tunately no statesmen who think and speak like Pericles; but his idealized representation of what Athens was, supplies us with an admirable picture of what our intellects aspire to, and our hearts desire, and towards which we believe humanity is wending its way.

Not only do we find in portions of early society this character of prophecy, but we likewise trace it in individual minds. Innumerable illustrations of this might be given. One short passage from the writings of Scotus Erigena in the ninth century, and cited by Guizot, will however suffice to indicate the prediction of that insurrection of reason against authority which has played so important a part in modern history. "Nature and time were created together, but authority does not date from the origin of time and nature. Reason is born at the commencement of things with time and nature; reason itself demonstrates it. Authority is derived from reason, not reason from authority. An authority which is not acknowledged by reason seems valueless. Reason, on the contrary, invincibly resting on its own strength, has no need of the confirmation of any authority. Legitimate authority appears to me but truth unfolded by the force of reason, and transmitted by the holy fathers for the use of future generations." It is not sur

prising that the Church should have found these opinions dangerous; nor can we wonder that they had to wait many generations before the time came in which they could take root and be recognized. Looking upon them now with the aid of a philosophy of human development, we see them as seeds certain to bear important fruit.

Every age has contained types of the ages that were to come. Our own has its indications clearly expressed; but they are unseen and unheeded by the many, because they cling to the powers that are already in the ascendant, and are slow to discern the planets that are rising to watch over coming hours.

CHAPTER IV.

COMTE'S LAW OF PROGRESS.

IN an inductive process of inquiry facts are observed and arranged with a view to ascertain the laws by which they are governed; and now that we have noticed the broad features of the changes in three successive periods of society, we are in a position to appreciate the law of their evolution. The most remarkable attempt to unfold this law, and one which, with some reservations and additions, will probably attain universal recognition, is that made by Auguste Comte. Upon this brilliant generalization Mr. J. S. Mill remarks: "Speculation he (Comte) conceives to have on every subject of human inquiry three successive stages in the first of which it tends to explain the phenomena by supernatural agencies, in the second by metaphysical abstractions, and in the third, or final state, confines itself to ascertaining their laws of succession and similitude. This generalization appears to me to have that high degree of scientific evidence which

is derived from the concurrence of the indications of history with the probabilities derived from the constitution of the human mind. Nor could it be easily conceived what a flood of light it lets in upon the whole course of history, when its consequences are traced by connecting with each of the three states of human intellect which it distinguishes, and with each successive modification of those three states, the correlative condition of the social phenomena." In other words, Comte supposed the human mind in the individual and in society to pass through three successive conditions-the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive. Comte himself towards the close of his life appears to have been passing through a fourth stage, the positive-religious, using religious as distinguished from theological.

In early stages of society, man, blindly conscious of his own powers, projected them as it were into surrounding nature, and peopled every object with distortions of himself. Unable as yet to decipher the natural, he obtained by an imperfect process of introspection a conception of spiritual powers, and surrounded himself with an atmosphere of the supernatural, in which wonders and prodigies were continually exhibited. Humboldt says, "the forces of nature appear to operate magically, shrouded as it were in the gloom of a mysterious power only

when their workings lie beyond the bounds of generally ascertained natural conditions." Where no natural conditions had been ascertained, all was magical and mysterious; and, as Mr. Mackay observes, "to the early inhabitants of the East everything was unexplored, and therefore everything was miraculous. They assumed the universe to be either itself animated or peopled in all its parts by innumerable spirits; and the only doubt was as to the moral complexion of those beings, whether their intents were wicked or charitable, whether emissaries of heaven or hell."* Comte elucidates the early stage of speculation by reminding us, "that if on the one hand man must begin by supposing himself the centre of all things, he must on the other hand next set himself up as a universal type. The only way that he can explain any phenomena is by likening them as much as possible to his own acts."t Following out this principle, gods and spirits were everywhere, in physical elements, in all objects of life, and in every manifestation of force; woods, groves, and waterfalls had their deities; stars were the abodes of supernal powers; spirits or demons had their dwelling in the mineral world, and it was an easy thing for "one suckled in those