ds,
he demands a moral and intellectual authority, charged with the duty of
guiding men's opinions and enlightening and warning their consciences;
a Spiritual Power, whose judgments on all matters of high moment should
deserve, and receive, the same universal respect and deference which is
paid to the united judgment of astronomers in matters astronomical. The
very idea of such an authority implies that an unanimity has been
attained, at least in essentials, among moral and political thinkers,
corresponding or approaching to that which already exists in the other
sciences. There cannot be this unanimity, until the true methods of
positive science have been applied to all subjects, as completely as
they have been applied to the study of physical science: to this,
however, there is no real obstacle; and when once it is accomplished,
the same degree of accordance will naturally follow. The undisputed
authority which astronomers possess in astronomy, will be possessed on
the great social questions by Positive Philosophers; to whom will belong
the spiritual government of society, subject to two conditions: that
they be entirely independent, within their own sphere, of the temporal
government, and that they be peremptorily excluded from all share in it,
receiving instead the entire conduct of education.

This is the leading feature in M. Comte's conception of a regenerated
society; and however much this ideal differs from that which is implied
more or less confusedly in the negative philosophy of the last three
centuries, we hold the amount of truth in the two to be about the same.
M. Comte has got hold of half the truth, and the so-called liberal or
revolutionary school possesses the other half; each sees what the other
does not see, and seeing it exclusively, draws consequences from it
which to the other appear mischievously absurd. It is, without doubt,
the necessary condition of mankind to receive most of their opinions on
the authority of those who have specially studied the matters to which
they relate. The wisest can act on no other rule, on subjects with which
they are not themselves thoroughly conversant; and the mass of mankind
have always done the like on all the great subjects of thought and
conduct, acting with implicit confidence on opinions of which they did
not know, and were often incapable of understanding, the grounds, but on
which as long as their natural guides were unanimous they fully relied,
growing un