COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



innovation, in studying all phases of thought 

 with reference to preceding phases of thought, 

 amounted to a revolution in the attitude of 

 philosophy. Yet the latter admission no more 

 makes us followers of Comte than the former 

 admission makes us followers of Cuvier. 



The significance of this illustration will be- 

 come still more apparent as we proceed to 

 examine the attempt of Comte to describe 

 the course of philosophic evolution as actually- 

 shown in history. According to Comte there 

 are three modes of philosophizing — the The- 

 ological, the Metaphysical, and the Positive. 

 The first two modes are characterized by the 

 attempt to formulate the unknowable Cause or 

 causes of phenomena ; but Positivism, recog- 

 nizing the futility of all such attempts, ignores 

 the unknowable Cause or causes of pheno- 

 mena. Positivism limits itself to ascertaining 

 uniformities of coexistence and sequence among 

 phenomena. Metaphysics and Theology super- 

 add investigations concerning the nature of the 

 hidden efficient cause of the phenomena ; but 

 Metaphysics regards this cause as a mere ab- 

 stract entity, while Theology regards it as en- 

 dowed with volition and intelligence. There 

 are three successive stages of theology : Fetish- 

 ism, in which phenomena, being not yet gen- 

 eralized, are regarded each as endowed with a 

 volition of its own ; Polytheism, in which 

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