association of ideas, they are reminded of M. Comte wherever they meet with thinking which corresponds, in some marked way, to M. Comte’s description of scientific thinking; and hence are apt to imagine him as introducing into other minds, the {120} conceptions which he introduced into their minds. Such impressions are, however, in most cases quite unwarranted. That M. Comte has given a general exposition of the doctrine and method elaborated by Science, is true. But it is not true that the holders of this doctrine and followers of this method, are disciples of M. Comte. Neither their modes of inquiry nor their views concerning human knowledge in its nature and limits, are appreciably different from what they were before. If they are “positivists,” it is in the sense that all men of science have been more or less consistently “positivists;” and the applicability of M. Comte’s title to them, no more makes them his disciples, than does its applicability to men of science who lived and died before M. Comte wrote, make these his disciples. M. Comte himself by no means claims that which some of his adherents are apt, by implication, to claim for him. He says:—“Il y a, sans doute, beaucoup d’analogie entre ma _philosophie positive_ et ce que les savans anglais entendent, depuis Newton surtout, par _philosophie naturelle_;” (see _Avertissement_) and further on he indicates the “grand mouvement imprimé à l’esprit humain, il y a deux siècles, par l’action combinée des préceptes de Bacon, des conceptions de Descartes, et des découvertes de Galilée, comme le moment où l’esprit de la philosophie positive a commencé à se prononcer dans le monde.” That is to say, the general mode of thought and way of interpreting phenomena, which M. Comte calls “Positive Philosophy,” he recognizes as having been growing for two centuries; as having reached, when he wrote, a marked development; and as being the heritage of all men of science.