ch. vii.] ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND COSMISM. 163 



Mr. Mill, — the most eminent psychologist who has yet de- 

 clared his assent to all the fundamental doctrines of Positivism. 

 Nor was Comte the first to insist upon the exclusive use of 

 the objective method in all departments of research ; for 

 Bacon, as we have seen, had enunciated this precept with 

 equal vigour and impressiveness, though with less command- 

 ing scientific authority. It is to be regretted, moreover, that 

 we cannot even accredit Comte with unflinching loyalty to 

 this principle. Not only have we seen him openly disavow- 

 ing it, but we have been called upon to contemplate, in 

 his "Subjective Synthesis," the most lamentable instance 

 afforded by history of the wonderful extent of aberration 

 possible to the intellectus sibi permissus. 



All the above truths, then, so far as they were understood 

 by Comte, were accepted by him as he found them. He did 

 not originate them, nor did he place them, from the psycho- 

 logical point of view, upon any surer footing than they had 

 occupied before. That psychological analysis, in the light of 

 which they have been here exhibited, and by which alone 

 they can be securely established, Comte unreservedly and 

 disdainfully repudiated. Asserting as he did that all direct 

 observation and comparison of states of consciousness is vain 

 and nugatory, Comte could only accept the doctrine of the 

 relativity of knowledge and its corollaries as empirical 

 doctrines. We shall frequently have occasion to remark 

 upon the vulnerable condition in which the Positive Philo- 

 sophy is left, owing to this disregard of psychology. Here 

 indeed was Comte's weak point, as it is Mr. Spencer's strong 

 point. As an observer and interpreter of states of conscious- 

 ness Comte was below mediocrity — hardly fit to be ranked 

 with Cousin or Dugald Stewart ; while, in power of psycho- 

 logical analysis, Herbert Spencer has been surpassed by no 

 thinker that ever lived, and has been rivalled only by Aris- 

 totle, Berkeley, and Kant. And it is accordingly not Comte, 

 but Spencer, who has wrought the truths above enumerated 



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