22 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART i 



real knowledge. For argument's sake take it, if you 

 like, that they failed pitiably. Still there is this to be 

 said, they tried ; whereas we, the crowning race, are to 

 give up real knowledge, and to content ourselves with 

 registering useful sequences. We have not awakened from 

 a dream, but rather fallen from a dream into a stupor. 

 This also is characteristic of the whole agnostic group. 

 It is easy to write the words " limitation " or " relativity 

 of knowledge " ; but it is hard to work out your meaning 

 so that this relativity or this adamantine limit shall not 

 involve the abrogation and annihilation of knowledge. 

 But those who despise metaphysics far too thoroughly 

 to study it, will always be found rejoicing in scraps of 

 metaphysical " creeds outworn." 



Next, we observe that, while Comte appeals to 

 phenomenal fact and positive science, he does not 

 place all sciences upon the same level. He has 

 arranged them in a scale 1st, Mathematics (including 

 Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Mechanics) ; 2nd, As- 

 tronomy ; 3rd, Physics (with subdivisions Sound, 

 Light, Heat, Electricity, etc.); 4th, Chemistry; 5th, 

 Biology or Physiology ; 6th, Sociology ; to which the 

 Positive Polity adds, 7th, Ethics. In the Positive 

 Philosophy there is a full review of the state of know- 

 ledge regarding the various branches of mathematical 

 and physical science at the time when Comte wrote. 

 This order is regarded as the best order, the right order, 

 the order chosen by the </>/><w/uo?, the wise and well- 

 cultured man, Auguste Comte. It is not simply an 

 order of initial ease and progressive difficulty. It is 

 mainly an order for study roughly coinciding with 

 the order of discovery but principally justified by 

 the statement, that each science presupposes the results 

 of its predecessors, while it marks out for itself a new 



