Note 264 — II A Sketch of the History of the Idea of Milieu Since the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

But he adds, “... no disturbing causes, acting on social development, could do more than to affect its rate of progress. This is true of the operation of influences from the inorganic world, as of all others. In our view of biology we saw that the human being cannot be modified indefinitely by exterior circumstances; that such modifications can affect only the degrees of phenomena, without at all changing their nature; and again, that when the disturbing influences exceed their general limits, the organism is no longer modified, but destroyed.”—The Positive Philosophy of Aug. Comte, tr. by Harriet Martineau, vol. 2, p. 98; 97.