as is commonly known, within the range of Mathematics, Astronomy, and
Physics. These are in strictness the only _Sciences_ which we possess;
and the only domains in which _knowledge_, in the proper sense of the
term, is attainable. In passing their boundaries, we leave the regions
of positive _certitude_, and come into the domain where Conjecture,
varying from the strongest presumption to mere plausibility, is the
highest proof. Laws or Principles are yet undiscovered there, and in
their place we find Generalizations--Suppositive or Proximate
Laws--which are in process of proof, or already established by such
evidence as the Inductive Method can array, and which carry the
conviction of their correctness with varying degrees of force, to larger
or smaller classes of investigators.

These three branches of knowledge are unquestionably entitled to the
designation of _Positive_ Sciences; and to no others can it with justice
be accorded. To apply the name of _Science_ to domains in which real
knowledge is not attainable, is, in some sense, an abuse of terms. To
denominate _Positive Sciences_, domains which are not strictly
Scientific, and in which _positive_ certainty, in reference to
Principles and ulterior Facts, cannot be attained, is still more
incongruous. Comte's arrangement of the schedule of the Positive
Sciences, in which domains where Demonstrable knowledge prevails are
placed upon a common basis with those in which it does not, was probably
owing to the want of a clear perception on his part of the essential
difference of the nature of proof by the true Deductive Method and of
proof by the Inductive Method, of the _actual_ Certainty of the one and
the merely _proximate_ Certainty of the other.

If such were the case, his want of discrimination was rather due to an
overestimate of Inductive proof than to an undervaluation of