add to it, as a complement, an equivalent Objective or scientific appreciation, you can trace in the general succession of the branches of abstract study a real concrete scale, if not of beings, yet of existences. In Astronomy you have only the simple Mathematical existence. Almost a mere idea previously, in Astronomy it becomes a reality in the case of bodies which we can only examine from that point of view, and which are therefore naturally the best type of such existence. In Physics we rise to phenomena which admit of a more accurate and closer examination. We take a decided step onwards towards man. Lastly, in Chemistry we deal with the noblest and most wide-spread form of merely natural existence. We never, however, lose sight of its subordination to the previous sciences, as required by our universal law. Though the great objective conception, which is the result of this progression, can only find an adequate development in Biology, it is important to notice its germ in Cosmology, in order thoroughly to master the true principle of classification for beings of whatever order. ........The true object of Philosophy is to connect as closely as possible all phenomena and all beings. Practical skill adds completeness to this general result. For our artificial improvements always end in the strengthening and developing the natural connection established by science...... The spirit of modern philosophy is not exclusively critical, as it is accused of being, and it substitutes double constructions for the decrepit remnants of the old doctrine. At the same time, you may already see at this point the necessary incompatibility of Theology and Positivism. It is a consequence of the irreconcilable opposition between laws and supernatural will. What becomes of the wonderful order we have traced, which, by a graduated series connects our noblest moral attributes with the lowest natural phenomena, if we introduce an infinite power? The capricious action of such a power would allow of no prevision. It would threaten our order at any moment with an entire subversion.

M. Comte "undertook that wonderful systematisation of the philosophy of all the antecedent sciences, from Mathematics to Physiology, which, if he had done nothing else, would have stamped him, in all minds competent to appreciate it, as one of the principal thinkers of the age..... The philosophy of a science thus comes to mean the science itself, considered not as to its results, the truths which it

ascertains, but as to the processes by which the mind attains them, the marks by which it recognises them, and the coordinating and methodising them with a view to the greatest clearness of conception, and the fullest and readiest availability for use; in one word, the logic of the science. M. Comte has accomplished this for the first five of the fundamental sciences, with a success which can hardly be too much admired. We never reopen even the least admirable part of this survey, the volume on Chemistry and Biology (which was behind the actual state of those sciences when first written, and is far in the rear of them now), without a renewed sense of the great reach of its speculations, and a conviction that the way to a complete rationalising of those sciences, still very imperfectly conceived by most who cultivate them, has been shown nowhere so successfully as there." (J. S. Mill.)

"If the best classification is that which is grounded on the properties most important for our purposes, this classification will stand the test. By placing the sciences in the order of the complexity of their subject-matter, it presents them in the order of their difficulty. Each science proposes to itself a more arduous inquiry than those which precede it in the series; it is, therefore, likely to be susceptible, even finally, of a less degree of perfection, and will certainly arrive later at the degree attainable by it. In addition to this, each science, to establish its own.truths, needs those of all the sciences anterior to it. The only means, for example, by which the physiological laws of life could have been ascertained was by distinguishing among the various and complicated facts of life the portion which Physical and Chemical laws cannot account for. Only by thus isolating the effects of the peculiar organic laws did it become possible to discover what these are. It follows that the order in which the sciences succeed one another in the series cannot but be, in the main, the historical order of their development, and is the only order in which they can rationally be studied. For this last there is an additional reason, since the more special and complete sciences require not only the truths of the simple and more general ones, but still more their methods. The scientific intellect, both in the individual and in the race, must learn in the more elementary studies that art of investigation and those canons of proof which are to be put in practice in the more elevated. No intellect is properly qualified for the

higher part of the scale without due practice in the lower." (Ibid.)

To Mr. Herbert Spencer's criticism of Comte's classification complete and conclusive replies have been made by M. Littré, Mr. Lewes, and Mr. J. S. Mill, not to mention others. Of Mr. Spencer's own classification Mr. Mill observes: "We cannot perceive that it answers any ends equally important."

Dr. Bridges observes on this head, in his "Evolution and Positivism: " "It may be said, no doubt, that it is perfectly competent for Evolutionists to..........make man their final object, and, in the general arrangement of their inquiries, to follow practically the linear arrangement introduced by Comte." Note." See for instance, the programme to Mr. H. Spencer's 'Systematic Philosophy,' where the arrangement is thus: First Principles, Cosmology (indicated but left vacant,) Biology, Psychology, Sociology, Morals. This is very nearly Comte's arrangement; the First Principles answering to the Philosophie Première "Positive Polity," vol. iv., p. 154), and the Théorie Cérébrale occupying the place of Psychology, though not treated as a separate science."

"Not only did Comte see how social phenomena were to be distributed and studied in order to form a science; he saw the decisive point of separation between these and other phenomena which rendered the constitution of a separate science necessary. Precisely as Physics must be separated from Mathematics, because no extension of Mathematical laws alone will suffice to explain Physical phenomena: precisely as Chemistry must be separated from Physics, because in Chemical phenomena there is, over and above the Physical laws, the addition of laws of molecular affinity; precisely as Biology must be separated from Chemistry and Physics, because by no extension of Physical and Chemical laws can we deduce the special laws of organic life; so in like manner must Sociology be separated from Biology, because over and above the phenomena of human nature, exhibited in the species, there is the important series of phenomena due to the collective activities of the race. History modifies the race." (G. H. Lewes.)

The Cosmology of Positivism is, as has been said, relative, while the Cosmology of Science is absolute. Science reproaches theology for its absolutism all the while that it has an absolutism of its own, every whit as mentally use

less, and far more morally hurtful. There are, doubtless, here and there, minds whose studies are subordinated to considerations of social utility. But the general run of scientists, however much they may talk of the advancement of science and the increase of knowledge, neither advance science nor increase knowledge by their barren collection of mere facts. They it is who oppose the organisation of knowledge-and why? Because they are deficient of social feeling? They have no object, at once real and ideal, as the source and aim of inspiration and exertion; neither have they any glimpse of the profound spiritual truth that mere "knowledge puffeth up," while its aimless pursuit hardens the heart and dries up the affections.

Comte shows that the historical method is the best for connecting truths together, and that the value of Cosmological and Biological truths is greater logically than scientifically, for educational purposes. The education in philosophy and science of a young Positivist, commences at fourteen years, and occupies seven years, the whole of which is given to the mastery of the philosophy of the sciences. Of these seven years, two years are given to Cosmology, two years to Physics and Chemistry, one year to Biology, and two years to Sociology and Ethics-that is, four years are allotted to acquire a thorough mastery of the lawsPhysical and Chemical-of the external world in which Humanity lives, moves, and has her being.

The Cosmology of Positivism ignores all astronomical and physical speculations about stars and planets which affect the earth remotely, if at all. It knows nothing of sidereal astronomy, and cares not at all what may be the atmosphere or photosphere of Sirius. The Astronomy it cares for is that of the solar system, and its connection with the earth-man's home, and the space which is his milieu; but it is not concerned with an Astronomy which attempts to deal with boundless space and an infinite maze of worlds. The Astronomy of Positivism has a distinct relation to the wants and needs of Humanity. It affords to man room for the full play of his sublimest speculations, and only limits such speculations where they tend to no really practical or even theoretical use. Comte himself has suggested problems in the sciences enough usefully to employ the intellect for hundreds of years to come-problems the resolution of which would be of incalculable good to the human race. All our studies, whether cosmological or sociological, must

be grouped around Humanity as their centre, because a subjective synthesis or grouping of knowledge only is possible, and our thoughts and affections must have a centre around which to revolve; an objective synthesis, as all experience proves, being impossible.

"Is it my fault if I find everywhere limits, if that which is finite has for me no value?" (Est-il ma faute si je trouve partout les bornes, si ce qui est fini n'as pour moi acune valeur? Felix Holt reads from Chateaubriand's Réné to Esther.) "Yes sir," he replies, "distinctly your fault, because you're an ass. Your dunce who can't do his sums always has a taste for the infinite. Sir, do you know what a rhomboid is? Oh, no; I don't value these things with limits."

The study of Cosmology has already been defined as the study of the laws of man's material environment, and it prepares the way for the study of man's life, and, indeed, of all forms of life which depend upon that environment for their support. That the organic world depends for its subsistence upon the inorganic world is a universally-admitted fact, and we hope to show what, in the opinion of Comte, is the proper subject-matter of Biology, and to give also some notion of his Abstract theory of life. The study of Cosmology is of use only as it relates to man and man's dependents; and the study of Biology is of use only in so' far as it subserves the purposes of Sociology, or Social Science. Man is a sociological as well as a Biological product. This fact should be kept in mind, as there is a tendency in Biologists to treat Sociology as a corollary of Biology. Biological laws explain much, especially in the province of Biology. Outside that province they fail to explain more complex facts. The attempts of Biologists to explain Sociology by Biological method have been well characterised by Comte as the Materialism of Science-Materialism consisting in the method of the preceding science (or sciences) being applied to the later and more complex. The Physicist is Materialist when he tries to explain Biology by the Molecular theory. The Chemist is Materialist when he sums up man as composed merely of so many phosphates and so much water; and the Biologist is Materialist when he states that the Brain secretes Thought as the Liver secretes Bile, for there is a huge plus in the former case which there is not in the latter, and that plus can only be accounted for Sociologically.

To such an extent does this Materialism infect the minds

of Scientists that a modern Mathematician seeks to explain the phenomena of man and society by Mathematics!

"Then Stanley Jevons will contend in words stout and emphatical,
The proper mode to treat all things is purely mathematical ;
Since we as individual men, communities, and nations, Sir,
Are clearly angles, lines, and squares, cubes, circles, and equations,
Sir." Etc., etc.

Comte introduces his sketch of Abstract Biology with the following remarks: "Scarcely two centuries ago thinkers of real ability were unable to form a clear conception of the connection between life and matter. And yet it is a point of fundamental importance, the capital difficulty of all Natural Philosophy. In the first place, it was natural, on the rise of Chemistry, that Cosmologists should push on their study of matter as far as its noblest and most complicated phenomena. The next step required was that Biologists should descend to the lowest and simplest functions of life, the only ones that could admit of a direct connection with the inorganic basis laid by the Cosmologist. Such was the most important result of the admirable conception due to the true founder of Biology, the incomparable Bichat. By a profound analysis, the most noble vital functions, even in man, were considered by Philosophical Biology as always resting on the lowest, in obedience to the general law of the order of nature. Animal life is in all cases subordinate to vegetable life; in other words, the life of relation is subordinate to that of nutrition.

"This luminous principle leads us to see that the only phenomena really common to all living beings are those of the decomposition and recomposition of their substance, which they are constantly undergoing from the action upon them of external influences-in other words, of their milieu. So our whole system of vital functions rests on acts which have a strong analogy with Chemical results. The only real difference lies in the greater instability of combination. In the vital phenomena the complications are also, it should be remembered, more complicated. The simple and fundamental life-that in which decomposition and recomposition are the exclusive phenomena-is found only in the vegetable. There it reaches its highest development. For plants can directly assimilate inorganic materials, and change them into organic substances. This is never the case with higher beings. In fact, the general definition of animal life is, that F