Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 099.djvu/295

Rh the most entirely abstract possible in positive philosophy, "for nowhere else are questions resolved so completely, and deductions prolonged so far with extreme rigour"—these deductions involving the greatest possible number of results from the smallest possible number of immediate data. Astronomy comes under this section, and is the only fundamental science (out of the five) which is allowed to be really and finally purged of all theological or metaphysical considerations—the only one thoroughly established as positive, and satisfactorily fulfilling the axiom that every science has prevision for its object. Second: the science of Physics, which, says Comte, did not begin definitely to disengage itself from metaphysics, and become really positive, until after the great discovery of Galileo on the fall of heavy bodies, and which is therefore considerably behind Astronomy (positive so many centuries ago) in its scientific precision. The positivists enlarge on the conception of a "luminiferous ether," that "prevailing hypothesis," almost universally accepted by men of science in England,—as illustrating the adulteration, by metaphysical myth, of the study of Physics—any such assumed fluid being in reality no more than one of the old entities materialised, a mere personified abstraction, a trifle lighter than air, and only to the dreamer giving "confirmation strong," while to the waking man it is obnoxious as standing, a shadowy pretence, between him and the sun. Third: Chemistry—a science where the complexity of phenomena is greatly augmented—its aim being, to find the properties of all the compounds of all (given) simple substances—its study, especially interesting as compensating for deficiency in the "prevision of phenomena" by "the power of modifying them at our pleasure." Here, too, metaphysical parasites are denounced, in the shape of "inherent vital forces," &c., hypotheses which positivism cannot away with. Fourth: Physiology, or Biology, or the science of Life—the necessary basis of psychology, and to the development of which M. Comte contributes "a new cerebral theory." Fifth: Social science—its principle being, that social phenomena are inevitably subjected to natural laws, in accordance with the axiom of Leibnitz, "The present is pregnant with the future;"—as a statical science, investigating the laws of co-existence (which characterise the idea of social Order), and as a dynamical, the laws of succession (which pertain to the theory of Progress). "Sociology thus unites the two equally fundamental ideas of Order and Progress, the radical opposition of which" constitutes "the principal characteristic symptom of the profound perturbation of modern society." And whereas hitherto there has been a division kept up between physical laws and moral laws—the former being monopolised by one set of teachers, and the latter by another—M. Comte claims to have healed the breach, and identified the interests, by his foundation of social science.

Such, in rough and ragged outline, is Positivism. Such the philosophy which, if destined to dominion, must sweep away the landmarks of our