othing of any scientific value, and a great deal which is as
thoroughly antagonistic to the very essence of science as anything in
ultramontane Catholicism. In fact, M. Comte's philosophy in practice
might be compendiously described as Catholicism _minus_ Christianity.

But what has Comtism to do with the "New Philosophy," as the Archbishop
defines it in the following passage?

"Let me briefly remind you of the leading principles of this new
philosophy.

"All knowledge is experience of facts acquired by the senses. The
traditions of older philosophies have obscured our experience by
mixing with it much that the senses cannot observe, and until these
additions are discarded our knowledge is impure. Thus metaphysics
tell us that one fact which we observe is a cause, and another is
the effect of that cause; but upon a rigid analysis, we find that
our senses observe nothing of cause or effect: they observe, first,
that one fact succeeds another, and, after some opportunity, that
this fact has never failed to follow--that for cause and effect we
should substitute invariable succession. An older philosophy
teaches us to define an object by distinguishing its essential from
its accidental qualities: but experience knows nothing of essential
and accidental; she sees only that certain marks attach to an
object, and, after many observations, that some of them attach
invariably, whilst others may at times be absent.... As all
knowledge is relative, the notion of anything being necessary must
be banished with other traditions."[11]

There is much here that expresses the spirit of the "New Philosophy," if
by that term be meant the spirit of modern science; but I cannot but
marvel that the assembled wisdom and learning of Edinburgh should have
uttered no sign of dissent, when Comte was declared to be the founder of
these doctrines. No one will accuse Scotchmen of habitually forgetting
their great countrymen; but it was enough to make David Hume turn in
his grave, that here, almost within earshot of his house, an instructed
audience should have listened, without a murmur, while his most
characteristic doctrines were attributed to a French writer of fifty
years later date, in whose dreary and verbose pages we miss alike the
vigour of thought and the exquisite clearness of style of the man whom I
make bold to term the most acute thinker of