great mistake is not a mere hiatus in M. Comte's system, but the
parent of serious errors in his attempt to create a Social Science. He
is indeed very skilful in estimating the effect of circumstances in
moulding the general character of the human race; were he not, his
historical theory could be of little worth: but in appreciating the
influence which circumstances exercise, through psychological laws, in
producing diversities of character, collective or individual, he is
sadly at fault.

After this summary view of M. Comte's conception of Positive Philosophy,
it remains to give some account of his more special and equally
ambitious attempt to create the Science of Sociology, or, as he
expresses it, to elevate the study of social phaenomena to the positive
state.

He regarded all who profess any political opinions as hitherto divided
between the adherents of the theological and those of the metaphysical
mode of thought: the former deducing all their doctrines from divine
ordinances, the latter from abstractions. This assertion, however,
cannot be intended in the same sense as when the terms are applied to
the sciences of inorganic nature; for it is impossible that acts
evidently proceeding from the human will could be ascribed to the agency
(at least immediate) of either divinities or abstractions. No one ever
regarded himself or his fellow-man as a mere piece of machinery worked
by a god, or as the abode of an entity which was the true author of what
the man himself appeared to do. True, it was believed that the gods, or
God, could move or change human wills, as well as control their
consequences, and prayers were offered to them accordingly, rather as
able to overrule the spontaneous course of things, than as at each
instant carrying it on. On the whole, however, the theological and
metaphysical conceptions, in their application to sociology, had
reference not to the production of phaenomena, but to the rule of duty,
and conduct in life. It is this which was based, either on a divine
will, or on abstract mental conceptions, which, by an illusion of the
rational faculty, were invested with objective validity. On the one
hand, the established rules of morality were everywhere referred to a
divine origin. In the majority of countries the entire civil and
criminal law was looked upon as revealed from above; and it is to the
petty military communities which escaped this delusion, that man is
indebted for being now a pro