[Footnote 49: Ibid., p. 42.] "The fundamental character of positive philosophy is, that it regards all phenomena as subjected to invariable natural laws, and considers as absolutely inaccessible to us, and as having no sense for us, every inquiry into what is termed either primary or final causes." [Footnote 50] [Footnote 50: Cours de philosophic positive, by M. Auguste Comte, vol. i, p. 14.] {278} "The scientific path, in which I have, ever since I began to think, continued to walk, the labors that I obstinately pursue to elevate social theories to the rank of physical science are evidently, radically, and absolutely opposed to everything that has a religious or metaphysical tendency." [Footnote 51] [Footnote 51: Auguste Comte et la philosophic positive, by M. Littré, p. 194.] "My positive philosophy is incompatible with every theological or metaphysical philosophy, and consequently equally so with every corresponding system of policy." [Footnote 52] [Footnote 52: Ibid., p. 210.] "M. Comte," says M. Littré, "made it a duty to speak in public without any reticence, to deduce his positive truths, and to confront them with the conceptions of Theology and of Metaphysics. . . . 'Religiosity' is in his eyes not only a weakness, but an avowal of want of power." [Footnote 53] [Footnote 53: Auguste Comte et la phil. pos., by M. Littré, pp. 198-255.] {279} "The 'positive state' is that state of the mind in which it conceives that phenomena are governed by constant laws, from which prayer and adoration can demand nothing, but to which intelligence and science may address their demands; so that, by familiarizing himself with those laws more and more, and by conforming to them more and more, man acquires an ever-growing empire over nature and over himself, which empire is the sum of all civilization. The 'theological state,' on the contrary, is that state of the mind which conceives that phenomena are the results of volition, or, if the social development has arrived at Monotheism, that they are the results of a single, all-wise, and all-powerful will. This providence, essentially collective where Polytheism is supposed, essentially single in the case of Monotheism, governs the world, dispenses its good and its evil, lays its finger upon human events, and regards the destiny of each individual man. {280} Such is the contrast between the two doctrines. ... Profiting by the instruction of the illustrious De Maistre, our French priests at last comprehended that ultramontanism was the only logical consequence deducible from their essential principles. The more the positive school defines the real character of its progress, the more must we see this retrograde concentration also develop itself; which will involve at some later epoch Deists themselves, as Positivism proceeds to gain complete