cb. v.J THE TWO METHODS. 141 



them ! Fetishism is, in express terms, restored, and we are 

 invited to adore the Earth as the Grand Fetiche. This great 

 fetish is supposed to have planned a shrewd system of shocks 

 or explosions, by which to render its orbit less eccentric and 

 the inclination of its axis better fitted for the requirements 

 of the Grand Etrc, the Human Eace. But even this is not 

 enough to satisfy the demands of " le cceur." We must 

 adore whatever is useful to Humanity, and therefore must 

 erect Space into a deity, and endow it with feeling, though 

 not with intelligence. Not only physics but mathematics 

 also must be made religious. And thus we reach the Comtist 

 Trinity, — Humanity, the Grand Being; Earth, the Grand 

 Fetish; and Space, the Grand Medium !! ! Decimal numera- 

 tion is to be abandoned in favour of a septimal system ; 

 because seven is a sacred number, and moreover a prime 

 number, incapable of division, and therefore well adapted to 

 impress us with a due sense of the weakness of the human 

 mind and the limitations of thought ! This is the wonderful 

 philosophy which is thought worthy to take the place of the 

 vain inquiries which scientific men still obstinately persist 

 in making, into the motions of the stars, the undulations 

 of atoms, and the development of organic life upon the 

 globe ! 



Thus we might go on citing page after page of the most 

 extravagant vagaries ever conceived outside of Bedlam ; or, 

 remembering the many valuable services for which mankind 

 must ever be grateful to Comte, we might less harshly, and 

 not less truly, call them the most mournful exhibition 

 furnished by the annals of philosophy, of a great mind 

 utterly shattered and ruined. Mr. Lewes rejects somewhat 

 vehemently the suggestion of M. Littre\ that these wild fancies 

 are evidence of actual insanity. 1 For my own part, I do not 

 see what there is unsound or uncharitable in M. Littre's 

 suggestion. The only healthful activity of the mind is an 

 1 History of Philosophy, 3rd edit. vol. ii. p. 583. 



