[9] Those who wish to see this idea followed out, are referred to "A
System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive." It is not irrelevant to
state that M. Comte, soon after the publication of that work, expressed,
both in a letter (published in M. Littre's volume) and in print, his
high approval of it (especially of the Inductive part) as a real
contribution to the construction of the Positive Method. But we cannot
discover that he was indebted to it for a single idea, or that it
influenced, in the smallest particular, the course of his subsequent
speculations.
[10] The force, however, of this last consideration has been much
weakened by the progress of discovery since M. Comte left off studying
chemistry; it being now probable that most if not all substances, even
elementary, are susceptible of _allotropic_ forms; as in the case of
oxygen and ozone, the two forms of phosphorus, &c.
[11] Thus; by considering prussic acid as a compound of hydrogen and
cyanogen rather than of hydrogen and the elements of cyanogen (carbon
and nitrogen), it is assimilated to a whole class of acid compounds
between hydrogen and other substances, and a reason is thus found for
its agreeing in their acid properties.
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