CHAP, ii COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING 23 



construction fails to commend itself, we shall be 

 justified in " considering yet again " the old-fashioned 

 guides to truth and duty, for which sociology was to 

 be a substitute. 



Now, first, we must remark that Comte does not 

 absolutely shut the door against faith. While he re- 

 gards belief in a God as the second-last outworn 

 raiment of human thought, he declines with some in- 

 dignation to be called an atheist. God, say his 

 disciples, may or may not exist; the question lies 

 beyond the competency of human reason to settle. 

 So, too, the doctrine of a soul separate from the body 

 is assigned by Comte to the last outworn phase of 

 thought the metaphysical. Yet, if you call Comte 

 a materialist, his facile indignation once more over- 

 flows. He belongs, therefore, to the agnostic group. 

 He will neither say " yes " nor " no." But he is 

 filled with scorn for those who say "yes," for he is 

 perfectly and dogmatically assured that we have no 

 right to dogmatise. Moreover, his attitude towards 

 the claims of his rivals looks very differently in dif- 

 ferent sentences or paragraphs. When he denounces 

 the dreams of theories that transgress the limits of 

 human reason, he speaks in the tone of one who 

 possesses real knowledge through the positive sci- 

 ences. But, when he explains that mankind is 

 abandoning inquiry into causes, it forces itself with a 

 shock upon the reader's mind that the opposite is the 

 case. It is knowledge that we are surrendering. It 

 is reality that we are forsaking. Our predecessors 

 may have failed to attain real knowledge. For argu- 

 ment's sake take it, if you like, that they failed piti- 

 ably. Still there is this to be said, they tried ; whereas 



