passes from initial theological conceptions to final inductive conceptions, through the transition of metaphysical conceptions; he declaring that all men, up to their age, can verify this for themselves; that each of us is aware, if he looks back upon his own history, that he was a theologian in his childhood, a metaphysician in his youth, and a natural philosopher in his manhood.1 Comte then proceeds to show, that the sciences, that is, those aggregates of methodised knowledge which have been gradually consolidated from the now long-continued exercise of man's intellectual powers in the observation, interrogation, and interpretation of Nature, and constituted of facts, the truth of which may be verified either by an appeal to experience or a resort to experiment, and being vastly more numerous and extensive than in Lord Bacon's time, when studied and co-ordinated in the order in which Comte has classified and explained them, a serial objective order, corresponding to the progressive complexity of their relative phenomena-viz., Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, and, lastly, Social and Moral Science-do, in their chief methods and most important results, yield an amount of truth, and prove an almost boundless range of phenomena, all governed by natural law, essential to be known and regarded as the foundation of any just

1'Or, chacun de nous, en contemplant sa propre histoire, ne se souvient-il pas qu'il a été successivement, quant à ses notions les plus importantes, théologien dans son enfance, métaphysicien dans sa jeunesse, et physicien dans sa virilité? Cette vérification est facile aujourd'hui pour tous les hommes au niveau de leur siècle.'-Comte, Première Leçon.

theory or true philosophy of human life. He asserts that the fundamental principle of sound philosophy is the subjection of all phenomena to invariable laws; that the general laws of astronomical phenomena are the basis of all our real knowledge; and that, since Newton's time, the development of celestial mechanics had deprived the theological philosophy of its chief intellectual office, by proving that the order maintained throughout our system and the universe is owing to the simple gravitation of its parts.2 That it is the study, not of man from within, but of the universe, especially through astronomy, that has suggested and developed the great idea of the laws of nature3 (the root of the Inductive Philosophy), and now capable, he contends, of extension to the whole of phenomena, including those of man and society. He lays down that science, as distinguished from learning, is essentially composed, not of facts, but of laws, and that its true end is to enable us to predict what will certainly happen at a future time; the business of science being to see in order to foresee, so that we may modify the phenomena by which we are affected. Hence his axiom, 'from science, prevision; from prevision, action.' Observing that prevision disproves the notion that phenomena proceed from supernatural will (which, he remarks, is the same thing as calling them variable), and that our ability to modify them proves that the powers under which they proceed are subordinated to our own.

He remarks that the proof which Franklin

afforded of human control over the lightning, destroyed the theological terror of thunder as effectually as the superstition about comets was destroyed by the prevision of their return, and that, indeed, this rational prevision of phenomena, combined with the modification of them which science enables man to exercise, shows unquestionably that the events of this world are not ruled by supernatural will, but by natural law.1

It should be stated that Comte's philosophical application of the inductive theory, in order to explain the phenomena of society and morals, is an advance that it was greatly beyond the power of Lord Bacon to effect, in whose time no basis of scientific truth, broad enough for the foundation of such an extension, existed. Beyond the power, but not beyond the conception of Bacon, whose far-reaching mind enabled him to foresee, not the forms only, but the features of sciences which did not yet exist.2 Some,' says Bacon,

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1 'Theological philosophy supposes everything to be governed by will, and that phenomena are therefore eminently variable and irregular, at least virtually. The inductive philosophy, on the contrary, conceives of them as subjected to invariable laws, which permit us to predict with absolute precision. The radical incompatibility of these two views is nowhere more marked than in regard to the phenomena of the heavens; since, in that direction, our prevision is proved to be perfect. The punctual arrival of comets and eclipses, with all their train of minute incidents, exactly foretold, long before, by the aid of ascertained laws, must lead the common mind to feel that such events must be free from the control of any will, which could not be will, if it was thus subordinated to our astronomical decisions.' -Comte, vol. i. p. 175.

2 Such were the speculations of Bacon. The power and compass of a mind which could trace, not merely the outline, but the most minute ramifications, of sciences, which did not yet exist, must be an object of admiration to all succeeding ages.'-Professor Playfair's Fourth Dissertation to Encyclopædia Britannica, 8th ed.

'may doubt whether we propose to apply our method of investigation to natural philosophy only, or to other sciences, such as ethics and politics. We answer that we mean it to be so applied. Our logic, which proceeds by induction, embraces everything.'1 Comte appeals, for the verification of such extended views, to recent scientific discoveries, and to the facts of modern history, a critical review of which occupies a considerable portion of his treatise.2

The progressive growth of the sciences in Comte's (that is our) time, the range of their discoveries, their number and variety, do, indeed, furnish proofs of the universality and uniformity of the laws of nature in countless profusion and overwhelming force.3 Limiting our attention to two only of the sciences, as being those which, by reason of the sublimity of their phenomena, most powerfully move the mind, viz., Astronomy, in respect of immeasurable space; and Geology, with

Nov. Org., lib. i. aph. 127.

2 The fact is every year becoming more broadly manifest, by the successive application of scientific principles to subjects that had been hitherto empirically treated, that the great work of Bacon was not the completion, but, as he foresaw and foretold, only the commencement of his own philosophy; that we are yet only at the threshold of the Palace of Truth, which succeeding generations will range over as their own; a world of scientific enquiry in which, not matter only and its properties, but far more rich and complex relations of life and thought, of passion and motive, of interest and action, will come to be regarded as its legitimate objects.'-Sir J. Herschel's Address to the British Association.

3 See Vestiges of the Natural Hist. of Creation, Proofs, Illustrations, Authorities, &c., 10th ed. Professor Sedgwick's Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge. The Reign of Law, by the Duke of Argyll. Herbert Spencer's First Principles. Note F, p. 60.

regard to incalculable time, the testimony supplied by these two sciences alone of the universality and constancy of natural law, is of a vastness and grandeur so impressive, as probably to require the utmost reach of the human understanding properly to appreciate it. But, it is alleged, these are physical sciences, they deal only with inorganic matter. Life, at any rate human life, is regulated by the higher moral law; and there are many who, whilst ready to believe that matter is undisturbed by providential interference, refuse to believe that man is equally undisturbed. In the one case they will admit the scientific doctrine of regularity, but in the other they assert the theological doctrine of irregularity. Science, however, speaks with no uncertain sound, and can show, by unanswerable proofs, that the laws which regulate the movements of matter, do equally affect every action and every instant of human existence. Neither the fervent piety of the blameless Hudson, whose manual of devotion was carried next his heart, nor the agonising prayer he must have uttered on the occasion of that fatal slip from the summit of the Matterhorn, nor the guileless innocence of that unconscious child who, with senses locked in slumber, crossed unthinking the open window sill, availed to avert the penalty attached to the violation of the natural but inexorable law of gravitation.1

1 'The most unfeeling thing I know of is the law of gravitation ; it breaks the neck of the best and most amiable person without scruple if he forgets for a single moment to give heed to it.'-J. S. Mill's Inaugural Address at St. Andrew's University, Longmans, 1867.