ABSTRACT
The conception was a great one; and the endeavour to work it out was worthy of sympathy and applause. Some such conception was entertained by Bacon. A thinker who re-organizes the scientific method and knowledge of his age, and whose re-organization is accepted by his successors, may rightly be said to have such successors for his disciples. M. Comte reprobates the interpretation of different classes of phenomena by assigning metaphysical entities as their causes. Long familiar even beyond the bounds of the scientific world, the proposition that there is an unchanging order in things, has, within the scientific world, held, for generations, the position of an established postulate: by some men of science recognized only as holding of inorganic phenomena; but recognized by other men of science, as universal. The presentation of antagonistic thoughts, often produces greater definiteness and development of one’s own thoughts.
