How the positive method of observation and verification of real facts has landed us in this, and much else of the same kind, is extremely hard to guess. Seriously to examine an encyclopædic system, that touches life, society, and knowledge at every point, is evidently beyond the compass of such an article as this. There is in every chapter a whole group of speculative suggestions, each of which would need a long chapter to itself to elaborate or to discuss. There is at least one biological speculation of astounding audacity that could be examined in nothing less than a treatise. Perhaps we have said enough to show that after performing a great and real service to thought, Comte almost sacrificed his claims to gratitude by the invention of a system that, as such, and independently of detached suggestions, is markedly retrograde. But the world has strong self-protecting qualities. It will take what is available in Comte, while forgetting that in his work which is as irrational in one way as Hegel is in another. THE END. _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: The transcriber made the following changes to the text to correct obvious errors: 1. p. 347, "delighful" changed to "delightful" 2. p. 382, "'Superior in power of ..." no ending single quote End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3), by John Morley