tiii.] THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM. 165 



All the unreality and mere bookislmcss of M. Comtc's 

 knowledge of physical science comes out. in the passage 

 I have italicised. " The special study of living beings 

 is based upon a general study of the laws of life !" 

 What little I know about the matter leads me to think 

 that, if M. Comte had possessed the slightest practical 

 acquaintance with biological science, he would have 

 turned his phraseology upside down, and have perceived 

 that we can -have no knowledge of the general laws 

 of life, except that which is based upon the study of 

 particular living beings. 



The illustration is surely unluckily chosen ; but the 

 language in which these so-called abstract sciences are 



DO 



defined seems to me to be still more open to criticism. 

 With what propriety can astronomy, or physics, or 

 chemistry, or biology, be said to occupy themselves 

 with the consideration of " all conceivable cases" which 

 fall within their respective provinces ? Does the as- 

 tronomer occupy himself with any other system of the 

 universe than that which is visible to him \ Does he 

 speculate upon the possible movements of bodies which 

 may attract one another in the inverse proportion of the 

 cube of their distances, say? Does biology, whether 

 " abstract" or " concrete," occupy itself with any other 

 form of life than those which exist, or have existed ? 

 And, if the abstract sciences embrace all conceivable 

 cases of the operation of the laws with which they 

 are concerned, would not they, necessarily, embrace the 

 subjects of the concrete sciences, which, inasmuch as 

 they exist, must needs be conceivable ? In fact, no such 

 distinction as that which M. Comte draws is tenable. 

 The first stage of his classification breaks by its own 

 weight. 



But granting M. Comte his six abstract sciences, he 

 proceeds to arrange them according to what he calls 



