viii.] THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM. 145 



A fortioi-i, the phenomena of biology and of chemistry are, in 

 their ultimate analysis, questions of molecular physics. Indeed, 

 the fact is acknowledged by all chemists and biologists who look 

 beyond their immediate occupations. And it is to be observed, 

 that the phenomena of biology are as directly and immediately 

 connected with molecular physics as those of chemistry. Molar 

 physics, chemistry, and biology are not three successive steps in 

 the ladder of knowledge, as M. Comte would have us believe, but 

 three branches springing from the common stem of molecular 

 physics. 



As to astronomy, I am at a loss to understand how any one 

 who will give a moment s attention to the nature of the science 

 can fail to see that it consists of two parts : first, of a description 

 of the phaenomena, which is as much entitled as descriptive 

 zoology, or botany, is, to the name of natural history ; and, 

 secondly, of an explanation of the phaenomena, furnished by the 

 laws of a force gravitation the study of which is as much a 

 part of physics, as is that of heat, or electricity. It would be 

 just as reasonable to make the study of the heat of the sun a 

 science preliminary to the rest of thermotics, as to place the 

 study of the attraction of the bodies, which compose the universe 

 in general, before that of the particular terrestrial bodies, which 

 alone we can experimentally know. Astronomy, in fact, owes its 

 perfection to the circumstance that it is the only branch of 

 natural history, the phaenomena of which are largely expressible 

 by mathematical conceptions, and which can be, to a great extent, 

 explained by the application of very simple physical laws. 



With regard to mathematics, it is to be observed, in the first 

 place, that M. Comte mixes up under that head the pure 

 relations of space and of quantity, which are properly included 

 under the name, with rational mechanics and statics, which are 

 mathematical developments of the most general conceptions of 

 physics, namely, the notions of force and of motion. Relegating 

 these to their proper place in physics, we have left pure mathe 

 matics, which can stand neither at the head, nor at the tail, of 

 any hierarchy of the sciences, since, like logic, it is equally 



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