247 



ORDINARY MEETING.* 

 D. Howard, Esq., F.C.S., D.L., in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the 

 following Elections were announced : — 



Associates : — The Right Rev. the Bishop of Honduras, Belize ; Rev, 

 F. W. Breed, India ; Colonel J. Levering, U.S.V., United States ; 

 D. Wright, Esq., Yorkshire. 



The folio-wing j^aper was then read by the author : — 



THE PHTLOSOPHY OF AUGUSTE COMTE RE- 

 CONSIDERED. By J. W. Slater, Esq., F.C.S., E.E.JS. 



^OME forty years ago the British public was told of a 

 |[^ brilliant and vigorous writer, of one who was proclaimed 

 to be the greatest thinker of modern times — a man whose 

 doctrines Avere to be to the nineteenth century something 

 more than that wdiich Bacon's wei'C to the seventeenth 

 and eighteenth centuries. The world heard — some in undis- 

 guised alarm, some with eager hope and others with critical 

 reserve. My special task to-day is, leaving social and 

 political speculations to more qualified hands, to inquire 

 Avhat has been the outcome of this positive philosophy as far 

 as Science is concerned. 



It is well known that Comte did not intend or attempt 

 to furnish in his great work a series of treatises on the 

 various sciences — a task for which he was scarcely qualified. 

 He sought to display them in their mutual relations as a 

 coherent hierarchy arranged on natural principles. He 

 sketched their history, their present position, and in some 

 sort their future prospects. He expounded their methods, 



* 6th of 30th Session. 



