rest for
its main support upon the opinion of those who obey it. It is because he
has not appreciated this truth that Comte so decidedly breaks with the
democratic spirit of modern times, and seeks to set up an aristocracy in
the State and a monarchy in the Church. Yet the spirit of the age is,
after all, too strong for him, and while he refuses to the governed any
regular and legitimate way of reacting upon the powers that govern them,
he recognizes that the _ultima ratio_, the final remedy for
misgovernment, lies in their irregular and illegitimate action. As
regards the State, he declares that "the right of insurrection is the
ultimate resource with which no society should allow itself to
dispense."[40] And as regards the Church he says that if "the High
Priest of Humanity, supported by the body of the clergy, should go
wrong, then the only remedy left would be the refusal of co-operation, a
remedy which can never fail, as the priesthood rests solely on
conscience and opinion, and succumbs, therefore, to their adverse
sentence." The civil government, in fact, can bring the spiritual power
to a dead-lock, by "suspending its stipend, for in cases of serious
error, popular subscriptions would not replace it, unless on the
supposition of a fanaticism scarcely compatible with the Positive faith,
where there is enthusiasm for the doctrines, rather than for the
teachers."[41] Comte also desiderates among the proletariate a strong
reactive influence of public opinion, by which the officers, both of
Church and State, are to be kept to their work. But if this is
desirable, why should the proletariate have no regular means of making
their will felt? An "organic" theory of the constitution of society must
surely provide every real force with a legitimate form of expression; if
a social theory embodies the idea of revolution in it, it is
self-condemned.

Comte's social ideal is in many respects a close reproduction of the
mediaeval system, with its _regime dispersif_ of feudalism in secular
politics, and its concentration of Papal authority in the Church. For
him, the growth of national States to their present dimensions, and, on
the other hand, the increasing division of labour in the realm of
thought, are equally steps in the wrong direction. Still more strongly,
if possible, does he reprobate that interference of the State with
spiritual matters, such as the education of the people and its religious
life, which has been the