Comparative concepts and methodology used in the study of the family in France and in the United States

When Auguste Conte in his Cours de Philosophie Positive (1830-1842) outlined a place for sociology in his hierarchy of the sciences, the development of the new discipline as an independent science was greatly inhibited. It was established as a synthetic "science of society." No sociological concepts or methods for investigating social facts existed. The new science was completely at the mercy of the older disciplines. Comprehensive generalizations were drawn from these other scientific fields; concrete social data were used only to illustrate and support them. This tendency is still quite prevalent in sociology today, although it is no longer dominant. There is no longer the same emphasis on seeking the key to the knowledge of: social facts in the biological basis of human nature or in the geographical basis of society.