When the human mind wishes to direct its own phenomena, it instinctively seeks, in the general system of intelligible facts which constitutes the world, a group of well combined data, in order to refer its own less stable phenomena to it. We have already seen an example of this kind in the formation of language. Man “consolidates” his thought by coordinating it with a combination of signs which themselves are movements, and, as such, are subject to the general laws of the universe. In ethics we find something analogous. The main artifice in moral perfection, writes Comte, lies in diminishing the inconsistency, indecision and divergency in our purposes, by connecting our moral and practical intellectual habits with external motives. The mutual links between our various tendencies are incapable of securing their stability, until they have found an immovable fulcrum outside themselves. To endure, the harmony of the soul must be realised by itself as founded on reason, that is to say, upon the order of the world. IV. What place must we assign to this positive ethics, in the usual classification of ethical doctrines? It is often considered as a theory of the moral sentiment. And, as a matter of fact, Comte himself characterises his ethics by “the direct preponderance of the social feeling.” In its origin also it belongs to this group. Comte makes use of Adam Smith and of Hume, when he affirms the existence of inborn altruistic tendencies within the soul. He indicates these tendencies, in his _Cerebral Table_, under the general name of “sympathy,” which comes from the Scottish school. Establish these altruistic feelings, he says, and morality is given, take them away, and morality disappears. But these philosophers did not push analysis any further. They neglected to inquire how morality is developed in fact, although the altruistic tendencies are less powerful than the others. Comte reproaches the ethics of the Scottish school with its superficial character and its lack of systematic strictness. He praises their psychology which is less incomplete than that of their contemporaries; he is not satisfied with their theory of human activity. If the existence of sympathetic inclinations is a fact, their evolution must none the less be explained. The latter only becomes intelligible through the continued action of the objective order upon the soul of man, an action which becomes all the more decisive as man becomes more conscious of it, by the discovery of the laws of nature.