THE PHILOSOPHY OF AUGUSTE COMTE RECONSIDEEED. 259 



partly to the development of the child, and by analogy (a doubtful 

 analogy) to that of the human race. The appeal to history is 

 untenable ; it is indeed in direct contradiction to the facts. Any- 

 one "vvlio has had any experience of savages knows that they no 

 more confound things animate and inanimate than does the 

 modern Englishman. The lower savages pay no attention to the 

 ordinary processes of nature : they are too common to require 

 explanation. The savage indeed explains any peculiar phenomenon 

 or freak of nature as the work of a local spirit, for he conceives 

 the I'ace of spirits to be as the race of men ; but he never con- 

 founds the phenomenon with the spirit which wrought it, or its 

 habitation with itself. As a matter of fact, the higher savages 

 employ a much larger spiritual agency than the lower ones do ; 

 and it is only in highly organised Poljtheist states that "we find 

 a prevalent Pantheism — itself a generalisation from the universal 

 agency of the spirit world. Comte himself admits that Mathe- 

 matics never passed through the theological stage ; and that no 

 god was ever found for number or Aveight. The author has 

 pointed out that this is true of all the other sciences : the science 

 of the savage is as real in kind as the science of the savant. The 

 appeal to history, then, is untenable. But Positivists rest the main 

 stress of their argument not on history, but on the analogy of child 

 life. I deny, however (and I speak with some experience), first, 

 that any analogy exists between the thoughts of the child and the 

 reasoning of the full-grown savage, or, second, that the infant does 

 begin life with the presumption that all things are animated. What 

 is animate, what inanimate, is a question of e.xperieuce : the child 

 may make a mistake as the grown man does, but he never fails to 

 distinguish two classes of objects. 



The metaphysical and scientific stages may be summarily 

 dismissed. Comte knew nothing of metaphysics : his meta25hysics 

 are merely bad physics. Science has existed from the beginning : 

 it has developed in extent, but not in kind : it occupies itself with 

 phenomena, and gives no answ^er to the questions of theology and 

 metaphysics. It cannot, therefore, take their place. I need not 

 pursue Comte's system into further detail, but 1 should like to 

 show briefly how Comte's view of religion is the reverse of what 

 we hold to be the truth. The place of religion in the Positive 

 Philosophy is merely that of an intellectual and antiquated mode 

 of thought. This view of religion is of course obviously 



