Of the two parts of sociology, the Statics, which investigates the equilibrium (the conditions of the existence, the permanence, and the coexistence of social states), and Dynamics, which investigates the movement (the laws of the progress) of social phenomena, the first was in essence established by Aristotle.  The fundamental concept of the Statics is the consensus, the harmony, solidarity, or mutual dependence of the members of the social organism.  All its parts, science, art, religion, politics, industry, must be considered together; they stand in such intimate harmony and correlation that, for every important change of condition in one of these parts, we may be certain of finding corresponding changes in all the others, as its causes and effects.  Besides the selfish propensities, there dwell in man an equally original, but intrinsically weaker, impulse toward association, which instinctively leads him to seek the society of his fellows without reflection on the advantages to be expected therefrom, and a moderate degree of benevolence.  As altruism conflicts with egoism, so the reason, together with the impulse to get ahead, which can only be satisfied through labor, is in continual conflict with the inborn disinclination to regulated activity (especially to mental effort).  The character of society depends on the strength of the nobler incentives, that is, the social inclinations and intellectual vivacity in opposition to the egoistic impulses and natural inertness.  The former nourish the progressive, the latter the conservative spirit.  Women are as much superior to men in the stronger development of their sympathy and sociability as they are inferior in insight and reason.  Society is a group of families, not of individuals, and domestic life is the foundation, preparation, and pattern for social life, Comte praises the family, the connecting link between the individual and the species, as a school of unselfishness, and approves the strictness of the Catholic Church in regard to the indissolubility of the marriage relation.  He remarks the evil consequences of the constantly increasing division of labor, which makes man egoistic and narrow-minded, since it hides rather than reveals the social significance of the employment of the individual and its connection with the welfare of the community, and seeks for a means of checking them.  Besides the universal education of youth, he demands the establishment of a spiritual power to bring the general interest continually to the minds of the members of all classes and avocations, to direct education, and to enjoy the same authority in moral and intellectual matters as is conceded to the astronomer in the affairs of his department.  The function of this power would be to occupy the position heretofore held by the clergy.  Comte conceives it as composed of positive philosophers, entirely independent of the secular authorities, but in return cut off from political influence and from wealth.  Secular authority, on the other hand, he wishes put into the hands of an aristocracy of capitalists, with the bankers at the head of these governing leaders of industry.