analogous to those from which, according to the best hypotheses, comets
proceed. Judiciously reproduced, similar shocks may have rendered the
inclination of the earth's axis better adapted to the future wants of
the Grand Etre. _A fortiori_ the Earth may have modified its own figure,
which is only beyond our intervention because our spiritual ascendancy
has not at its disposal a sufficient material force." The like may be
conceived as having been done by each of the other planets, in concert,
possibly, with the Earth and with one another. "In proportion as each
planet improved its own condition, its life exhausted itself by excess
of innervation; but with the consolation of rendering its self-devotion
more efficacious, when the extinction of its special functions, first
animal, and finally vegetative, reduced it to the universal attributes
of feeling and activity."[25] This stuff, though he calls it fiction, he
soon after speaks of as belief (croyance), to be greatly recommended, as
at once satisfying our natural curiosity, and "perfecting our unity"
(again unity!) "by supplying the gaps in our scientific notions with
poetic fictions, and developing sympathetic emotions and aesthetic
inspirations: the world being conceived as aspiring to second mankind in
ameliorating the universal order under the impulse of the Grand Etre."
And he obviously intends that we should be trained to make these
fantastical inventions permeate all our associations, until we are
incapable of conceiving the world and Nature apart from them, and they
become equivalent to, and are in fact transformed into, real beliefs.

Wretched as this is, it is singularly characteristic of M. Comte's later
mode of thought. A writer might be excused for introducing into an
avowed work of fancy this dance of the planets, and conception of an
animated Earth. If finely executed, he might even be admired for it. No
one blames a poet for ascribing feelings, purposes, and human
propensities to flowers. Because a conception might be interesting, and