48 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PARTI 



teach it; yet after all is not that the beginning of 

 wisdom ? And is it not very nearly the end of wis- 

 dom too ? 



A last word must be added upon Comte's own use 

 of the appeal to history, out of which so much of his 

 sociological writing is composed. On the whole, he 

 seems to owe a smaller definite debt to history than 

 to biology. Sometimes he appeals to examples, as in 

 the case quoted, when he refers tyranny to the undue 

 size of the state. Sometimes he appeals to the past 

 stream of tendency, as in his great generalisation of the 

 three stages. Sometimes again he cuts right across 

 the stream of manifest tendency ; he surely does this 

 in demanding that the large and organic modern state 

 should be divided up into fragments ; and in general 

 no charge would seem to be more clearly made out 

 than that Comte scarcely tries to shows us his polity 

 for the future growing out of the life of the past. 

 Sometimes he appeals to a historical phenomenon, 

 like the division of the spiritual and secular powers, 

 which has struck his fancy. In such a case history 

 is like a great magazine of wares, and Comte is like 

 a purchaser strolling through it, who puts down upon 

 his list of household requirements and Comte is 

 catering for the household of humanity anything 

 which pleases his own taste. History is here the 

 source of suggestions, and, as Comte has much his- 

 torical learning, he has a wealth of suggestions at his 

 command ; but history to him is certainly not a ruler 

 or a judge. On the whole, Comte practises the ap- 

 peal to history with very little seriousness. The pre- 

 dominant partner in his lawgiving is the subjectivity 

 of Auguste Comte, 



