en
invented.

Again, when the idea became prevalent that the constitution of every
part of Nature had been planned from the beginning, and continued to
take place as it had been planned, this was itself a striking feature of
resemblance extending through all Nature, and affording a presumption
that the whole was the work, not of many, but of the same hand. It must
have appeared vastly more probable that there should be one indefinitely
foreseeing Intelligence and immovable Will, than hundreds and thousands
of such. The philosophers had not at that time the arguments which might
have been grounded on universal laws not yet suspected, such as the law
of gravitation and the laws of heat; but there was a multitude, obvious
even to them, of analogies and homologies in natural phaenomena, which
suggested unity of plan; and a still greater number were raised up by
their active fancy, aided by their premature scientific theories, all of
which aimed at interpreting some phaenomenon by the analogy of others
supposed to be better known; assuming, indeed, a much greater similarity
among the various processes of Nature, than ampler experience has since
shown to exist. The theological mode of thought thus advanced from
Polytheism to Monotheism through the direct influence of the Positive
mode of thought, not yet aspiring to complete speculative ascendancy.
But, inasmuch as the belief in the invariability of natural laws was
still imperfect even in highly cultivated minds, and in the merest
infancy in the uncultivated, it gave rise to the belief in one God, but
not in an immovable one. For many centuries the God believed in was
flexible by entreaty, was incessantly ordering the affairs of mankind by
direct volitions, and continually reversing the course of nature by
miraculous interpositions; and this is believed still, wherever the
invariability of law has established itself in men's convictions as a
general, but not as an universal truth.

In the change from Polytheism to Monotheism, the Metaphysical mode of
thought contributed its part, affording great aid to the up-hill
struggle which the Positive spirit had to maintain against the
prevailing form, of the Theological. M. Comte, indeed, has considerably
exaggerated the share of the Metaphysical spirit in this mental
revolution, since by a lax use of terms he credits the Metaphysical mode
of thought with all that is due to dialectics and negative criticism--to
the exposure of inco