But the progressive march of social man which constitutes the subject of universal history, or, as we term it, the formation and growth of humanity, are regulated by principles somewhat different from those which determine the internal life of individual man. Here the different stages of development cannot be classed according to the three fundamental faculties of consciousness in individual man; but the principle of development must be sought for in the divine impulse, as the same is attested by history, and which, in every stage of social progress, has been to mankind the source of a new life; though here again from the very nature of things, three marked degrees of social advancement occur. Corresponding to the divine image implanted in the breast of individual man--the main subject of all history--the Word of divine truth originally communicated to man, and which the sacred traditions of all nations attest in so many and such various ways, forms the leading clue of historical investigation and judgment, during the first stage of the progress of society. But in the second stage of social development, which most be fixed in that full noon-day period of refinement, when victorious Power shines forth so conspicuously in the ascendancy obtained by nations, to whom universal pre-eminence was accorded--the right notion of this power, or the question how far it were just and godly, or pernicious in its application--whether it were inimical to God, or at least of a mixed nature--must constitute the true standard of historical investigation. In the third or last stage, however, of this progress, which occurs in the modern period of the world, the pure truths of Christianity, as they influence science and life itself, can alone furnish the right clue of historical enquiry, and can alone afford any indication as to the ulterior advances of society in future ages. Thus then the _Word_, the _Power_, and the _Light_, form the three-fold divine principle, or the moral classification of historical philosophy--a classification which is founded on historical experience and historical reality.