THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY 



sentative men of whatever creed. And thus, 

 too, we are enabled to appreciate one of Comte*s 

 principal reasons for calling his system of phi- 

 losophy " Positive." In sharp contrast with the 

 negative philosophy of the atheists and Jacobins, 

 its purpose was not to overthrow old beliefs by 

 an assault from without, but to construct, upon 

 the basis of the positive truths already furnished 

 by science, a new system of beliefs, which should 

 account for the old ones and supplant them by 

 sheer force of its superior catholicity. For five 

 centuries, said Comte, science has been arrayed 

 in apparent hostility to religion, and philoso- 

 phy has been chiefly employed in disintegrating 

 Christian theology and feudalism : the time has 

 now come for this negative work to be regarded 

 only as incidental to the positive work of inte- 

 grating scientific truths into a body of philoso- 

 phic doctrine, upon which may ultimately rest 

 a new theory of religion and a reorganized social 

 polity. 



As thus described, the critical attitude assumed 

 by Positivism may appear to be identical with 

 that which is the result of a thorough adherence 

 to the Doctrine of Evolution. There is, however, 

 a profound difference between the position of 

 the evolutionist and that of the positivist, which 

 it is well worth our while to characterize at some 

 length, even at the risk of an apparent digres- 

 sion. Our subject is so very complex, by rea- 

 341 



