age its final form and
complete development; the doctrines of which constitute, in
reality, the _metaphysic_ state of politics. Different classes
of society adopt the one or the other of these, just as they
are disposed to feel chiefly the want of conservation or that
of amelioration. Rarely, it is true, do these antagonist
doctrines present themselves in all their plenitude, and with
their primitive homogeneity; they are found less and less in
this form, except in minds purely speculative. But the
monstrous medley which men attempt in our days of their
incompatible principles, cannot evidently be endowed with any
virtue foreign to the elements which compose it, and tends
only, in fact, to their mutual neutralization.

"However pernicious may be at present the theologic doctrine,
no true philosophy can forget that the formation and first
development of modern societies were accomplished under its
benevolent tutelage; which I hope sufficiently to demonstrate
in the historical portion of this work. But it is not the less
incontestably true that, for about three centuries, its
influence has been, amongst the nations most advanced,
essentially retrograde, notwithstanding the partial services it
has throughout that period rendered. It would be superfluous to
enter here into a special discussion of this doctrine, in order
to show its extreme insufficiency at the present day. The
deplorable absence of all sound views of social organization
can alone account for the absurd project of giving, in these
times, for the support of social order, a political system
which has already been found unable to sustain itself before
the spontaneous progress of intelligence and of society. The
historical analysis which we shall subsequently institute of
the successive changes which have gradually brought about the
entire dissolution of the catholic and feudal system, will
demonstrate, better than any direct argument, its radical and
irrevocable decay. The theologic school has generally no other
method of explaining this decomposition of the old system than
by causes merely accidental or personal, out of all reasonable
proportion with the magnitude of the results; or else, when
hard driven, it has recourse to its ordinary artifice, and
attempts to explain