This last discrimination has been partially made in a late pamphlet, by
Mr Herbert Spencer, in vindication of his own independence of thought:
but this does not diminish the utility of doing it, with a less limited
purpose, here; especially as Mr Spencer rejects nearly all which
properly belongs to M. Comte, and in his abridged mode of statement does
scanty justice to what he rejects. The separation is not difficult, even
on the direct evidence given by M. Comte himself, who, far from claiming
any originality not really belonging to him, was eager to connect his
own most original thoughts with every germ of anything similar which he
observed in previous thinkers.
The fundamental doctrine of a true philosophy, according to M. Comte,
and the character by which he defines Positive Philosophy, is the
following:--We have no knowledge of anything but Phaenomena; and our
knowledge of phaenomena is relative, not absolute. We know not the
essence, nor the real mode of production, of any fact, but only its
relations to other facts in the way of succession or of similitude.
These relations are constant; that is, always the same in the same
circumstances.
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