1881.] An Estimate of Auguste Comtek 405 
consumer of wealth, all his other functions being disregarded. 
That such disregard is temporarily justifiable as a scientific 
artifice for the sake of more convenient study is indisputable. 
But how if this disregard is carried out into practice ? Let 
me take a parallel case. Let us suppose that nothing were 
known concerning the anatomy and physiology of man, and 
that the art of healing had been followed empirically, prac- 
titioners observing that when certain symptoms were recog- 
nised benefit was obtained by the use of this or the other 
remedy or appliance. Under such circumstances, if a body 
of men came to the conclusion that a knowledge of the 
human system with its various functions were to be desired, 
it would be perfectly legitimate for them to confine them- 
selves temporarily to the study of some one set of organs. 
They might, for instance, seleCt in this manner the respira- 
tory apparatus and its laws of aCtion. The truths they 
might thus ascertain would be, if rightly applied, of great 
value in medical practice. But suppose that, having reached 
a moderately accurate knowledge of respiration and its 
organs, they declined to investigate other functions of the 
body, and attempted to heal the sick in the sole light of their 
recent studies, declaring, tacitly at least, that so long as the 
lungs of a patient were kept in healthy action, the digestive, 
the circulatory organs, and even the nervous centres might 
be safely negleCted, the result would be quackery of the 
worst type. But, mutatis mutandis , this is precisely what the 
economists do in attempting to reduce their fraction of a 
science to practice. Comte felt this, and hence his con- 
demnation of the economists was legitimate. 
He proclaimed that the military ecclesiastic regime is to 
be replaced by an industrial and scientific organisation, the 
workman succeeding to the soldier and the savant to the 
priest. But it does not appear whether he ever asked him- 
self if industrialism is or should be the final haven of the 
human race. I doubt whether it would be possible to point 
out a manufacturing and commercial city, province, or 
country where wealth, either for the few or the many, has 
not been bought at the price of personal degeneration, phyv 
sical, moral, and intellectual. Whether industry can ever 
be so re-organised as not to yield these bitter fruits,— 
whether it will ever allow man the quietude and the leisure 
which are absolutely necessary for his full development, — I 
dare net even guess. Certainly we are not moving in that 
direction. 
It is doubtful whether we can pronounce Comte a friend 
to Science. He was certainly no discoverer. Though he 
