[Footnote 56: Cours de philosophic positive, by M. Comte, vol. v, p. 73; vol. i, p. 23.] I do not pause to notice in how many respects this language is superficial, confused, and incoherent. I only draw attention to the fundamental idea which it manifests--matter, the forces of matter, and its laws; these are the sole objects of human knowledge, the sole domain of the human mind. Aware of, and embarrassed by the objections which the idea has from the beginning of time excited, M. Littré has striven to rid himself of them by an admission, sincere no doubt, like everything that he thinks, and everything that he says, but full in its turn of confusion and incoherence. {284} "The positive philosophy," says he, "is at once a system which comprehends all that is known of the world of man and of society, and also a general method, containing in itself all the ways by which men have come to learn all these things. What is beyond, whether, materially speaking, that space without limit, or intellectually that concatenation of never-ending causes, all this is absolutely inaccessible to the human mind. By inaccessible is not meant null or non-existent. Immensity in matter, as in intellect, is connected by a close band with what we know, and it is only by such an alliance that it becomes an idea positive in itself, and of the same order; what I mean is, that by so touching and bordering what we know, immensity appears under the double character of reality and of inaccessibility. It is an ocean which dashes upon our shores, and for which we have nor bark nor sail, but the clear vision of which is as salutary as it is formidable." [Footnote 57] [Footnote 57: Auguste Comte et la phil. pos., by M. Littré, p. 519.] {285} The vision so admitted by M. Littré is not clear, and neither is it salutary; but vague, and without result. The imagery does not destroy the system which it seeks to vail from us. Every religious belief, every spiritual doctrine, God and the human soul, are discarded by Positivism, and treated as arbitrary and transitory hypotheses, which, however they may have conduced to the development of humanity, ought now to be rejected by human reason, just as the foot may throw down the ladder which has enabled it to mount to the summit. To call things by their proper names, Positivism is Materialism and Atheism, with more or less explicitness, confidently or hesitatingly, accepted as the last term of human science, and when hard pressed, taking refuge in the darkness of skepticism. What are the foundations upon which Positivism rests? What facts, what proofs, does M. Auguste Comte adduce in support of his principles, that matter, its forces, and its laws, constitute the sole object of human knowledge, the sole domain of the human mind? {286}