IX.] Mr. Buckle's Fallacies. 175 



shaped his thoughts and guided his actions in the 

 past, and then take up a new system, to shape his 

 thoughts and guide his actions in the future, without 

 going through an intermediate state of painful and 

 wearisome doubt. As with the individual, so with 

 the race. The sceptical period could not but inter- 

 vene. It was only after countless attempts to ex- 

 plore the dark and dangerous region of the Infinite 

 had all proved futile — it was only after successive 

 theories had all been weighed in the balance, and 

 found wanting — that man could come at last to repose 

 in the calm spirit and sure methods of scientific 

 inquiry. Before this must necessarily have come that 

 tumultuous season of doubt and denial, of discord 

 and revolution, in which the sceptical spirit reigned 

 supreme. The rottenness of old institutions, forms 

 and dogmas, had to be exposed before they could be 

 given up. Then the barrenness of doubt had to 

 make itself felt before it could be supplanted by 

 knowledge. It was not until Hume, by carrying 

 scepticism to its uttermost extent, had shown its 

 unsatisfactory character and vain results, that the 

 germs of scientific method, implanted by Bacon and 

 Descartes, could develop and bear fruit in the positive 

 philosophy of Comte. 



As the metaphysical period is but a transition 



