rotection--as well as
the three degrees of continuity between ages, by uniting us with the
past, the present and the future. In accordance with my theory of the
brain, each corresponds with one of our three altruistic
instincts--veneration, attachment and benevolence."

Conclusion.

How the positive method of observation and verification of real facts
has landed us in this, and much else of the same kind, is extremely hard
to guess. Seriously to examine an encyclopaedic system, that touches
life, society and knowledge at every point, is evidently beyond the
compass of such an article as this. There is in every chapter a whole
group of speculative suggestions, each of which would need a long
chapter to itself to elaborate or to discuss. There is at least one
biological speculation of astounding audacity, that could be examined in
nothing less than a treatise. Perhaps we have said enough to show that
after performing a great and real service to thought Comte almost
sacrificed his claims to gratitude by the invention of a system that, as
such, and independently of detached suggestions, is markedly retrograde.
But the world will take what is available in Comte, while forgetting
that in his work which is as irrational in one way as Hegel is in
another.

See also the article POSITIVISM.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Works, Editions and Translations: Cours de philosophie
positive_ (6 vols., Paris, 1830-1842; 2nd ed. with preface by E.
Littre, Paris, 1864; 5th ed., 1893-1894; Eng. trans. Harriet
Martineau, 2 vols., London, 1853; 3 vols. London and New York, 1896);
_Discours sur l'esprit positif_ (Paris, 1844; Eng. trans. with
explanation E. S. Beesley, 1905); _Ordre et progres_ (ib. 1848);
_Discours sur l'ensemble de positivisme_ (1848, Eng. trans. J. H.
Bridges, London, 1852); _Systeme de politique positive, ou Traite de
sociologie_ (4 vols., Paris, 1852-1854; ed. 1898; Eng. trans. with
analysis and explanatory summary by Bridges, F. Harrison, E. S.
Beesley and others, 1875-1879); _Catechisme positiviste_ (Paris, 1852;
3rd ed., 1890; Eng. trans. R. Congreve, Lond. 1858, 3rd ed., 1891);
_Appel aux Conservateurs_ (Paris, 1855 and 1898); _Synthese
subjective_ (1856 and 1878); _Essai de philos. mathematique_ (Paris,
1878); P. Descours and H. Gordon Jones, _Fundamental Principles of
Positive Philos._ (trans. 1905), with biog. preface by E. S. Beesley.
The Letters of Comte have been published as follo