148 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [vm. 



aspects, appears to me to be a complete failure. It is impossible, 

 in an article which is already too long, to inquire how it may be 

 replaced by a better ; and it is the less necessary to do so, as a 

 second edition of Mr. Spencer s remarkable essay on this subject 

 has just been published. After wading through pages of the 

 long-winded confusion and second-hand information of the 

 &quot; Philosophic Positive,&quot; at the risk of a crise cerebrate it is as 

 good as a shower-bath to turn to the &quot; Classification of the 

 Sciences,&quot; and refresh oneself with Mr. Spentcer s profound 

 thought, precise knowledge, and clear language. 



II. The second proposition to which I have committed myself, 

 in the paper to which I have been obliged to refer so often, is, 

 that the &quot; Positive Philosophy &quot; contains &quot; a great deal which is 

 as thoroughly antagonistic to the very essence of science as is 

 anything in ultramontane Catholicism.&quot; 



What I refer to in these words, is, on the one hand the dog 

 matism and narrowness which so often mark M. Comte s 

 discussion of doctrines which he does not like, and reduce his 

 expressions of opinion to mere passionate puerilities ; as, for 

 example, when he is arguing against the assumption of an ether, 

 or when he is talking (I cannot call it arguing) against pyscho- 

 logy, or political economy. On the other hand, I allude to the 

 spirit of meddling systematization and regulation which animates 

 even the &quot; Philosophic Positive,&quot; and breaks out, in the latter 

 volumes of that work, into no uncertain foreshadowing of the 

 anti-scientific monstrosities of Comte s later writings. 



Those who try to draw a line of demarcation between the 

 spirit of the &quot; Philosophic Positive,&quot; and that of the &quot; Politique &quot; 

 and its successors, (if I may express an opinion from fragmentary 

 knowledge of these last,) must have overlooked, or forgotten, 

 what Comte himself labours to show, and indeed succeeds 

 in proving, in the &quot; Appendice General &quot; of the &quot; Politique 

 Positive.&quot; &quot; Des mon debut,&quot; he writes, &quot; je tentai de fonder le 

 nouveau pouvoir spirituel que j institue aujourd hui.&quot; &quot; Ma 

 politique, loin d etre aucunement opposee a ma philosophic, en 

 constitue tellement la suite naturelle que celle-ci fut directe- 



