At a later period,
when the real character of the positive laws of nature had come to be in
a certain degree understood, and the theological idea had assumed, in
scientific minds, its final character, that of a God governing by
general laws, the positive spirit, having now no longer need of the
fictitious medium of imaginary entities, set itself to the easy task of
demolishing the instrument by which it had risen. But though it
destroyed the actual belief in the objective reality of these
abstractions, that belief has left behind it vicious tendencies of the
human mind, which are still far enough from being extinguished, and
which we shall presently have occasion to characterize.
The next point on which we have to touch is one of greater importance
than it seems. If all human speculation had to pass through the three
stages, we may presume that its different branches, having always been
very unequally advanced, could not pass from one stage to another at the
same time. There must have been a certain order of succession in which
the different sciences would enter, first into the metaphysical, and
afterwards into the purely positive stage; and this order M.
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