For to pretend that any satisfactory system exists at present would only be a hypocritical subterfuge on the part of the authorities. The most important step towards freedom of education would be the suppression of all grants to theological or metaphysical societies, leaving each man free to support the religion and the system of instruction which he prefers. This, however, should be carried out in a just and liberal spirit worthy of the cause, and without the least taint of personal dislike or party feeling. Full indemnity should be given to members of Churches or Universities, upon whom these changes would come unexpectedly. By acting in this spirit it will be far less difficult to carry out measures which are obviously indicated by the position in which we stand. As there is now no doctrine which commands general assent, it would be an act of retrogression to give legal sanction to any of the old creeds, whatever their former claim to spiritual ascendancy. It is quite in accordance with the republican spirit to refuse such sanction, notwithstanding the tendency that there is to allow ideologists to succeed to the Academic offices held under the constitutional system by psychologists. [Order demands centralization] But Positivism will have as beneficial an influence on Public Order as on Liberty. It holds, in exact opposition to revolutionary prejudices, that the central power should preponderate over the local. The constitutionalist principle of separating the legislative from the executive is only an empirical imitation of the larger principle of separating temporal and spiritual power, which was adopted in the Middle Ages. There will always be a contest for political supremacy between the central and local authorities; and it is an error into which, from various causes, we have fallen recently, to attempt to balance them against each other. The whole tendency of French history has been to let the central power preponderate, until it degenerated and became retrograde towards the end of the seventeenth century. Our present preference for the local power is therefore an historical anomaly, which is sure to cease as soon as the fear of reaction has passed away. And as Republicanism secures us against any dangers of this kind, our political sympathies will soon resume their old course. The advantages of the central power are, first, that it is more directly responsible than the other; and, secondly, that it is more practical and less likely to set up any claims to spiritual influence. This last feature is of the highest importance, and is likely to become every day more marked. Whereas the local or legislative power, not having its functions clearly defined, is very apt to interfere in theoretical questions without being in any sense qualified for doing so. Its preponderance would, then, in most cases be injurious to intellectual freedom, which, as it feels instinctively, will ultimately result in the rise of a spiritual authority destined