ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND COSMISM 



had occupied before. That psychological analy- 

 sis, in the light of which they have been here 

 exhibited, and by which alone they can be se- 

 curely established, Comte unreservedly and dis- 

 dainfully repudiated. Asserting as he did that 

 all direct observation and comparison of states 

 of consciousness is vain and nugatory, Comte 

 could only accept the doctrine of the relativity 

 of knowledge and its corollaries as empirical 

 doctrines. We shall frequently have occasion 

 to remark upon the vulnerable condition in 

 which the Positive Philosophy is left, owing to 

 this disregard of psychology. Here indeed was 

 Comte's weak point, as it is Mr. Spencer's 

 strong point. As an observer and interpreter of 

 states of consciousness Comte was below medi- 

 ocrity — hardly fit to be ranked with Cousin 

 or Dugald Stewart ; while in power of psycho- 

 logical analysis, Herbert Spencer has been sur- 

 passed by no thinker that ever lived, and has 

 been rivalled only by Aristotle, Berkeley, and 

 Kant. And it is accordingly not Comte, but 

 Spencer, who has wrought the truths above 

 enumerated into an organized body of doctrine 

 resting upon an indestructible basis in conscious- 

 ness. 



Since, then, the foundations of the scientific 



philosophy here expounded were laid down by 



Bacon, Locke, Hume, and Kant, and since that 



philosophy has first been presented as a coher- 



241 



