188 PSTCHOLOOY. 



own minds at all. A deliverance of Augusta Comte to this 

 effect lias been so often quoted as to be almost classical ; 

 and some reference to it seems therefore indispensable 

 here. 



Philosophers, says Comte,* have 



" in these latter days imagined themselves able to distinguish, by a 

 very singular subtlety, two sorts of observation of equal importance, 

 one external, the other internal, the latter being solely destined for the 

 study of intellectual phenomena. ... I limit myself to pointing out 

 the principal consideration which proves clearly that this pretended 

 direct contemplation of the mind by itself is a pure illusion. . , . 

 It is in fact evident that, by an invincible neccessity, the human mind 

 can observe directly all phenomena except its own proper states. For 

 by whom shall the observation of these be made ? It is conceivable 

 that a man might observe himself with respect to the passions that 

 animate him, for the anatomical organs of passion are distinct from 

 those whose function is observation. Though we have all made such 

 observations on ourselves, they can never have much scientific value, 

 and the best mode of knowing the passions will always be that of ob- 

 serving them from without ; for every strong state of passion ... is 

 necessarily incompatible with the state of observation. But, as for 

 observing in the same way intellectual phenomena at the time of their 

 actual presence, that is a manifest impossibility. The thinker cannot 

 divide himself into two, of whom one reasons whilst the other observes 

 him reason. The organ observed and the organ observing being, in 

 this case, identical, how could observation take place ? This pretended 

 psychological method is then radically null and void. On the one 

 hand, they advise you to isolate yourself, as far as possible, from every 

 external sensation, especially every intellectual work,— for if you were 

 to busy yourself even with the simplest calculation, what would become 

 of internal observation ? — on the other hand, after having with the 

 utmost care attained this state of intellectual slumber, you must begin 

 to contemplate the operations going on in your mind, when nothing 

 there takes place ! Our descendants will doubtless see such pretensions 

 some day ridiculed upon the stage. The results of so strange a proced- 

 ure harmonize entirely with its principle. For all the two thousand 

 years during which metaphysicians have thus cultivated psychology, 

 they are not agreed about one intelligible and established proposition. 

 ' Internal observation ' gives almost as many divergent results as there 

 are individuals who think they practise it." 



Comte hardly could have known anything of the English, 

 and nothing of the German, empirical psychology. The 

 * results ' which he had in mind when writing were j)i'obably 



* Cours de Philosophie Positive, i. 34-8. 



