ally admitted by M. Comte, while he conceives, nevertheless, that
they are radically incompatible with each other;[86] and their
coexistence hitherto is felt by him to be a serious objection to his
fundamental law, which represents them not only as _necessarily
successive_, but also as _mutually exclusive_. The fact is admitted, and
that fact is fatal to his whole theory. For if the three methods have
coexisted hitherto, why may they not equally coexist hereafter? And what
ground is left for the reckless prediction that Theology is doomed, and
_must_ fall before the onward march of Positive Science? If man was able
from the beginning to observe, to compare, to abstract, and to
generalize, and if the fundamental laws of human thought have been ever
the same, it follows that there must have been a tendency, coeval with
the origin of the race, towards Theological, Metaphysical, and Inductive
Speculation, and that the same tendency must continue as long as his
powers remain unchanged. It can only, therefore, be a _preponderance_,
more or less complete, of one of the three methods over the other two,
that we should be warranted in expecting, _even under the operation of
M. Comte's favorite law_; and yet he boldly proclaims the utter
exclusion of Metaphysics, and the entire and everlasting elimination of
Theology, as branches of human knowledge!

M. Comte's theory is still more vulnerable at another point. The
fundamental assumption on which it is based is utterly groundless. It
amounts to this, that all knowledge of causes, whether efficient or
final, is interdicted to man, and incapable of being reached by any
exertion of his faculties.[87] He tells us that Theology is impossible,
for this reason, that, in the view of the Positive Philosophy, all
knowledge of causes is absolutely excluded; nay, he admits that Theology
is inevitable if we inquire into causes at all. We know of no simpler or
more effectual method of dealing with his specious sophistry on this
subject, than by showing that, if his general principle be conclusive
against the knowledge of God, it is equally conclusive against the
knowledge of any other being or cause; just as Sir James Mackintosh
dealt with the skeptical philosophy of Hume, when, with admirable
practical sagacity, he said: "As those dictates of experience which
regulate conduct must be the objects of belief, all objections which
attack them, in common with the principles of reasoning, must be utt