ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND COSMISM 



generalized groups of phenomena are regarded 

 each as under the control of a presiding de- 

 ity endowed with volition ; and Monotheism, 

 which arises when men have gained the con- 

 ception of a Universe, and have generalized the 

 causes of phenomena until they have arrived at 

 the notion of a single First Cause. Accord- 

 ing to Comte, philosophy began in fetishism ; 

 as science progressively arranged phenomena in 

 groups of wider and wider generality, philoso- 

 phy passed through polytheism into monothe- 

 ism ; and as with its increasing generality, the 

 primitive anthropomorphic conception of cause 

 faded away, becoming replaced by the concep- 

 tion of an unknowable Cause manifested in 

 phenomena, philosophy became metaphysical : 

 finally, when the unknowable Cause is wholly 

 ignored, and no account is taken of anything 

 beyond the immediate content of observed 

 facts, philosophy becomes positive. For while 

 Comte did not follow Hume and Berkeley to 

 the extent of explicitly or implicitly denying the 

 independent existence of a Power manifested in 

 phenomena; while he would, if consistent with 

 his own principles, have regarded such a denial 

 as an overstepping of the limits within which 

 positive speculation should be confined; it is 

 none the less true that he ignored the existence 

 of any such Power as completely as if he had 

 held the extreme idealist doctrine which pro- 

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