d
previously been imagined. In like manner, the last term of the
_metaphysic_ system consists in conceiving, instead of the
different special entities, one great general entity, _nature_,
considered as the only source of all phenomena. The perfection
of the _positive_ system, towards which it unceasingly tends,
though it is not probable it can ever attain to it, would be
the ability to represent all observable phenomena as particular
cases of some one general fact; such, for instance, as that of
gravitation."--Vol. I. p. 5.

After some very just, and indeed admirable, observations on the
necessity, or extreme utility, of a theologic hypothesis at an early
period of mental development, in order to promote any systematic thought
whatever, he proceeds thus:--

"It is easily conceivable that our understanding, compelled to
proceed by degrees almost imperceptible, could not pass
abruptly, and without an intermediate stage, from the
_theologic_ to the _positive_ philosophy. Theology and physics
are so profoundly incompatible, their conceptions have a
character so radically opposed, that before renouncing the one
to employ exclusively the other, the mind must make use of
intermediate conceptions of a bastard character, fit, for that
very reason, gradually to operate the transition. Such is the
natural destination of metaphysical conceptions; they have no
other real utility. By substituting, in the study of phenomena,
for supernatural directive agency an inseparable entity
residing in things, (although this be conceived at first merely
as an emanation from the former,) man habituates himself, by
degrees, to consider only the facts themselves, the notion of
these metaphysical agents being gradually subtilized, till they
are no longer in the eyes of men of intelligence any thing but
the names of abstractions. It is impossible to conceive by what
other process our understanding could pass from considerations
purely supernatural, to considerations purely natural, from the
theologic to the positive _regime_."--P. 13.

We need hardly say that we enter our protest against the supposition
that theology is not the _last_, as well as the _first_, of our forms of
thought--against the assertion that is here, and throughout the work,
made or implied, that the scientific method, rigidly app