the latter of them
the priestly sovereignty is as nominal as it has become in the former.
India is the typical specimen of the institution of caste--the only case
in which we are certain that it ever really existed, for its existence
anywhere else is a matter of more or less probable inference in the
remote past. But in India, where the importance of the sacerdotal order
was greater than in any other recorded state of society, the king not
only was not a priest, but, consistently with the religious law, could
not be one: he belonged to a different caste. The Brahmins were invested
with an exalted character of sanctity, and an enormous amount of civil
privileges; the king was enjoined to have a council of Brahmin advisers;
but practically he took their advice or disregarded it exactly as he
pleased. As is observed by the historian who first threw the light of
reason on Hindoo society,[19] the king, though in dignity, to judge by
the written code, he seemed vastly inferior to the Brahmins, had always
the full power of a despotic monarch: the reason being that he had the
command of the army, and the control of the public revenue. There is no
case known to authentic history in which either of these belonged to the
sacerdotal caste. Even in the cases most favourable to them, the
priesthood had no voice in temporal affairs, except the "consultative"
voice which M. Comte's theory allows to every spiritual power. His
collection of materials must have been unusually "rapid" in this
instance, for he regards almost all the societies of antiquity, except
the Greek and Roman, as theocratic, even Gaul under the Druids, and
Persia under Darius; admitting, however, that in these two countries,
when they emerge into the light of history, the theocracy had already
been much broken down by military usurpation. By what evidence he could
have proved that it ever existed, we confess ourselves unable to divine.

The only other imperfection worth noticing here, which we find in M.
Comte's view of history, is that he has a very insufficient
understanding of the peculiar phaenomena of English development; though
he recognizes, and on the whole correctly estimates, its exceptional
character in relation to the general European movement. His failure
consists chiefly in want of appreciation of Protestantism; which, like
almost all thinkers, even unbelievers, who have lived and thought
exclusively in a Catholic atmosphere, he sees and knows only on it