We can thus distinguish two great periods in the intellectual advance of humanity. During the first, the positive spirit successively applies the scientific, that is to say objective, method, to higher and higher orders of phenomena. The foundation of sociology marks the term of this progress. Then the second period begins. The positive spirit from special has become universal, from analytical synthetical. It reacts upon the particular sciences, and henceforth makes use of the “regenerated” subjective method, to govern the whole of them. From the moral and religious point of view, once sociology has been constituted, and positive philosophy has been established, the functions proper to religion appear. The intellect recognises that its end does not lie within itself, and that it is incapable of determining its own rule and aim. It submits to a directing authority, which will guide its efforts and fix their object. _To act from affection, and to think in order to act._ But if the mind understands that it is destined to be used in the service of humanity, it sees at the same time that in the complete positive doctrine, which contains religion, the objective method gives precedence to the subjective, or rather that they mutually support each other. If we were pure intellects we should probably always go from the world to man. But in us the intellect is only a means. Love is the principle, action is the end; and it is to man, finally, that our study of the world must be referred. Towards the end of his life, Comte replaced the logic of the mind, “especially guided by artificial signs,” by the logic of the heart “founded upon the direct connection of the feelings.”[101] We shall not here insist upon a conception which is closely allied to his religious system. We will only conclude that, from the philosophical point of view the two methods objective and subjective, in Comte’s thought, are easily reconciled, provided that both have been “systematically regenerated.” Now, the regeneration is obtained as soon as sociology is founded. On the one hand, as a matter of fact, it furnishes the sciences formed by the objective method with a principle of unity, since henceforth they are all subordinated to the single science of Humanity. And, on the other hand, the subjective method acquires the positivity which it lacked, for sociology has substituted to the arbitrary “individual subject,” the “universal subject,” that is to say again, Humanity. FOOTNOTES: [83] Cours, III. 336-7. [84] Synthèse subjective, p. 85. [85] Cours, VI., 708. [86] Cours, I, 32. [87] Cours, VI, 709. [88] Cours, V, 79. [89] Cours, VI, 731. [90] Cours, VI, 704. [91] Cours, II. 324-5. [92] Lettres à Valat, p. 93 (24 septembre, 1828). [93] Cours, VI. 712-15. [94] Cours, VI. 720 sq. [95] Cours, VI. 74. [96] See above, Introduction, pp. [97] An allusion to a famous passage in Victor Hugo’s “Notre Dame de Paris.” [98] Cours, III, 210. [99] Cours, VI. 610.