generale, et d'une autre part la zoologie et
la botanique proprement dites. Ce sont evidemment, en effet, deux
travaux d'un caractere fort distinct, que d'etudier, en general,
les lois de la vie, ou de determiner le mode d'existence de chaque
corps vivant, en particulier. _Cette seconde etude, en outre, est
necessairememt fondee sur la premiere._"--P. 57.

All the unreality and mere bookishness of M. Comte's knowledge of
physical science comes out in the passage I have italicised. "The
special study of living beings is based upon a general study of the laws
of life!" What little I know about the matter leads me to think, that,
if M. Comte had possessed the slightest practical acquaintance with
biological science, he would have turned his phraseology upside down,
and have perceived that we can have no knowledge of the general laws of
life, except that which is based upon the study of particular living
beings.

The illustration is surely unluckily chosen; but the language in which
these so-called abstract sciences are defined seems to me to be still
more open to criticism. With what propriety can astronomy, or physics,
or chemistry, or biology, be said to occupy themselves with the
consideration of "all conceivable cases" which fall within their
respective provinces? Does the astronomer occupy himself with any other
system of the universe than that which is visible to him? Does he
speculate upon the possible movements of bodies which may attract one
another in the inverse proportion of the cube of their distances, say?
Does biology, whether "abstract" or "concrete," occupy itself with any
other form of life than those which exist, or have existed? And, if the
abstract sciences embrace all conceivable cases of the operation of the
laws with which they are concerned, would not they, necessarily, embrace
the subjects of the concrete sciences, which, inasmuch as they exist,
must needs be conceivable? In fact, no such distinction as that which M.
Comte draws is tenable. The first stage of his classification breaks by
its own weight.

But granting M. Comte his six abstract sciences, he proceeds to arrange
them according to what he calls their natural order or hierarchy, their
places in this hierarchy being determined by the degree of generality
and simplicity of the conceptions with which they deal. Mathematics
occupies the first, astronomy the second, physics the third, chemistry
the fourth, biolog