490 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



With the exception of this later addition to his 

 original scheme, the early Tract — re-edited by Comte 

 in 1854 as an appendix to his second great work in 

 order, as already remarked, to prove how consistently 

 he had carried out his original programme — contains 

 all the main points of his doctrine,^ and, in addition, a 

 great array of suggestive remarks which have since his 

 time, and largely through the influence of the positivist 

 school, received fuller treatment by writers on natural- 

 istic ethics. It is useful to draw attention to a few of 

 these remarks. 



Although Comte urges so strongly what we may now 

 call the exact methods of research, he sees a great 

 difference between phenomena that can be treated by 

 purely mathematical processes and those that cannot, 

 and among the latter he mentions the phenomena 

 peculiar to organised bodies. These, he says, are char- 

 acterised by an extreme variability ; a fortiori, this 

 applies to moral and political phenomena. It is need- 

 less to point out how this remark anticipates, in various 

 ways, truths which have been more clearly recognised 



governed philosophical thought. 

 Thua Dr T. Ruysseu says per- 

 tinently : " L'influence diffuse d' 

 A. Comte sur la generation des 

 penseurs de la seconde moitie du 

 siecle depasse tout ce que Ton 

 pouvait attendre d'un ecrivain iv 

 peine connu de son vivant. 

 Defiance a I'egard de toute lueta- 

 physique, culte de I'experience, 

 croyance a I'efficacite morale de la 

 science, hierarchie des sciences, 

 notions de progres et d'evolution, 

 subordination naturelle de Tiiidi- 

 vidu a la society, theorie des milieux, 

 ^tablissement de la morale sur la 



solidarite humaine, reconnaissance 

 de la grandeur sociale du catholi- 

 cisme et du moyen age, enfia 

 creation d'une science nouvelle, 

 la sociologie, telles sont les 

 grandes idees qu' A. Comte a 

 mises ou remises en circulation." 

 (Article " Positivisme," 'Grande 

 Encj'clopedie,' vol. xvii. p. 407.) 



^ This has been brought out 

 against Littre and Mill, both by 

 Hermann Gruber in Germany 

 ('Auguste Comte,' 1889). and 

 very clearly by Whittaker in the 

 Tract already mentioned. 



