sufficient provision was made in Biology (especially in the cerebral theory), and in the moral analyses necessarily introduced in Sociology. One reason for this addition is given in the Positivist Catechism; and it is conclusive from the objective point of view. This reason is the necessity, in the interest of theoretic completeness, of having regard to the cerebral reactions of the vegetative viscera, which are not considered in the general theory of life, and which, since, by the diversities of individual temperament, their effects are neutralized when society is viewed as a whole, form no part of the proper subject-matter of Sociology.

But there is another way of looking at the whole system of the sciences. The individual may set out from the standpoint of Practical Morals. Conscious of the conflicting tendencies of his being, and tired of the irresolution and inefficiency (not to speak of worse consequences) arising from this internal dissonance, he may propose to himself the question of self-discipline-how the heart, and through it, the conduct is to be regulated; how man can attain the harmony of feeling and the unity of aim which constitute the health of the spiritual nature. He will easily discover that not within himself is the solution of this question to be found, the random and undisciplined play of various and even opposite affective impulses which there exists. being the very evil from which he seeks deliverance. His salvation must be in voluntary subordination to

something outside and above himself, which, when theological fictions have lost their hold on him, must be the collective existence which rules his life. Thus he will be led to recognise the necessity of studying Humanity-of learning the nature of the social medium in which he is plunged, and which incessantly modifies him-in other words, he will see that Sociology must precede Morals in the scientific hierarchy. But Sociology will plainly require a previous knowledge of the general laws of life, which condition and dominate Society. Vital science leads us back to Cosmology, the outer world being the scene of the phenomena of life, and material laws influencing organic acts and structures. First, Chemistry, and then Terrestrial Physics are thus introduced into the scale; and these must have for their basis Celestial Physics or Astronomy, which, again, pre-supposes Mathematics as teaching the general laws of universal existence -those, namely, of motion, extension, and number. This completes the scientific system; and thus is reproduced, from the Subjective and synthetic point of view, the same construction which the Objective method had previously created by dispersive and analytic efforts. But, in the second method, we reverse the process first pursued, and pass through the several steps of the scale, not in the ascending, but in the descending order; the members of the series taking the same respective places as before, but not on the ground of their increasing

complexity, but on that of the increasing closeness of their relation to Humanity.

And, from this standpoint, looking back on the history of Science, we see that all the great theoretic minds, from Thales and Pythagoras to Bichat and Gall, were occupied, not perhaps always consciously, in preparing the materials necessary for the ultimate systematisation which was to be the guide of practical life. The result of their labours was the formation of a body of positive conceptions relating to the outward world and to social and individual man, which, when completed and properly co-ordinated, were to compose the dogma of the final Religion, and on the basis of which its discipline was to be constructed.

We may justly say that there is, in reality, but one science-Morals, or the Science of Man, which implies and potentially comprises all those below it in the hierarchy, since they deal with actual elements or conditions combined in Man, whose nature contains in itself all inferior forms of being, whence some of the ancients called him a microcosm. If, notwithstanding the legitimacy of such a conception, we maintain the multiplicity of steps in the series, it is because the lower orders of phenomena cannot be directly studied in man; logical necessities compel us to examine them in the simplest cases of their manifestation. And, ascending, one by one, the successive grades of the scale, we are thus at last brought back to Morals as the crown of the edifice, where, the

abstract and the concrete at last coinciding, man is considered in his indivisible existence, all the preceding sciences contributing their methods and their conclusions to this highest department of research with a view to the practical end of the adaptation of the individual to the service of the Great Being.

Besides the methods best exemplified in the several simpler sciences-Deduction in Mathematics, Observation in Astronomy, Experiment in Physics, Nomenclature in Chemistry, Comparison in Biology, and Historic Filiation in Sociology, Morals has a method peculiarly appropriate to itself, namely,/the Subjective, which proceeds not from the world to man, but from man to the world. It presides over construction, as distinct from deduction and induction; and we have given an example of it in its mode of constructing the Encyclopedic hierarchy. We cannot admit the claim of Intellect divorced from Feeling, to the supreme control of our systematic thought. When, having traversed the inorganic and vital provinces, we come to the directly human domain, the social point of view becomes paramount; and it is seen that intellect must take for its function the enlightenment and service of the social sympathies, abandoning its tendency to speculative digressions which have no relation to the welfare of Humanity. It is the work of the Subjective Method, which succeeds to the Objective without superseding it, to direct the action of the latter, to supply the light in which the whole system of laws, and each order of them,

is to be regarded; to set aside inaccessible or idle inquiries; to propose the questions requiring solution in the human interest, and to suggest the lines of that solution; and, where ascertained laws leave open a selection, to satisfy our æsthetic impulses by framing the best mode of representing phenomena-the best, that is, in relation to the improvement of our nature, as tending to the development of synthesis and sympathy. It has to keep in view what might otherwise be overlooked, and is habitually overlooked in the pursuit of the dispersive specialities of Knowledge (whether science or erudition)-namely, the final religious purpose of all research as well as of all activity. Theology once inspired this conviction, and cultivated the corresponding mental habits; but its action was vitiated by the search after chimerical causes. The Subjective method, the only one it used, could not arrive at solid results till it had been preceded by the entire development of the Objective, which was directed to the normal aim of the discovery of laws, but tended to subordinate unduly the spirit of generality to the spirit of detail. But, having now, from absolute and personal, become relative and social, it must again, in this amended shape, exercise the regulating and coordinating office which rightly belongs to it, and present Science as an indivisible whole, disciplined and unified by social sentiment. //