The exclusion of all knowledge of causes is so indispensable to M. Comte's theory that he admits "the inevitable tendency of our intelligence towards a philosophy radically Theological, as often as we seek to penetrate, on whatever pretext, into the intimate nature of the phenomena."[89] The exclusion of such knowledge would, of course, be fatal to Theology, since, without taking some account of causes, efficient and final, we cannot rise to God as the author of the universe. But did it never occur to M. Comte that the self-same principle may possibly be destructive of his present, or, at least, of his posthumous fame, as the author of the Positive Philosophy? For, if we can know nothing of _efficient causes_, in what sense, or on what ground, shall any one presume to ascribe the authorship of this system to M. Comte? True, it may be said,--Here is an effect which exhibits manifest signs of intelligence, order, and scientific skill; its parts are regularly adjusted and all directed to a common end; and, reasoning after the _teleological_ method, we must infer that it proceeded from a very clever, but somewhat eccentric mind; but, unfortunately, _final causes_ are as expressly interdicted as efficient ones; and, on the principles of his own theory, the "Course of Positive Philosophy" can never be warrantably ascribed to the authorship of M. Comte. A still more serious objection to M. Comte's theory respecting the law of human development arises from the false view which it exhibits of _the nature and history of Truth_, considered as the object of human knowledge. It is a favorite opinion with him, that man can have no _absolute_ knowledge; that truth is not fixed, but fluctuating; that what was believed in one age, and believed _necessarily_, according to the fundamental laws of thought, is as necessarily disbelieved in the next; and that there is no standard of truth at any time better or surer than the public opinion, or general consent, of the most advanced classes of society.[90] This theory of Truth, as necessarily mobile and fluctuating, has a tendency, we think, to engender universal skepticism, even when it is stated, with various important modifications, by such writers as Lamennais and Morell; but, in the hands of M. Comte, it becomes more dangerous still, since it represents the human race as having been from the beginning, through a long series of ages, subject to a law of development which not only _permitted_, but actually _compelled_ them to believe a lie; and thus casts a dark shade of suspicion both on the constitution of man and on the government of God.