OF KNOWLEDGE. 383 



Mill, he found in the studies and the methods which 

 were pursued in that great educational establishment 

 the first beginning of a true scientific corporation. 

 There he also met with the republican spirit among 

 the pupils, and an enthusiasm for the practical value of 

 the studies which united them. These studies embraced 

 mainly what we now call the exact sciences. The fore- 

 most representatives of this large and novel region of 

 knowledge, the founders of new sciences, were the 

 teachers of that institution. It is no wonder that this 

 great body of knowledge came to Comte as a kind of 

 revelation, and that the methods which it employed 

 fastened themselves on his mind as models of the highest 

 form of thought. In opposition to the vagueness of the 

 popular philosophy outside this circle of interests, and 

 the scepticism promoted by the critical school of thought, 

 there must have been something as restful and invigorat- 

 ing in the serene calmness and assurance which is charac- 

 teristic of the mathematical methods. Comte early fixed 

 this character in his mind by the term positive, and the 

 aim of his life became to expound and extol the canons 

 of the positive sciences and to apply them to the solution 

 of social and political problems. His great treatise, the 

 ' Cours de Philosophie Positive/ was published between 

 the years 1830 and 1842 in six volumes. In it he 

 leads up, from the mathematical and exact sciences, 



the independence and dignity of 

 the organic studies. In so far as 

 the latter understands me, it is at 

 heart more favourable than hostile, 

 because it feels in a confused way 

 that my philosophical endeavour is 

 directed towards liberating it from 

 the oppression of the mathema- 



ticians. I have found there not 

 only complete scientific apprecia- 

 tion in the person of my eminent 

 friend M. de Blainville, but also 

 numerous and respected adherents, 

 &c., &c." ('Cours,' vol. vi. p. 22, 

 &c.) 



