spirit of which consists in explaining the intimate nature of phenomena and their mode of production, and in likening them as much as possible to the acts of human will, through our primary tendency to regard all beings as living a life analogous to our own, and often superior, from their greater habitual energy. This procedure is so eminently exclusive that men are unable to emancipate themselves from it, even in the most advanced stages of evolution, except by abandoning altogether these inaccessible researches and restricting themselves to the study of the laws of phenomena, apart from their causes. Whenever, at this day, the human mind attempts to pass these inevitable limits, it involuntarily falls again into the primary errors, even in regard to the simplest phenomena, because it recurs to an aim and point of view essentially analogous, in attributing the production of phenomena to special volitions internal or more or less external. One case presents itself as an example, of the simplest scientific character, that of the memorable philosophical error of the illustrious Malebranche in regard to the explanation of the mathematical laws of the elementary collision of solid bodies. If such a mind, in such an age, could explain such a theory in no other way than by an express recurrence to the continuous activity of a direct and special providence, we cannot doubt the tendency of our reason towards a radically theological philosophy whenever we attempt to penetrate, on any ground whatever, the intimate nature of phenomena.

INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE OF THE THEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY

The inevitableness of the theological philosophy is its most radical property and the first cause of its long ascendency. We have seen before that it was necessary, as the only possible beginning of our intellectual evolution, for the facts which must form the basis of a positive theory could not be collected to any purpose without some preliminary theory which should guide their collection. Our understanding cannot act without some doctrine, false or true, vague or precise, which may concentrate and stimulate its efforts and afford ground for enough speculative

continuity to sustain our mental activity. Our meteorological observations, as we call them, show us how useless may be vast compilations of facts, and how really unmeaning, while we are destitute of any theory whatever. Those who expect that the theory will be suggested by the facts do not understand what is the course necessarily pursued by the human mind, which has achieved all real results by the only effectual method, of anticipating scientific observations by some conception (hypothetical in the first instance) of the corresponding phenomena. Such a necessity has already been shown to be especially marked in the case of social speculations, not only from their complexity but from the peculiarity that a long preparatory development of the human mind and of society constitutes the phenomena of the case, independently of all preparation of observers and all accumulation of observations. It may be worth observing that all the partial verifications of this fundamental proposition that we meet with in the different sciences confirm each other, on account of our tendency to unity of method and homogeneousness of doctrine, which would incline us to extend the theological philosophy from one class of speculations to another, even if we should not so treat each one of them separately.

The original and indispensable office of the theological philosophy is then to lead forth the human mind from the vicious circle in which it was confined by the two necessities of observing first in order to form conceptions and of forming theories first in order to observe. The theological philosophy afforded an issue by likening all phenomena whatever to human acts, — directly in the first instance, by supposing all bodies to have a life more or less like our own, and indirectly afterwards by means of the more durable and suggestive hypothesis which adds to the visible system of things an invisible world peopled by superhuman agents, who occasion all phenomena by their action on matter otherwise inert. The second stage is especially suitable to the human mind which begins to feel its difficulties and its needs; for every new phenomenon is accounted for by the supposition of a fresh volition in the ideal agent concerned, or, at most, by the easy creation of a new agent. However futile these

speculations may now appear, we must remember that in all times and everywhere they have awakened human thought by offering to it the only material which it could at first accept. Besides that there was no choice, the infant reason can be interested by nothing but sublime solutions obtained without any deep and sustained conflict of thought. We at this day find ourselves able after suitable training to devote ourselves to the study of the laws of phenomena, without heed to their first and final causes; but still we detect ourselves occasionally yielding to the infantine curiosity which pretends to a power of knowing the origin and the end of all things. But such severity of reason as we are capable of has become attainable only since the accumulation of our knowledge has yielded us a rational hope of finally discovering the natural laws that were altogether out of reach in the early states of the human mind; and the only alternative from total inactivity was, in those days, in the pursuit of the inaccessible subjects which are represented by the theological philosophy. The moral and social grounds of this philosophy were as necessary as the intellectual. Its moral influence was to inspire man with confidence enough for action, by animating him with a sense of a position of supremacy. There is something astonishing in the contrast between the actual powers of man in an infant state and the indefinite control which he aspires to exercise over external nature, just, as there is in his expectation of understanding matters which are inaccessible to reason. The practical and the speculative expectation alike belong to the theological philosophy. Supposing all phenomena to be regulated by superhuman will, man may hope to modify the universe by his desires, not by his personal resources but by the access which he believes himself to have to the imaginary beings whose power is unlimited; whereas, if he was aware from the beginning that the universe is subject to invariable laws, the certainty that he could no more influence than understand them would so discourage him that he would remain forever in his original apathy, intellectual and moral. We find ourselves able to dispense with supernatural aid in our difficulties and sufferings, in proportion as we obtain a gradual control over nature by a knowledge of her

laws; but the early races of men were in an opposite condition. They could obtain confidence, and therefore courage, only from above, and through the illusion of an illimitable power residing there, which could on any occasion afford them irresistible aid. I am not referring now to any hope of a future life. We shall see presently that it was not till a much later period that that hope exercised any important social influence; and even in more recent times we shall find that the effect of the religious spirit on the conduct of human life proceeds much more from belief in actual and special immediate aid than from the uniform perspective of a remote future existence. This seems to me the leading aspect of the remarkable state which is produced in the human brain by the important intellectual and moral phenomenon of prayer, the admirable properties of which, when it has attained its full physiological efficacy, are very manifest in the earliest stage of progress. After a long decline of the religious spirit the notion of miracle was naturally formed, to characterize the events which had become exceptional and were attributed to divine intervention; but the very conception shows that the general principle of natural laws had become familiar, and even preponderant, because the only sense of miracle was a transient suspension of natural laws. While the theological philosophy was all in all, there were no miracles, because everything was equally marvelous, as we see by the artless descriptions of ancient poetry, in which the commonest incidents are mixed up with the most monstrous prodigies, and undergo analogous explanations. Minerva intervenes to pick up the whip of a warrior in military games, as well as to protect him against a whole army; and in our own time the devotee is as importunate in praying for his smallest personal convenience as for the largest human interests. In all ages the priest has been more occupied with the solicitations of his flock about immediate favors of Providence than with their care for their eternal state. However this may be, we see that it is a radical property of the theological philosophy to be the sole support and stimulus of man's moral courage, as well as the awakener and director of his intellectual activity. To this we must add as another attraction of man to this philosophy, that

the affective influence comes in to fortify the speculative. Feeble as are the intellectual organs, relatively considered, the attractive moral perspective of an unbounded power of modifying the universe by the aid of supernatural protectors must have been most important in exciting mental action. In our advanced state of scientific progress we can conceive of the perpetual pursuit of knowledge for the sake of the satisfaction of intellectual activity, joined to the tranquil pleasure which arises from the discovery of truth; yet it is doubtful whether such natural stimulus as this would always suffice without collateral instigations of glory, of ambition, or of lower and stronger passions, except in the case of a very few lofty minds,—and with them only after training in the requisite habits. And nothing of this kind can be supposed possible in the early days, when the intellect is torpid and feeble and scarcely accessible to the strongest stimulus; nor yet afterwards, when science is so far advanced as to have attained some speculative success. In the working out of such speculation the mental activity can be sustained by nothing short of the fictions of the theological philosophy about the supremacy of man and his unbounded empire over external nature, as we have seen in regard to astrology and alchemy. In our own time, when there are enlightened men who hold such delusions in regard to social speculations alone, we see how irrationally they expect to modify at will the whole course of political phenomena, in which they could not take any adequate scientific interest without such an expectation. What we see of the influence of this view in maintaining the old polities may give us some faint idea of its power when it pervaded every part of the intellectual system and illusion beset the reason of man whichever way he turned. Such then was the moral operation of the theological philosophy,stimulating man's active energy by the offer, in the midst of the troubles of his infantine state, of absolute empire over the external world, as the prize of his speculative efforts.

1 Were Comte writing to-day, he would doubtless find illustrative material in the doctrine of "manifest destiny." The confidence inspired by the belief that the American people are the chosen instrument of Providence for the civilizing of the heathen is doubtless a factor in their success. — ED.

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