welcomed in the form of a general observation, proclaimed to them as a
_law_--a scientific law--which from its nature admits of no exception;
at finding it stated that every branch of human knowledge must of
necessity pass through these three theoretic stages. In the case of some
branches of knowledge, it is impossible to point out what can be
understood as its several theologic and metaphysic stages; and even in
cases where M. Comte has himself applied these terms, it is extremely
difficult to assign to them a meaning in accordance with that which they
bear in this statement of his law; as, for instance, in his application
of them to his own science of social physics. But we need not pause on
this. What a palpable fallacy it is to suppose, because M. Comte find
the positive and theologic methods incompatible, that, historically
speaking, and in the minds of men, which certainly admit of stranger
commixtures than this, they should "mutually exclude each other"--that,
in short, men have not been all along, in various degrees and
proportions, both _theologic_ and _positive_.

What is it, we ask, that M. Comte means by the _succession_ of these
several stages or modes of thinking? Does he mean that what is here
called the positive method of thought is not equally _spontaneous_ to
the human mind as the theological, but depends on it for its
development? Hardly so. The predominance of the positive method, or its
complete formation, may be postponed; but it clearly has an origin and
an existence independent of the theological. No barbarian ever deified,
or supernaturalized, every process around him; there must always have
been a portion of his experience entertained merely _as experience_. The
very necessity man has to labour for his subsistence, brings him into a
practical acquaintance with the material world, which induces
observation, and conducts towards a natural philosophy. If he is a
theologian the first moment he gives himself up to meditation, he is on
the road to the Baconian method the very day he begins to labour. The
rudest workman uses the lever; the mathematician follows and calculates
the law which determines the power it bestows; here we have industry and
then science, but what room for the intervention of theology?

Or does M. Comte mean this only--which we presume to be the case--that
these methods of thought are, in succession, predominant and brought to
maturity? If so, what necessity for this _metaphysi