ce of the phenomena. Thus, as has
been said, it represents both the objective dependence of the phenomena
and the subjective dependence of our means of knowing them. The more
particular and complex phenomena depend upon the simpler and more
general. The latter are the more easy to study. Therefore science will
begin with those attributes of objects which are most general, and pass
on gradually to other attributes that are combined in greater
complexity. Thus, too, each science rests on the truths of the sciences
that precede it, while it adds to them the truths by which it is itself
constituted. Comte's series or hierarchy is arranged as follows:--(1)
Mathematics (that is, number, geometry, and mechanics), (2) Astronomy,
(3) Physics, (4) Chemistry, (5) Biology, (6) Sociology. Each of the
members of this series is one degree more special than the member before
it, and depends upon the facts of all the members preceding it, and
cannot be fully understood without them. It follows that the crowning
science of the hierarchy, dealing with the phenomena of human society,
will remain longest under the influence of theological dogmas and
abstract figments, and will be the last to pass into the positive stage.
You cannot discover the relations of the facts of human society without
reference to the conditions of animal life; you cannot understand the
conditions of animal life without the laws of chemistry; and so with the
rest.

The double key of positive philosophy.

This arrangement of the sciences, and the Law of the Three States, are
together explanatory of the course of human thought and knowledge. They
are thus the double key of Comte's systematization of the philosophy of
all the sciences from mathematics to physiology, and his analysis of
social evolution, which is the base of sociology. Each science
contributes its philosophy. The co-ordination of all these partial
philosophies produces the general Positive Philosophy. "Thousands had
cultivated science, and with splendid success; not one had conceived the
philosophy which the sciences when organized would naturally evolve. A
few had seen the necessity of extending the scientific method to all
inquiries, but no one had seen how this was to be effected.... The
Positive Philosophy is novel as a philosophy, not as a collection of
truths never before suspected. Its novelty is the organization of
existing elements. Its very principle implies the absorption of all that
gre