COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



a Themistokles as large a manifestation of the 

 forces which go to make history as in thousands 

 of common men ? Nevertheless the fact re- 

 mains that civilization runs in a definite path, 

 that the sum total of ideas and feelings domi- 

 nant in the next generation will be the offspring 

 of the sum total of ideas and feelings dominant 

 in this, and that only by understanding the gen- 

 eral course of the movement of humanity can we 

 hope to make our volitions count for much as 

 an item in the resulting aggregate of effects. 



Holding such views as these, Comtesaw that 

 the first aim of the sociological inquirer must 

 be to ascertain the law of progress. And accord- 

 ingly he set himself to work to perform this 

 task, with the only instrument then at his com- 

 mand, — that of historical induction. I have 

 already remarked upon his wonderful skill in 

 the use of that instrument of research. I doubt 

 if any one has ever lived who had a keener sense 

 of the significance of historic events, so far as 

 such significance could be perceived without the 

 aid of conceptions furnished by the sciences of 

 organic development. The fifth volume of the 

 " Philosophic Positive " is certainly a marvel- 

 lous tableau of the progress of society. I know 

 of no concrete presentation of universal history 

 which can be compared with it. The general 

 excellence of the conception is matched by the 

 excellence of the execution even to the smallest 



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