His work _Matérialisme, Vitalisme, Rationalisme_ is a striking example of this effort on Cournot’s part, being devoted to a study of the use which can be made in philosophy of the data afforded by the sciences. Somewhat after the manner of Comte, Cournot looks upon the various sciences as a hierarchy ranging from mathematics to sociology. Yet he reminds the scientists of the insufficiency of their point of view, for the sciences, rightly pursued, lead on to philosophy. He laments, however, the confusion of the two, and thinks that such confusion is “partly due to the fact that in the realm of speculations which are naturally within the domain of the philosopher, there are to be found here and there certain theories which can actually be reduced to a scientific form”[17] He offers, as an instance of this, the theory of the syllogism, which has affinities to algebraical equations—but this interpenetration should not cause us, he argues, to abandon or to lose sight of the distinction between science and philosophy. [17] _Essai sur les Fondements de nos Connaissances_, vol. 2, p. 224. This distinction, according to Cournot, lies in the fact that science has for its object that which can be measured, and that which can be reduced to a rigorous chain or connection. In brief, science is characterised by quantity. Philosophy, on the other hand, concerns itself with quality, for it endeavours not so much to measure as to appreciate. Cournot reminds the apostles of science that quantity, however intimately bound up with reality it may be, is not the essence of that reality itself. He is afraid, too, that the neglect of philosophy by science may cause the latter to develop along purely utilitarian lines. As an investigation of reality, science is not ultimate. It has limits by the fact that it is concerned with measurement, and thus is excluded from those things which are qualitative and incapable of quantitative expression. Science, moreover, has its roots in philosophy by virtue of the metaphysical postulates which it utilises as its basis. Physics and geometry, Cournot maintains, both rest upon definitions which owe their origin to speculative thought rather than to experience, yet these sciences claim an absolute value for themselves and for those postulates as being descriptions of reality in an ultimate sense. Following out his distinction between philosophy and the sciences, Cournot claims in a Kantian manner that while the latter are products of the human understanding the former is due to the operation of reason. This apparent dualism Cournot does not shrink from maintaining; indeed, he makes it an argument for his doctrine of discontinuity. The development of a science involves a certain breach with reality, for the progress of the science involves abstraction, which ever becomes more complicated. Cournot here brings out the point which we noticed was stressed by Renan.[18] [18] See above, p. 105.