 First Principles was issued in 1862 as an axiomatic prolegomena to the synthetic philosophy, which came to a close with the publication of the 1896, final volume of The Principles of Sociology. Though disguised as mid-19th century speculative physics, First Principles is mostly metaphysics encompassing all inorganic change and organic evolution. The synthetic philosophy purports to illustrate in often maddening detail what follows from First Principles.