ortion as the light
shone more clearly, or was more distinctly discerned, the cloud was
gradually dissipated and dispersed, until, one after another, they were
all emancipated from their supposed connection with supernatural causes,
and reduced under fixed natural laws. Confounding Theology with
Superstition, or failing, at least, to discriminate duly between the
two, M. Comte draws a vivid picture of the successive inroads which
Science has made on the consecrated domain of Religion, and represents
the one as receding just in proportion as the other advances. For as the
darkness disappears before the rising sun, whose earliest rays gild only
the loftier mountain peaks, but whose growing brightness spreads over
the lowly valleys and penetrates the deepest recesses of nature, so
Theology gradually retires before the advance of Science, which first
conquers and brings under the rule of natural law the simplest and
least complicated branches, such as Mechanics and Astronomy; then
attacks the more complex, such as Chemistry and Physiology; and, last of
all, advances to the assault of the most difficult, such as Ethics and
Sociology; until, having emancipated each of them successively from
their previous connection with supernatural beliefs, it effects the
entire elimination of Theology, first from the philosophic, and
afterwards from the popular creed of mankind. M. Comte conceives that
the religious spirit has been steadily decreasing throughout the whole
course of human development, from the time when it was universal, in the
form of Fetishism, till it reached its most abstract, but least
influential form in Monotheism; and that now the period of its decline
and fall has arrived, when it is subjected to the powerful solvent of a
Metaphysical and Skeptical Philosophy, and when its ultimate extinction
is certain under the action of Positive Science.

We deem this by far the most dangerous, because it is the most plausible
part of his speculations; so plausible that, even where his reasonings
in support of it may fail to carry the full conviction of the
understanding, they may yet leave behind them a certain impression
unfavorable to faith in Divine things, since they appeal to many
palpable facts in the history of Science, too well attested to be
doubted, and too important to be overlooked. The theory itself--whatever
may be thought of the peculiar form which it has assumed in the hands of
M. Comte--cannot be regarded, in i