Smntific s*tis 0f 0sitifaxsm 159 



sophiques sur les Sciences et les Savants (1825)," the 

 three states are practically reduced to two. " Le ve'ri- 

 table esprit general de toute philosophie theologique 

 ou me'taphysique consiste a prendre pour principe, dans 

 Implication des phenomenes du monde exterieur, notre 

 sentiment immediat des phenomenes humaines ; tandis 

 que au contraire, la philosophie positive est toujours 

 caracte'risee, non moins profondement, par la subordina- 

 tion necessaire et rationnelle de la conception de Thomme 

 a celle du monde." 1 



I leave M. Comte's disciples to settle which of these 

 contradictory statements expresses their master's real 

 meaning. All I beg leave to remark is, that men of 

 science are not in the habit of paying much attention 

 to " laws " stated in this fashion. 



The second statement is undoubtedly far more rational 

 and consistent with fact than the first ; but I cannot 

 think it is a just or adequate account of the growth 

 of intelligence, either in the individual man, or in the 

 human species. Any one who will carefully watch the 

 development of the intellect of a child will perceive 

 that, from the first, its mind is mirroring nature in two 

 different ways. On the one hand, it is merely drinking 

 in sensations and building up associations, while it forms 

 conceptions of things and their relations which are more 

 thoroughly " positive," or devoid of entanglement with 

 hypotheses of any kind, than they will ever be in after- 

 life. No child has recourse to imaginary personifications 

 in order to account for the ordinary properties of objects 

 which are not alive, or do not represent living things. It 

 does not imagine that the taste of sugar is brought about 

 by a god of sweetness, or that a spirit of jumping causes 

 a ball to bound. Such phenomena, which form the basis 

 of a very large part of its ideas, are taken as matters 



J "Philosophie Positive," iii. p. 188. 



