COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



whetstones upon which to grind the logical im- 

 plements to be used in constructing a theory of 

 Humanity. All other theorizing was to be con- 

 demned, save in so far as it could be shown to 

 be in some way subservient to this purpose. 

 Thus Comte's conception of philosophy was 

 throughout anthropocentric, and he utterly ig- 

 nored the cosmic point of view. There can be 

 little doubt that he who, in 1830, rejected the 

 development-theory, which a more prescient 

 thinker, like Goethe, was enthusiastically pro-' 

 claiming, would have scorned as chimerical and 

 useless Mr. Spencer's theory of evolution. We 

 may now begin to see why Comte wished to 

 separate Man from the rest of the organic crea- 

 tion, and why he was so eager to condemn side- 

 real astronomy, the study of which tends in 

 one sense to dwarf our conceptions of Human- 

 ity. Comte was indeed too much of an astro- 

 nomer to retreat upon the Ptolemaic theory, 

 but in his later works he shows symptoms of a 

 feeling like that which actuated Hegel, when 

 he openly regretted the overthrow of the an- 

 cient astronomy, because it was more dignified 

 for man to occupy the centre of the universe ! 

 It is true that in his first great work Comte 

 points out the absurdity of the theological view 

 of man's supremacy in the universe, and rightly 

 ascribes to the Copernican revolution a consid- 

 erable share in the overthrowing of this view, 

 no 



