sophy, when, renouncing all theologic weapons, he
labours in his principal work to re-establish the Papal
supremacy on purely historical and political reasonings,
instead of limiting himself to command it by right divine--the
only mode in true harmony with such a doctrine, and which a
mind, at another epoch, would not certainly have hesitated to
adopt."--P. 25.

After some further observations on the theologic or retrograde school,
he turns to the _metaphysic_, sometimes called the anarchical, sometimes
_doctrine critique_, for M. Comte is rich in names.

"In submitting, in their turn, the _metaphysic_ doctrine to a
like appreciation, it must never be overlooked that, though
exclusively critical, and therefore purely revolutionary, it
has not the less merited, for a long time, the title of
progressive, as having in fact presided over the principal
political improvements accomplished in the course of the three
last centuries, and which have necessarily been of a _negative_
description. If, when conceived in an absolute sense, its
dogmas manifest, in fact, a character directly anarchical, when
viewed in an historical position, and in their antagonism to
the ancient system, they constitute a provisional state,
necessary to the introduction of a new political organization.

"By a necessity as evident as it is deplorable, a necessity
inherent in our feeble nature, the transition from one social
system to another can never be direct and continuous; it
supposes always, during some generations at least, a sort of
interregnum, more or less anarchical, whose character and
duration depend on the importance and extent of the renovation
to be effected. (While the old system remains standing, though
undermined, the public reason cannot become familiarized with a
class of ideas entirely opposed to it.) In this necessity we
see the legitimate source of the present _doctrine critique_--a
source which at once explains the indispensable services it has
hitherto rendered, and also the essential obstacles it now
opposes to the final reorganization of modern societies....

"Under whatever aspect we regard it, the general spirit of the
metaphysic revolutionary system consists in erecting into a
normal and permanent state a necessarily exceptional and
transitory cond