COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



their use. Of this, the great authority on codi- 

 fication, Bentham, was perfectly aware ; and his 

 early c Fragment on Government,' the admir- 

 able introduction to a series of writings une- 

 qualled in their department, contains clear and 

 just views (as far as they go) on the meaning 

 of a natural arrangement, such as could scarcely 

 have occurred to any one who lived anterior to 

 the age of Linnaeus and Bernard de Jussieu." s 

 These illustrations will serve to give the 

 reader some idea of Comte's brilliant and happy 

 contributions to the logic of scientific inquiry. 

 I am aware that scanty justice is done to the sub- 

 ject by the condensed and abridged mode of 

 treatment to which I have felt obliged to resort. 

 But an exhaustive exposition and criticism of 

 the details of the Comtean philosophy of method 

 does not come within the scope of the present 

 work. The object of the preceding sketch is to 

 enable the reader to realize the significance of 

 Comte's omission of Logic from the scheme of 

 the sciences. That omission, as we may now see, 

 was due to the fact that Comte merged Philosophy 

 in Logic. Or, in other words, from his point of 

 view, Philosophy is not a Synthesis, but an Or- 

 ganon. Nowhere in that portion of the " Phi- 

 losophic Positive " which treats of the organi- 

 zation of the sciences, do we catch any glimpse 

 of that Cosmic conception of the scope of phi- 

 1 System of Logic, 6th edition, vol. ii. p. 288. 



