At a first glance some serious flaws reveal themselves in the imposing logic of this scheme. Astronomy as a concrete science ought to have been excluded from the series, its admission being apparently due to the historical circumstance that the most general laws of physics were ascertained through the study of celestial phenomena. But on the same ground geology can no longer be excluded, as its records led to the recognition of the evolution of life; or should evolution be referred to the concrete sciences of zoology and botany, by parity of reasoning human progress should be treated as a branch of universal history--which, in fact, is what Comte makes it in his fifth and sixth volumes. It would have been better had he also studied social statics on the historical method. As it is, the volume in which the conditions of social equilibrium are supposed to be established contains only one chapter on the subject, and that is very meagre, consisting of some rather superficial observations on family life and the division of labour. No doubt the matter receives a far more thorough discussion in the author's later work, _Politique Positive_. But this merely embodies his own plan of reorganisation for the society of the future, and therefore should count not as science, but as art. The Positivist theory of social dynamics is that all {131} branches of knowledge pass through three successive stages already described as the theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific. And this advance is accompanied by a parallel evolution on the governmental side from the military to the industrial régime, with a revolutionary or transitional period answering to metaphysical philosophy. To this scheme it might be objected that the parallelism is merely accidental. A scientific view of nature and a profound knowledge of her laws is no doubt far more conducive to industry than a superstitious view; but it is also more favourable to the successful prosecution of war, which, indeed, always has been an industry like another. Nor, to judge by modern experience, does it look as if a government placed in the hands of a country's chief capitalists--which was what Comte proposed--would be less militant in its general disposition than the parliamentary governments which he condemns as "metaphysical." In fact, it is by theologians and metaphysicians that our modern horror of war has been inspired rather than by scientists.