Biotechnics : the practice of synthesis in the work of Patrick Geddes

the foundations of sociology in the work of Auguste Comte (who invented the word). Comte* sees a basic distinction between the temporal and the spiritual, which shows very clearly in his fourfold analysis of essential social types. As transmitted by Geddes this appears in square form against an equilateral cross, with upper left PEOPLE, lower left CHIEFS, lower right INTELLECTUALS, and upper right EMOTIONALS. In Geddes this diagram is not static; it corresponds to his own nomenclature of ACTS, FACTS, DREAMS, DEEDS which because of the arrows down, across, up, and then across again, appears to be in a state of constant motion.

What in fact Geddes was doing went much further than this, because in a masterly synthesis of the work of the two great but otherwise separate French masters he combined this essentially theoretical sociology of Comte with the highly practical invention of the engineer Le Play—which was to get at the facts by seeking them out right into the home of the worker, through the medium of the family budget. Le Play thus became the originator of modern statistical survey methods in sociology (though, as Miss Gladys Mayer has pointed out, an early form of statistical survey was known even in Roman and Egyptian times) and Geddes had nothing against this.

One of Geddes’ sociological insights which has borne fruit is his analysis of the Industrial Revolution into two quite distinct phases. Borrowing neatly from the terms of archeology he called Palaeotechnic the period of the first coal, iron and steam revolution —characterized by massiveness and a rather crude and not very efficient display of power, often accompanied by ugliness and squalor. This was succeeded by the Neotechnic—characterized by electrical power and the use of glass and light alloys in construction, thus leading to clearer and brighter buildings and also the freedom to create industry wherever it could usefully fit, and not only close to the coalfields or with access to them. Lewis Mumford in his classic study “Technics and Civilisation’ showed the need for identifying a much earlier period of technology, which from antiquity had made use of the natural elements of wind and water to provide power. This dawn of technology he appropriately

*See Ninth Foundation Lecture ‘The Order of Mankind as seen by Auguste Comte’ by David Shillan. [

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