OF THE SOUL. 



193 



discussions may lead to matters of detail and confine 

 themselves frequently to restricted problems, they would 

 cease to be philosophical in the true sense of the word 

 if they should rest content with such restricted and 

 detailed discussions and not take note of their bearing 

 on the great task of the unification of knowledge and 

 thought. 



In that portion of this history which traced the 



2. 



Aim at 

 unlfieation. 



tlie philosophical on the other. "If 

 we regard objects of nature, but 

 especially those which are living, 

 with the intention of gaining an 

 insight into the connection of their 

 being and acting, we believe that 

 the best way to arrive at this is 

 through separation of their parts ; 

 as indeed thi^ way really leads us a 

 good space onward. We need only 

 recall to the memory of all friends 

 of knowledge what chemistry and 

 anatomy have contributed to an in- 

 aiijht and comprehension of nature. 

 But these dividing operations, ever 

 and ever continued, produce like- 

 wise many a disadvantage ; the 

 living is indeed analysed into ele- 

 ments, but it cannot possibly be 

 brought together again out of them 

 and animated. This is even true 

 of many inorganic and not only of 

 organic bodies. Accordingly we find 

 among scientific persons at all times 

 the desire manifesting itself, to 

 recognise living things as such, to 

 regard their external, visible, and 

 tangible parts in their connection, 

 to view them as indications of the 

 internal, and thus to command, as 

 it were, a view of the whole. How 

 intimately this desire is connected 

 with the artistic and imitative 

 tendency need not be elaborately 

 pointed out" ('Zur Morphologie,' 

 Jena, 1807, Werke, Weimar edition. 

 II. Abth., vol. vi. p. 8). In the 

 latter sense Goethe has referred to 

 the same idea in many passages of 



vol* III. 



his morphological writings. The 

 second prominent thinker who 

 seems to have been impressed with 

 this view is Auguste Comte, who 

 had moreover the merit of coining 

 a term which denotes the difference 

 of the two aspects. Already in an 

 early tract of the year 1825 ('Con- 

 siderations sur les Sciences et lea 

 Savants'), he employs the term 

 esprit (Vensemble, which he con- 

 siders has been lost and can only 

 be restored again by the positive 

 philosophy. It is true that in 

 his first great work he urges this 

 aspect mainly when discussing the 

 method of the biological sciences 

 as compared with those sciences 

 which deal with inorganic nature 

 or with abstract mechanics. The 

 translators of Comte's tract, which 

 was reprinted by him at the 

 end of the 4th volume of his 

 second large work, in the year 1854, 

 do not seem to have been able to 

 find an English equivalent for this 

 term. The best rendering of it 

 seems to be that proposed by my 

 friend, Prof. W. R. Sorley, viz., 

 the synoptical view. The ensemble 

 of things denotes their actual " To- 

 gether" in nature, and is very 

 different from that unification 

 aimed at by Herbert Spencer and 

 successfully carried out in what we 

 may, in a restricted sense, call the 

 scientific study of nature (see Eng. 

 trans, of the ' System of Positive 

 Polity, Paris, 1854,' toI. iv. p. 607). 



N 



