The Positive mode of thought is not necessarily a
denial of the supernatural; it merely throws back that question to the
origin of all things. If the universe had a beginning, its beginning, by
the very conditions of the case, was supernatural; the laws of nature
cannot account for their own origin. The Positive philosopher is free to
form his opinion on the subject, according to the weight he attaches to
the analogies which are called marks of design, and to the general
traditions of the human race. The value of these evidences is indeed a
question for Positive philosophy, but it is not one upon which Positive
philosophers must necessarily be agreed. It is one of M. Comte's
mistakes that he never allows of open questions. Positive Philosophy
maintains that within the existing order of the universe, or rather of
the part of it known to us, the direct determining cause of every
phaenomenon is not supernatural but natural. It is compatible with this
to believe, that the universe was created, and even that it is
continuously governed, by an Intelligence, provided we admit that the
intelligent Governor adheres to fixed laws, which are only modified or
counteracted by other laws of the same dispensation, and are never
either capriciously or providentially departed from.
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