minds that he considered his own to bear the nearest resemblance. Though
we have not so lofty an opinion of any of the three as M. Comte had, we
think the assimilation just: thes were, of all recorded thinkers, the
two who bore most resemblance to M. Comte. They were like him in
earnestness, like him, though scarcely equal to him, in confidence in
themselves; they had the same extraordinary power of concatenation and
co-ordination; they enriched human knowledge with great truths and great
conceptions of method; they were, of all great scientific thinkers, the
most consistent, and for that reason often the most absurd, because they
shrank from no consequences, however contrary to common sense, to which
their premises appeared to lead. Accordingly their names have come down
to us associated with grand thoughts, with most important discoveries,
and also with some of the most extravagantly wild and ludicrously absurd
conceptions and theories which ever were solemnly propounded by
thoughtful men. "We think M. Comte as great as either of these
philosophers, and hardly more extravagant. Were we to speak our whole
mind, we should call him superior to them: though not intrinsically, yet
by the exertion of equal intellectual power in a more advanced state of
human preparation; but also in an age less tolerant of palpable
absurdities, and to which those he has committed, if not in themselves
greater, at least appear more ridiculous.


THE END.



FOOTNOTES:

[1] See the Chapter on Efficient Causes in Reid's "Essays on the Active