peculiar to
him, but the general property of the age, however far as yet from being
universally accepted even by thoughtful minds.

The philosophy called Positive is not a recent invention of M. Comte,
but a simple adherence to the traditions of all the great scientific
minds whose discoveries have made the human race what it is. M. Comte
has never presented it in any other light. But he has made the doctrine
his own by his manner of treating it. To know rightly what a thing is,
we require to know, with equal distinctness, what it is not. To enter
into the real character of any mode of thought, we must understand what
other modes of thought compete with it. M. Comte has taken care that we
should do so. The modes of philosophizing which, according to him,
dispute ascendancy with the Positive, are two in number, both of them
anterior to it in date; the Theological, and the Metaphysical.

We use the words Theological, Metaphysical, and Positive, because they
are chosen by M. Comte as a vehicle for M. Comte's ideas. Any
philosopher whose thoughts another person undertakes to set forth,
has a right to require that it should be done by means of his own
nomenclature. They are not, however, the terms we should ourselves
choose. In all languages, but especially in English, they excite ideas
other than those intended. The words Positive and Positivism, in the
meaning assigned to them, are ill fitted to take, root in English soil;
while Metaphysical suggests, and suggested even to M. Comte, much that
in no way deserves to be included in his denunciation. The term
Theological is less wide of the mark, though the use of it as a term of
condemnation implies, as we shall see, a greater reach of negation than
need be included in the Positive creed. Instead of the Theological we
should prefer to speak of the Personal, or Volitional explanation of
nature; instead of Metaphysical, the Abstractional or Ontological: and
the meaning of Positive would be less ambiguously expressed in the
objective aspect by Phaenomenal, in the subjective by Experiential. But
M. Comte's opinions are best stated in his own phraseology; several of
them, indeed, can scarcely be presented in some of their bearings
without it.

The Theological, which is the original and spontaneous form of thought,
regards the facts of the universe as governed not by invariable laws of
sequence, but by single and direct volitions of beings, real or
imaginary, possessed of life