ultimate goal of speculative thought is "the Positive Philosophy,"
which treats only of the Facts of Nature, and of their cooerdination
under general laws, to the utter exclusion of all supernatural powers,
and of all knowledge of causes, whether _efficient_ or _final_. But this
goal cannot be reached, it seems, by a sudden or abrupt transition from
the Theological to the Atheistic creed. There must be an intermediate
stage,--the era, in short, of Metaphysics,--during which the process of
Criticism will operate as a solvent on all previous beliefs, and by
producing Skepticism, in the first instance, in regard to all other
systems, will tend at length to concentrate the attention of mankind
exclusively on the truths of Inductive Science. The Metaphysical
Philosophy is held to be the necessary, but temporary stage of
transition from the theological to the positive method in science. It is
destined to supersede the one, and to introduce the other. It is
conceived to be equally at variance with both; and the era of its
ascendency is described as a critical, destructive, revolutionary age,
useful only as it delivers mankind from the shackles of former beliefs,
and prepares them for the adoption of a new and purely natural system
of thought. During this era of decomposition there will commence the
reconstruction of human opinion on new and more solid foundations; and
the transition from Monotheism to Positive Science will be the greatest
achievement of the race, greater far than the advancement from Fetishism
to Polytheism, or even from Polytheism to Monotheism itself. The
culminating point of human progress is absolute and universal
Atheism.[65]

Surely such a prospect may well arrest the most thoughtless, and prompt
them to inquire, with some measure of moral earnestness, What _is_ this
Positive Philosophy, this ultimate landing-place of human thought, this
final goal of human progress? Is it nothing else than the Inductive
Science of Bacon, but under a new and less attractive name? or is it a
philosophy radically different from it, and entitled, therefore, to be
regarded as an original method? The author tells us that he might have
called it "Natural Science," or "the Philosophy of Nature," since it
treats of Facts and their Laws; but that he had been induced to prefer
the distinctive title of _positive_, as one better fitted to mark the
contrast between it and the _negative_ character of those metaphysical
and theological