THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY 



forces would have still remained undiscovered, 

 that psychology would have been ruled out 

 once for all, that the new chemistry would not 

 have come into existence, and that spectrum 

 analysis would never have been heard of; — 

 when we reflect upon all this, we may well thank 

 God for the constitution of things which makes 

 it impossible that the well - being of the hu- 

 man race should ever be irrevocably staked upon 

 the wisdom or the folly of a single speculative 

 thinker. 



So far as our present purpose is concerned, 

 it would be time worse than wasted to present 

 in further detail Comte's purely whimsical and 

 arbitrary proposals for the remodelling of soci- 

 ety. As questions of philosophy they possess 

 neither interest nor value : they are interesting 

 solely as throwing light upon the morbid psy- 

 chology of a powerful mind, fertile in sugges- 

 tions, but hopelessly deficient in humour. Who- 

 ever wishes to learn their character can do so at 

 the expense of wading through one of the most 

 dismal books in all literature — the Cathhisme 

 Positiviste. Enough has been said to establish 

 the fact that in breaking with the past and seek- 

 ing to remodel religion and society artificially, 

 Comte yielded to the inevitable necessity which 

 compels the would-be reconstructor of society to 

 remodel it ideally upon a lower type than that 

 which actually exists. He would have given us 

 3SS 



