610 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



8. The investigation which I have thus endea- 

 voured to characterise, has been systematically at- 

 tempted, up to the present time, by M. Comte alone. 

 It is not here that a critical examination can be under- 

 taken of the results of his labours ; which besides are 

 as yet, comparatively speaking, only in their com- 

 mencement. But his works are the only source to 

 which the reader can resort for practical exemplifica- 

 tion of the study of social phenomena on the true 

 principles of the Historical Method. Of that method 

 I do not hesitate to pronounce them a model: what is 

 the value of his conclusions is another question, and 

 one on which this is not the place to decide. 



I cannot, however, omit to mention one important 

 generalization, which he regards as the fundamental 

 law of the progress of human knowledge. Specula- 

 tion he conceives to have, on every subject of human 

 inquiry, three successive stages; in the first of which 

 it tends to explain the phenomena by supernatural 

 agencies, in the second by metaphysical abstractions, 

 and in the third or final state confines itself to ascer- 

 taining 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 proba- 

 bilities 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 

 distinguishes, and with each successive modification 

 of those three states, the correlative condition of all 

 other social phenomena. 



But whatever decision competent judges may 



