Perhaps we must recognise in the energetic defence made by Comte of the family and of marriage as he found them established by the side of Catholic influence, a desire not to be confused with the followers of Saint Simon, of Fourier, and the other reformers of his time. These did not hesitate to contradict current and traditional customs. In Comte’s view, this contradiction is a sign of error. Scientific truth is found in the prolongation of public reason and of common sense. Here Comte sees a new, and not one of the least, important arguments, in support of his own theory. II. A society is composed of families: it is not itself a greater family. Neither is it an assemblage of contiguous families living together. The family and society are distinguished from each other by very clear differential characteristics. The family is a “union” of an essentially moral nature, and secondarily intellectual.[256] The chief constituent of the family is found in the affective functions, (the mutual tenderness of husband and wife, of the parents for the children, etc.). Society is, on the contrary, not a union, but a co-operation” of an essentially intellectual nature, and secondarily moral. Undoubtedly, an association of men cannot be conceived as subsisting without their sympathetic feelings being interested in it. Nevertheless, when we pass from the consideration of the single family to the co-ordination of several families, the principle of co-operation necessarily ends by prevailing. So Rousseau’s theory is not false on all points. Metaphysical philosophy, especially in France, says Comte, has undoubtedly committed an error of capital importance by attributing the very creation of the social state to this principle, for it is evident that co-operation, far from having been able to produce society, presupposes it. But if we confine this assertion to society properly so-called (the family being set aside) it is not so startling. For, if co-operation could not “create” human societies, it alone at least, has been able to “communicate to these spontaneous associations a definite character and a lasting consistency.”