COMTE AND POSITIVISM. 11Y 



arc disciples of M. Comte. Neither their modes of inquiry 

 nor their views concerning human knowledge in its nature 

 and limits, are appreciably different from what they were 

 before. If they are &quot; positivists,&quot; it is in the sense that all men 

 of science have been more or less consistently &quot;positivists;&quot; 

 and the applicability of M. Comte s title to them, no more 

 makes them his disciples, than does its applicability to 

 men of science who lived and died before M. Comte wrote, 

 make these his disciples. M. Comte himself by no means 

 claims that which some of his adherents are apt, by impli 

 cation, to claim for him. He says : &quot; II y a, sans doute, 

 beaucoup d analogie entre ma philosophie positive ct co 

 que les savans anglais entendent, depuis Newton surtout, 

 par philosophic naturclle ;&quot; (see Acertisscmcnt) and further 

 on he indicates the &quot; grand mouvement imprime a Fesprit 

 humain, il y a deux siecles, par 1 action combinee des 

 preceptes de Bacon, des conceptions de Descartes, et des de- 

 couvertes de Galilee*, comme le moment oil 1 esprit de la 

 philosophie positive a commence a se prononcer dans 

 le monde.&quot; That is to say, the general mode of thought 

 and way of interpreting phenomena, which M. Comte calls 

 &quot; Positive Philosophy,&quot; he recognizes as having been growing 

 for two centuries ; as having reached, when he wrote, a 

 marked development ; and as being the heritage of all men of 

 science. 



That which M. Comte proposed to do, was to give scientific 

 thought and method a more definite embodiment and organi 

 zation ; and to apply it to the interpretation of classes 

 of phenomena not previously dealt with in a scientific 

 manner. The conception was a great one ; and the endea 

 vour to work it out was worthy of sympathy and applause. 

 Some such conception was entertained by Bacon. He, too, 

 aimed at the organization of the sciences ; he, too, held that 

 &quot; Physics is the mother of all the sciences ;&quot; he, too, held 

 that the sciences can be advanced only by combining them, 



