402 An Estimate of Auguste Comte . [July, 
penetrating intelledl as Comte is represented by his admirers. 
Men of the most ordinary stamp can recognise a change 
when it is formally introduced. From the leading thinkers 
of the age we expedl the power of detecting its first 
approaches. 
We come next to biology, the doctrine of life, which, ac- 
cording to Comte, includes psychology, We cannot take 
exception to the place which he assigns it, immediately after 
chemistry and before sociology. He rightly and boldly re- 
jects the standard definitions of life, especially that of 
Bichat, which cannot be held other than ridiculous : — “ Life 
is the sum of the functions by which death is resisted. ” But 
as “ death = the termination of life ” we may, by introducing 
this explanation in place of the original term, convert this 
would-be definition into “ Life is the sum of the functions 
by which the end of life is resisted !” The definition which 
Comte prefers is that of De Blainville : — “ Life is the two- 
fold internal movement of composition and decomposition, 
at once general and continuous.” It may, however, be urged 
that no definition of life can be at all complete unless it in- 
cludes the idea of reproduction. It may further be asked 
whether the very attempt to define life is not in some mea- 
sure a departure from the principles of positivism ? We may 
ascertain the conditions, the laws, the properties of life, but 
questions as to its nature and its purpose seem to belong to 
an order which Comte declines to attack. 
He decomposes the unhappy discipline formerly known as 
“ organic chemistry,” and assigns one part of its subjecft- 
matter to chemistry, properly speaking, and the remainder 
to biology. He regards tissues as being to the animal and 
plant what molecules are for the chemical compounds. He 
objedts to the life-monads of the physio-philosophers. On 
the doctrine of cells he is silent. But it must be particularly 
and regretfully noted that he does not accept the ideas of his 
great countrymen Buffon and Lamarck, but regards animal 
and vegetable species as fixed and permanent. He does not, 
of course, tell us that species were either created as we now 
find them, or came into existence spontaneously, or that 
they have existed for ever. To have made such an attempt 
would have been a departure from the principle which he 
holds in common with Whewell, Humboldt, and Herschell, 
that Science does not legitimately deal with origins. How 
much he has thus missed by failing to appreciate the dodlrine 
of Evolution — a principle which may in future prove no less 
fruitful in sociology than it has already done in biology — it 
is not easy to sum up. Had he done so he might have given 
