VHI.] THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM. 140 



ment institute pour servir de base a celle-lti comme le prouve cet 

 appendice.&quot; 1 



This is quite true. In the remarkable essay entitled &quot; Con 

 siderations sur le Pouvoir spirituel,&quot; published in March 1826, 

 Comte advocates the establishment of a &quot; modern spiritual 

 power,&quot; which, he anticipates, may exercise an even greater 

 influence over temporal affairs, than did the Catholic clergy, at 

 the height of their vigour and independence, in the twelfth 

 century. This spiritual power is, in fact, to govern opinion, and 

 to have the supreme control over education, in each nation of 

 the West ; and the spiritual powers of the several European 

 peoples are to be associated together and placed under a 

 common direction or &quot; souverainete spirituelle.&quot; 



A system of &quot; Catholicism minus Christianity &quot; was therefore 

 completely organized in Comte s mind, four years before the first 

 volume of the &quot; Philosophic Positive &quot; was written ; and, 

 naturally, the papal spirit shows itself in that work, not only in 

 the ways I have already mentioned, but, notably, in the attack 

 on liberty of conscience which breaks out in the fourth 

 volume : 



&quot; II n y a point de liberte de conscience en astronomic, en physique, en 

 chimie, en physiologic me me, en ce sens que chacun trouverait absurde de 

 ne pas croire de contiance aux principes etablis dans les sciences par les 

 homines competents.&quot; 



&quot;Nothing in ultramontane Catholicism&quot; can, in my judg 

 ment, be more completely sacerdotal, more entirely anti- 

 scientific, than this dictum. All the great steps in the advance 

 ment of science have been made by just those men who have 

 not hesitated to doubt the &quot;principles established in the sciences 

 by competent persons ; &quot; and the great teaching of science the 

 great use of it as an instrument of mental discipline is its 

 constant inculcation of the maxim, that the sole ground on 

 which any statement has a right to be believed is the impossi 

 bility of refuting it. 



Thus, without travelling beyond the limits of the &quot; Philosophie 



1 Loc. cit., Preface Speciale, pp. i. ii. 



