AUTHORITIES. 1. The History of Philosophy from Thales to Comte. By George Henry Lewes. 2 vols. 3d edition. London : 1867. 2. Cours de Philosophie Positive. Par M. Aug. Comte. Tomes I.-VI. Paris: 1830-1842. 3. Auguste Comte et la Philosophie Positive. Par E. Littré. Paris: 1863. 4. A General View of Positivism. Auguste Comte. By Dr Bridges. 5. The Catechism of Positive Religion. Translated from the French of Translated from the French of Auguste Comte. By Richard Congreve. London: 1858. 6. Auguste Comte and Positivism. By John Stuart Mill. 1865. London: 7. The Unity of Comte's Life and Doctrine. By Dr Bridges. London: 1866. AUGUSTE COMTE AND POSITIVISM. MR LEWES is a very clever writer. He has handled many subjects, and he has handled them well—with the adroit competency characteristic of a keen, ready, versatile, and variously, if not profoundly, informed mind. He is littérateur, biographer, man of science, and philosopher. In all these capacities he is known as an author; in all he has achieved considerable reputation: it may be questioned whether in any of them he has reached the highest rank in literature. His 'Life of Goethe and his History of Philosophy' he would himself probably put forward as his chief claims to distinction, and it would be a niggard criticism which did not acknowledge the great merits of both these productions.1 There is no biography of the German poet at once more ample and interesting; there is no his 1 This was written before the series of philosophical volumes, beginning with 'Problems of Mind,' which crowned the varied labours of Mr Lewes's life. Elaborate and full of thought as these volumes are, I do not think that they call for any qualification of the estimate pronounced or implied in this paper on Mr Lewes as a thinker. tory of philosophy so compact, diversified, and entertaining. Withal, there is wanting to either the higher touch of power which gives unity and creative life to a book. The biography lacks inspiration; the history, seriousness and faith. The third edition of the second of these works is now before us-an old friend with a new face. The 'Biographical History of Philosophy,' which charmed us twenty years ago, and fed a youthful taste for philosophic generalities and the affinities of speculative thought, has been turned into the 'History of Philosophy from Thales to Comte.' The slight duodecimos of 'Knight's Weekly Series for all Readers' have been converted into two bulky octavos. We are fain to confess that we prefer our friend with his old face. Mr Lewes has greatly expanded, and in some degree enriched, his early volumes. He has given elaborate prolegomena, rewritten many chapters -those on Plato and Aristotle, also those on Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, and others; he has inserted a Transition Period" between Ancient and Modern Speculation, containing chapters on "Scholasticism" and "Arabian Philosophy"; and significantly from his own point of view he has added an "Eleventh Epoch" to his modern historical outline devoted to "Auguste Comte" and the "Positive Philosophy." In doing all this, it would be absurd to say that he has not added to the value of his work. Mr Lewes's mature studies on Plato and Aristotle-especially the latter, on whom he has recently written a special work-are more important than his early and comparatively hasty sketches of these great thinkers. But it may be fairly questioned whether he has, after all, |