subordinate, according to the theologic formula, reason to
faith; it is easy to recognize the radical contradiction this
attempt involves, which establishes reason herself as supreme
judge of this very submission, the extent and the permanence of
which is to depend upon her variable and not very rigid
decisions. The most eminent thinker of the present catholic
school, the illustrious _De Maistre_, himself affords a proof,
as convincing as involuntary, of this inevitable contradiction
in his philosophy, when, renouncing all theologic weapons, he
labours in his principal work to re-establish the Papal
supremacy on purely historical and political reasonings,
instead of limiting himself to command it by right divine--the
only mode in true harmony with such a doctrine, and which a
mind, at another epoch, would not certainly have hesitated to
adopt."--P. 25.

After some further observations on the theologic or retrograde school,
he turns to the _metaphysic_, sometimes called the anarchical, sometimes
_doctrine critique_, for M. Comte is rich in names.

"In submitting, in their turn, the _metaphysic_ doctrine to a
like appreciation, it must never be overlooked that, though
exclusively critical, and therefore purely revolutionary, it
has not the less merited, for a long time, the title of
progressive, as having in fact presided over the principal
political improvements accomplished in the course of the three
last centuries, and which have necessarily been of a _negative_
description. If, when conceived in an absolute sense, its
dogmas manifest, in fact, a character directly anarchical, when
viewed in an historical position, and in their antagonism to