above, as a French minister of public instruction once boasted that a
million of boys were saying the same lesson during the same half-hour in
every town and village of France. The reader will be anxious to know,
how much better and more wisely the human intellect will be applied
under this absolute monarchy, and to what degree this system of
government will be preferable to the present anarchy, in which every
theorist does what is intellectually right in his own eyes. M. Comte has
not left us in ignorance on this point. He gives us ample means of
judging. The Pontiff of Positivism informs us what problem, in his
opinion, should be selected before all others for this united pursuit.

What this problem is, we must leave those who are curious on the subject
to learn from the treatise itself. When they have done so, they will be
qualified to form their own opinion of the amount of advantage which the
general good of mankind would be likely to derive, from exchanging the
present "dispersive speciality" and "intellectual anarchy" for the
subordination of the intellect to the _coeur_, personified in a High
Priest, prescribing a single problem for the undivided study of the
theoretic mind.

We have given a sufficient general idea of M. Comte's plan for the
regeneration of human society, by putting an end to anarchy, and
"systematizing" human thought and conduct under the direction of
feeling. But an adequate conception will not have been formed of the
height of his self-confidence, until something more has been told. Be it
known, then, that M. Comte by no means proposes this new constitution of
society for realization in the remote future. A complete plan of
measures of transition is ready prepared, and he determines the year,
before the end of the present century, in which the new spiritual and
temporal powers will be installed, and the regime of our maturity will