Though the Kantian doctrine soon gave place in Germany to deeper insights, it found its way slowly to other countries. Comte and Sir Wm. Hamilton have made the negative results very widely known—the former, in natural science; the latter, in literature and philosophy. Most of the writers named at the beginning are more or less imbued with Comte’s doctrines, while a few follow Hamilton. For rhetorical purposes, the Hamiltonian statement is far superior to all others; for practical purposes, the Comtian. The physicist wishing to give his undivided attention to empirical observation, desires an excuse for neglecting pure thinking; he therefore refers to the well-known result of philosophy, that we cannot know anything of ultimate causes—we are limited to phenomena and laws. Although it must be conceded that this consolation is somewhat similar to that of the ostrich, who cunningly conceals his head in the sand when annoyed by the hunters, yet great benefit has thereby accrued to science through the undivided zeal of the investigators thus consoled. When, however, a sufficiently large collection has been made, and the laws are sought for in the chaotic mass of observations, then _thought_ must be had. Thought is the only crucible capable of dissolving “the many into the one.” Tycho Brahe served a good purpose in collecting observations, but a Kepler was required to discern the celestial harmony involved therein. This discovery of laws and relations, or of relative unities, proceeds to the final stage of science, which is that of the _absolute comprehension_. Thus modern science, commencing with the close of the metaphysical epoch, has three stages or phases: I. The first rests on mere isolated facts of experience; accepts the first phase of things, or that which comes directly before it, and hence may be termed the stage of _immediateness_. II. The second relates its thoughts to one another and compares them; it developes inequalities; tests one through another, and discovers dependencies everywhere; since it learns that the first phase of objects is phenomenal, and depends upon somewhat lying beyond it; since it denies truth to the immediate, it may be termed the stage of _mediation_. III. A final stage which considers a phenomenon in its totality, and thus seizes it in its _noumenon_, and is the stage of the _comprehension_. To resume: the _first_ is that of sensuous knowing; the _second_, that of reflection (the understanding); the _third_, that of the reason (or the speculative stage). In the sensuous knowing, we have crude, undigested masses all co-ordinated; each is in and for itself, and perfectly valid without the others. But as soon as reflection enters, dissolution is at work. Each is thought in sharp contrast with the rest; contradictions arise on every hand. The third stage finds its way out of these quarrelsome abstractions, and arrives at a synthetic unity, at a system, wherein the antagonisms are seen to form an organism.