For many centuries the God believed in was
flexible by entreaty, was incessantly ordering the affairs of mankind by
direct volitions, and continually reversing the course of nature by
miraculous interpositions; and this is believed still, wherever the
invariability of law has established itself in men's convictions as a
general, but not as an universal truth.
In the change from Polytheism to Monotheism, the Metaphysical mode of
thought contributed its part, affording great aid to the up-hill
struggle which the Positive spirit had to maintain against the
prevailing form, of the Theological. M. Comte, indeed, has considerably
exaggerated the share of the Metaphysical spirit in this mental
revolution, since by a lax use of terms he credits the Metaphysical mode
of thought with all that is due to dialectics and negative criticism--to
the exposure of inconsistencies and absurdities in the received
religions. But this operation is quite independent of the Metaphysical
mode of thought, and was no otherwise connected with it than in being
very generally carried on by the same minds (Plato is a brilliant
example), since the most eminent efficiency in it does not necessarily
depend on the possession of positive scientific knowledge.
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