154 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. gym. 



a moment aspire ; and with a severity, not unfrequently 

 amounting to contempt, which I have not the wish, if I 

 had the power, to surpass. I, as a mere student in these 

 questions, am content to abide by Mr. Mill's judgment 

 until some one shows cause for its reversal, and I decline 

 to enter into a discussion which I have not provoked. 



The sole obligation which lies upon me is. to justify so 

 much as still remains without justification of what I 

 have written respecting Positivism — namely, the opinion 

 expressed in the following paragraph : — 



" In so far as my study of what specially characterises 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/ 



Here are two propositions : the first, that the " Phi- 

 losophic Positive" contains little or nothing of any 

 scientific value ; the second, that Comtism is, in spirit, 

 anti-scientific. I shall endeavour to bring forward ample 

 evidence in support of both. 



I. No one who possesses even a superficial acquaint- 

 ance with physical science can read Comte's "Lecons" 

 without becoming aware that he was at once singularly 

 devoid of real knowledge on these subjects, and singu- 

 larly unlucky. What is to be thought of the contem- 

 porary of Young and of Fresnel, who never misses 

 an opportunity of casting scorn upon the hypothesis 

 of an ether — the fundamental basis not only of the 

 undulatory theory of light, but of so much else in 

 modern physics — and whose contempt for the intellects 

 of some of the strongest men of his generation was such, 

 that he puts forward the mere existence of night as a 

 refutation of the undulatory theory? 1 What a won- 

 derful gauge of his own value as a scientific critic docs 

 he afford, by whom we are informed that phrenology is 



1 "Philosophie Positive," ii. p. 440. 



