CHAP, vi COMTE'S LA WGIVING 59 



house was to contain seven rooms no more, no less. 

 The labourer's salary was to be 100 francs for a month 

 of twenty -eight days, or an equivalent calculated in 

 piece wages. Every treatise was to contain seven 

 chapters, each divided into three parts, each part sub- 

 divided into seven sections. Every poem was to contain 

 thirteen cantos, thirteen being another of Comte's sacred 

 numbers. 



But, Quousque tandem f Have we not had enough 

 of this version of scientific sociology ? In point of fact, 

 we find ourselves, under Comte's guidance, in a world of 

 caprice. Biology gives him a parable of moral truth, 

 not a law ; history offers suggestions to the philosopher, 

 but does not control his judgment ; the ideal of altruism, 

 of which he is the prophet, is an unproved and unsafe 

 assumption. A brilliant and erratic man, he rode his 

 hobbies hard, and threw the reins upon the neck of his 

 fancy as he approached the details of conduct. If 

 science is definite, measured, certain in its utterances, 

 then Comte, in spite of his aspirations, is no true 

 scientific leader for the human race. 



