Similarly, the intellectual activity of the Middle Ages has been very unjustly treated. Certainly, positive philosophy cannot be suspected of partiality in favour of theological dogmas and metaphysical subtleties. But, just as in physics we distinguish the material changes, which are within reach of our senses, and the molecular movements which escape them, so at certain periods the human intellect produces outside itself works which testify to its activity, and at other moments, without being less active its labour remains an internal one. There are periods of secret and silent preparation. Such, for instance, was the first portion of the Middle Ages. Far from the human mind remaining stationary and inactive at that time it did, on the contrary, a very considerable work: it was creating the modern languages, that is to say, the indispensable instrument for subsequent progress of thought. We must also be fair to two immense series of labours, (alchemy and astrology), which have contributed so greatly and for so long to the development of human reason. In coming after the astrologers and the alchemists, modern scientific men not only found “science roughly outlined by the perseverance of these bold precursors,”[293] they further received from them the indispensable principle of the invariability of natural laws. Astrology tended to suggest a high view of human wisdom. Alchemy restored the feeling of man’s power, which had been lowered by theological beliefs. In speaking of Roger Bacon, Comte goes so far as to say that the greater number of the scientific men of to-day who despise the Middle Ages so much, would be incapable not only of writing but even of reading “the great composition of this admirable monk,” on account of the immense variety of views on all orders of phenomena contained in it.[294] Comte further enlarges with pleasure upon the mutual obligations of feudal tenure, “an admirable combination of the instinct of independence and of the feeling of devotion,” upon the appearance of chivalry, upon the raising of the condition of women, upon the enfranchisement of the commons upon the formation of the _tiers état_, etc.[295] Like the romantic school, being preoccupied with the duty of fighting the systematic detractors of the Middle Ages, he goes to the opposite extreme. He no longer sees the famines, the the plagues, the stakes, the interminable wars. He is not content with showing that, in spite of all, the Middle Ages was a period of progress. He wants it to be a model period, in which we should find the indication, _in all essential aspects_, of the programme which we are to realise to-day.[296]