sentences three of its groups, symmetrically placed; the last section
gives seven sentences to each of its extreme groups. These rules of
composition make prose approach to the regularity of poetry, when
combined with my previous reduction of the maximum length of a sentence
to two manuscript or five printed lines, that is, 250 letters."
"Normally constructed, great poems consist of thirteen cantos,
decomposed into parts, sections, and groups like my chapters, saving the
complete equality of the groups and of the sections." "This difference
of structure between volumes of poetry and of philosophy is more
apparent than real, for the introduction and the conclusion of a poem
should comprehend six of its thirteen cantos," leaving, therefore, the
cabalistic numeber seven for the body of the poem. And all this
regulation not being sufficiently meaningless, fantastic, and
oppressive, he invents an elaborate system for compelling each of his
sections and groups to begin with a letter of the alphabet, determined
beforehand, the letters being selected so as to compose words having
"a synthetic or sympathetic signification," and as close a relation as
possible to the section or part to which they are appropriated.

Others may laugh, but we could far rather weep at this melancholy
decadence of a great intellect. M. Comte used to reproach his early
English admirers with maintaining the "conspiracy of silence" concerning
his later performances. The reader can now judge whether such reticence
is not more than sufficiently explained by tenderness for his fame, and
a conscientious fear of bringing undeserved discredit on the noble
speculations of his early career.

M. Comte was accustomed to consider Descartes and Leibnitz as his
principal precursors, and the only great philosophers (among many
thinkers of high philosophic capacity) in modern times. It was to their