In clinging to the past they were preserving the germ of the future, and the final victory of science could not come until this germ had been disengaged from the husk of superstition under which it was hidden. Till that was done, the logic of the heart in clinging to its superstitions was better than the logic of the head in rebelling against them. In other words, the implicit reason of faith was wiser than the explicit reason of science. But this is not all that Comte means. For him the appeal to the heart is not merely the appeal to feelings and intuitions, which are the result of the past development of human intelligence, and especially of the long discipline by which the Christian Church has moulded the modern spirit; it is an appeal to the altruistic affections as original or "innate" tendencies in man which are altogether independent of his intelligence. It is not that the reason of man often speaks through his feelings, but that feeling and reason have in themselves different, and even it may be opposite, voices. In this sense, the attempt has often been made in modern times to stop the invasions of critical reflection by setting up the heart as an independent authority. From the Lutheran theologian who said, "_Pectus theologum facit_," down to Mr. Tennyson who declares that whenever he heard "the voice--Believe no more," "A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath, the heart Stood up and answered, 'I have felt:'"