THE THILOSOl^HY OF AUGUSTE COMTE EECONSIDERED. 249 



Still on a general and careful analysis of the rise and pro- 

 gress of science we fail to find the stages as above indicated. 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer after a careful examination of the 

 genesis of science, rejects the Comtean phases as not specially 

 significant. It has been questioned whether mathematics 

 can have had a supernatural or a metaphysical stage at all. 

 Liebig was unable to trace the three stages in the history of 

 chemistry. 



If we refer to the earliest known documents concerning 

 that science, such as the Book of the Balance of Wisdom 

 (wiilten about xV.D. 1120), we find the records of calm 

 experimental inquiry, distinctly '' positive " in its spirit 

 and free from anything mystical or fantastic. The strange 

 superstitions and delusions with whicli we are so familiar 

 under the name of alchemy seem to have attached them- 

 selves parasitically to the science at a later date. 



The '• Papyrus Ebers," which dates from the sixteenth 

 century B.C., and which, though primarily medical in its aims, 

 contains such information on the chemistry, the physics and 

 the biology of those early days, is free from hocus pocus and 

 gibberish. Sorcery was forbidden as strictly as m the 

 Pentateuch, and the alchemistic magi were punished with 

 death under Kameses HI. All persons who wish to learn 

 for themselves that the alleged theological and metaphysical 

 phases of chemistry are illusory, niay refer to Berthelot's 

 Avork on x\lchemy, based on a careful scrutiny of docinnents 

 which have been preserved in national and university 

 libraries. 



We have next to turn to Comte's third fundamental 

 conception, his classification of the sciences. Here we find 

 shortcomings of grave importance. He takes his stand on 

 "the degree of generality of the corresponding phenomena, 

 the extent of their complication, their relative states of 

 speculative perfection and their nnitual dependence. TJius 

 he arranges the abstract sciences in the following series : — 

 mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biolog}^ and 

 sociology. Here we find ouiselves on doubtful ground. It 

 is plain tliat the sciences which come later in the rank are 

 indebted to the earlier ones both for methods and for facts, 

 and that the more frequently the more closely they ap- 

 proxhnate. But Comte forgot that there is also indebted- 

 ness in the opposite direction. Astronomy is beholden to 

 pliysics and chemistry for methods of investigating the 

 temperature, the nature and in some cases even the motion 



