ch. v.] THE TWO METHODS. 133 



regenerating it save by forcing it to verify its premises and 

 conclusions; and when this is done, it ceases to be the sub- 

 jective and becomes the objective method. But Comte thinks 

 this is not necessary; the subjective method may be used 

 provided it be employed only upon scientific questions, only 

 in ascertaining the laws of phenomena. That is to say, as 

 long as you confine yourself to scientific questions, and leave 

 theology and metaphysics alone, you may imagine some 

 plausible hypothesis and then reason away until you have 

 worked out a whole theory of natural phenomena, never 

 stopping to observe or experiment, but dogmatically pro- 

 claiming your conclusions as infallible because they seem to 

 flow logically from the premises ! Can it be that we are 

 here listening to the man who spent one half of his life in 

 investigating the history of science, — the man whose labours 

 did so much toward renovating inductive logic ? The whole 

 history of science proclaims the utter absurdity of the posi- 

 tion taken by Comte. The subjective method has been em- 

 ployed, from the earliest times, upon purely scientific ques- 

 tions which took no note of causes, efficient or final ; and its 

 eternal impotence is illustrated upon every page of the annals 

 of scientific error. In molar physics, it led to the doctrine 

 that all motion is naturally circular ; in astronomy it per- 

 suaded men that the sun and planets move in circular orbits 

 about the central earth; in chemistry it instigated many 

 generations of experimenters to the fruitless effort to convert 

 lead or iron into gold ; in physiology it suggested the notion 

 that the arteries are air-vessels, and caused that notion 

 to be iield for centuries ; in pathology it sanctioned the fal- 

 acy that fever is an unnatural exaltation of the powers of 

 the organism, — a fallacy which has sacrificed many a valuable 

 life to the lancet ; in political economy it favoured the de- 

 lusion, born of selfish instincts, that the commercial interests 

 of each community are antagonistic to those of the communi- 

 ties with which it trades. — a delusion which is responsible 



