140 cosmic puiLoaorji v. [ft. l 



revalism might be again revived and engrafted upon our 

 modern life. Thus by degrees he framed the conception of 

 a sort of Neo-Catholicisin, with power as unlimited and 

 ceremonies as complicated as the old one, but with the 

 science of 1830 substituted for evangelical theology, and 

 with Comte installed as sovereign Pontiff. As a natural 

 result of this new position, his self-confidence grew until it 

 became even too great to be ludicrous. Literary history 

 affords us no other example approaching to it, unless, as Mr. 

 Mill suggests, in the case here and there of some " entirely 

 self-taught thinker who has no high standard with which to 

 compare himself." He habitually alludes to himself as the 

 peer of Aristotle and St. Paul combined ; or as the only 

 really great philosopher, save Descartes and Leibnitz, who has 

 been seen in modern times. 



When in a future chapter we come to examine the system 

 of polity which awakened in Comte such transcendent self- 

 commendation, we shall find, as might be expected from the 

 subjective method pursued, but little that is of value to 

 reward our search ; although there are detached speculations 

 of great interest, serving to remind us that we are dealing 

 with a mighty though fallen thinker, and not with an un- 

 disciplined pretender. For the purpose of the present 

 chapter it will be enough to note some of his latest philosophic 

 vagaries, in which, pushing the subjective method to the 

 limits of self-refuting absurdity, he maintained that all 

 science should be remodelled in conformity to the require- 

 ments of the imagination. Missing links in the geological 

 series of plants and animals should be supplied by fictitious 

 " constructions of the reason," so that our craving for 

 Bymmetry may be appeased. Above all, science must be as 

 far as possible deprived of its " dryness," and vivified by 

 "sentiment." To this end it is well to accustom ourselves 

 to the belief that all nature is alive, and that inorganic 

 bodies, for instance, exert volition and feel what is done to 



