ascendancy; an ascendancy, in other respects, far more likely to be furthered than retarded by such coordination of its adversaries, for this will tend to give at last to the struggles of philosophy a decisive character; but the Positivists will alone succeed in prevailing (at least as far as speculative doctrines are concerned) over the coalition of all the philosophical forces of the ancient school, whether metaphysical or theological." [Footnote 54] [Footnote 54: Auguste Comte et la phil. pos., by M. Littré, pp. 370, 434. ] {281} M. Comte had even more aversion for Metaphysics than for Theology. He took particular offense at the contemporary spiritualistic school, and the scientific psychology of MM. Royer, Collard, Maine de Biran, Cousin, and Jouffroy. "In no view," said he, "is there any room for this illusory psychology; this final transformation of a theology, which men strive, nowadays, so idly to reanimate; for--without troubling itself either with the physiological study of our intellectual organs, or with the observation of those rational processes, which in effect direct our different scientific researches--Psychology pretends to arrive at the discovery of the fundamental laws of the human mind by contemplating that very mind--that is to say, by making complete abstraction both of causes and of effects." [Footnote 55] [Footnote 55: Cours de philosophic positive, by M. Auguste Comte, vol. i, p. 34.] {282} Even while absolutely rejecting Theology, M. Comte treated it with more esteem than Metaphysics. "We are," he said, "too disposed, nowadays, to ignore the immense benefits due to religious influence. The positive philosophy, however paradoxical it may be to claim for it such a peculiarity, is virtually the only philosophy capable of worthily appreciating all the participation of the spirit of religion in the whole grand development of humanity. Is it not directly evident that, as by an invincible organic necessity, moral efforts have almost always to combat to some degree or other the most energetic impulses of our nature; the theological spirit was imperatively called upon to furnish to social discipline that general basis which was quite indispensable at a time when human foresight, whether of men in masses or of men as individuals, was certainly far too limited to offer any sufficient _point d'appui_ to influences purely rational?" {283} ... "When the positive philosophy shall have acquired that character of universality which it is still without, it will be capable of replacing entirely, with all its native superiority, that theological philosophy and that metaphysical philosophy of which this universality is in these days the sole real peculiarity, and which, deprived of this motive for preference, will have for our successors nothing but an historical existence." [Footnote 56]