24 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PARTI 



we, the crowning race, are to give up real knowledge, 

 and to content ourselves with registering useful 

 sequences. We have not awakened from a dream, 

 but rather fallen from a dream into a stupor. This 

 also is characteristic of the whole agnostic group. It 

 is easy to write the words " limitation " or " relativity 

 of knowledge " ; but is hard to work out your mean- 

 ing so that this relativity or this adamantine limit 

 shall not involve the abrogation 'and annihilation of 

 knowledge. But those who despise metaphysics 

 far too thoroughly to study it, will always be 

 found rejoicing in scraps of metaphysical "creeds 

 outworn." 



Next, we observe that, while Comte appeals to 

 phenomenal fact and positive science, he does not 

 place all sciences upon the same level. He has 

 arranged them in a scale ist, Mathematics (includ- 

 ing Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Mechanics); 2nd, 

 Astronomy; 3rd, Physics (with subdivisions Sound, 

 Light, Heat, Electricity, etc.); 4th, Chemistry; 5th, 

 Biology or Physiology; 6th, Sociology; to which the 

 Positive Polity adds, 7th, Ethics. In the Positive 

 Philosophy there is a full review of the state of know- 

 ledge regarding the various branches of mathemati- 

 cal and physical science at the time when Comte 

 wrote. This order is regarded as the best order, the 

 right order, the order chosen by the </>/>ow/-to9, the wise 

 and well-cultured man, Auguste Comte. It is not 

 simply an order of initial ease and progressive diffi- 

 culty. It is mainly an order for study roughly 

 coinciding with the order of discovery but princi- 

 pally justified by the statement that each science 

 presupposes the results of its predecessors, while it 



