ment and sense of duty towards which are
able to control and discipline all his other sentiments and
propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life, that person has a
religion. . . . The power which may be acquired over the mind by the
idea of the general interest of the human race, both as a source of
emotion and as a motive to conduct, many have perceived; but we know
not if any one before Comte realised so fully as he has done all the
majesty of which that idea is susceptible. It ascends into the unknown
recesses of the past, embraces the manifold present, and descends into
the indefinite and unforeseeable future. Forming a collective
existence without assignable beginning or end, it appeals to that
feeling of the infinite which is deeply rooted in human nature, and
which seems necessary to the imposingness of all our highest
conceptions.

However, we must now endeavour to briefly trace the steps whereby Comte
arrived at what certainly must be acknowledged a most startling
conclusion.

A study of universal history, of which he must be acknowledged an
absolute master, had convinced him that all human institutions, be they
beliefs, forms of society or government, scientific conceptions, or
modes of thought in general, have passed through three distinct stages.
These three stages he called the theological, metaphysical and
positive. In the first stage history shows that man explained the
origin of everything by explicit reference to wills like his own,
though, of course, invisible; and ultimately, by an appeal to one
supreme Will. Thus, a thunderstorm, the rise and setting of the sun,
the ebb and flow of tides, the succession of seasons and crops are all
explained by the agency of unseen wills, powers, or divinities. As
time advances, progress is so far made that all minor deities are
merged in the belief in one supreme Being who created the universe and
is ever responsible for its continuance in existence.

But man at length awakens to the need of a more proximate explanation
of phenomena, and, by such experiment as he is capable of, endeavours
to ascertain, through their intrinsic properties or their outward
manifestations, the cause or causes of their being. He leaves the
skies and comes to earth, and seeks to read the secret of things by
examining the things in themselves. This, Comte denominates the
"metaphysical" stage, mainly, because the solutions given were bound up
with abstractions of physica