e, but displays a series of
oscillations, unequal and variable, round a mean motion which tends to
prevail. The three general causes of variation, according to Comte, are
race, climate, and deliberate political action (such as the retrograde
policies of Julian the Apostate or Napoleon). But while they cause
deflections and oscillation, their power is strictly limited; they may
accelerate or retard the movement, but they cannot invert its order;
they may affect the intensity of the tendencies in a given situation,
but cannot change their nature.

3.

In the demonstration of his laws by the actual course of civilisation,
Comte adopts what he calls "the happy artifice of Condorcet," and treats
the successive peoples who pass on the torch as if they were a single
people running the race. This is "a rational fiction," for a people's
true successors are those who pursue its efforts. And, like Bossuet
and Condorcet, he confined his review to European civilisation; he
considered only the ELITE or advance guard of humanity. He deprecated
the introduction of China or India, for instance, as a confusing
complication. He ignored the ROLES of Brahmanism, Buddhism,
Mohammedanism. His synthesis, therefore, cannot claim to be a synthesis
of universal history; it is only a synthesis of the movement of European
history. In accordance with the law of the three stages, the development
falls into three great periods. The first or Theological came to an
end about A.D. 1400, and the second or Metaphysical is now nearing
its close, to make way for the third or Positive, for which Comte was
preparing the way.

The Theological period has itself three stages, in which Fetishism,
Polytheism, and Monotheism successively prevail. The chief social
characteristics of the Polytheistic period are the institution of
slavery and the coincidence or "confusion" of the spiritual and temporal
powers. It has two stages: the theocratic, represented by Egypt, and the
military, represented by Rome, between which Greece stands in a rather
embarrassing and uneasy position.

The initiative for the passage to the Monotheistic period came from
Judaea, and Comte attempts to show that this could not have been
otherwise. His analysis of this period is the most interesting part of
his survey. The chief feature of the political system corresponding to
monotheism is the separation of the spiritual and temporal powers; the
function of the spiritual power being concerned