and historical expositions of his first treatise. His object is to
systematize (again to systematize) knowledge from the human or
subjective point of view, the only one, he contends, from which a real
synthesis is possible. For (he says) the knowledge attainable by us of
the laws of the universe is at best fragmentary, and incapable of
reduction to a real unity. An objective synthesis, the dream of
Descartes and the best thinkers of old, is impossible. The laws of the
real world are too numerous, and the manner of their working into one
another too intricate, to be, as a general rule, correctly traced and
represented by our reason. The only connecting principle in our
knowledge is its relation to our wants, and it is upon that we must
found our systematization. The answer to this is, first, that there is
no necessity for an universal synthesis; and secondly, that the same
arguments may be used against the possibility of a complete subjective,
as of a complete objective systematization. A subjective synthesis must
consist in the arrangement and co-ordination of all useful knowledge, on
the basis of its relation to human wants and interests. But those wants
and interests are, like the laws of the universe, extremely
multifarious, and the order of preference among them in all their
different gradations (for it varies according to the degree of each)
cannot be cast into precise general propositions. M. Comte's subjective
synthesis consists only in eliminating from the sciences everything that
he deems useless, and presenting as far as possible every theoretical
investigation as the solution of a practical problem. To this, however,
he cannot consistently adhere; for, in every science, the theoretic
truths are much more closely connected with one another than with the
human purposes which they eventually serve, and can only be made to
cohere in the intellect by being, to a great degree, presented as if
they were truths of pure reason, irrespective of any practical
application.