228 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. i. 



cannot have failed greatly to widen the conceptions of most of 

 his readers. And he has done especial service by familiariz- 

 ing men with the idea of a social science based on the other 

 sciences. Beyond which benefits resulting from the general 

 character and scope of his philosophy, I believe that there 

 are scattered through his pages many large ideas that are 

 valuable not only as stimuli, but for their actual truth." 



This passage comes so near to appreciating Comte's true 

 philosophic position, that one is surprised to find Mr. Spencer, 

 after all, stating that position inadequately. Though he sees . 

 clearly that, whether rightly or wrongly coordinated, the 

 presentation of scientific knowledge and method as a whole, 

 must greatly have widened people's conceptions ; he does not 

 explicitly recognize that this presentation of scientific 

 knowledge and method as a whole was, in spite of the wrong 

 coordination, a step sufficient of itself to change and renovate 

 the entire attitude of philosophy. He tells us that persons 

 like Prof. Huxley, Prof. Tyndall, and himself, stand sub- 

 stantially in the same position in which they would have 

 stood had Comte never written ; that, " declining his re- 

 organization of scientific doctrine, they possess this scientific 

 doctrine in its pre-existing state, as the common heritage 

 bequeathed by the past to the present." And elsewhere he 

 tells us that Comte "designated by the term 'Positive 

 Philosophy ' all that definitely-established knowledge which 

 men of science have been gradually organizing into a coherent 

 body of doctrine." It seems to me, on the other hand, that 

 the coherent body of doctrine was the very thing which no 

 scientific thinker had ever so much as attempted to construct, 

 though Bacon, no doubt, foresaw the necessity of some such 

 construction. M. Littre* may well inquire what is meant by 

 the great scientific minds whose traditions Comte is said to 

 have followed. " Does it mean the philosophers ? Why, 

 they have one and all belonged to theology or metaphysics, 

 and it is not their tradition which Comte has followed. Does 



