COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



disease. Psychology, in both its branches, has 

 received a scientific constitution by the estab- 

 lishment of the primary laws of association, and 

 the fundamental law of the growth of intelli- 

 gence. And sociology, both statical and dyna- 

 mical, has undergone changes equally impor- 

 tant, as we shall see when we come to treat 

 specially of that subject. All this makes up an 

 aggregate of scientific achievement such as the 

 world has never before witnessed in anything 

 like an equally short interval. So enormous is 

 the accumulated effect of all these discoveries 

 upon the general habits of thought, that the 

 men of the present day who have fully kept 

 pace with the scientific movement are separated 

 from the men whose education ended in 1 830 

 by an immeasurably wider gulf than has ever 

 before divided one progressive generation of 

 men from their predecessors. And when we 

 add that both the history of science and the 

 general principles upon which discoveries are 

 made have been, during this interval and largely 

 through the impulse given by Comte himself, 

 more thoroughly studied than ever before, 

 we may begin to realize how far the resources 

 which we possess for constructing a synthesis 

 of the sciences exceed the resources which were 

 at his disposal. We shall realize that Comte — 

 at least where physical science is concerned — 

 has come to be almost an ancient ; and we shall 

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