Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/621

Rh serve as its guide; yet, owing to the largeness of the views there expressed, Auguste Comte gave to this work a comprehensiveness which enabled it to take in some of the great biological systems elaborated in recent times, and one of his followers has recently declared that the success of these doctrines does not impair the unity of the positive philosophy. It can also be truly said that, if those doctrines were to succumb, the positive philosophy would suffer no loss; and this proves that they have no connection with this philosophy, and that they can receive no support from it. Still, in spite of this serious shortcoming of his philosophy, the services rendered by Auguste Comte are very great. He has given a better definition of life than the one then in vogue; he has perceived that life is a continuous chain of chemical facts, and to this doctrine he has given forcible expression; lie has illustrated, by judicious contrast, the relations of the organism to the medium in which it lives; he has stated with great precision the problem of the science of life, which consists in expressing in the least number of laws of the utmost generality the harmony which unites the organism to its medium by vital acts; he has forcibly shown the close correlation which enables us to infer the function from the organ, and vice versa; not to speak of a multitude of useful and profound considerations upon the structure of living bodies, on comparative anatomy, and on the physiology of the functions of relation. But it was characteristic of Auguste Comte's philosophy to bind together the parts of its system only by a purely logical tie, and not at all by establishing relations between the phenomena, or by showing interdependency of laws. For him it was enough, in order to assure to biology its place between physico-chemistry and sociology, if on the one hand a knowledge of physical and chemical laws is necessary for the study of biological phenomena, and if the various classes of phenomena pertaining to these sciences really act a part in the production of vital phenomena; and if, on the other hand, a knowledge of the life of relation in its highest aspects, i. e., in the cerebral apparatus, and the elementary intellectual and passional faculties corresponding thereto, is an essential preliminary of the study of sociology. Hence, the biological work of Auguste Comte has not per se had any great influence on researches of this kind. The general current of his philosophy has exerted a good influence in so far as it has disinclined men toward theological and metaphysical explications. But we cannot admit that Comte has founded a philosophy of biology fitted to inspire or to guide research. Biological research is still what it was before the positive philosophy became popular; it is still restricted to special points; and, though its spirit is becoming more and more positive, the reason is because in such research the imagination is brought more and more under subjection to the laws of scientific investigation. But, meanwhile, we see no indications of philosophic purpose, no aiming to bring the results obtained under the dominion of a more comprehensive law.