On the contrary, let our knowledge advance until _all_ the phenomena both of the Material and Moral worlds shall be reduced under so many general laws, even then Superstition might disappear, but Theology would remain, and would only receive fresh accessions of evidence and strength, in proportion as the wise order of Nature is more fully unfolded, and its most hidden mysteries disclosed. We scarcely know whether it is needful to advert at all to the argument in favor of his theory which M. Comte founds on _the analogy of individual experience_. It is a transparent fallacy. He tells us that the race is, like an individual man, Religious in infancy, Metaphysical in youth, and Positive--that is, Scientific, without being Religious--in mature manhood.[82] Now, this analogical argument, to have any legitimate weight, must proceed on the assumption of two facts. The first is, that the law of individual development commences, in the case, at least, of all who belong to the _elite_ of humanity, with Theology, and terminates in Atheism; and the second is, that the individual is, in this respect, the type or pattern of his race, and that the experience of the one is only an outline in miniature of the history of the other. It would be difficult, we think, to establish the truth of either of these positions by evidence that could be satisfactory to any reflecting mind. We cannot doubt, indeed, for experience amply attests, that the religious sensibilities of childhood have often been sadly impaired in the progress from youth to manhood, and that, after the tumultuous excitements, whether of speculation or of passion, not a few have sought a refuge from their fears in the cold negations of Atheism. But is this the law of development and progress? Is it a law that is uniform and invariable in its operation? Are there no instances of an opposite kind? Are there no instances of men whose early religious culture had been neglected, and who passed through youth without one serious thought of God and their relation to Him, but who, as they advanced in years, began to reflect and inquire, and ultimately attained to a firm religious faith? If such diversities of individual experience are known to exist, then clearly the result is not determined by any necessary or invariable law of intellectual development; but must be ascribed to other causes, chiefly of a moral and practical kind, which exert a powerful influence, for good or evil, on every human mind. Montaigne speaks of an error maintained by Plato, "that children and old people were most susceptible of Religion, as if it sprung and derived its credit from our weakness."[83] And we find M. Comte himself complaining, somewhat bitterly, that his _quondam_ friend, the celebrated St. Simon, had exhibited, as he advanced in years (_cette tendance banale vers une vague religiosite_), a tendency towards something like Religion.[84] Cases of this kind are utterly fatal to his supposed law of individual