PHILOSOPHY AS AN ORGANON 



I shall, at the risk of apparent digression, cite 

 one of his conspicuous shortcomings which is 

 peculiarly interesting, not only as throwing light 

 upon his intellectual habits, but also as exempli- 

 fying the radical erroneousness of his views con- 

 cerning the limits of philosophic inquiry. Pro- 

 fessor Huxley calls attention to Comte's scornful 

 repudiation of what is known as the " cell- 

 doctrine " in anatomy and physiology. Comte 

 characterized this doctrine as a melancholy in- 

 stance of the abuse of microscopic investigation, 

 a chimerical attempt to refer all tissues to a 

 single primordial tissue, " formed by the unin- 

 telligible assemblage of a sort of organic monads, 

 which are supposed to be the ultimate units of 

 every living body." Now this " chimerical doc- 

 trine " is at the present day one of the funda- 

 mental doctrines of biology. Other instances 

 are at hand, which Professor Huxley has not 

 cited. For example, Comte condemned as vain 

 and useless all inquiries into the origin of the 

 human race, although, with an inconsistency not 

 unusual with him, he was a warm advocate of 

 that nebular hypothesis which seeks to account 

 for the origin of the solar system. As these two 

 orders of inquiry are philosophically precisely 

 on a level with each other, the former being in- 

 deed the one for which we have now the more 

 abundant material, the attempted distinction is 

 proof of the vagueness with which Comte con- 

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