SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE METHODS 



Comte installed as sovereign Pontiff. As a 

 natural result of this new position, his self-con- 

 fidence grew until it became even too great 

 to be ludicrous. Literary history affords us 

 no other example approaching to it, unless, as 

 Mr. Mill suggests, in the case here and there 

 of some " entirely self-taught thinker who has 

 no high standard with which to compare him- 

 self." He habitually alludes to himself as the 

 peer of Aristotle and St. Paul combined; or as 

 the only really great philosopher, save Des- 

 cartes and Leibnitz, who has been seen in 

 modern times. 



When in a future chapter we come to exam- 

 ine the system of polity which awakened in 

 Comte such transcendent self-commendation, 

 we shall find, as might be expected from the 

 subjective method pursued, but little that is of 

 value to reward our search ; although there are 

 detached speculations of great interest, serving 

 to remind us that we are dealing with a mighty 

 though fallen thinker, and not with an undisci- 

 plined pretender. For the purpose of the pre- 

 sent chapter it will be enough to note some of 

 his latest philosophic vagaries, in which, push- 

 ing the subjective method to the limits of self- 

 refuting absurdity, he maintained that all science 

 should be remodelled in conformity to the re- 

 quirements of the imagination. Missing links 

 in the geological series of plants and animals 

 207 



