Nevertheless, if we must refer this intermediate stage to one of the two extremes, Comte does not hesitate to approximate it to the theological stage. As a matter of fact, metaphysical philosophy substitutes entities to will, and Nature to the Creator, but with a very analogous function. It supplies, at bottom, the same “explanation” of the real, although weakened by a stronger and stronger sense of the need of natural laws. This equivocal method preserves theology, “while destroying its principal mental consistency.” It denies the consequences in the name of the principles. Moreover, it offers no guarantee against an offensive return of theological conceptions, so long as they have not been replaced by positive notions. In the final conflict between the theological spirit, and the positive spirit, the metaphysicians will probably be seen, with the Deists, involved in a retrograde concentration.”[19] “Positive philosophy,” says Comte, “has neither historical nor dogmatic solidarity with this negative philosophy, and can only contemplate it as a final preparatory transformation of theological philosophy.”[20] Thus the metaphysical stage is never other than an unstable compromise. It only lasts on condition that it changes continually. In default of a principle of its own, metaphysical philosophy is purely critical in character. As a fact, there are but two philosophies, that is to say two methods, two organic modes of thought. Only theological philosophy and positive philosophy allow the mind to construct a logical and harmonious system of ideas, the basis of a morality and of a religion. The theological spirit is “ideal in its advance, absolute in its conception, arbitrary in its application.” The positive spirit substitutes the method of observation to that of imagination, relative notions to absolute notions. It does not flatter itself with unlimited dominion over the phenomena of nature; it knows that its power is measured by its knowledge. The intellectual history of humanity shows by what stages it has passed from the former mode of thought to the latter. III. Comte regards the law of the three stages as demonstrated. “Seventeen years of continuous meditation on this great subject,” he writes in 1839, “discussed under all its aspects, and subjected to all possible tests, authorise me to affirm beforehand, without the slightest scientific hesitation, that we shall always see confirmed this historical proposition, which now seems to me as fully demonstrated as any of the general facts actually admitted in the other parts of natural philosophy.”[21] It could only be doubted if we found any branch of our knowledge which had gone back from the metaphysical to the theological state, or from the positive state to either of the two preceding states. But this case has never presented itself. The theoretical demonstration of the law has established that it _could not_ present itself.