va. viii.] ORGANIZATION OF THE SCIENCES. 231 



injustice in criticizing him as if he were a contemporary. 

 We shall find the legitimate ground for wonder to be, not 

 that he did so little, but that he did so much. And estimating 

 him, as we estimate Bacon, from a purely historical point of 

 view, we shall feel obliged to admit that the grand character- 

 istic of the modern movement in philosophy — the continuous 

 organization of scientific truths into a coherent body of 

 doctrine — found in Comte its earliest, though by no means 

 an adequate, exponent. Previous to him, as M. Littre is 

 right in reminding us, the field of general speculation 

 belonged to metaphysics or theology, while science dealt only 

 with specialities. It was owing to an impulse of which 

 Comte is the earliest representative, that the tables were 

 turned. The field of general speculation is now the property 

 of science, while metaphysics and theology are presented as 

 particular transitory phases of human thought. 1 Whatever, 

 therefore, may be the case with Mr. Spencer — whose entire 

 originality cannot for a moment be questioned — it is not true 

 of the great body of scientific thinkers, that they stand in 

 essentially the same position in which they would have 

 stood had Comte never written. The course of speculative 

 inquiry daring the past forty years would no more have been 

 what it is, without Comte, than the course of speculative 

 inquiry during the past two centuries would have been 

 what it is, without Bacon. And, indeed, in Mr. Spencers 

 own case, — as he is himself disposed to admit, — there are 

 several instances In which his very antagonism to Comte has 

 led him to state certain important truths more clearly and 

 more definitely than he would otherwise have been likely to 

 state them. The theory of deanthropomorphization, set forth 

 in the preceding chapter, was presented in a much more 

 vivid light than would have been possible had it not been 

 reached through an adverse criticism of the Comtean doctrine 

 »f the "Three Stages." The condemnation of Atheism 

 1 Littre, Awjuste, Comte, p. 99. i 



