te, concedes a certain
force to Mr. Spencer's objections, and makes certain secondary
modifications in the hierarchy in consequence, while still cherishing
his faith in the Comtist theory of the sciences. Mr. Mill, while
admitting the objections as good, if Comte's arrangement pretended to
be the only one possible, still holds that arrangement as tenable for
the purpose with which it was devised. Mr. Lewes asserts against Mr.
Spencer that the arrangement in a series is necessary, on grounds
similar to those which require that the various truths constituting a
science should be systematically co-ordinated, although in nature the
phenomena are intermingled.

The first three volumes of the _Positive Philosophy_ contain an
exposition of the partial philosophies of the five sciences that
precede sociology in the hierarchy. Their value has usually been
placed very low by the special followers of the sciences concerned;
they say that the knowledge is second-hand, is not coherent, and is
too confidently taken for final. The Comtist replies that the task is
philosophic, and is not to be judged by the minute accuracies of
science. In these three volumes Comte took the sciences roughly as he
found them. His eminence as a man of science must be measured by his
only original work in that department,--the construction, namely, of
the new science of society. This work is accomplished in the last
three volumes of the _Positive Philosophy_ and the second and third
volumes of the _Positive Polity_. The Comtist maintains that even if
these five volumes together fail in laying down correctly and finally
the lines of the new science, still they are the first solution of a
great problem hitherto unattempted. 'Modern biology has got beyond
Aristotle's conception; but in the construction of the biological
science, not even the most unphilosophical biologist would fail to
recognise the value of Aristotle's attempt. So for sociology.
Subsequent sociologists may have conceivably to remodel the whole
science, yet not the less will they recognise the merit of the first
work which has facilitated their labours' (_Congreve_).

We shall now briefly describe Comte's principal conceptions in
sociology, his position in respect to which is held by himself, and by
others, to raise him to the level of Descartes or Leibnitz. Of course
the first step was to approach the phenomena of human character and
social existence with the expectation of finding them a