it is only in regard to phenomena, or in the abstract order, that they are cognisable. This dogma is regarded as purely objective in character, yet it is no longer incumbent on me to demonstrate its subjectivity, really less disputable than its objectivity. For the latter character must always rest entirely on the inductions of experience, irresistible as the conclusion may be, nay has long been, at any rate as regards the lower sciences, whereas the subjectivity has a natural basis of theoretic grounds. We can demonstrate the necessity there is to establish laws as a guide to conduct, but experience alone teaches us that those laws represent the order of the world, to the degree in which we require to know it. The conviction that they do so is, at bottom, direct and instinctive only in reference to man's world; when we go lower it is solely as the result of a long investigation, called for chiefly by our practical wants. The degree of certainty we attain can never be entirely satisfactory; such as it is, however, it is indispensable for the creation of the doctrinal system of Positivism, which, without it, might gratify the mind, but be no reflection of the external world. We see, then, why the second principle of the normal Positive doctrine is as inferior to the first in dignity as in usefulness; method, from every point of view, having a higher value than doctrine, as the will is of higher value than the act.

The object of the third principle is to complete the second, all modifications whatsoever of the order of the world being by it limited to the greater or less intensity of the phenomena, with no alteration in their arrangement. It follows from the explanations of the preceding volume, that this law of modificability must be kept distinct from that of invariability, for this last might be confined to maintaining invariability of nature in events, whilst admitting change in their order of succession. Inasmuch as, so conceived, the second principle would lose its main value, by the conception we give sufficient prominence to the independence as well as the utility of the third. In theory, the law reacts in the direction of reducing all real questions to questions of quantity; a transformation, however, only possible in any high degree in regard to the lower phenomena. In practice, the law leads to the subordination, on rational grounds, of action to contemplation, for it limits our intervention, even our subjective intervention, to a change of degree, leaving the order undisturbed.

Law III. bility."

Modifica

The distinctness of these

an absolute synthesis impossible.

group.

Such is the first group of universal laws, as closely connected laws renders with the mental process as with the external objects of our speculations. Already, even at this early stage, it is evident that their number is sufficient to preclude all hope of constructing an absolute synthesis, either from an objective or subjective stand-point, since although convergent, they remain The second quite distinct. The second group, directly concerned with the intellect, subdivides into two groups; each comprising three laws, the one regarding the intelligence from the statical, the other from the dynamical point of view. The sphere of these six new laws would seem narrower than that of their three predecessors, but it is really as extensive. For by their regulation of the reason, in itself and in its exercise, they regulate implicitly the objects on which that reason is exercised, and which, but for it, would remain unknown.

(a) Statical subdivision.

Law 1 (IV) subordination of the subjective

to the objective.

In the statical group, the fundamental law, established by Aristotle, developed by Leibnitz, and completed by Kant, is the subordination of all subjective constructions to objective materials. This principle however is inadequate to express the state of reason, since it is equally applicable to insanity, whether transient or permanent. Hence for the right statical constitution of the understanding, we require a second law, a law which represents the internal images as less vivid and less the impres distinct than the external impressions. Were it not for this

Law 2 (V.)
Relation of

the image to

sion.

comparative weakness, which ceases under mental alienation, the without never could regulate the within, though it might continue to afford it nourishment and even stimulation. Even this complementary law, however, would be insufficient to place our understanding in its normal condition, were all the coexistent images, as is the case in incipient madness, whilst weaker than the external impressions, equal in power among Law 3 (VI.) themselves. A third law, then, is required, and it lays down the necessity of one image predominating over all that are simultaneously evoked by the excitement of the brain. Thus complete, the statical theory of the understanding will never require any additional laws, since the within is no longer able to disturb the sway of the without.

(b) Dynamical subdivision.

As for the dynamical theory of the understanding, that has been satisfactorily laid down in the preceding volume by the establishment of the three fundamental laws of human evolution, as well individual as collective. The three preside, each in its

of Intellec

gress.

Law 2
Material

(VIII.) of

progress.

Law 3

ral

progress.

due place, over the contemporaneous movements of the intelligence, the activity, and the feeling of man. The first law Law 1 (VII.) consists in the succession of the three states, fictitious, abstract, tual proand positive, through which every understanding passes in all its conceptions without exception, but with a velocity proportioned to the generality of the particular phenomena in question. The second is a recognition of an analogous progression in human activity, which in its first stage is Conquest, then Defence; lastly Industry. The third law shows that man's social nature follows the same course; that it finds satisfaction, (X) of Mofirst, in the Family, then in the State, lastly in the Race, in conformity with the peculiar nature of each of the three sympathetic instincts. These two last laws have no immediate connection with the intelligence, but are not the less indispensable to any clear conception of its movements. For they preside over the necessary and persistent relations which exist between our scientific conceptions and our practical operations on the one hand, our moral impulses on the other, the former being the object, the latter the source of the said conceptions.

In accordance with this threefold progression, the second group of universal laws is perfectly harmonious. Its first half, in fact, makes order consist in the establishment of unity, whilst its second reduces progress to the developement of the unity established. So becoming at one and the same time more synthetical, more synergical, and more sympathetic, human nature tends towards its systematic constitution, consequent on the growing ascendancy of altruism over egoism.

Harmony of

the second

group.

objective.

I must now complete the whole formed by the universal Third group, laws, by the consideration of the third group, where objectivity prevails. This group, as the last, is composed of six laws; as the last also, it subdivides into two equal series; adopting a distinction which accords with a difference in their nature, and which is most strongly marked in reference to their acceptance. For the first series, more objective in character, was originally limited to mathematical phenomena, without waiting for the systematic construction of Positivism, though they aided in its preparation, and derived from it exclusively their claim to real universality. The other series, on the contrary, has too large an admixture of subjectivity to gain acceptance, so long as Positivism had not yet embraced its

First sub

group, a generalisa

tion of the

laws of

motion.

highest domain, although faint germs of its laws are naturally traceable during the period of preparation. The distinction is one which tends to disappear in the normal state. Nevertheless even then it will always retain a certain importance, from the analogy which cannot but exist between the initiation of the individual and the preparation of the race.

Originally discovered by the geometricians, at a time when the scientific spirit had already lost its old philosophical character and had not yet acquired its new, the first series of objective laws has never hitherto been at all adequately understood. For it is the outcome of a systematic generalisation of the three laws which are thought to be applicable only to motion, in the common sense, as an attribute of matter, and the Positive conception of which is materially obscured by the Law 1 (X.) metaphysical alloy due to academic anarchy. The first law, in harmony equally with the dogma of invariability and with our need of permanence, is this: every state, statical or dynamical, has an inherent tendency to continue as it is without change, resisting all disturbance from without. In the second Law 2 (XI.) law, motion becomes compatible with existence by virtue of the

of persist

ence.

of compati

ble action.

Law 3
(XII.) of

mutual ac-
tion.

Second sub

group.

Law 1
(XIII.)
Conversion

of existence

into motion.

power resident in every system to maintain its constitution, whether in exercise or at rest, when its constituent parts are subject to simultaneous changes, on the condition that the changes affect all parts in a perfectly equal degree. Lastly, the third law governs all reciprocal influences, as it proclaims the necessity of the equivalence of reaction and action, if the degree of each is measured in accordance with the peculiar nature of each contact. It is not difficult to see that the special laws enunciated respectively by Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, or rather Huyghens, in order to form a basis for the theory of mechanics, are the scientific germs of these philosophical theorems, which are applicable to all phenomena without exception. But we also see that for their systematic expression, the first step to which was taken in the Philosophie Positive, it was indispensably necessary that the Positive spirit should have risen by successive stages to the complete generality which it requires for its mission.

The second series of objective laws connects with the first through the medium of a law which, as they were, is traceable to a mathematical germ, although the origin in its case is not so distinctly seen. It is the law by which in all cases we make

the theory of motion subordinate to the theory of existence, by looking upon all progress as the developement of the particular order in question, the conditions of such order, whatever they may be, regulating the changes which together make up the evolution. In the hands of the geometricians, this law is limited to the reduction of questions of motion to questions of equilibrium; its generalisation was possible only in Positivism, when I traced it in social phenomena, in which it finds its chief destination. Still its origin in Mathematics deserves a lasting remembrance, as it allows us, over and above any historical considerations, to form a dogmatic connection with the last law of the first series, a connection indicated by the original confusion of the two. This relation, binding as it does more closely together the two halves of the third group, will be at all times kept in mind by the terms appropriated to the law under consideration, the objective character of which should thus stand out more fully.

(XIV.) Clas

Appendix to

Vol. IV.

part 3.

On examining the next law, we come upon a close connec- Law 2 tion between this third group and its predecessor, as the second sification. halves of either seem indistinguishable. For it is the fundamental law of Positive classification, the invariable principle of which is the increase or decrease of generality-equally, whether subjective or objective. Now this principle fuses with the law of the three states, and is indispensable as its complement when applied to the arrangement of our conceptions without taking account of the existences of which they are the conceptions. That the two were introduced simultaneously in the small work which forms the basis of all my subsequent writings-this fact alone would suffice to establish their connection, a connection familiar to Western thinkers, owing to the progress of Positivism. But so regarded, the penultimate law of the third group would substantially belong to the second group, whereas it must be kept distinct. For this purpose then, in our consideration of it, we must insist most on its objective character, making it to apply above all to phenomena, and even to beings, or at any rate to existences. So applied, it subordinates nobleness to force, by showing that the higher phenomena in every case depend on the coarser attributes, the sway of these last being recognised as inevitable but not allowed to become oppressive, the regularity of its action being accepted as a compensation for its inferiority in dignity.