This simple fact destroys the whole of M. Comte's argument.
Whatever we are directly aware of, we can directly observe.
And what Organon for the study of "the moral and intellectual functions"
does M. Comte offer, in lieu of the direct mental observation which he
repudiates? We are almost ashamed to say, that it is Phrenology! Not,
indeed, he says, as a science formed, but as one still to be created;
for he rejects almost all the special organs imagined by phrenologists,
and accepts only their general division of the brain into the three
regions of the propensities, the sentiments, and the intellect,[13] and
the subdivision of the latter region between the organs of meditation
and those of observation. Yet this mere first outline of an
apportionment of the mental functions among different organs, he regards
as extricating the mental study of man from the metaphysical stage, and
elevating it to the positive. The condition of mental science would be
sad indeed if this were its best chance of being positive; for the later
course of physiological observation and speculation has not tended to
confirm, but to discredit, the phrenological hypothesis.
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