COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



it is, without Comte, than the course of specu- 

 lative inquiry during the past two centuries 

 would have been what it is, without Bacon. 

 And indeed, in Mr. Spencer's own case, — as 

 he is himself disposed to admit, — there are 

 several instances in which his very antagonism 

 to Comte has led him to state certain impor- 

 tant truths more clearly and more definitely 

 than he would otherwise have been likely to 

 state them. The theory of deanthropomorphi- 

 zation, set forth in the preceding chapter, was 

 presented in a much more vivid light than 

 would have been possible had it not been 

 reached through an adverse criticism of the 

 Comtean doctrine of the " Three Stages." The 

 condemnation of Atheism involved in our state- 

 ment of that theory is redoubled in emphasis 

 when Positivism is by the same reasoning con- 

 demned ; and our dissent from Hume is all the 

 more strongly accented, when it is seen to be so 

 complete as to include dissent from Comte also. 

 So, too, the conclusions reached in the present 

 chapter concerning the organization of the sci- 

 ences are undeniably far more precise and sat- 

 isfactory than they would have been if presented 

 without reference to the earlier and necessarily 

 cruder views of Comte. Indeed, in the very 

 sense of incompleteness which would justly have 

 attached itself to our exposition, had no men- 

 tion been made of the Comtean theory, we may 

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