Renouvier considers it quite erroneous to assert, as did Comte, that there is a steady and continuous development underlying the oscillations, and that the variations, as it were, from the direct line of progress cancel one another or balance each other, leaving, as Renan claimed, a balance always and inevitably on the side of goodness. Such a confidence in the great world banking concern Renouvier does not possess. There is no guarantee that the account of goodness may not be overdrawn and found wanting. He reminds us sternly and solemnly of the terrible solidarity which characterises evil. Deceit, greed, lust, violence and war have an enormous power of breeding each other and of supporting one another increasingly. The optimistic doctrines of progress are simply untrue statements of the facts of history, and falsely coloured views of human nature. It is an appalling error in “social dynamics” to overlook the clash of interest, the greed of nation and of class, the fundamental passionate hate and war. With it is coupled an error in “social statics,” in which faith is put in institutions, in the mechanism of society. These, declares Renouvier, will not save humanity; they will, indeed, ruin it if it allow itself, through spiritual and moral lethargy, to be dominated by them. They have been serviceable creations of humanity at some time or other, and they must serve men, but men must not be bound down to serve them. This servitude is evil, and it has profoundly evil consequences. Having attacked Comte’s view of progress and of order in its static and dynamic point of view, Renouvier then brings up his heavy artillery of argument against Comte’s idealisation of the Middle Ages. To assert that this period was an advance on the life of the Greek city, Renouvier considers to be little short of impudence. The art and science and philosophy of the Greeks are our best heritage, while the Middle Ages, dominated by a vicious and intolerant Church, with its infallible theology and its crushing power of the clergy, was a “dead hand” upon the human spirit. While it provided an organic society, it only succeeded in doing so by narrowing and crushing the human intellect. The Renascence and the Reformation proved that there were essential elements of human life being crushed down. They reached a point, however, where they exploded.