OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 683 



absence also of any unifying cosmic idea, have induced 

 German historians either to disregard Comte's philosophy 

 altogether or to deny it the title of a philosophical system. 

 By many Comte's unifying principle is considered to be 

 merely a method. This is correct to a large extent. 

 Nevertheless this method is not merely that of the 

 sciences or that of common -sense, although we find 

 him reaffirming again and again the intimate connection 

 of Positivism with both. The unifying tendency of his 56. 



J Unifying 



thought, which he never tires of extolling, is archi- 

 tectonic, an attempt to bring order and arrangement 

 into human thought and knowledge ; and the larger 

 part of his first great work is occupied with establishing 

 the hierarchy of the sciences, according to which one 

 follows out of the other and the whole series ends in 

 the new science of Sociology. As this deals with the 

 highest product of nature, the society of human beings, 

 it is also the highest among all the sciences, of which it 

 is the consummation. Next to this order of the sciences 

 there stands the well-known order in which he con- 

 ceives of the development or evolution of human society 

 in the course of history. In fact, Order or logical arrange- 

 ment and Development make up the central and unify- 

 ing thought in Comte's system. With this idea he 

 desired to lift society out of the state of anarchy 

 into which it had been plunged through an extreme 

 application of the mistaken metaphysical or abstract 

 spirit, which had resulted only in experimenting and 

 floundering. 



Keeping always in view the rearrangement of society, 

 the new social Order, Comte is well aware of the im- 



