oposes to eliminate Theology from the scheme of our knowledge, by
showing that it is utterly inaccessible to our faculties, and neither
necessary to society nor useful to morals.[70] It anticipates the time,
as being near at hand, when it shall have no existence, save on the
historic page.

2. This Atheistic theory rests entirely on a supposed discovery of M.
Comte,--the discovery of _a law of human development_, which serves at
once to account for the origin and prevalence of Theological beliefs in
the past, and to insure their utter disappearance in the future; a law
which, like the magician's wand, can raise the apparition, and then lay
it again! Now, of this law we affirm and undertake to prove that it is
_utterly groundless_; that it has no solid basis of evidence on which it
can be established; that it is contradicted by the history of the
world, and opposed to our own experience at the present day.

It can scarcely be imagined that a man accustomed, as M. Comte has been,
to the severe pursuits of Science, could give publicity to a law of this
kind, and claim the credit of a great original discovery, without having
some plausible reasons to plead for it; and he does assign certain
reasons for his belief, which are, it may be safely affirmed, as
frivolous and inconclusive as any that have ever been offered in support
of the most baseless revery. They may be reduced to THREE; the _first_,
derived from our cerebral organization; the _second_, from the history
of a certain portion of our species; the _third_, from the analogy of
our individual experience.[71]

He founds, in the first instance, on our _cerebral organization_. He is
an ardent admirer of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, and has no scruple in
avowing himself a decided Materialist. It is unnecessary here to enter
on a discussion of Materialism, or even of Phrenology,--that will be
done hereafter; in the mean time it is enough merely to indicate the
fact that the theory proceeds on that ground, and then to inquire _how
the fundamental law of Development is deduced from it_. How does the
theory of Materialism, or even of Phrenology, were it assumed on the one
side and admitted on the other, contribute to the establishment or
verification of that law? Suppose it to be conceded that every mental
faculty or propensity has a distinct cerebral organ, or, more generally,
that the brain may be divided into three parts, representing,
respectively, the animal propensities,