186 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pt. i. 



which must end in the complete rejection of ontology. And 

 this — though Prof. Huxley has not remarked it — was the 

 part of his statement which called attention to the fact that 

 a new era in speculation was commencing. I cannot, there- 

 fore, unreservedly endorse Mr. Spencer's assertion that Comte, 

 while accepting the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge and 

 kindred doctrines of modern scientific philosophy, neverthe- 

 less did nothing toward placing these doctrines upon a firmer 

 ground than they had hitherto occupied. Comte indeed con- 

 tributed nothing whatever to the psychological justification 

 or elucidation of these doctrines ; yet with his keen historic 

 sense, he did much toward justifying them historically. To 

 Hume's partial demonstration of the relativity of knowledge, 

 Comte added incalculable weight by showing that toward 

 the assertion of that doctrine tended the enormous momen- 

 tum of twenty-five centuries of speculative activity. It is 

 true that he proved this point only by an empirical induction 

 from the facts of history ; and it is true that he only half 

 understood and stated incorrectly the doctrine which he thus 

 empirically confirmed. Nevertheless even this incomplete 

 achievement was partly the symptom and partly the cause 

 of a philosophic revolution, the character of which we shall 

 more fully appreciate when we come in our final chapter to 

 compare the critical attitude assumed by philosophy in our 

 age with that which it assumed in the age of Rousseau and 

 the Encyclopedistcs. When we recollect how slow is the 

 education of the human race, and how few are they who can 

 serve efficiently as its teachers, we shall be inclined to admit 

 the justice of the principle that great thinkers should be 

 estimated rather according to what they have accomplished 

 than according to what they have failed to accomplish. 

 Historic criticism is at last beginning to learn this important 

 lesson. And just as we freely admit that in those very 

 speculations of Berkeley and Hume and Kant which we now 

 reject, the point which riveted the attention of their authors 



