258 COSMIC PIIILOSOFHY. [ft. i. 



meanings with which they would be enunciated respectively 

 by the Cosmist and by the Positivist, it is open to us to 

 maintain that, in asserting these propositions, Mr. Spencer 

 agrees with Comte in asserting the five cardinal theorems of 

 Positive Philosophy. Looking at the matter in this light, 

 we might complain that Mr. Spencer, in his "Eeasons for 

 Dissenting, etc.," accentuates the less fundamental points in 

 which he differs from Comte, and passes without emphasis 

 the more fundamental points in which he agrees with Comte. 

 We might urge that while the " Law of the Three Stages " is 

 undoubtedly incorrect, nevertheless the essential point is that 

 men's conceptions of Cause have been becoming ever less and 

 less anthropomorphic. And similarly, when Mr. Spencer 

 insists that Comte has not classified the sciences correctly, 

 we might reply that, if we were to question M. Littre" (who 

 still holds to the chief positions of the Comtean classifica- 

 tion), he would perforce admit that the fundamental point — 

 the ground -question, as Germans say — is not whether physics 

 comes after astronomy, or whether biology is an abstract 

 science, but whether or not the sciences can be made to 

 furnish all the materials for a complete and unified conception 

 of the world. 



In this statement of the case, which once seemed to me 

 satisfactory, we have probably the strongest argument that 

 can be devised in favour of the identification of Mr. Spencer's 

 philosophy with Positivism, Yet, as above hinted, and as 

 will be self-evident to everyone who has comprehended the 

 foregoing chapters, its apparent strength rests entirely upon 

 the verbal ambiguity of the five cardinal propositions, which 

 are stated in such a way as to conceal the real points at issue 

 between the two philosophies. With regard to the first two 

 propositions, I have already shown that they are in nowise so 

 peculiar to Comte that allegiance to them should make us 

 his disciples or coadjutors. In accepting the Doctrine of 

 Relativity, as well as in receiving from modern science the 



