140 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [TO 



then proceeds to attack that philosopher and his doctrines 

 vigorously. 



Now, so far as I am concerned, the most reverend 

 prelate might dialcctically hew M. Comte in pieces, as a 

 modern Agag, and I should not attempt to stay his 

 hand. In so far as my study of what specially charac- 

 terises the Positive Philosophy has led me, I find therein 

 little or nothing of any scientific value, and a great deal 

 which is as thoroughly antagonistic to the very essence 

 of science as anything in ultramontane Catholicism. In 

 fact, M. Comte's philosophy in practice might be com- 

 pendiously described as Catholicism minus Christianity. 



But what has Comtism to do with the " New Philo- 

 sophy," as the Archbishop defines it in the following 

 passage ? 



" Let me briefly remind you of the leading principles of this new 

 philosophy. 



" All knowledge is experience of facts acquired by the senses. The 

 traditions of older philosophies have obscured our experience by mixing 

 with it much that the senses cannot observe, and until these additions 

 are discarded our knowledge is impure. Thus metaphysics tell us that 

 one fact which we observe is a cause, and another is the effect of that 

 cause ; but, upon a rigid analysis, we find that our senses observe 

 nothing of cause or effect : they observe, first, that one fact succeeds 

 another, and, after some opportunity," that this fact has never failed to 

 follow — that for cause and effect we should substitute invariable suc- 

 cession. An older philosophy teaches us to define an object by dis- 

 tinguishing its essential from its accidental qualities : but experience 

 knows nothing of essential and accidental ; she sees only that certain 

 marks attach to an object, and, after many observations, that some of 



them attach invariably, whilst others may at times be absent 



As all knowledge is relative, the notion of anything being necessary 

 must be banished with other traditions." 1 



There is much here that expresses the spirit of the 

 " New Philosophy," if by that term be meant the spirit 

 of modern science ; but I cannot but marvel that the 



u The Limits of Philosophical Inquiry," pp. 4 and 5. 



