cause to wish that his collection of materials had been less "rapid."
But (as he himself remarks) in an inquiry of this sort the vulgarest
facts are the most important. A movement common to all mankind--to all
of them at least who do move--must depend on causes affecting them all;
and these, from the scale on which they operate, cannot require abstruse
research to bring them to light: they are not only seen, but best seen,
in the most obvious, most universal, and most undisputed phaenomena.
Accordingly M. Comte lays no claim to new views respecting the mere
facts of history; he takes them as he finds them, builds almost
exclusively on those concerning which there is no dispute, and only
tries what positive results can be obtained by combining them. Among
the vast mass of historical observations which he has grouped and
co-ordinated, if we have found any errors they are in things which do
not affect his main conclusions. The chain of causation by which he
connects the spiritual and temporal life of each era with one another
and with the entire series, will be found, we think, in all essentials,
irrefragable. When local or temporary disturbing causes have to be taken
into the account as modifying the general movement, criticism has more
to say. But this will only become important when the attempt is made to
write the history or delineate the character of some given society on M.
Comte's principles.

Such doubtful statements, or misappreciations of states of society, as
we have remarked, are confined to cases which stand more or less apart
from the principal line of development of the progressive societies. For
instance, he makes greatly too much of what, with many other Continental
thinkers, he calls the Theocratic state. He regards this as a natural,
and at one time almost an universal, stage of social progress, though
admitting that it either never existed or speedily ceased in the two
ancient nations to which mankind are chiefly indebted for being