nize the nature of this illusion, and to confine their ambition
within that which is really the limit of their intelligence. All that we
can know is the resemblances and successions of phenomena, and not the
things in themselves that are their causes; and if we seek to find a
principle of unity for these phenomena, we must find it within and not
without. We must organize knowledge with reference to our own wants,
rather than with reference to the nature of things. We must regard
everything as a means to an end, which is determined by some inner
principle in ourselves--not as if we supposed that the world and all
that is in it were made for us, or found its centre in us--but simply
because this is the only point of view from which we can systematize
knowledge, as it is indeed the only point of view from which we need
care to systematize it.

It may be asked why system is necessary at all, why we should not be
content with a fragmentary consciousness of the world, without
attempting to gather the dispersed lights of science to one central
principle. To critics like J. S. Mill, Comte's effort after system seems
to be the result of an "original mental twist very common in French
thinkers," of "an inordinate desire of unity." "That all perfection
consists in unity, Comte apparently considers to be a maxim which no
sane man thinks of questioning: it never seems to enter into his
conceptions that any one could object _ad initio_, and ask, Why this
universal systematizing, systematizing, systematizing? Why is it
necessary that all human life should point but to one object, and be
cultivated into a system of means to a single end?"[26] To this Mr.
Bridges answers that unity in Comte's sense is "the first and most
obvious condition which all moral and religious renovators, of whatever
time or country, have by the very nature of their office set themselves
to fulfil."[27] In other words, all moral and spiritual life depends
upon the harmony of the individual with himself and with the world. A
divided life is a life of weakness and misery, nor can life be divided
intellectually, without being, or ultimately becoming, divided morally.
Such unity, indeed, does not exclude--and in a being like man who is in
course of development cannot altogether exclude--difference and even
conflict. In the most steadily growing intellectual life there are
pauses of difficulty and doubt; in the most continuous moral progress
there are conflicts with