Tylor (1871) insisted on the necessity of sifting and testing all the evidence, relying to a great extent on “the test of recurrence,” or of undesigned coincidence in testimony; he says: “the more odd the statement, the less likely that several people in several places should have made it wrongly. This being so, it seems reasonable to judge that the statements are in the main truly given, and that their close and regular coincidence is due to the cropping-up of similar facts in various districts of culture. Now the most important facts of ethnography are vouched for in this way” (2nd ed., 1873, p. 10). [Sidenote: =Avebury.=] A further stimulus to the study of comparative ethnology in this country was given by the publication of Sir John Lubbock’s (Lord Avebury’s) _Origin of Civilisation_ (1870), and opened the eyes of a large public to the interest of ethnology and its value in throwing light upon the earlier stages of culture of civilised peoples. [Sidenote: =Sociology.=] The question as to the influence of environment on the development of social organisation is as old as the world’s oldest thinkers, and finds expression in Aristotle and in Plato, though Sociology, as a science, is a product of the last century. The word “Sociology” was first used by Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who showed its aim to be to discover the nature, the natural causes, and the natural laws of society. With the development of natural science came the insistence on a naturalistic interpretation of social differences, demonstrated by Guyot (1807-1884) and Draper (1811-1882), and over-emphasised by Buckle (1821-1862). [Sidenote: =Comte Buckle.=] Comte’s method was that of deductive construction and prescription. Buckle’s plan was to evolve a social science inductively through a study of history, with the help of economics and statistics. His _History of Civilisation_ answers the great question which he sets himself: “Are the actions of men, and therefore of societies, governed by fixed laws, or are they the result either of chance or of supernatural interference?” He attempted to show how “Climate, Food, Soil, and the General Aspect of Nature” were the dominant influences in early societies, determining the food supply, the degree of population, and the economic condition. Unfortunately, in pursuit of this idea Buckle was apt to overlook the influences of culture-contact, and of economic factors; thus deserving, to some extent, the censure of Jevons: “Buckle referred the character of a nation to the climate and the soil of its abode.”[101] At the same time Buckle must be regarded as the first historical sociologist of the modern scientific movement. Footnote 101: _Letters and Journal of Stanley Jevons_, 1866, p. 454. [Sidenote: =Herbert Spencer.=]