es of his theory. To prove
that the order of the universe can not be the product of a Supreme
Intelligence, he assumes that the products of mind must be characterized
by freedom and variety--the phenomena of mind must not be subject to
uniform and necessary laws; and inasmuch as the phenomena presented by
external nature are subject to uniform and changeless laws, they can not
be the product of mind. "Look at the whole frame of things," says he;
"how can it be the product of mind--of a supernatural Will? Is it not
subject to regular laws, and do we not actually obtain _prevision_ of
its phenomena? If it were the product of mind, its order would be
variable and free." Here, then, it is admitted that _freedom is an
essential characteristic of mind_. And this admission is no doubt a
thoughtless, unconscious betrayal of the innate belief of all minds in
the freedom of the will. But when Comte comes to deal with this freedom
as an objective question of philosophy, when he directs his attention to
the only will of which we have a direct and immediate knowledge, he
denies freedom and variety, and asserts in the most arbitrary manner
that the movements of the mind, like all the phenomena of nature, must
be subject to uniform, changeless, and necessary laws. And if we have
not yet been able to reduce the movements of mind, like the movements of
the planets, to statistics, and have not already obtained accurate
prevision of its successions or sequences as we have of physical
phenomena, it is simply the consequence of our inattention to, or
ignorance of, all the facts. We answer, there are no facts so directly
and intuitively known as the facts of consciousness; and, therefore, an
argument based upon our supposed ignorance of these facts is not likely
to have much weight against our immediate consciousness of personal
freedom. There is not any thing we know so immediately, so certainly, so
positively, as this fact--_we are free_.

The word "force," representing as it does a subtile menial conception,
and not a phenomenon of sense, must also be banished from the domains of
Positive Science as an intruder, lest its presence should lend any
countenance to the idea of causation. "Forces in mechanics are only
_movements_, produced, or tending to be produced." In order to "cancel
altogether the old metaphysical notion of force," another form of
expression is demanded. It is claimed that all we do know or can
possibly know is the success