Positivist Christian Historiography
CALVERT, George Henry.
Introduction to social science. A discourse in three parts. New York, Redfield, 1856.
8vo, pp. 148, 1-4, 7-10 (advertisements); a very good copy in the original brown straightgrained cloth, blindstamp borders to covers, spine lettered direct, gilt; shelfmark label to spine; ‘editor’s copy’ inkstamp to title page; presentation bookplate of the Minnesota Historical Society to front pastedown, given by Dr. Samuel A. Green, Boston.
First edition, rare in commerce. George Calvert (1803-89) was a journalist, traveller, and writer, and was the first American author to produce biographies of Goethe and Wordsworth. Calvert held the position of Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Baltimore.
Here Calvert seeks to contribute to ‘the discovery of the law which reigns over phenomena’, and by doing so to benefit ‘the earthly condition of man’. Calvert attaches a strong religious significance to the study of sociology, arguing that God reigns over all phenomena and ‘is everywhere methodical, orderly, scientific’. Calvert’s project in the social sciences thus holds up an interesting mirror to the positivist approach to history of Leopold von Ranke, preeminent historian of the nineteenth century, and to Auguste Comte’s positivism. Calvert is not satisfied by things as they are: he turns the lens of his ideas upon contemporary American society and religion, denouncing hypocrisy and the teaching of the blasphemous doctrine that all men are sinners. The ‘Utopian’ Christianity he envisages is primarily one in which all men strive foremost to help the poor.
Provenance: Samuel A. Green, a Civil War soldier, later became librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and it is likely in this capacity that he gifted this book, though whether he was the editor or not is unclear.