natural consequence of the failure of the
mediaeval Church to maintain its old authority. Notwithstanding his
worship of humanity, the idea of a "parliament of man, a federation of
the world," by which all the powers of mankind should be united for the
attainment of the highest material and spiritual good, has no attraction
for him. To reduce the State to the dimensions of a commune, and to
confine it to the care of purely material interests, is his first
political proposal. France, England, and Spain (and we may now add
Germany and Italy) are, in his view, "factitious aggregates without
solid justification," and they will only become "free and durable
States," when they are broken up into fragments, each with a population
of two or three millions, and a territory not exceeding that of Belgium
or Tuscany. The "West" will thus be divided into seventy republics, and
the earth into five hundred, and the main work of the patriciate will be
to direct and regulate the industrial life of the community; each member
of the banker triumvirate, who are to be at the head of the State,
having one of the great industrial departments under his special
superintendence. On the other hand the unity of humanity is to be
represented solely by the spiritual power, in whose hands is to be left
the whole work of extending science, teaching the people, and exercising
a moral censorship over all Governments and individuals. And while this
spiritual power is, for practical purposes, to be strictly organized on
the model of the mediaeval Church, it is also, like that Church, to
remain, for scientific purposes, inorganic. In other words, it is to
admit no scientific division of labour, but every one, like a mediaeval
doctor, is to profess all science, adding to this the priestly office,
which, with Comte, includes both the cure of souls and of bodies.

To criticize the details of this scheme seems to be unnecessary after
what has been already said. It is not to be denied that the division of
Church and State in the Middle Age was a most important and even
necessary condition of progress. Christianity could never have been
impressed upon the minds of men, if its concrete application and
development had been too rapid. The essential condition of such
development was that men should not concern themselves too prematurely
with it. For the consequences of a moral and religious principle cannot
be reached by direct logical deductions; it is like a living