As a matter of fact, the theological stage of our knowledge, even when it exercises its greatest dominion, that is to say, at the time nearest to its origin, already contains the germs of its own decomposition. It is never perfectly homogeneous. There are very common phenomena whose regularity man has never failed to recognize, and which he has never conceived as depending upon arbitrary wills. Comte likes to quote a passage from Adam Smith, where that philosopher remarks that in no time and in no country do we find a god of Weight. Moreover, since the existence of society, man must have had some idea of psychological laws since he was obliged to regulate his conduct according to the way in which his fellows thought and acted. Consequently “the elementary germ of positive philosophy is quite as primitive, at bottom, as that of theological philosophy, although it could only be developed very much later.”[17] Not being universal, theological philosophy could only be provisional. The philosophy, that is to say, the method of interpretation of natural phenomena, will alone be final, which will be applicable to all phenomena without exception, from the most simple to the most complicated. For this philosophy alone will realise the unity demanded by the understanding. The passage from theological to positive philosophy is never suddenly accomplished. Their opposition is too sharply defined, and our intelligence does not lend itself to such an abrupt change. The metaphysical state serves as a transition. This state is distinguished from the two others, in that it has no principle proper which defines it. Theological philosophy is sufficient to itself. It forms a harmonious whole, at least so long as the germ of positiveness which it contains has not yet revealed its activity. In the same way, the positive state will be perfectly homogeneous. On the contrary, the metaphysical state is only described by a mixture of the two others. “The metaphysical conceptions,” wrote Comte in 1825, “proceed at the same time from theology and physics, or rather are only the former modified by the latter.”[18] Under ever varying and progressively attenuated forms, metaphysics procure the indispensable conciliation in order that the theological and positive philosophies may coexist in men’s minds, so long as the latter is not perfectly worked out. Under cover of metaphysical hypotheses, the scientific method has been able to push its conquests, without greatly alarming the defenders of theological philosophy. Thus metaphysical speculation has a very active critical quality. It has not slightly contributed to the decomposition of the ancient system of beliefs. In this sense, Comte regards the French philosophers of the XVIII. century, for the most part, as excellent representatives of the metaphysical spirit.