[56] "In the third place, we have to review the method of Comparison,
which is so specially adapted to the study of living bodies, and by
which, above all others, that study must be advanced. In Astronomy, this
method is necessarily inapplicable; and it is not till we arrive at
Chemistry that this third means of investigation can be used, and then
only in subordination to the two others. It is in the study, both
statical and dynamical, of living bodies that it first acquires its full
development; and its use elsewhere can be only through its application
here."--_Comte's Positive Philosophy_, translated by Miss Martineau.
Vol. i. p. 372.
By what method does M. Comte suppose that the equality or inequality of
forces and quantities and the dissimilarity or similarity of
forms--points of some slight importance not only in Astronomy and
Physics, but even in Mathematics,--are ascertained, if not by
Comparison?
[57] "Proceeding to the second class of means,--Experiment cannot but be
less and less decisive, in proportion to the complexity of the phænomena
to be explored; and therefore we saw this resource to be less effectual
in chemistry than in physics: and we now find that it is eminently
useful in chemistry in comparison with physiology. _In fact, the nature
of the phænomena seems to offer almost insurmountable impediments to any
extensive and prolific application of such a procedure in
biology._"--COMTE, vol. i. p. 367.
M. Comte, as his manner is, contradicts himself two pages further on,
but that will hardly relieve him from the responsibility of such a
paragraph as the above.
[58] Nouvelle Fonction du Foie considéré comme organe producteur de
matière sucrée chez l'Homme et les Animaux, par M. Claude Bernard.
[59] "_Natural Groups given by Type, not by Definition...._ The class is
steadily fixed, though not precisely limited; it is given, though not
circumscribed; it is determined, not by a boundary-line without, but by
a central point within; not by what it strictly excludes, but what it
eminently includes; by an example, not by a precept; in short, instead
of Definition we have a _Type_ for our director. A type is an example of
any class, for instance, a species of a genus, which is considered as
eminently possessing the characters of the class. All the species which
have a greater affinity with this type-species than with any others,
form the genus, and are ranged about it, deviating from it in various
directions and different degrees."--_Whewell, The Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences_, vol. i. pp. 476-7.
[60] Save for the pleasure of doing so, I need hardly point out my
obligations to Mr. J. S. Mill's "System of Logic," in this view of
scientific method.