on
account of their theoretic abilities.

It is no exaggeration to say, that M. Comte gradually acquired a real
hatred for scientific and all purely intellectual pursuits, and was bent
on retaining no more of them than was strictly indispensable. The
greatest of his anxieties is lest people should reason, and seek to
know, more than enough. He regards all abstraction and all reasoning as
morally dangerous, by developing an inordinate pride (orgueil), and
still more, by producing dryness (scheresse). Abstract thought, he says,
is not a wholesome occupation for more than a small number of human
beings, nor of them for more than a small part of their time. Art, which
calls the emotions into play along with and more than the reason, is the
only intellectual exercise really adapted to human nature. It is
nevertheless indispensable that the chief theories of the various
abstract sciences, together with the modes in which those theories were
historically and logically arrived at, should form a part of universal
education: for, first, it is only thus that the methods can be learnt,
by which to attain the results sought by the moral and social sciences:
though we cannot perceive that M. Comte got at his own moral and social
results by those processes. Secondly, the principal truths of the
subordinate sciences are necessary to the systematization (still
systematization!) of our conceptions, by binding together our notions of
the world in a set of propositions, which are coherent, and are a
sufficiently correct representation of fact for our practical wants.
Thirdly, a familiar knowledge of the invariable laws of natural
phaenomena is a great elementary lesson of submission, which, he is
never weary of saying, is the first condition both of morality and of
happiness. For these reasons, he would cause to be taught, from the age
of fourteen to that of twenty-one, to all persons, rich and poor, girls
or youths, a knowledge of the whole series of abstract sciences, such as
none but the most highly instructed persons now possess, and of a far
more systematic and philosophical character than is usually possessed
even by them. (N.B.--They are to learn, during the same years, Greek and
Latin, having previously, between the ages of seven and fourteen, learnt
the five principal modern languages, to the degree necessary for
reading, with due appreciation, the chief poetical compositions in
each.) But they are to be taught all this, not only