He gives no place in his series of the science of
Psychology, and always speaks of it with contempt. The study of mental
phaenomena, or, as he expresses it, of moral and intellectual functions,
has a place in his scheme, under the head of Biology, but only as a
branch of physiology. Our knowledge of the human mind must, he thinks,
be acquired by observing other people. How we are to observe other
people's mental operations, or how interpret the signs of them without
having learnt what the signs mean by knowledge of ourselves, he does not
state. But it is clear to him that we can learn very little about the
feelings, and nothing at all about the intellect, by self-observation.
Our intelligence can observe all other things, but not itself: we cannot
observe ourselves observing, or observe ourselves reasoning: and if we
could, attention to this reflex operation would annihilate its object,
by stopping the process observed.
There is little need for an elaborate refutation of a fallacy respecting
which the only wonder is that it should impose on any one. Two answers
may be given to it. In the first place, M. Comte might be referred to
experience, and to the writings of his countryman M.
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