488 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



which I have been treating so far, the problem of the 

 Soul, the problem of Knowledge, the problem of Reality, 

 do not exist for Comte. He starts with a belief in the 

 certainty and finality of exact or scientific knowledge, 

 and finds the problem of philosophy merely in under- 

 standing and accepting the existing methods of this 

 knowledge and in extending the use of them into those 

 regions where they have not been successfully intro- 

 duced, notably into the historical and social sciences. 

 Thus we shall not expect to find in Comte's writings 

 any valuable contributions to the solution of the central 

 problem of philosophy, though we may find many useful 

 beginnings and suggestions in the direction of the 

 methodical or exact treatment of social or practical 

 questions. When we come to deal with these we shall 

 meet with many of Comte's suggestions and shall have 

 to recognise the importance of his influence. 

 35 For the moment it is more interesting to understand 



positive 88 what Schelling really meant by his continually repeated 

 demand of a positive philosophy to supplement and 

 complete the then current negative philosophy of 

 the Hegelian school. Schelling had recognised that 

 the purely logical development of thought, even if it 

 were capable of reaching up to the highest reality or 

 descending to the ultimate source and root of all ex- 

 istence, would end in a mere formalism, being at best 

 able only to unfold the necessary stages in which any or 

 every reality must be conceived by us to move and 

 develop, without further affording an insight into the 

 varied nature of all the real things which surround us 

 in space and time, and which exhibit individual life and 



