complicated, the most concrete, the most directly interesting
to man; they depend more or less on all the preceding
phenomena, without exercising on them any influence. Between
these two extremes, the degrees of speciality, of complication
and personality, of phenomena, gradually increase, as well as
their successive dependence."--Vol. I. p. 96.

The principle of classification is excellent, but is there no rank dropt
out of this _hierarchy_? The metaphysicians, or psychologists, who are
wont to consider themselves as standing at the very summit--where are
they? They are dismissed from their labours--their place is occupied by
others--and what was considered as having substance and reality in their
proceedings, is transferred to the head of physiology. The phrenologist
is admitted into the hierarchy of science as an honest, though hitherto
an unpractised, and not very successful labourer; the metaphysician,
with his class of internal observations, is entirely scouted. M. Comte
considers the _mind_ as one of those abstract entities which it is the
first business of the positive philosophy to discard. He speaks of man,
of his organization, of his thought, but not, scientifically, of his
_mind_. This entity, this occult cause, belongs to the _metaphysic_
stage of theorizing. "There is no place," he cries, "for this illusory
psychology, the last transformation of theology!"--though, by the way,
so far as a belief in this abstract entity of mind is concerned, the
_metaphysic_ condition of our knowledge appears to be quite as old,
quite as primitive, as any conception whatever of theology. Now, whether
M. Comte be right in this preference of the phrenologist, we will not
stay to discuss--it were too wide a question; but thus much we can
briefly and indisputably show, that he utterly misconceives, as well as
underrates, the _kind of research_ to which psychologists are addicted.
As M. Comte's style is here unusually vivacious, we will quote the whole