833 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. l 



involved in our statement of that theory, is redoubled in 

 emphasis when Positivism is by the same reasoning con- 

 demned; and our dissent from Hume is all the more strongly 

 accented, when it is seen to be so complete as to include 

 dissent from Comte also. So, too, the conclusions reached 

 in the present chapter concerning the organization of the 

 sciences are undeniably far more precise and satisfactory 

 than they would have been if presented without reference 

 to the earlier and necessarily cruder views of Comte. Indeed, 

 in the very sense of incompleteness which would justly have 

 attached itself to our exposition, had no mention been made 

 of the Comtean theory, we may find fresh illustration of 

 the fact that the errors of great minds are often no less 

 instructive than the permanent truths which they have 

 succeeded in detecting. And consequently, so far from 

 decrying the Positive Philosophy or seeking to ignore it, we 

 shall much better fulfil our duty as critics if we frankly 

 acknowledge that the speculative progress of the nineteenth 

 century would have been incomplete without it. Holding 

 these views, and for these reasons, we may freely admit the 

 justice of much that Prof. Huxley urges against Comte; 

 that his rejection of psychology was unphilosophical, and 

 his acceptance of phrenology puerile ; that his acquaintance 

 with science was bookish and unpractical, and that his 

 efforts to found a social polity were the very madness of 

 Utopian speculation. Had he committed twice as many such 

 blunders, his general conception of philosophy and his con- 

 tributions to the logic of science would have remained 

 substantially unaffected in value. Had Bacon enrolled him- 

 self among the followers of Copernicus instead of adhering 

 to the exploded theories of Ptolemaios, that fact would not 

 by itself affect our estimate of the value of the " Novum 

 Organon." And Comte's philosophic position, as I have 

 here sought to define it, is no more shaken by his numerous 

 scientific blunders than Bacon's position is shaken by the 



