Note 4 — V.
Reading edition
"In the third place, we have to review the method of Comparison, which is so specially adapted to the study of living bodies, and by which, above all others, that study must be advanced. In Astronomy, this method is necessarily inapplicable; and it is not till we arrive at Chemistry that this third means of investigation can be used, and then only in subordination to the two others. It is in the study, both statical and dynamical, of living bodies that it first acquires its full development; and its use elsewhere can be only through its application here."—Comte's Positive Philosophy, translated by Miss Martineau. Vol. i. p. 372.
By what method does M. Comte suppose that the equality or inequality of forces and quantities and the dissimilarity or similarity of forms—points of some slight importance not only in Astronomy and Physics, but even in Mathematics—are ascertained, if not by Comparison?