536 _ INTELLECTUAL SYMBOLISM. 
require, various divisions, according to the different points of view from which we con- 
template it; nor does it follow that because one division is good, therefore another is 
naught.”* 
277. It may, perhaps, be granted that the ternary division, founded as it is on ne- 
cessary and immutable relations, would be the most purely philosophical for all Science,— 
the empirical as well as the transcendental. But it is impossible, as yet, to do more than 
to lay the broad basis for generalization, and to make an experimental essay with some of 
the fundamental branches of knowledge. 
278. When this essay has been thoroughly tested and fully approved, another step may 
be taken, and gradual approaches may thus be made to a grand schedule of the knowable, 
which will furnish, by its symbolism, a universal language that will be as easily read and 
understood as the symbolic language of Arithmetic and Algebra. Meanwhile, each inves- 
tigator, pursuing his own specialty in his own way, will be accumulating materials for 
some department of Universal Science, to be fitly and permanently arranged at some 
future day, if the dreams of philosophy are ever realized. 
279. Even the founder of the modern school of “ Positive Philosophy” adopts the trinal 
basis, but without recognizing the source of the fundamental law that he assumes from 
observation. He says: 
280. “From the study of the development of human intelligence in all directions and 
through all times, the discovery arises of a great fundamental law to which it is necessa- 
rily subject, and which has a solid foundation of proof, both in the facts of our organiza- 
tion and in our historical experience. ‘The law is this: that each of our leading concep- 
tions—each branch of our knowledge—passes successively through three different 
theoretical conditions: the Theological, or fictitious; the Metaphysical, or abstract; and 
the Scientific, or positive. . . . Hence arise three philosophies, or general systems of con- 
ceptions on the aggregate of phenomena, each of which excludes the others. ‘The first is 
the necessary point of departure of the human understanding, and the third is its fixed 
and definite state. The second is merely a state of transition.” 
281. It is difficult to understand how any branch of knowledge, that is in its first stage 
fictitious, can subsequently become abstract and finally positive. If we modify the con- 
ditional formula so as to read,—1, the Theological or credible, resting on faith in the 
irresistible beliefs implanted in us by the Creator; 2, the Metaphysical or abstract, exa- 
mining the validity of reason in its deductions from faith; 3, the Scientific or positive, 
embracing all the legitimate teachings of faith and reason ;—the gradation will, perhaps, 
* Reid, p. 688 + Comte, pp. 25, 26. 
