ch viii.] ORGANIZATION OF TEE SCIENCES. 229 



it mean those who have illustrated particular sciences ? Well, 

 since they have not philosophized, Corate can hardly have 

 received his philosophy from them. That which is recent in 

 the Positive Philosophy, that which is Comte's invention, is 

 the conception and construction of a philosophy, by drawing 

 from particular sciences, and from the teaching of great 

 scientific minds, such groups of truths as could be coordinated 

 on the positive method." 



That the mode in which Comte effected this coordination 

 was imperfect, may affect our estimate of the amount of his 

 achievements, but it cannot affect our estimate of their 

 character. The former is a merely personal question, in- 

 teresting chiefly to disciples ; the latter is a general question, 

 interesting to all of us who are students of philosophy. For 

 the purposes of impartial criticism, the great point is, not 

 that the attempt was a complete success, but that the attempt 

 was made. When knowledge is advancing with such giant 

 strides as at present, it is hardly possible to construct a 

 general doctrine which forty years of further inquiry and 

 criticism will not considerably modify and partially invali- 

 date. It is now forty years since Comte framed his philo- 

 sophy of science; and during that period there is not a 

 single department of knowledge, outside of pure mathematics, 

 which has not undergone a veritable revolution. Molecular 

 physics has been revolutionized by the discovery of the 

 correlation of forces ; and the deduction of that principle, as 

 well as of the principle of virtual velocities, from the law of 

 the persistence of force, has placed molar physics also upon 

 a new basis. Chemistry, as we have seen, has undergone 

 changes nearly as sweeping as those brought about by 

 Lavoisier; changes which have thoroughly renovated our 

 conceptions of the phenomenal constitution of matter. 

 Sidereal astronomy has been brought into existence as a 

 science ; and we have learned how to make a ray of light, 

 journeying toward us from the remotest regions of space, 



