Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of DiscussionsSpencer, Herbert
Philosophy
Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of Discussions
Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy; Political science; Science
SIR:--While recognizing the appreciative tone and general candour of
the article in your last number, entitled "Herbert Spencer on Ultimate
Religious Ideas," allow me to point out one error which pervades it.
The writer correctly represents the leading positions of my argument,
but he inadvertently conveys a wrong impression respecting my
tendencies and sympathies. He says of me, "the spirit of his philosophy
is evidently that of the so-called positive method which has now many
partial disciples, as well as many zealous adherents among the thinkers
of England." Further on I am tacitly classed with "the English admirers
and disciples of the great Positivist;" and it is presently added that
"in Mr. Spencer we have an example of a positivist, who does not treat
the subject of religion with supercilious neglect." Here and
throughout, the implication is that I am a follower of Comte. This is a
mistake. That M. Comte has given a general exposition of the doctrine
and method elaborated by science, and has applied to it a name which
has obtained a certain currency, 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 the men of science who lived
and died before M. Comte wrote, make them his disciples.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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