taking as a characteristic of the apprehension of truth what is undoubtedly the characteristic of the non-existent content apprehended. For that content apprehended, not in its ideal completeness but in every grade, is non-temporal, merely because it is not itself an existent fact. We transfer this special characteristic of all apprehended content to truth conceived of as though it had objective existence, whether in the form of a thinking spirit or of that about which such spirit thinks.

The notion of development undoubtedly presents a special difficulty by reason of the fusion therein of the two opposites, Identity and Difference. But it is of no avail to attempt to regard the notion of development as constituted by the union. of those two abstract categories. It is not identity and difference in general that constitute the determining features of the notion of development. Such combination is presented not solely in that which develops but in everything. When therefore we refer, in handling the notion of development, to the identical subject which in some way maintains. its selfhood throughout the differences, our reference is really to a highly concrete and specialised form of the identical and different. The moment we realise this, and understand that the notion of development first presents itself in our reflexion from a consideration of highly concrete facts, we begin to understand one cause of the immense difficulty it presents. The concrete facts are but imperfectly known. The general type of arrangement among them, which we generalise into the notion of development, is presented in a great variety of concrete modes; and, as a matter of fact, we find considerable difficulty-a difficulty which, one may perhaps say, is yet unsolved—in determining the limits within which there is to be recognised substantial agreement in the peculiar type of arrangement we call development. At the one end of the scale stands humanity with all that we call its culture; at

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the other end the lowest forms of organic life,-forms in regard to which the boundary line between organic and inorganic is certainly not yet definitely drawn.

It is from the appearances presented in the arrangement of such concrete forms of existence that we derive our notion of development; and it is not at all certain that we are not attempting an undue simplification in applying one and the same notion to all of them. The living individual, and perhaps specially the conscious subject, are the concrete forms which most clearly display that peculiar combination: interdependence of parts with a continued identity throughout changes, and with a constant reference from each developing individual to a similarly constituted antecedent form. It is these in particular which suggest to us the general marks constituting our notion of development. From them in particular is derived that curious and baffling conception of a pre-existing plan which is being slowly realised in each individual form. When we extend our survey, and take in the higher grades of concrete fact to which also we apply the notion of development, we soon find reason to doubt whether there is more than analogy between this case of development and that of the individual living organism or of the conscious subject. When, for instance, we apply the notion of development to this or that type of human culture, it may occur to us that it is not easy to find for this development the substantive basis of an individual subject such as is presented in the living being and in the individual mind; and, assuredly, when we reflect on the development of any such form of culture, we must find it difficult to apply there the complicated idea which we think ourselves justified in applying to the individual of a natural species: namely, that what happens is only the unfolding of an idea or plan which is somehow impressed on, and operative in the very structure of, that which develops.

Probably the doubt one might entertain in respect to these manifestations of development might be extended to the cases where the notion appears to have more substantive foundation. Yet, when we turn to the phenomena of organic life and of the life of mind, we must undoubtedly give full recognition to the very important fact that what we call the development is in all cases conditioned by and dependent on circumstances which must be taken to be external to the plan itself. Even if we assume that in the living being there is a pre-formed plan, and that therefore the course of the changes through which it passes is rightly described as the unfolding of that plan, we must acknowledge that the unfolding, if real, is dependent on external material, conditions which may or may not be furnished, and the supply of which can hardly be regarded as dependent on and contained in the plan itself.

No one would deny that, in those concrete arrangements. which first impress on us the notion of development, there is something other than the mere laws of co-existence and sequence. But it is by no means necessary, nor is it indeed possible, to resort for explanation of them to a type of agency which finds no place in the mechanism of nature. We ought to remember that our statement of laws of coexistence and sequence is an abstraction, that the involved specialised arrangements constitute nature really, and that, when we sever from one another the abstract statement of physical laws and the generalised description of the special forms of organic life, the severance does not imply the co-existence of two realms of fact: physical nature, and organic life. The only real existence is the concrete whole of which what we call living beings are special forms.

VII. The Positivist View of Thought. Perhaps it is at this point that one sees most clearly the deficiencies of the view which stands most definitely in opposition to

the idealist interpretation of nature Positivism. As that view was expounded by Comte, exclusive stress was laid upon co-existence and sequence.1 Knowledge, it was declared, was not only limited to phenomena-a perfectly void and empty statement-but, more particularly, it was limited to the enunciation of sequences and co-existences among phenomena. In this indeed Comte found what seemed to him the radical distinction between genuine, scientific, positive knowledge, and the pseudo, unscientific, metaphysical speculation about things. In his view human thinking in its progress naturally passed through the stage of metaphysical speculation, in which explanation was sought of the given, that is, the co-existent and sequent phenomena, by reference to abstract entities or powers not within the range of observation and experiment; and, after passing through this, it reached the positive stage, in which it rests content with the statement in generalised form of laws of co-existence and sequence.

Putting aside all that elsewhere might require to be said regarding this supposed advance in knowledge, notice must be drawn to Comte's insistence on co-existences and sequences. There are two things which compel us to reflect further upon the type of knowledge supposed thus to be exhaustively given. In the first place, the type of knowledge is extremely abstract; and, in the second place, it has of necessity more special, if not exclusive, application to what is presented in external perception: it does not seem to apply as readily to the highly important set of phenomena-the inner life and all the manifestation of human culture.

It is abstract. It is indeed peculiar to Comte's exposition of Positivism that he should have drawn from the first a very 1 ["Seeing how vain is any research them by the natural relations of sucinto causes, our real business is cession and resemblance." - Positive to analyse accurately the circum- Philosophy, tr. Martineau, i. 5; cf. stances of phenomena, and to connect ii. 515.]

...

sharp distinction between abstract and concrete. His classification of the sciences, in which they are arranged in an order corresponding to the gradation of increasing complexity from Mathematics to Sociology, is a classification of the abstract sciences. Nowhere in his general treatment of scientific method does he accord sufficient recognition to the peculiarity of the concrete forms; and, particularly in his first treatment, he is emphatic as regards the unity and identity of method throughout the scale of the abstract sciences.

Now, it is never sufficient for knowledge, for real understanding, to be in possession only of the abstract laws of co-existence and sequence. Such laws form an indispensable part of explanation; but they can never dispense with the recognition of the highly special forms in which concrete fact displays to us what is expressed in these abstract laws. As Dr Chalmers used to put it, "There are in nature not only laws but collocations," 2 and by the latter he meant the concrete forms.

Now in his later work, and owing, it is clear, to reflexion on the second point I mentioned-the less obvious application of his conception of general laws to the facts of human life mind and culture-Comte was led to a highly important distinction, and, in enunciating that, he introduced a very curious and interesting modification of the meaning of the word 'metaphysical.'

When he approached the treatment of Sociology he distinguished two methods by which the facts of human practical life may be considered the one abstracting, isolating, individualising; the other concrete, synthetic, and organic. The individual man, however completely we may state the co-existent and sequent phenomena of his nature, is

1 [Cf. Positive Philosophy, i. 25 ff.] 2 [Cf. Natural Theology, B. II. cc. i., iii.]

3

[System of Positive Polity, E. T., 1875, i. 343 ff.]