Even Kepler was full of fancies of
this description, which only terminated when Newton, by unveiling the
real physical laws of the celestial motions, closed the metaphysical
period of astronomical science. As M. Comte remarks, our power of
foreseeing phaenomena, and our power of controlling them, are the two
things which destroy the belief of their being governed by changeable
wills. In the case of phaenomena which science has not yet taught us
either to foresee or to control, the theological mode of thought has not
ceased to operate: men still pray for rain, or for success in war, or to
avert a shipwreck or a pestilence, but not to put back the stars in
their courses, to abridge the time necessary for a journey, or to arrest
the tides. Such vestiges of the primitive mode of thought linger in the
more intricate departments of sciences which have attained a high degree
of positive development. The metaphysical mode of explanation, being
less antagonistic than the theological to the idea of invariable laws,
is still slower in being entirely discarded. M. Comte finds remains of
it in the sciences which are the most completely positive, with the
single exception of astronomy, mathematics itself not being, he thinks,
altogether free from them: which is not wonderful, when we see at how
very recent a date mathematicians have been able to give the really
positive interpretation of their own symbols.
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