688 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



now little studied. Like other schemes of social re- 

 organisation, in which French literature of the nineteenth 

 century is especially rich, it has been laid aside. Only the 

 positive spirit has spread and lives still in the literature 

 of his country. Nevertheless the mind of Comte was 

 prophetic, inasmuch as it marked in advance the direction 

 which French thought would take and the problems 

 which it would have to solve. It pushed the social 

 problem into the centre of thought, a position which it 

 still holds, and it raised if it left unsolved the problem, 

 which is even more pressing to-day, how to found a purely 

 ethical religion and how to guarantee and enforce the 

 acceptance of its precepts. 



Comte foresaw clearly that the final question would 

 be as to the seat of authority in matters of belief — i.e., 

 as to the persuasive or compelling force of the ultimate 

 convictions which should govern conduct. In fact he, 

 in his later writings, laid great stress upon the establish- 

 ment of a system through which what was considered 

 the final truth and the highest moral principle could be 

 enforced in the organisation of society. He devised a 

 regime similar to that of the Eoman Catholic Church, 

 without the dogmatic substance of the Eoman Catholic 

 religion. It is perhaps not too much to say that this is 

 exactly the problem which the educational government 

 in modern France is trying to solve. 



Comte was a solitary thinker, like Schopenhauer and 

 von Hartmann. He had few disciples, and his connec- 

 tion with earlier or contemporary thought was very 

 slender. The first to introduce the historical spirit into 

 sociology, he is, as he claims to be, quite original in 



