M. Comte has accomplished
this for the first five of the fundamental sciences, with a success
which can hardly be too much admired. We never reopen even the least
admirable part of this survey, the volume on chemistry and biology
(which was behind the actual state of those sciences when first written,
and is far in the rear of them now), without a renewed sense of the
great reach of its speculations, and a conviction that the way to a
complete rationalizing of those sciences, still very imperfectly
conceived by most who cultivate them, has been shown nowhere so
successfully as there.
Yet, for a correct appreciation of this great philosophical achievement,
we ought to take account of what has not been accomplished, as well as
of what has. Some of the chief deficiencies and infirmities of M.
Comte's system of thought will be found, as is usually the case, in
close connexion with its greatest successes.
The philosophy of Science consists of two principal parts; the methods
of investigation, and the requisites of proof. The one points out the
roads by which the human intellect arrives at conclusions, the other the
mode of testing their evidence.
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