"Can we not make a way of escape ?" | Emily does not come to me? Where suggested Frank; cut through the is she?" fallen rock ?" "How ?" Frank could not tell. "At least," he continued, "we may hope that help will come ere it is too late. It is known there is a ball here to-night: the carriages will soon arrive." "But we shall be dead before another hour, Frank Graham," said a despairing voice. The last hour of life! How awful it looked to them all. How few had lived for that hour; how few had guessed that they should meet it among the gay festivities of the Cliff Ball. And now the fragments of rock came rushing down upon them, breaking the lustres, extinguishing the lights, threatening to add the horror of "thick darkness to their terror, bruising fair heads and delicate arms, and, at last, bringing death. A huge fragment fell upon Frank and Emily as they stood together in the dim light beside a gay pennant that he had hung there so joyously only thirty hours ago, and they never spoke again, only with trembling clasping arms they fell together to the earth, bruised, and bleeding, and insensible. A little group gathered around, trying to discern, by the faint glimmering ray of their only remaining candle, which of their number had fallen, and marked their young and gallant comrade, with the lifeless form of his beautiful betrothed held tightly in his grasp. In sympathy for these stricken ones, men learned forgetfulness of their own imminent peril "Poor things! poor things! and her father opposed the match, didn't he? Poor old man! he, too, will be utterly undone after this shock." "They have died, poor young creatures, as they would have wished to die; their souls, like pure white doves, shall flee away and be at rest." "By my faith," said an Irish officer, "I wish I was gone, too; for this suspense, with death at the end of it, is worse than death itself." Esther Graham had been lying in a stupor, succeeded by fits of hysterical fainting. They feared to tell her of her sister's doom, till she looked up and inquired piteously: "How is it Then they gently told her, and she shut her eyes and cried quietly but ceaselessly. Another roll, another crash, and they were buried indeed. Hours after, digging among the ruins, men found one man who had escaped the fate of his companions. Gradually he recovered from unconsciousness, and told his awful tale; and to this day, beside many hearths in old England is he welcomed for the strange and fearful story that he has to tell; but to none is he so welcome as to an old, lonely, whiteheaded man, who listens to the circumstances of his young daughter's death; and as he hears for the hundredth time how Frank and Emily fell together, he murmurs, "Righteous God, as I endeavored to divide the love of two pure innocent hearts in life, thou hast taught me that thy will decreed in death they should not be severed." Macmillan's Magazine. COMTE AND POSITIVISM.* BY W. WHEWELL, D.D., MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. "POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY "has been frequently spoken of and discussed of late years; and the manner in which it is treated, and the publications in which the discussion is carried on, imply that it is supposed to be a subject of popular interest. It may, therefore, I trust, Mr. Editor, be a subject not unsuited to the pages of your Magazine; and I am ready to offer my contribution to the discussion. With regard to M. Auguste Comte and his Philosophie Positive, I have many years ago expressed my opinion. I then spoke of him as a person whose want of knowledge and of temperate thought caused his opinions on the philosophy and history of science to be of no value. I have seen no reason to change this opinion: but eminent writers of our own country have given to him an amount of attention and admi * Auguste Comte and Positivism. By John Stuart Mill.-Fortnightly Review, January 1. Auguste Comte, by the Editor. ration which makes it very fit for me to reconsider this judgment. much harm in the old maxim that "Nature abhors a vacuum:" that it makes of Nature an active agent. Now this, I must profess, appears to me a kind of philosophical prudery. Why not state actual facts in familiar words, even if they be a little figurative? For is it not true that Nature, in this our terrestrial region, does abhor a vacuum? What would be gained to philosophy, if, instead of this simple rule, we were to be told that, "in a system of matter held together by attractive forces, there is a tendency to fill up all spaces empty of matter?" Is the abstract term Nature so very bewildering that we cannot for a moment recollect what it means? Have we such a horror of Nature's "horror," that we can be satisfied with any feeling whatever which may expel it? We have especially the great authority of Mr. J. S. Mill calling upon us to give again our attention to M. Comte and his philosophy. No authority of our own time can be greater than this. Beside Mr. Mill's profound philosophical thought and wide sphere of knowledge, the dignity of his position naturally makes us look where he points. His love of truth and fearlessness of consequences have given him an eminence which all must rejoice to see generally acknowledged. It is no small glory of our times, that one of our most popular constituencies has fully and practically adopted the great Platonic maxim that it will never go well with the world till our rulers are philosophers, or our philosophers rulers. This popular recognition of Mr. Mill as the representa- As I have said, I conceive that one tive of the philosophical element in man main feature in M. Comte's philosophy may very fitly lead to a popular dis- which recommends it to Mr. Mill is his cussion of those whom he declares Wor-horror of the word "metaphysical," and thies. To some of your readers, perhaps, that the Positive Philosophy is posiit may be known that I have always re- tive mainly in denying all but factsgarded Mr. Mill's opinions with respect, all abstractions, causes, theories, and the and considered them interesting and im-like. M. Comte holds (and apparently portant subjects of discussion, but that on many subjects I have held them to be erroneous, and have not scrupled to publish my reasons for thinking so. I must still keep the same attitude. I can in no degree share Mr. Mill's admiration for Auguste Comte, even though it is now limited in many points, and balanced by something very like contempt as to his more recent doctrines: and I am desirous of considering the matter a little further than I have yet done. it is held to be one of his great discoveries, as it certainly is a very prominent part of his system) that in every science there is a metaphysical stage, which precedes that positive stage which is the true form of science. Now this I conceive to be a radical mistake. There is no science in which this pretended succession of a metaphysical and a positive stage can be pointed out. There is no science in which the discovery of laws of phenomena, when once begun, has Perhaps I may be allowed to notice been carried on independently of dissome of the features which seem to me cussions concerning ideas, which must to be those which especially recommend be called metaphysical, if anything be so Auguste Comte's doctrines to Mr. Mill's called. There is no science in which the approval. Among them are, I conceive, expression of the laws of phenomena M. Comte's rejection of all abstract con- can at this time dispense with ideas which ceptions, causes, theories, and the like; have acquired their place in science in and his assertions that phenomena alone virtue of metaphysical considerations. are the proper subject of science. All There is no science in which the most beyond he stigmatizes as "metaphys- active disquisitions concerning ideas did ical," a term which he endeavors to not come after, not before, the first make an opprobrious one: a tendency discovery of laws of phenomena. This in which we must allow that he sympa- may be exemplified in all sciences which thizes with the English "general reader" have made any progress. Kepler's disand general talker. Mr. Mill shares in coveries would never have been made this dislike to abstract terms, and as- but for his metaphysical notions. And cribes to such terms a mischievous ten-again: those discoveries of the laws of dency. For example, he thinks there is phenomena did not lead immediately to Newton's theory, because a century of metaphysical discussion was requisite as a preparation. And, at this moment, those sciences which are most progress ive, and which have the fullest promise of progress, are in want of metaphysical clearness of ideas, no less than of additional facts. Who will help us to a true view, or even to a view tenable for a year, of the atomic constitution of bodies; explaining why it is that, with every scheme of atomic constitution, we are perpetually driven to the contradiction of half-atoms, and how this is to be avoided? Who will guide us over the geometrical contradictions which beset us when we would imagine the structure of crystals? Who can give us a notion, metaphysically tenable, of chemical composition? Are all chemical compounds binary? M. Comte thinks they are: a metaphysical doctrine surely, for he gives no physical reason for it. Nor indeed is it reconcilable with the simplest facts of the newer chemistry. Who will define for us vital power and forces, avoiding metaphysical notions? And of what use could his definition be if he did so? But we might go on through the whole range of science asking the like questions, and every science in turn would reveal to us how baseless is the notion that there is a good positive stage of science which succeeds a bad metaphysical stage. M. Comte's theoretical view of the progress of science includes a further assertion, which I mention because it has been much noticed, though to me it appears to be worthless, and, indeed, absolutely puerile. According to him, sciences go through three stages: they are, first, theological; secondly, metaphysical; thirdly, positive. Now, that in early times men believed the sun and the moon to be gods, or to be governed and guided by gods, is true; but this is not science, not even the beginning of science it is a state of thought which precedes science. But be it so. Let astronomy be first theological. But what other science has gone through this stage? Physics has not. As Adam Smith says, there was never a god of weight. Has chemistry? Curiously enough chemistry has had a mythological stage, but it was not its first stage. It was the stage through which it went in the ages of alchemy. When chemists described the substances and operations with which they dealt by the most curious and lively personifications, gold was the king of metals, silver, the queen: an object much aimed at was to obtain the regulus, the metallic young one, of the more imperfect metals. For this purpose there were magisteries, preparations which possessed power to change bodies, with many fancies of the same kind. In the same way astronomy had its mythological period in the age of astrology. But then-alas for the Comtian order of development of sciences!-this was long after there existed a positive science of astronomy among the Greeks, whose results are still part of our astronomical treasury. So that the . history of science refuses altogether to lend itself to the attempt to find a profound and general meaning in the faet that men began to talk about the sun and moon by calling them Apollo and Diana. Another feature of the positive philosophy is, that it denies (all its characteristics are negative, as I have said) modern theories, such as the undulatory theory in optics, and thus reduces science to its facts. Now to this there is an unanswerable reply. The facts cannot be expressed without the theory. It is a challenge which has been repeatedly addressed to the opponents of the undulatory theory, and never accepted, to express without the theory the facts of diffraction (the dark and bright lines. which border shadows when exactly cast). There is in this case, and in many others, no possibility of stating the facts without using the language of the theory; and therefore on this subject there can be no Positive Science in M. Comte's sense. But M. Comte was too ignorant of modern optics to know this. The language in which he speaks of modern optics (and of all modern sciences except astronomy) is that of a shallow pretender, using general phrases in the attempt to make his expressions seem to be knowledge. Thus he says that Fresnel applied the principle of interferences to the phenomena of colored rings, "on which the ingenious labors of Newton left much to desire;" as if Fresnel's labors on this subject had been the supplement of those of Newton! As I regard Comte as a notable example | have made great and improbable addiof the character generated in France by tions: I mean Political Economy. "Any the prominence given to the study of one," says Mr. Mill (p. 80), "any one mathematics in the last generation. He acquainted with the writings of political was in some degree a distinguished economists need only read his few pages scholar of the Polytechnic School, though of animadversions on these to learn how his attainments in this way have been extremely superficial M. Comte can much exaggerated; and his preten- sometimes be. He affirms that they sions to discoveries are, as Sir John have added nothing really new to the Herschel has shown, absurdly fallacious. original aperçus of Adam Smith; when But the mathematicians of that genera- every one who has used them knows that tion having, with great ingenuity and they have added so much as to have subtlety, completed the Newtonian the- changed the whole aspect of the sciory of gravitation, seemed to think it ence." I should rather say, instead of intolerable presumption in any one to reading a few pages of M. Comte to put forth a theory upon another subject, learn how extremely superficial he can which should rival that of gravitation be, the reader may read any page of his in its generality and the subtle mathe- speculations to see how extremely supermatical artifices which it involved. ficial he is. evidence of the prevalence of this tem- But I will say a few words on another per among the greatest French mathe- aspect of the Positive Philosophy, which maticians of that time, I may mention may have won it some favor from specuan anecdote which I had from Arago lators who, like Mr. Mill, are very sushimself. He and Fresnel pursued to-picious of ideas; it confines itself to the gether those experiments which estab-inquiry into phenomena, and rejects the lished the undulatory theory. At a inquiry into causes. Now that men certain period they came to the experiment in which it appeared that two rays polarized in the same plane interfere with each other: two rays polarized in planes perpendicular to each other do not interfere. Fresnel said to Arago, "Do you not see that this is simply the fact that light consists of transverse undulations ?" Arago, in relating this, said to me, "You will wonder how I could refuse to assent to this; for certainly the fact was so. But, in good truth, I dared not assent. I was in close relations with Laplace and the other leaders in mathematics, and they would not hear of undulations. So I held my tongue at that time." This "influence" of the opponents of the undulatory theory, I conceive, operated upon M. Comte also, and prevented him from learning the plainest facts in its history. I am not going to trace M. Comte's views of the other sciences. He is, I conceive, very superficial in all, and in some grossly erroneous. But, as an example, I may quote what Mr. Mill himself says of M. Comte's way of dealing with one of the most conspicuous of modern sciences: one, too, of which he was especially bound to acquaint himself with the history, inasmuch as to it, under the name of Sociology, he professes to need to be warned against making the inquiry into cause the first or the principal aim of scientific research, is true. But this is a truth which M. Comte was neither the first to propound, nor has propounded in a useful and intelligent manner. Those who have taught the opposite doctrine bear names so eminent, that men may well be warned against being swayed by them-names no less than Aristotle and Bacon: Aristotle, who says that to know truly is to know through the causes; Bacon, who seeks to discover the "natures" of things. In opposition to this, the study of really progressive science teaches us that the first step in a science is to discover the laws of phenomena; and that from these laws alone, ascending from one step of generality to another, we can hope to discover those very general laws which we call causes. But, when such general laws offer themselves, why should we not call them causes, when all the world calls them so? Take one of the most striking and progressive sciences of modern times-geology. It begins with observing and classifying the strata of the earth; but it aspires to discover the causes by which they came to be what they are, and where they are; whether, in each case, water or fire was the chief agent; whether the causes acted continu- | it a false, an unreal principle that thus ously or in paroxysms. These are in- led them to some of the most important quiries which to this day engage the scientific truths which we possess? Are attention and animate the labors of the the vestal virgins barren by nature, or eminent men all over the world who only to place their Divine authority above cultivate geology. Are they to desist suspicion? They have had offspring; from these labors because M. Comte great and glorious offspring. Still, assures them that the inquiry into causes it is in the highest degree important is hopeless and unphilosophical? Or is that no one should rashly ascribe to M. Comte to legislate for the sciences, them children. No one should claim according to whom there can be no such their parentage for the children of his science as geology? own brain. Let the wise man's voice be obeyed. Let them not lightly venture from their temple; but while they continue their praises in the language which they have learned through all ages, from Socrates to Owen, let it not be supposed that their words are unmeaning because a few nonsensical phrases have been interpolated by men more pious than wise.* As I have said, the main character of the Positive Philosophy consists in its negations; and there appears to prevail in some quarters a disposition to regard those as the most "advanced" philosophers who deny the largest portion of the truths which have been commonly accepted and established. As an example of this: besides the denial of causes, in the more general sense, as a fit object of scientific inquiry, there has been of late extensively prevalent a disposition to deny final causes, or the evidence of the adaptation of means to an end in the structure of animals. This evidence, which the sagacity of Socrates first distinctly fastened upon, and which has had a charm ever since, alike for the most popular and for the most philosophical thinkers, has of late been spoken disparagingly of, because structures which had been regarded as evidences of design have been by recent physiologists referred to a principle of morphology, according to which all animal structures are merely modifications of a general plan. And Bacon's maxim has been often quoted, that final causes are like Vestal Virgins, dedicated to God, and necessarily barren. That in Bacon's time the reasoning from final causes had been pushed too far may easily be shown. But it is certain that, with regard to the structure of animals, the most eminent physiologists in all ages have declared that at every step they did discover evidences of design, and that by holding to that principle, they made their discoveries. To take eminent instances: we know that this was the case with Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood. We know that this was the case with Cuvier's restoration of extinct animals from the evidence of their osseous remains. These authors tell us that it was so. Were they mistaken? Was I have said that the structures formerly ascribed to design have been recently supposed to be accounted for by morphology. I confess I have been astonished at the extent to which this elevation of morphology above teleology has been carried. The wing of a sparrow and the arm of a man consist of like bones, corresponding bone by bone : that is morphology. The wing is made for flying, the arm for holding and striking: that is teleology. How does the one principle exclude the other? It is said that the structure most useful to the animal is elaborated by minute changes in countless generations and so, all organs were not made for a purpose, but grew and made themselves. The eye was not made for seeing, the ear for hearing. Such an announcement, it is no exaggeration to say, takes away the breath of Philosophy; at least for a moment. But let it be for a moment only. Let Philosophy try to recover her self-possession. She then asks, What is the alternative supposition? The eye was not made for seeing. So be it, if it must be so. But how did it grow then? Acland's recently published Harveian Oration. *I refer the reader with much pleasure to Dr. He there discusses the question of Final Causes, illustrating his reasons by the example of Harvey, and the remarks of many philosophers. He has that the eye was made for seeing, by pointing out even the patience to argue with those who deny the manner in which its optical adjustments reject the doctrine of its being self-formed. |