words, he would
have seen that before mankind scientifically co-ordinated _any one class
of phenomena_ displayed in the heavens, they had previously co-ordinated
_a parallel class of phenomena_ displayed upon the surface of the earth.

Were it needful we could fill a score pages with the incongruities of M.
Comte's scheme. But the foregoing samples will suffice. So far is his
law of evolution of the sciences from being tenable, that, by following
his example, and arbitrarily ignoring one class of facts, it would be
possible to present, with great plausibility, just the opposite
generalisation to that which he enunciates. While he asserts that the
rational order of the sciences, like the order of their historic
development, "is determined by the degree of simplicity, or, what comes
to the same thing, of generality of their phenomena;" it might
contrariwise be asserted, that, commencing with the complex and the
special, mankind have progressed step by step to a knowledge of greater
simplicity and wider generality. So much evidence is there of this as to
have drawn from Whewell, in his _History of the Inductive Sciences_, the
general remark that "the reader has already seen repeatedly in the
course of this history, complex and derivative principles presenting
themselves to men's minds before simple and elementary ones."

Even from M. Comte's own work, numerous facts, admissions, and
arguments, might be picked out, tending to show this. We have already
quoted his words in proof that both abstract and concrete mathematics
have progressed towards a higher degree of generality, and that he looks
forward to a higher generality still. Just to strengthen this adverse
hypothesis, let us take a further instance. From the _particular_ case
of the scales, the law of equilibrium of which was familiar to the
earliest nations known, Archimedes advanced to the more _general_ case
of the unequal lever with unequal weights; the law of equilibrium of
which _includes_ that of the scales. By the help of Galileo's discovery
concerning the composition of forces, D'Alembert "established, for the
first time, the equations of equilibrium of _any_ system of forces
applied to the different points of a solid body"--equations which
include all cases of levers and an infinity of cases besides. Clearly
this is progress towards a higher generality--towards a knowledge more
independent of special circumstances--towards a study of phenomena "the
most dise