ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS 



velopment, and to introduce it into the midst 

 of a purely social progress from military to in- 

 dustrial life, seems too much like committing the 

 logical fallacy known as cross-division. Omit- 

 ting this stage, then, and reducing Comte's 

 double formula to its lowest terms, — the only 

 ones, I think, upon which he himself would in- 

 variably have insisted, — we have the following, 

 as the Comtean law of progress : — 



The progress of society is a gradual change from 

 anthropomorphic to positive conceptions of the 

 worlds and from military to industrial modes of 

 life ; and the latter kind of change is determined 

 by the former. 



Such is the form of statement most favour- 

 able for Comte, and at the same time I believe 

 it to be the one which best represents his per- 

 manent opinion. We shall presently see that 

 the generalization of the change from military 

 to industrial modes of life is one of great value, 

 and it is to the thorough elaboration of it that 

 much of the merit of Comte's social philosophy 

 is due. But I must first call attention to the 

 fatal defect in the above formula, the defect 

 which destroys its claim to be regarded as the 

 law of progress. That fatal defect is its total 

 omission of moral feeling as a factor in social 

 evolution. Though he is far from committing 

 Mr. Buckle's absurdity of denying that there 

 has been any improvement in moral feeUng, 

 VOL. Ill 2SZ 



