We have given, in our own way, and at some length, this important
portion of M. Comte's view of the evolution of human thought, as a
sample of the manner in which his theory corresponds with and interprets
historical facts, and also to obviate some objections to it, grounded on
an imperfect comprehension, or rather on a mere first glance. Some, for
example, think the doctrine of the three successive stages of
speculation and belief, inconsistent with the fact that they all three
existed contemporaneously; much as if the natural succession of the
hunting, the nomad, and the agricultural state could be refuted by the
fact that there are still hunters and nomads. That the three states were
contemporaneous, that they all began before authentic history, and still
coexist, is M. Comte's express statement: as well as that the advent of
the two later modes of thought was the very cause which disorganized and
is gradually destroying the primitive one. The Theological mode of
explaining phaenomena was once universal, with the exception, doubtless,
of the familiar facts which, being even then seen to be controllable by
human will, belonged already to the positive mode of thought. The first
and easiest generalizations of common observation, anterior to the first
traces of the scientific spirit, determined the birth of the
Metaphysical mode of thought; and every further advance in the
observation of nature, gradually bringing to light its invariable laws,
determined a further development of the Metaphysical spirit at the
expense of the Theological, this being the only medium through which the
conclusions of the Positive mode of thought and the premises of the
Theological could be temporarily made compatible. At a later period,
when the real character of the positive laws of nature had come to be in
a certain degree understood, and the theological idea had assumed, in
scientific minds, its final character, that of a God governing by
general laws, the positive spirit, having now no longer need of the
fictitious medium of imaginary entities, set itself to the easy task of