previous attainment of the unanimity in question could
call into existence. A few words will sufficiently express the outline
of his scheme. A corporation of philosophers, receiving a modest support
from the state, surrounded by reverence, but peremptorily excluded not
only from all political power or employment, but from all riches, and
all occupations except their own, are to have the entire direction of
education: together with, not only the right and duty of advising and
reproving all persons respecting both their public and their private
life, but also a control (whether authoritative or only moral is not
defined) over the speculative class itself, to prevent them from wasting
time and ingenuity on inquiries and speculations of no value to mankind
(among which he includes many now in high estimation), and compel them
to employ all their powers on the investigations which may be judged, at
the time, to be the most urgently important to the general welfare. The
temporal government which is to coexist with this spiritual authority,
consists of an aristocracy of capitalists, whose dignity and authority
are to be in the ratio of the degree of generality of their conceptions
and operations--bankers at the summit, merchants next, then
manufacturers, and agriculturists at the bottom of the scale. No
representative system, or other popular organization, by way of
counterpoise to this governing power, is ever contemplated. The checks
relied upon for preventing its abuse, are the counsels and remonstrances
of the Spiritual Power, and unlimited liberty of discussion and comment
by all classes of inferiors. Of the mode in which either set of
authorities should fulfil the office assigned to it, little is said in
this treatise: but the general idea is, while regulating as little as
possible by law, to make the pressure of opinion, directed by the
Spiritual Power, so heavy on every individual, from the humblest to the
most powerful, as to render legal obligation, in as many cases as
possible, needless. Liberty and spontaneity on the part of individuals
form no part of the scheme. M. Comte looks on them with as great
jealousy as any scholastic pedagogue, or ecclesiastical director of
consciences. Every particular of conduct, public or private, is to be
open to the public eye, and to be kept, by the power of opinion, in the
course which the Spiritual corporation shall judge to be the most right.

This is not a sufficiently tempting