Reason produces in us the idea of order, and this “idea of order and of reason in things is the basis of philosophic probability, of induction and analogy.”[19] This has important bearings upon the unity of science and upon the conception of causality which it upholds. In a careful examination of the problems of induction and analogy, Cournot emphasises the truth that there are facts which cannot be fitted into a measured or logical sequence of events. Reality cannot be fitted into a formula or into concepts, for these fail to express the infinite variety and richness of the reality which displays itself to us. Science can never be adequate to life, with its pulsing spontaneity and freedom. It is philosophy with its _vue d’ensemble_ which tries to grasp and to express this concreteness, which the sciences, bound to their systematic connection of events within separate compartments, fail to reach or to show us. Referring to the ideas of beauty and of goodness, Cournot urges a “transrationalism,” as he calls it, which, while loyal to the rational requirements of science, will enable us to take the wider outlook assumed by philosophy.[20] [19] _Essai sur les Fondements de nos Connaissances_, p. 384. [20] The parallelism of some of Cournot’s ideas here with those expressed by Bergson, although they have been enunciated by the later thinker in a more decided manner, is so obvious as hardly to need to be indicated. Like Cournot, the author of the _Essais de Critique générale_ was a keen antagonist of all those who sought to deify Science. It was indeed this which led Renouvier to give this title to his great work, the first part of which was published at a time when the confidence in Science appeared to be comparatively unassailed. We find him defending philosophy as against the scientists and others by an insistence upon its critical function. In examining Comte’s positivism in his work _Histoire et Solution des Problèmes métaphysiques_, Renouvier points out that its initial idea is a false one—namely, that philosophy can be constituted by an assembling together of the sciences.[21] Such an assembly does not, he objects, make a system. Each science has its own postulates, its own data, and Science as a whole unity of thought or knowledge does not exist. He attacks at the same time the calm presumption of the positivist who maintains that the scientific stage is the final and highest development. Renouvier is considerably annoyed at this unwarranted dogmatism and assumed air of finality. [21] Book X.: _De l’Etat actuel de la Philosophie en France_, chap. 1., _De l’Aboutissement des Esprits au Positivisme_, pp. 416-417.