88 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



to the position which philosophical thought seems to 

 occupy in our clay. It would appear as if, at the end 

 of the nineteenth century, philosophy was paving the 

 way for a fuller and more original display of the 

 creative forces of the human soul, such as manifest 

 themselves in poetry, art, and religion ; for it is a fact, 

 that for the moment these creative powers appear to 

 have receded somewhat into the background, whilst, at 

 the same time, much is expected from them. Wherever 

 the vital forces in a society, or in an age, have not been 

 absolutely exhausted — and I can find no sign of this 

 in the present civilisations of Western Europe — such 

 periods, where the higher creative and spiritual powers 

 seem to be temporarily in abeyance, have always, sooner 

 or later, been followed by periods of greater vigour and 

 productiveness. Auguste Comte, in studying the histori- 

 cal developments of human thought, felt himself justified 

 in laying down his well-known law of the three states, 

 — the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive, — 

 as the rationale of the development of the human mind 

 in its intellectual progress. Formulse such as that of 

 Comte, or those contained in the doctrines of Hegel or 

 Spencer, all suffer from the defect that they give no 

 intelligible answer to the question, " What is going to 

 happen when the final stage is arrived at ? " All 

 historical evidence goes to show that no agency of pro- 

 gress has ever continued to work unchallenged and 

 uninterrupted. All processes in nature and society 

 seem, in course of time, to exhaust themselves and call 

 forth counter - movements which gain force, as it were, 



