VIIL] 



which animates even the "Philosophic Positive," and 

 breaks out, in the latter volumes of that work, into no 

 uncertain foreshadowing of the anti-scientific monstro- 

 sities of Comte's later writings. 



Those who try to draw a line of demarcation between 

 the spirit of the " Philosophic Positive/' and that of 

 the "Politique" and its successors, (if I may express 

 an opinion from fragmentary knowledge of these last,) 

 must have overlooked, or forgotten, what Comte himself 

 labours to show, and indeed succeeds in proving, in 

 the "Appendice General" of the "Politique Positive/' 

 "Des mon debut/' he writes, "je tentai de fonder le 

 nouveau pouvoir spirituel que j'institue aujourd'hui." 

 "Ma politique, loin d'etre aucunement opposee a ma 

 philosophie, en constitue tellement la suite naturelle 

 que celle-ci fut directement instituee pour servir de base 

 a celle-la comme le prouve cet appendice." l 



This is quite true. In the remarkable essay entitled 

 "Considerations sur le Pouvoir spirituel," published in 

 March 1826, Comte advocates the establishment of a 

 " modern spiritual power," 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 " souverainet6 

 spirituelle." ^ 



A system of "Catholicism minus Christianity" was 

 therefore completely organized in Comte's mind, four 

 years before the first volume of the "Philosophie 

 Positive " was written ; and, naturally, the papal spirit 



i Loo. cit., Preface Sp^ciale, pp. i, it 



