社会静力学是孔德的实证社会学的两个主要部分之一。孔德为社会学规定的研究内容是“秩序与进步”，相应地，其社会学思想分为动力学与静力学两部分。静力学的主题就是社会秩序或社会协调，即社会各个构成部分之间平衡、和谐与稳定的关系。在现实背景上，秩序是在法国大革命后思想与静神的无政府状态以及政治、道德的危机下的社会所急需的。它的学术背景则是解剖学对于实证社会学的借鉴作用，社会秩序的研究原点，是类似于器官的各种组织如何通过相互作用形成类似于生命有机体的统一的社会整体。对静态的社会共性规律的发现是对社会发展进化进行研究的基础。孔德如此阐述静力学的学术地位与需要：“根据一个假定的抽象概念，应当把人类秩序作为一个不变的东西首先加以研究。这样我们就能对各个时期和各个地方必然相通的各种基本规律作出估价。这种系统的基础工作有助于我们以后对逐步进化作出全面的解释。”

Social Statics, or The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed is an 1851 book by the British polymath Herbert Spencer. In it, he uses the term "fitness" in applying his ideas of Lamarckian evolution to society, saying for example that "It is clear that any being whose constitution is to be moulded into fitness for new conditions of existence must be placed under those conditions. Or, putting the proposition specifically — it is clear that man can become adapted to the social state, only by being retained in the social state. This granted, it follows that as man has been, and is still, deficient in those feelings which, by dictating just conduct, prevent the perpetual antagonism of individuals and their consequent disunion, some artificial agency is required by which their union may be maintained. Only by the process of adaptation itself can be produced that character which makes social equilibrium spontaneous."