, and thought, enter into action simultaneously,
and condition each other? The very first act of perception, the first
distinct cognition of an object, involves _thought_ as much as the last
generalization of science. We know nothing of _mind_ except as the
development of thought, and the first unfolding, even of the infant
mind, reveals an intellectual act, a discrimination between a self and
an object which is not self, and a recognition of resemblance, or
difference between _this_ object and _that_. And what does Positive
science, in its most mature and perfect form, claim to do more than "to
study actual phenomena in their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and
succession."

Cerebral organization may furnish plausible analogies in favor of some
theory of human development, but certainly not the one proposed by Aug.
Comte. The attempt, however, to construct a chart of human history on
such an _a priori_ method,--to construct an ideal framework into which
human nature must necessarily grow, is a violation of the first and most
fundamental principle of the Positive science, which demands that we
shall confine ourselves strictly to the study of actual phenomena in
their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and succession. The history of
the human race must be based on facts, not on hypotheses, and the facts
must be ascertained by the study of ancient records and existing
monuments of the past. Mere plausible analogies and _a priori_ theories
based upon them, are only fitted to mislead the mind; they insert a
prism between the perceiving mind and the course of events which
decomposes the pure white light of fact, and throws a false light over
the entire field of history.

2. _The second order of proof is attempted to be drawn from the
analogies of individual experience_.

It is claimed that the history of the race is the same as that of each
individual mind; and it is affirmed that man is _religious_ in infancy,
_metaphysical_ in youth, and _positive_, that is, scientific without
being religious, in mature manhood; the history of the race must
therefore have followed the same order.

We are under no necessity of denying that there is some analogy between
the development of mind in the individual man, and in humanity as a
whole, in order to refute the theory of Comte. Still, it must not be
overlooked that the development of mind, in all cases and in all ages,
is materially affected by exterior conditions. The influenc