COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



and will thus gradually fall into the habit of 

 reasoning upon his plausible hypotheses as if 

 they were established. The moral danger is 

 that which menaces all isolation, social or in- 

 tellectual, — the danger of excessive egoism, of 

 over-confidence in one's own conclusions, and 

 an undue respect for one's own achievements. 

 It is well enough for a writer to be dogmatic, 

 provided his dogmatism is sustained by vigor- 

 ous argument. But the writer is past all hope 

 who habitually thinks to make loud assertion 

 do the duty of argument ; and this is a habit 

 into which every one is more or less liable to 

 fall who is not constantly coming in contact 

 with other thinkers, and forced continually to 

 defend his conclusions by the objective appeal 

 to universally admitted principles. 



I believe these considerations will go far to- 

 ward accounting for the unfortunate position 

 taken by Comte toward the close of his life. 

 Always of a warm and enthusiastic tempera- 

 ment, self-confident to an inordinate degree, 

 and vain with more than a Frenchman's vanity, 

 during his long period of isolation these traits 

 and tendencies were unduly strengthened. The 

 consciousness — to a certain extent well founded 

 — of the grandeur of the task which he had 

 accomplished, grew upon him apace ; and not 

 taking note of the serious defects and omis- 

 sions which advancing science was constantly 

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