TWOFOLD PKOGKESS OF SCIENCE. 141 



particular cases ; " which is M. Comte's definition of " the 

 most simple phenomena." Does it not indeed follow from 

 the familiarly admitted fact, that mental advance is from 

 the concrete to the abstract, from the particular to the gen- 

 eral, that the universal and therefore most simple truths are 

 the last to be discovered ? Is not the government of the 

 solar system by a force varying inversely as the square of 

 the distance, a simpler conception than any that preceded 

 it ? Should we ever succeed in reducing all orders of phe- 

 nomena to some single law — say of atomic action, as M. 

 Comte suggests — must not that law answer to his test of 

 being iyidependent of all others, and therefore most simple ? 

 And would not such a law generalize the phenomena of 

 gravity, cohesion, atomic affinity, and electric repulsion, just 

 as the laws of number generalize the quantitative phenom- 

 ena of space, time and force ? 



The possibility of saying so much in support of an hypo- 

 thesis the very reverse of M. Comte's, at once proves that 

 his generalization is only a half-truth. The fact is, that 

 neither proposition is correct by itself; and the actuality is 

 expressed only by putting the two together. The progress 

 of science is duplex : it is at once from the special to the 

 general, and from the general to the special : it is analytical 

 and synthetical at the same time. 



M. Comte himself observes that the evolution of science 

 has been accomplished by the division of labour ; bat he 

 quite misstates the mode in which this division of labour 

 has operated. As he describes it, it has simply been an ar- 

 rangement of phenomena into classes, and the study of each 

 class by itself He does not recognise the constant effect 

 of progress in each class upon all other classes ; but only on 

 the class succeeding it in his hierarchical scale. Or if he 

 ■ occasionally admits collateral influences and intercommuni- 

 cations, he does it so grudgingly, and so quickly puts the 

 admissions out of sight and forgets them, as to leave the 



