COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



Still confining our attention to the form of 

 these propositions, and neglecting for the mo- 

 ment the very different meanings with which 

 they would be enunciated respectively by the 

 Cosmist and by the Positivist, it is open to us 

 to maintain that, in asserting these propositions, 

 Mr. Spencer agrees with Comte in asserting the 

 five cardinal theorems of Positive Philosophy. 

 Looking at the matter in this light, we might 

 complain that Mr. Spencer, in his " Reasons 

 for Dissenting, etc.," accentuates the less funda- 

 mental points in which he differs from Comte, 

 and passes without emphasis the more funda- 

 mental points in which he agrees with Comte. 

 We might urge that while the " Law of the 

 Three Stages " is undoubtedly incorrect, never- 

 theless the essential point is that men's concep- 

 tions of Cause have been becoming ever less and 

 less Anthropomorphic. And similarly, when Mr. 

 Spencer insists that Comte has not classified the 

 sciences correctly, we might reply that, if we were 

 to question M. Littre (who still holds to the 

 chief positions of the Comtean classification), 

 he would perforce admit that the fundamental 

 point — the ground-question, as Germans say 

 — is not whether physics comes after astronomy, 

 or whether biology is an abstract science, but 

 whether or not the sciences can be made to fur- 

 nish all the materials for a complete and unified 

 conception of the world. 

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