COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



conception of the world becomes less and less 

 anthropomorphic from age to age ; but incorrect 

 in so far that it asserts that in this deanthro- 

 pomorphizing process there are three radically 

 distinguishable stages, and also, in so far as it 

 asserts that the process must end in Positivism. 

 We saw that, although without doubt men be- 

 gan by seeing volition everywhere and must 

 end by seeing an inscrutable Power everywhere, 

 nevertheless the mental process has throughout 

 been one and the same, and any appearance of 

 definite stages can be only superficial. Never- 

 theless, between the primeval savage who prays 

 to his fetish and the modern philosopher who 

 recognizes that he must shape his conduct ac- 

 cording to invariable laws or pay the penalty 

 in some form of inevitable suffering, the differ- 

 ence in mental attitude is so vast that we may 

 well have a distinction in terms to correspond 

 to it. It is for this reason that I have frequently 

 contrasted Anthropomorphism and Cosmism as 

 the initial and final terms of a continuous pro- 

 gression. This, however, is not the Comtean 

 doctrine. Again, metaphysics, as Comte under- 

 stands it, being merely imperfect scientific in- 

 quiry conducted by the aid of the subjective 

 method bequeathed by anthropomorphism, can- 

 not be regarded as the peculiar possession of 

 any particular stage. 



But while Comte's theorem, in spite of these 



3S^ 



