246 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. n. 



finally, wlien generalization has proceeded to siicli an extent 

 as to give us a single grand science of Cosmology, dealing 

 with the Universe as an integral whole, there comes to be 

 recognized a single Cause of phenomena, wliich, as being 

 infinite, cannot be in any anthropomorphic sense personal, 

 and which, as being absolute, must be inscrutable. 



Thus we see that Comte's formula is not fundamental, 

 even as a formula for intellectual development. The pro- 

 cess of deanthropomorphization is not the fundamental fact. 

 The continuous organization of knowledge and generaliza- 

 tion of phenomena is the fundamental fact, of which the con- 

 tinuous deanthropomorphization is the necessary symptom 

 and result. Now in Part I. chap, ii., we traced the out- 

 lines of this continuous organization of knowledge ; and we 

 found that the advance from incomplete to complete know- 

 ledge consists in the continuous establishment of groups of 

 notions which are ever more coherent within themselves, 

 while they are ever more clearly demarcated from one 

 another. Now what is all this but a continuous process 

 of differentiation and integration? When we say that from 

 first to last, from the simplest cognitions of infancy to the 

 widest generalizations of science, we cognize phenomena 

 invariably through difference and likeness, we mean that we 

 are continually differentiating notions answering to unlike 

 phenomena and continually integrating notions answering to 

 like phenomena. Or, to express the same thing in other 

 words, we are continually establishing relations of likeness 

 and unlikeness among our conceptions, that in some way or 

 other definitely correspond to relations of likeness and un- 

 likeness among phenomena. Thus our intellectual progress 

 IS at bottom a process of adaptation. And, when treating of 

 the Test of Truth (Part I. chap, iii.), it was shown that 

 Truth, the goal of intellectual progress, is nothing else than 

 the complete adaptation of the order of conceptions to the 

 order of phenomena, — the establishment of inner relations 



