5. _M. Comte's practical philosophy._--It is not merely as a speculative doctrine that M. Comte urges the necessity of our thus following the guidance of "positive philosophy." The fevered and revolutionary condition of human society at present arises, according to him[260], from the simultaneous employment of three kinds of philosophy radically incompatible;--theological, metaphysical, and positive philosophy. The remedy for the evil is to reject the two former, and to refer everything to that positive philosophy, of which the destined triumph cannot be doubtful. In like manner, our European education[261], still essentially theological, metaphysical, and literary, must be replaced by a _positive_ education, suited to the spirit of our epoch. With these practical consequences of M. Comte's philosophy we are not here concerned: but the notice of them may serve to show how entirely the rejection of the theological view pervades his system; and how closely this rejection is connected with the principles which lead him also to reject the fundamental ideas of the sciences as we have presented them. 6. _M. Comte on Hypotheses._--In the detail of M. Comte's work, I do not find any peculiar or novel remarks on the induction by which the sciences are formed; except we may notice, as such, his permission of hypotheses to the inquirer, already referred to. "There can only be," he says[262], "two general modes fitted to reveal to us, in a direct and entirely rational manner, the true law of any phenomenon;--either the immediate analysis of this phenomenon, or its exact and evident relation to some more extended law, previously established;--in a word, _induction_, or _deduction_. But both these ways would certainly be insufficient, even with regard to the simplest phenomenon, in the eyes of any one who fully comprehends the essential difficulties of the intimate study of nature, if we did not often begin by anticipating the result, and making a provisory supposition, at first essentially conjectural, even with respect to some of the notions which constitute the final object of inquiry. Hence the introduction, which is strictly indispensable, of hypotheses in natural philosophy." We have already seen that the "permissio intellectus" had been noticed as a requisite step in discovery, as long before as the time of Bacon.