Reason and Redemption [pp. 409-437]

J875.] REASON AND REDEMPTION. 427
Yet, the charge of downright Atheism is unquestionably the
bC'te noir of contemporary infidelity. Comte himself, though
"avowedly" a disbeliever in a Creator and Supreme Governor
of the World, and though seeing nothing in the heavens but
the glory of Galileo, Kepler, and Laplace, expressly disclaims
"dogmatic Atheism," and in one of his later works admits that
the hypothesis of design has greater verisimilitude than a
blind mechanism.'
We are thus led up to the last of the anti-Christian systems
which do not, e~professo, stultify the human reason itself. We
may call it, speaking broadly, Positivism; or, perhaps, more exactly (borrowing a happy term of Dr. Littledaleb Agnosticism.
There are several modern thinkers who are popularly classed
as positivists, and who, nevertheless, disclaim the title, and are
unwilling to be called disciples of Comte.~ But, as has lately
been set forth in the pages of this REVIEW, ~ "the label" has
continued to "stick" to those who, however they might differ
among themselves, or from M. Comte, on other points, have
agreed with him (or gone beyond him) in his doctrine of the
invalidity of all knowledge but that derived from experience,
as to ultimate causes,u whether final or efficient, and as to the
Unknowable. This last is practically the differentiating mark.
The founder of this whole school of thought was David
Hume. The school itself, is an outgrowth of that sensualistic
philosophy which had its beginnings with John Locke, and
was carried forward by Hartley and Condillac, and reached its
climax in the French Encyclopedia. It is also of importance to
mention, that before the appearance of the Essay on the
JJu~a;i &~dersta~di;ig, another English writer of celebrity,
Hobbes, (working, as he conceived, upon the principles of
* (`o',~te and Positivisni, p. 14. ~ In the ContemAorary ~ez'iew.
:`~ This is eminently the case with Huxley and Spencer.
? April, 1874, YWodern Skepticism, p. 239. See, also, Dr. McCosh, CA;~tianj~y
(I nd T~:itivisni.
`f H me and Brown resolved the notion of casuality into that of invariable antececlence. Mill adds the element of unconditionality. Comte and his immediate
school admi~ that there may be more in the cause itself, but hold that both the fact
and nature of such potency are inscrutable to us.
This is amply shown by Mill, and still more fully, in the November number ot
Bt~~ck~~ood's AJa~a-ine.