en. vii.] ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND COSMISM. 175 



the terminal conception of the metaphysical system is that 

 of a single great Entity or Existence as the source of all 

 phenomena; and since we have here shown that this very 

 conception is the final conception in which science also must 

 rest, the only possible step in advance which can he taken by 

 Positivism is the elimination of this conception altogether. 

 Prof. Huxley is thoroughly justified, therefore, in describing 

 the name Positivism as implying a system of thought which 

 recognizes nothing beyond the observed contents of pheno- 

 mena: this description would be acknowledged as strictly 

 accurate by M. Littre", and indeed expresses neither more nor 

 less than that which Comte sought to express when he 

 defined the perfection of the positive system to be the con- 

 templation of all observable phenomena as particular cases 

 of a single general fact, and omitted to add that this single 

 fact must be alleged of some Existence of which all observable 

 phenomena are manifestations. The " positive " stage of 

 philosophizing is, therefore, something which never did exist 

 and which never will exist. The " positive " method of 

 philosophizing is simply an impossibility. The fundamental 

 principle upon which the Positive Philosophy rests is the 

 refusal to affirm that of which the affirmation is the funda- 

 mental principle of all knowledge, of all science, and of that 

 Cosmic Philosophy which is the summing up of science. 



Thus, since Comte's positive stage must be set aside 

 altogether, and since his metaphysical stage and his theo- 

 logical stage alike end in positing Absolute Existence as the 

 source of phenomenal existence, this being also the funda- 

 mental postulate made by science, the three stages vanish 

 altogether. As we saw, in our second chapter, that from 

 lowest to highest the process of knowing is essentially one 

 and the same, we now see that from beginning to end the 

 progress of that kind of knowledge which we call philosophy 

 is one and the same. There are not three successive or 

 superposed processes. There is one continuous process, 



