This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ...enough, as I think--of wishing to exercise a cramping effect on the intellect; of wishing to discourage new discovery, and to limit our enquiries to matters of obvious and immediate utility. Perhaps nothing has done more to prejudice the reception of Comte's teaching with cultivated men, than the belief, ...
Read More
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ...enough, as I think--of wishing to exercise a cramping effect on the intellect; of wishing to discourage new discovery, and to limit our enquiries to matters of obvious and immediate utility. Perhaps nothing has done more to prejudice the reception of Comte's teaching with cultivated men, than the belief, wholly erroneous though it be, that his principles are discouraging to the free exercise of man's intellectual powers. The earliest thoughts of man, like the thoughts of animals, were dictated by urgent material wants. The bird or beast use their senses to detect objects or movements which they know by experience to be connected with the gratification of appetite or the avoidance of danger. In these matters many of them show skill, and keenness of perception, and power of putting two and two together, which equal or surpass man's powers. The knowledge which a rook has gained, as to whether a man that it sees in the distance carries, or does not carry, a gun, is but a common and inferior instance of the power of animals to obtain and make use of such knowledge as concerns them. Those who are familiar with that admirable book, "Le Roy's Letters on Animals "--where the everyday intellectual life of animals is described by a practised naturalist of profound philosophic insight--will remember countless instances of the same kind, or rather will have watched countless instances for themselves in animals with which they are familiar. In these cases, the truth of Comte's motto is evident enough. Affection prompts the act which thought must guide. Affection is taken here in its broadest sense, including every natural impulse whatever: the impulse of self-love and self-preservation; the impulse of sexual love; the impulse of the mother to protect her...
Read Less
