OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 679 



position, for his own age, notably in France and in this 

 country, had ah-eady given an entirely different direction 

 to philosophy. For though von Hartmann stood himself 

 under the influence of scientific research, his was not 

 really a scientific philosophy, the scientific problem did 

 not stand in the centre of his thought. The placing of 

 it in that position was for the first time undertaken, 

 not in Germany, but in this country and in France. 

 The work was later on done likewise in Germany, as 

 we shall have occasion to learn in the sequel of this 

 chapter. 



The thinker in whose system the scientific spirit 51. 



Positivism 



gained for the first time the upper hand was Auguste ofcomte. 

 Comte. But it would be a mistake to consider 

 him as merely a representative of what in France is 

 nowadays termed Positivism. With Comte Positivism 

 meant essentially the reconstruction of society upon a 

 new foundation, upon a foundation prepared and 

 attained by the study of history as well as of 

 science. Positivism, as at present understood by 

 most of those who use the term in France, means 

 simply the methods of the exact and natural sciences. 

 The fact that the most important of Comte's writ- 

 ings, the ' Philosophie Positive,' was published as an 

 independent work and separated from the ' Politique 

 Positive,' has made it possible to eliminate, in the 

 popular conception of Comtism, the most charac- 

 teristic feature in the earliest and latest of his 

 speculations. These deal with the practical applica- 

 tion of his doctrine. With him the term Positivism 

 is not confined, as it is in more recent times, to a 



