14 A Century of Science 



first volume of which appeared in 1830, in which 

 he sought to point out the methods which each 

 science has at command for discovering truth, and 

 the manner in which each might be made to con 

 tribute toward a sound body of philosophic doctrine. 

 The attempt had a charm and a stimulus for many 

 minds, but failed by being enlisted in the service of 

 sundry sociological vagaries upon which the author s 

 mind was completely wrecked. &quot; Positivism,&quot; from 

 being the name of a potent scientific method, be 

 came the name of one more among the myriad 

 ways of having a church and regulating the details 

 of life. 



While the ponderous mechanical intellect of 

 Comte was striving to elicit the truth from themes 

 beyond its grasp, one of the world s supreme poets 

 had already discerned some of the deeper aspects 

 of science presently to be set forth. By tempera 

 ment and by training, Goethe was one of the first 

 among evolutionists. The belief in an evolution of 

 higher from lower organisms could not fail to be 

 strongly suggested to a mind like his as soon as 

 the classification of plants and animals had begun 

 to be conducted upon scientific principles. It is 

 not for nothing that a table of classes, orders, fam 

 ilies, genera, and species, when graphically laid 

 out, resembles a family tree. It was not long after 



