254 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [it. i. 



in which the widest truths obtainable by the several sciences 

 are contemplated together as corollaries of a single ultimate 

 truth. Not only did he never frame such a conception, but 

 there can be no doubt that, had it ever been presented to 

 him in all its completeness, he would have heaped oppro- 

 brium upon it as a metaphysical conception utterly foreign 

 to the spirit of Positive Philosophy. We have just seen him 

 resolutely setting his face against those very scientific specu- 

 lations to which this conception of the scope of philosophy 

 owes its origin ; and we need find no difficulty in believing 

 Dr. Bridges when he says that the Doctrine of Evolution 

 would have appeared to his master quite as chimerical as the 

 theories by which Thales and other Greek cosmogonists 

 " sought to deduce all things from the principle of Water 

 or of Fire." 



Thus in a way that one would hardly have anticipated, we 

 have disclosed a fundamental and pervading difference be- 

 tween the Positive and the Cosmic conceptions of philosophy. 

 The apparently subordinate inquiry into Comte's reasons for 

 excluding Logic from his scheme of sciences, has elicited an 

 answer which gravely affects our estimate of his whole 

 system of thought. That his conception of Philosophy as 

 an Organon was a noble conception, there is no doubt ; but 

 that it was radically different from our conception of Philo- 

 sophy as a Synthesis, is equally undeniable. But the full 

 depth and significance of this distinction will only be appre- 

 ciated when, in the following chapter, we shall have pointed 

 out the end or purpose for which this scientific Organon was 

 devised. 



