human knowledge, had become incorporated, in its earlier stages, with many fond and foolish superstitions, the analogy of the other sciences would lead us to conclude that, just as the reveries of Astrology had passed away and given place to a solid system of Astronomy,--and as the vain speculations of Alchemy had been superseded by the useful discoveries of Chemistry,--and as the arts of Augury and Divination had finally issued in the inductive science of true Natural History,--so Theology might also purge itself from the fond conceits which had been for a time incorporated with it, and still survive, after all superstition had passed away, as a sound and fruitful branch of the tree of knowledge. This is not the precise light, however, in which M. Comte regards Theology, He does not speak of it as _a distinct and independent science_, but rather as _a method of Philosophy_, which has been applied to the explanation of _all_ the departments of Nature; and, viewed in this light, he objects to it on the ground that Positive Science peremptorily demands the elimination of all causes, efficient and final, and, consequently, the exclusion of all reference to God, or to any supernatural power, in connection with the laws either of the material or moral world. This is the fundamental basis of his theory. It is assumed that the recognition of natural laws is incompatible with the belief in supernatural powers, and that these laws must be invariable and independent of any superior will. Hence the supposed antagonism between Theology and Physical Science, which is strongly affirmed by M. Comte[77]; as if the laws of Nature could not exist unless they were independent of the Divine will, or as if the arts of industry could not be pursued, on the supposition of a Providence, without sacrilegious presumption. The laws for which he contends must have had no author to establish, and can have no superior will to control them; they had no beginning, and can have no end; they cannot be reversed, suspended, or interfered with; they are necessary, immutable, and eternal, not subordinate to God, but independent of Him; they are, in short, nothing less than Destiny or Fate, the same that Cudworth describes as the Democritic, Physiological, or Atheistic Fate, which consists in "the material necessity of all things without a God."[78] Now, we have no jealousy of natural laws. We believe in their existence; we believe, also, in their regular operation in the ordinary course of Nature; but we deny that they must needs be _independent_ of a supreme will, and affirm that, being subordinate to that will, they are not necessarily _invariable_. They are expressly recognized and cordially maintained by divines, not less than by men of science; but in such a sense as to be perfectly compatible both with the doctrine of a primitive creation, and also with the possibility of a subsequent miraculous interposition. The