This notice proceeds on the same plane with thatadopt- ed by the Positivists, and the discussion of their prin- ciples does not travel beyond the domain of the human understanding. The danger of Positivism springs from the same source as that whence have issued the dangers of so many kindred schemes of philosophy in our day — the disposition to regard a partial truth as the complete body of truth — to make one principle the sufficient ex- planation of all things, and to render human knowledge co-extensive with all knowledge and, practically, with all truth. The unknown must always transcend the known : it must remain higher in dignity and in influ- ence, as well as ampler in all dimensions. The temper of the present day, however, is to humanize the uni- verse— to restrict all valid knowledge to purely scientific knowledge — to cramp the realm of the apprehensible within the narrow mould of the demonstrable. Pos- itivism is true in its place and in its degree, as evolu- tion is true under the like limitations, but it is not all- comprehending. It does not include all truth, and is far from embracing all reality. Its error and its pernicious consequences arise from the attempt to make it all-suffi- cient and exclusive. As a method of science it is true and valuable in all the applications of physical science, and of ethical science too, so far as the latter can appro- priately employ observation and induction. But be- yond all this stretch the unfathomable spaces of the un- known, including that which is known only by its ef- fects ; and we cannot wisely or safely leave this vast en- closing sphere out of our contemplation, for it is the main regulator of our conduct, by constant appeal to our highest sensibilities. If the hypothesis of the as- tronomer be true, that there is a mighty central sun in the unsounded depths of heavenly space, round which our sun, with all its attendant planets, revolves in a reg- ular but measureless orbit, it would be neither logical nor prudent to deny the existence of such a centre of attraction, because it remains, and may forever remain, unattainable by human sense. It seems even more illogical and indiscreet to repudiate a moral centre of the universe, attracting and governing all things, and radiating its influences over the whole physical and ra- tional world, because it lies beyond the limits of scien- tific observation, and cannot be measured, analyzed, or determined by the forms of science.
The factitious blindness or wilful shortsightedness of the Positive dogma is strangely illustrated by the his- tory of the term Positive, and of the philosophy which it has been employed to designate. St. Thomas Aqui- nas {Siiiinn. Theol. ii, 57) employs Positive in accord- ance with its juridical usage as opposed to Natural — "jus naturale et jus positivum." Accordingly, he uses it to denote that which is commanded, assumed, laid down, postulated, taken for granted; hence, arbitrary.
not in the sense of wilful or fantastic, but of determined as a condition precedent. " Illud dicitur esse positivum quod ex voluntate humana procedit," etc. This mean- ing is frequently given to it by others of the school- men, and is sufficiently accordant with its etymology and with its classical usage. "Est hsec res posita, quaj ab adversario non negatur" (Cicero, Pro Ccecin. xi). As in the scholastic reasoning the most absolutely deter- mined principles — the starting-points of speculation — were the dogmas of revealed truth, the positions au- thoritatively determined by Teligion, the transition was natural to the acceptance of Positive in the sense of re- ceived as a command, established by faith, in contrast to that which was believed on sensible evidence or dem- onstration. Hence it is found with this signification, or with one closely analogous to it, in a remarkable pas- sage of Bacon, which furnishes an apt censure for the Positive philosophy and for the misapplication of the term, though supplying a step in the direction of Pos- itivism. "Nil cnim philosophiam peraquo corrupit, ac ilia inquisitio parentum Cupidinis: hoc est, quod phi- losophi principia rerum, quemadmodum in natura in- veniuntur, non receperunt et amplexi sunt, ut doctrinam quandam positivam, et tamquam fide experimentali" (Par men. Teles, et Democr. Phil.).
There is here a coalescence and conciliation of both the earlier and the later meanings of the term — a re- striction of investigation within the range of human ob- servation, but an acceptance by faith of the principles beyond it, which must regulate human conduct and hu- man speculation alike.
In like manner, Kant, while denying to the under- standing the possibility of reaching any positive (de- monstrable) knowledge in regard to things purely intel- ligible (vov/ieva), asserts the determination of the moral law in a positive (conclusive, assured) manner, through the faculty of intuition (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, i,l).
This employment of the term in both its applications, while the conclusion is contradictory to the speculations of the Positive school, acquires peculiar significance from the fact that the scheme of Positivism had been indicated and condemned by the sage of Konigsberg as a possible but mutilated and delusive project of philos- ophy. The originality of Comte lay simply in the nar- rowness and defectiveness of his principles, and in the hardihood and vigor with which theywere applied byhim in his Systeme de la Philosophie Positive. His exclusion of the largest and most important half of human knowl- | edge and experience (undefined and often shadowy as i that knowledge and that experience may be) consti- tutes the latent and deadly malady of Positivism, and is prefigured as such in the vaticinations of Kant.