ence of religious truths, than cases of Daltonism in showing the non-existence of colors, or cases of blindness in showing the non-existence of light.

According to Comte's own statement, man must first of all judge all beings by himself. He cannot conceive of Hence he atthat of which he has no consciousness. tributes the mental and moral powers of his own nature to all beings about him. This is his first philosophical movement, and from the very fact that he has done nothing further, he thinks he has done all things. But in the course of his analysis of himself, he arrives at the conception of causes, and again mistakes the knowledge attained for the whole attainable. This is Comte's metaphysical state. Thirdly, he arrives, still by the action of consciousness, at the conception of law as the embodiment of design,- and this is the positive state. The theological view is not denied, but simply modified by the development of the other ideas; simply modified; so far from being denied or outgrown, it is not even limited. It is modified, by being shown to be incomplete. This is the true view, we think, of Comte's law. Its importance and uniqueness have been much exaggerated by him. We might readily show that other conceptions besides those of God and of cause have been, when first developed, considered the ultimatum and crowning glory of philosophy, - able to explain all things. Comte himself asserts that the mathematicians have boasted that all things must come under their sway. Chemists, for a time, thought that they would be able to bring all the processes of vegetative and animal life under the laws of Chemistry. Electricity, also, was once considered the final principle. Phrenology thought it could explain all mental phenomena. Thus every new conception has for a time had an exaggerated importance in the eyes of those who hold it; and its field has gradually been defined by the labors of those who sought to analyze it and discover the laws to the knowledge of which it led. As well, therefore, might we say that Chemistry caused the Mathematics to be forgotten, or that Electricity banished Chemistry, as that Theology gave place to Metaphysics, and Metaphysics to Science. It is not true, historically, that And a belief in God is passing away from men's minds. it is not true of individuals, that mind always takes a

theological turn first. We know, in our private acquaintance, of men whose perceptive faculties are large, and whose early education was scientific in the positive sense, and not religious, but who passed, of their own accord, out of this state into a spiritual faith.

We have no disposition to deny that Comte has a large acquaintance with physical science. But he asks for faith, not as a scientific man, but as a philosopher, building his system upon Science. Now, we are so far from assenting to his philosophy, that we think, as we have before said, that his philosophic prejudice has made him misconceive every science from the least to the greatest. It limits and perverts his Hierarchy of Science, and also each science of which it is composed.

His Hierarchy of Science excludes his own course of Philosophy, and condemns it as vain. Neither Mathesis, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, nor Social Physics, recognizes a place for Philosophy or Logic. The "Philosophy" of Comte, and the "Logic" of Mill, are thus both excluded from the Hierarchy of Science. It is said that Comte has himself constructed a "Positive Morals" and "Positive Religion," but these, we presume, are but branches of his Sociology. Religion, and Ethics in their usual sense, are excluded from the subjects of human knowledge by his definition of Science, as the study of the "laws of the semblance and succession of phenomena."

We might take up the physical sciences in detail, and show that this rejection of the data given by consciousness vitiates his conception of each one. The Mathematics, for example, are defined as the science of "indirect measurement of magnitudes, which proposes to determine magnitudes by each other, according to the precise relations which exist between them." The discussion of this definition shows that he considers magnitudes as material substances, and measurement as the determination of numerical ratios. Space is treated as a mere abstraction, and lines and surfaces are defined as threads and films of matter. According to this, every proposition in Geometry would be untrue in letter, like Leibnitz's presentation of the Calculus. In short, M. Comte, in his scorn of metaphysic conceptions, has mistaken the language of Mathesis for its substance, and defined the

science from the poverty of its methods, instead of the richness of its field,-just as he might have defined Botany in Linnæus's day as the science of artificial classification, instead of the science of plants. Space and time present to us unnumbered problems and theorems which, in their natural form, are not questions of measurement direct or indirect, but require great ingenuity and skill to reduce them to the artificial form of equation.

We might, did the purpose of this journal justify us in such abstract discussions, follow M. Comte through the whole extent of Mathesis, and show that the same dwarfing spirit of materialism influences his judgment of each portion of it.

In Astronomy the same error prevails. Because the stars require infinitesimal observations, and seem beyond human reach, our author puts Stellar Astronomy upon his index expurgatorius, and thinks we can never get any real knowledge from beyond the limits of the solar system. Scarcely was his prophecy published, when that splendid series of stellar discoveries began which constitutes one of the chief glories of the Astronomy of today, the determination of the distances of fixed stars, the period of the revolution of binary stars, the resolution of obstinate nebulæ, and Maedler's magnificent approximation towards a theory of the motions of the milky way, a first approximation only, but enough to show that the problem is within the limits of Positive Science, and will one day be solved.

When we come into Physics and Chemistry, the same error of limiting science through his materialistic prejudices shows itself in his elaborate ridicule of the doctrine of an ether, and of undulations, doctrines which each successive year is establishing more firmly upon the bases of positive facts.

In like manner we find him in Biology attempting to exclude consciousness from the sources of our knowledge; reducing all our knowledge of mental phenomena to the observation of men's actions, and the form and anatomy of their brains. The absurdity of this is too great even for Mr. Mill. It is true that the metaphysicians of the world have committed the errors with which M. Comte charges them, of neglecting the study of the brain and of the actions of man,—of despising the com4TH S. VOL. XXI. NO. III.

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parisons to be drawn between the intellect of insane persons, children, animals, and the healthy mind of the adult. But it is equally true that he falls into a still greater error, when he supposes that any of these things can be interpreted without the aid of consciousness. He cannot so much as know that there is another man in existence, without depending on what he calls the theological ground of attributing to other beings the powers of which he himself is conscious. He cannot enter upon any criticism whatever of science or religion, without using the very same abstract notions which he contemns under the name of metaphysical entities.

Seeing, therefore, that Comte's fictitious law of three successive stages has dwarfed and perverted his view of every science in his own hierarchy, and led him into positive scientific errors in Astronomy, Physics, and Biology, as well as philosophic errors in Mathematics, we must expect to find his view of History, or what he calls Sociology, perverted in the same manner. Possessing sufficient largeness of view to give an admirable criticism of the history of Western Europe from the earliest times, he nevertheless, from the narrowness of his prejudices against religion and metaphysics, mistakes the modifications of Theology for its decay; and, having thus decided that Christianity is dying a natural death, naturally takes no notice whatever of its evidences. His error here is quite analogous to one which he adduces as an illustration of another point; - when he supposes a man to argue from the fact that men eat less in proportion to their civilization, to the conclusion that the time will come when they will not eat at all. He admits that men must of necessity begin with theological belief, and that it is with extreme difficulty that he himself excludes it in every form from his own mind. What absurdity, therefore, it is, to suppose it to be a temporary element in humanity.

It is true that M. Comte repels the charge of Atheism, and declares his philosophy to aim, not at a denial of God's existence, but only of our power to recognize his Being, if he exists. Yet, with strange inconsistency, he constantly reiterates the assertion, that the discovery of law excludes the dominion of will, human or divine. That is, he dogmatizes upon the very point on which he most strenuously denies our power to gain any

knowledge. While professing to hold Atheism and Theism in equal contempt, as states of mind which he has outgrown, he nevertheless continually renews the statement that the discovery of the laws of science excludes belief in God. If this be not Atheism, there is no such phase of mind possible.

M. Comte's whole position is based on his denial of the value of consciousness. Hence his reduction of Theology to a temporary phase of human error. Hence, also, his denial of causes, since the conception of causation can only come from the consciousness of volition. Hence, also, in logical consistence, he ought to deny the existence of forces, and not only to object to the word attraction of gravitation, but also to the word gravitation itself; since that implies force, and all that science can deal with is motion. He indeed alludes to this change of Rational Mechanics into Geometry, but without apparently perceiving that the change is imperatively demanded by his own system of "positivity." In strict "positive science" Analytical Mechanics must give way to" Kinematics," as illustrated by Sir William Rowan Hamilton's celebrated paper on Light. Comte's remarks, therefore, on the activity of matter, are a relapse, by this exponent of "positive science," into the primitive theological state of Fetichism; an utter forsaking of his primal stand of rejecting the interpretation of consciousness.

He is more consistent with himself in asserting that the discovery of a law is the exclusion of will, human and divine, and therefore less consistent with truth and reason. Any man of common sense can see that the discovery of law is the surest evidence of the presence of thought, and that Positive Science, in discovering the unity of law in the universe, only exalts Theology by giving clearer and juster views of the Thought that guides material phenomena by the laws of space and time. It has been said that the commonplaces of Natural Theology are out of place in the discussion of Comte's system; but this is a mistake, the common arguments are the invulnerable ones which settle the whole matter. It were an easy, though a tedious task, to follow him through his huge volumes, and show how every point, from Mathematics to History, suffers at his hands through his sensational prejudice. But there is no need, since the