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Rh method in psychology, which it makes a branch of physiology, and in substituting for traditional religion a cult of humanity as the Grand Etre, with saints, festivals, sacraments, etc. The latter is its chief offence in English eyes, and has elicited Mr. Huxley's caustic definition of Positivism, "Catholicism minus Christianity." Comte's philosophy was early introduced to English readers by Lewes and Harriet Martineau. It is now strenuously advocated, and finds many adherents through the distinguished historian, Frederic Harrison; Bridges, Beesley, and Congreve are also ardent Comtists.

In France the system has occupied the important position which Agnosticism has held in England; it has been the most important instrument in the spread of religious scepticism. In France, too, there has been much dogmatic Materialism; the line taken by Cabanis has been upheld by a number of physicians, such as Pinel, Broussais, Gall, etc. Another school, which held for a time a middle position between the theologians and the empiricists, was the Eclectic school, which was founded by Victor Cousin. It purported to select the better elements from the philosophies of Plato, Reid, Kant, and Hegel Such an amalgamation could never be perfect, and it would perhaps be more accurate to describe them as stages in Cousin's development. He is rightly classed as Pantheistic, for the German element conspicuously preponderated in his Eclecticism. It was the official school in France for a time after the July revolution, and numbered many distinguished adherents—Royer Collard, Maine de Biran, Jouffroy, Prevost, Ancilla, etc.: Paul Janet, Jules Simon, and E. Caro are often aggregated to it. Another system which was yet nearer to orthodoxy, but was condemned by the Catholic Church, was Traditionalism. In varying degrees its followers held that reason was incapable of attaining the solution of the. world-problems, and that authority or tradition is the only reliable guide in supra-sensible matters. J. de Maistre, Fraysinnous, De Bonald, and De Lamennais were traditionalists.

To return to England, from which both French Empiricists and Eclectics had largely borrowed, it must be said that the principal opponent of the rapid progress of Agnosticism was the Scotch school, which had inspired Royer Collard and Cousin. In the first half of the century, at least, the