all intelligent men, can now only signify the triumph of the
inequalities developed by modern civilization, over those which
had predominated in the infancy of society....

"The same philosophical appreciation is applicable with equal
ease to the dogma of the _sovereignty of the people_. Whilst
estimating, as is fit, the indispensable transitional office of
this revolutionary dogma, no true philosopher can now
misunderstand the fatal anarchical tendency of this
metaphysical conception, since in its absolute application it
opposes itself to all regular institution, condemning
indefinitely all superiors to an arbitrary dependence on the
multitude of their inferiors, by a sort of transference to the
people of the much-reprobated right of kings."

[49] "There is," says M. Comte here in a note, which consists
of an extract from a previous work--"there is no liberty of
conscience in astronomy, in physics, in chemistry, even in
physiology; every one would think it absurd not to give credit
to the principles established in these sciences by competent
men. If it is otherwise in politics, it is because the ancient
principles having fallen; and new ones not being yet formed,
there are, properly speaking, in this interval no established
principles."

As our author had shown how the _theologic_ philosophy was inconsistent
often with itself, so, in criticising the _metaphysics_, he exposes here
also certain self-contradictions. He reproaches it with having, in its
contests with the old system, endeavoured, at each stage, to uphold and
adopt some of the elementary principles of that very system it was