THE PHILOSOPHY OF AUGUSTE COMTE RECONSIDER KD. 251 



to be at least equally intimate. Indeed Comte seems to have 

 little foreseen how physics and chemistry would approximate 

 and almost coalesce in the half century succeeding the date 

 of his first volume. It is no hmger safe to say "physics 

 treats of masses acting at sensible distances ; chemistry 

 treats of molecules acting at insensible distances." Even 

 Comte's prophet, G. H. Lewes, admits that " physical 

 phenomena are often molecular " (P/nlosojyhi/ of the Sciences, 

 p. 96). 



In the PJiilosophie Positive (vol. iii, 103-9) Comte 

 explicitly alleges that duahsm requires to be universally 

 received in chemistry, even as regards organic compounds. 

 G. H. Lewes considers as recently as 1<553 that chemical 

 philosophy is daily advancing more and more to a " recog- 

 nition of the necessary dualism of all chemical combinations " 

 {Philosophy of the Sciences, p. 145). Here then we have a 

 lack of insight into the future prospects of a science scarcely 

 less striking than he displays when he refuses to admit the 

 mutability of organic species. It is perfectly true that in 

 1838 dualism was still in the ascendant and was taught in 

 all the universities. But signs were not wanting Avhich 

 should have been sufficient for a man of such penetrating 

 insight as Comte is represented by his admirers. Men of 

 the most every-day stamp can admit a change when it has 

 been formally introduced. But from our spiritual pioneers 

 we expect the power of detecting its earliest streaks of 

 dawn. 



We come next to biology, the doctrine of life, which 

 Comte unfortunately makes to include psychology. Here he 

 is not followed either by his prophet, G. H. Lewes, nor by 

 his admirer — in many respects— John Stuart Mill. Both 

 these writers justly contend that should mind be ultimately 

 proved to be merely a function of the nerve-centres, the 

 successions and co-existences of mental states are capable of 

 being directly studied without reference to the cerebral 

 changes which may be their immediate antecedents. Even 

 if life were simply a " play of matter," thought is a higher 

 phase of life, displaying special phenomena, and admitting — 

 or rather requiring — special study. 



Comte rather inconsistently gives a definition of life, 

 rejecting the irrational attempt of Bichat, preferring that of 

 De Blainville, " Life is the twofold internal movement of 

 composition and decomposition at once general and con- 

 tinuous." This definition is faulty, as it does not include 



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