COSMISM AND POSITIVISM 



and of the doctrine of final causes, with which 

 it is linked. In spite of all this, however, and 

 in spite of his admirable scientific preparation, 

 Comte's conception of philosophy as the sum- 

 mary of a hierarchy of sciences, presided over by 

 sociology, led him irresistibly toward the an- 

 thropocentric point of view ; and so, when it 

 became necessary for him to crown his work by 

 indicating its relations to religion, he arrived, 

 logically enough, at a Religion of Humanity, al- 

 though in order to reach such a terminus he was 

 obliged to throw his original Positivism over- 

 board and follow the subjective method. In 

 view then of all this complicated difference be- 

 tween the Positivist conceptionof philosophyand 

 the conception expounded in this work, I think 

 we are quite justified in designating our own 

 conception by a different and characteristic name. 

 But the most fatal and irreconcilable diver- 

 gence appears when we come to consider the 

 third cardinal proposition, — that which relates 

 to deanthropomorphization. If we inquire how 

 it was that Comte was enabled to perpetrate, in 

 the name of philosophy, such a prodigious piece 

 of absurdity as the deification of Humanity, we 

 shall find the explanation to lie in his miscon- 

 ception of what is meant by the relativity of 

 knowledge. A good illustration of his confused 

 thinking on this subject, to which I have al- 

 ready had occasion to refer, is afforded by his 

 in 



