It can indeed only be the result of wide extension of our advanced civilization beyond European limits, as will be explained in the conclusion of this work. North and south of this natural centre, we find two pairs of nations, between which France will always form an intermediate link, partly from her geographical position, and also from her language and manners. The first pair is for the most part Protestant. It comprises, first, the great Germanic body, with the numerous nations that may be regarded as its offshoots; especially Holland, which, since the Middle Ages, has been in every respect the most advanced portion of Germany. Secondly, Great Britain, with which may be classed the United States, notwithstanding their present attitude of rivalry. The second pair is exclusively Catholic. It consists of the great Italian nationality, which in spite of political divisions has always maintained its distinct character; and of the population of the Spanish Peninsula (for Portugal, sociologically considered, is not to be separated from Spain), which has so largely increased the Western family by its colonies. To complete the conception of this group of advanced nations, we must add two accessory members, Greece and Poland, countries which, though situated in Eastern Europe, are connected with the West, the one by ancient history, the other by modern. Besides these, there are various intermediate nationalities which I need not now enumerate, connecting or demarcating the more important branches of the family. In this vast Republic it is that the new philosophy is to find its sphere of intellectual and moral action. It will endeavour so to modify the initiative of the central nation, by the reacting influences of the other four, as to give increased efficiency to the general movement. It is a task eminently calculated to test the social capabilities of Positivism, and for which no other system is qualified. The metaphysical spirit is as unfit for it as the theological. The rupture of the mediaeval system is due to the decadence of theology: but the direct agency in the rupture was the solvent force of the metaphysical spirit. Neither the one nor the other then is likely to recombine elements, the separation of which is principally due to their own conceptions. It is entirely to the spontaneous action of the Positive spirit that we owe those new though insufficient links of union, whether industrial, artistic, or scientific, which, since the close of the Middle Ages, have been leading us more and more decidedly to a reconstruction of the Western alliance. And now that Positivism has assumed its matured and systematic form, its competence for the work is even more unquestionable. It alone can effectually remove the national antipathies which still exist. But it will do this without impairing the natural qualities of any of them. Its object is by a wise combination of these qualities, to develop under a new form the feeling of a common Occidentality.