundamental to an understanding of the problems of social progress.[XII-14] There is a positive relation between population and means of subsistence. Positive and preventive checks upon population are continually at work. Moral restraint and self control, based on scientifically devised human laws, create a better moral fibre than birth control. The quality of personality is far more important than mere numbers of population. The struggle for quality in personality must be supplemented by justice in industrial and social processes before the population problem can be solved. CHAPTER XIII COMTE AND POSITIVE SOCIAL THOUGHT An organized foundation for the field of social thought was not laid until near the close of the first half of the nineteenth century. At that time Auguste Comte (1798–1857) gave at least an organized groundwork, if not a synthetic introduction to sociology. He was the first to stake out the territory of social thought, to show the relation of social thought to other fields of knowledge, and to separate social statics from social dynamics. He was the first important social philosopher, and his _Positive Philosophy_ the first treatise roughly to outline the field of sociology. Auguste Comte invented the term, sociology, by which he meant the science of human association. While he did not contribute much to the science itself, he laid important foundation stones. He reacted against all forms of loose thinking about man, rejected metaphysical and theological speculations, and insisted upon the observation and classification of social phenomena. He repudiated attempts to discover causes of social uniformities, and coined the name, positivism, for the philosophical system upon which he founded sociology. The bases of positivism may be found in the ideas of Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes. As each of these three men broke with tradition and sought observed facts in their respective fields, so Comte was likewise prompted to do in the field of social thought.