INTRODUCTION 



For Comte no longer looms up on our ho- 

 rizon as so large an object as he seemed to 

 many of Fiske's readers in 1870. It is partly- 

 due to Fiske and to Spencer, and still more due 

 to the general progress of thought, that Comte, 

 while always an historically interesting figure, 

 has no longer a very vital importance for con- 

 temporary opinion. Nevertheless, it is fair to 

 observe that in many recent discussions of the 

 Logic of the sciences, by writers such as Mach, 

 Pearson, Hertz, and others, there is indeed a 

 recurrence to certain radically empiristic opin- 

 ions regarding the nature of " axioms," and 

 regarding the inability of our thought to as- 

 sert even the existence of anything beyond 

 " phenomena." And such recent opinions, if 

 discussed in the time when the " Cosmic Phi- 

 losophy" was written, would generally have 

 been classed with the Comtean " Positivism " 

 against which Spencer and Fiske both contend. 

 But even this newer " phenomenism " or "rad- 

 ical empiricism " seems in general little depen- 

 dent, historically, upon the personal teachings 

 of Comte ; and whatever its historical relations 

 to him may be, it certainly does not lead con- 

 temporary readers to feel as much interest as 

 Fiske, in 1870, could fairly presuppose, in 

 the special issues regarding the Comtean classi- 

 fication of the sciences, regarding the " three 

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