2-18 J. W. SLATER, ESQ., ON 



their leacliug doctrines, and the part which each has to 

 play in the education of the individuals and of the human 

 race. 



No one can dispute either the difficulty or the importance 

 of the undertaking Avhich, if performed aright, must have 

 given a powerful impulse to every science and been of 

 incalculable service to every inquirer. 



To ascertain how Comte can be held successful in the 

 fulfilment of his task we must examine his three leading 

 conceptions : — 



He regarded all the sciences, physical and moral, as 

 branches of one grand discipline, to be investigated on one 

 and the same method. The originality of this conception is 

 not very plain. For a couple of centuries the current of 

 thought had been decidedly setting in this direction. Still 

 no one, as far as I am aware, had formulated the idea with 

 equal distinctness. 



The second fundamental conception is put forth as the 

 supreme law of human development : — " There are but three 

 phases of intellectual evolution, for the individual as well as 

 for the mass — the theological (supernatural, or it might be 

 said the personifying), the metaphysical and the positive. 

 In the fii'st of these three stages man seeks the origins and 

 the final causes of everything. He supposes all surrounding- 

 objects animated or sentient. It is curious, 1 may here 

 remark in passing, hoAV such an ascription of life and con- 

 sciousness to all matter is again creeping in even among men 

 of high culture. 



In the metaphysical phase phenomena are referred to 

 abstractions, " essences " or entities, whilst in the ultimate or 

 positive phase the mind confines itself to a quest into the 

 hxws of phenomena, superadding nothing to Avhat is actually 

 observed, and dismissing noumena and causes as beyond 

 human scope. 



It cannot be denied that many instances can be found 

 which seem to agree beautifully with this law. Thus tlie 

 explosive gas which sometimes shatters a mine and scorches 

 or buries the unfortunate workmen was at one time supposed 

 to be an angry demon, a gnome or cobold, jealous of human 

 intrusion into his treasin-e houses. The fact that the 

 ordinary pressure of the atmosphere counterbalances a column 

 of 32 feet of water, and no more, was explained by the dictum 

 that nature " abhorred a vacuum " for the first 32 feet, but 

 not beyond. 



