642 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



been a primary agent in making society what it was at each successive pe- 

 riod, while society was but secondarily instrumental in making them, each 

 of them (so far as causes can be assigned for its existence) being mainly 

 an emanation not from the practical life of the period, but from the pre- 

 vious state of belief and thought. The weakness of the speculative pro- 

 pensity in mankind generally has not, therefore, prevented the progress of 

 speculation from governing that of society at large ; it has only, and too 

 often, prevented progress altogether, where the intellectual progression has 

 come to an early stand for want of sufficiently favorable circumstances. 



From this accumulated evidence, we are justified in concluding, that the 

 order of human progression in all respects will mainly depend on the or- 

 der of progression in the intellectual convictions of mankind, that is, on the 

 law of the successive transformations of human opinions. The question 

 remains, whether this law can be determined ; at lirst from history as an 

 empirical law, then converted into a scientific theorem by deducing it a 

 priori from the principles of human nature. As the progress of knowl- 

 edge and the changes in the opinions of mankind are very slow, and mani- 

 fest themselves in a well-defined manner only at long intervals, it can not 

 be expected that the general order of sequence should be discoverable from 

 the examination of less than a very considerable part of the duration of the 

 social progress. It is necessary to take into consideration the whole of 

 past time, from the first recorded condition of the human race, to the mem- 

 orable phenomena of the last and present generations. 



§ 8. The investigation which I have thus endeavored to characterize, 

 has been systematically attempted, up to the present time, by M. Comte 

 alone. His work is hitherto the only known example of the study of social 

 phenomena according to this conception of the Historical Method. With- 

 out discussing here the worth of his conclusions, and especially of his pre- 

 dictions and recommendations with respect to the Future of society, which 

 appear to me greatly inferior in value to his appreciation of the Past, I 

 shall confine myself to mentioning one important generalization, which 

 M. Comte regards as the fundamental law of the progress of human knowl- 

 edge. Speculation he conceives to have, on every subject of human in- 

 quiry, three successive stages ; in the first of which it tends to explain the 

 phenomena by supernatural agencies, in the second by metaphysical ab- 

 stractions, and in the third or final state confines itself to ascertaining their 

 laws of succession and similitude. This generalization appears to me to 

 have that high degree of scientific evidence which is derived from the con- 

 currence of the indications of history with the probabilities derived from 

 the constitution of the human mind. Nor could it be easily conceived, 

 from the mere enunciation of such a proposition, what a flood of light it 

 lets in upon the whole course of history, when its consequences are traced, 

 by connecting with each of the three states of human intellect which it dis- 

 tinguishes, and with each successive modification of those three states, the 

 correlative condition of other social phenomena.* 



* This great generalization is often unfavorably criticised (as by Dr.Whewell, for instance) 

 under a misapprehension of its real import. The doctrine, that the theological explanation 

 of phenomena belongs only to the infancy of our knowledge of them, ought" not to be con- 

 strued as if it was equivalent to the assertion, that mankind, as their knowledge advances, 

 will necessarily cease to believe in any kind of theology. This was M. Comte's opinion ; but 

 it is by no means implied in his fundamental theorem. All that is implied is, that in an ad- 

 vanced state of human knowledge, no other Ruler of tbe World will be acknowledged than 

 one who rules by universal laws, and does not at all, or does not unless in very peculiar cases, 



