authority must rest on free and perfect confidence and assent, such as are accorded to intellectual and moral superiority; and they imply an agreement and sympathy in a common primary doctrine, regulating the exercise and the conditions of the relation, which is dissolved when the doctrine is disbelieved. The theological faith was connected with some revelation in which the believer had no share; and it must therefore be wholly different from the · positive faith, which follows upon demonstration, open to universal examination, under due conditions. Thus, the positive authority is essentially relative, like the spirit of the corresponding philosophy: and as no individual can know everything and judge of everything, the confidence enjoyed by the most eminent thinker is analogous to that which, in a limited degree, he accords in turn to the humblest intelligence, on certain subjects best understood by the latter. The absolute power of man over man, which was so dreadful and irresistible in former ages, is gone for ever, together with the mental condition which gave rise to it: but, though the positive faith can never be so intense as the theological, its unsystematic action during the last three centuries proves that it can spontaneously occasion a sufficient agreement on subjects that have been duly explored. We see, by the universal admission of the chief scientific truths, notwithstanding their opposition to religious notions, how irresistible will be the sway of the logical force of genuine demonstration when human reason attains maturity; and especially when its extension to moral and social considerations shall have imparted to it its full energy. There will be a sufficient harmony between the need and the power of a regular discipline of minds,at all events, when the theologico-metaphysical system, with all its disturbing influences, has died out. These considerations may serve to dissipate the theocratic uneasiness that naturally arises on the mere mention of any spiritual reorganization, the philosophical nature of the new government wholly precluding such usurpations as those which were perpetrated by theological authority. Nevertheless, we must not suppose, on the other hand, that the positive system will admit of no abuses. The infirmity of our mental and moral nature will remain; and

BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC ASSENT.

325

The

the social superintendence which will be natural will be also needful. We have only too much reason to know that true science is compatible with charlatanism, and that savants are quite as much disposed to oppression as the priests ever were, though happily they have not the same means and opportunity. The remedy lies in the critical social spirit, which was introduced with the Catholic system, and which must attend again upon the separation of the two powers. Its disastrous exaggeration in our day is no evidence against its future efficacy, when it shall have been duly subordinated to the organic spirit, and applied to restrain the abuses of the new system. universal propagation of sound knowledge will check false pretension to a great extent: but there will also be need of the social criticism which will arise from the very constitution of the spiritual authority,-based as it must be on principles which may be at all times appealed to, as tests of capacity and morality. If, under the Catholic constitution, the meanest disciple might remonstrate against any authority, spiritual or temporal, which had infringed ordinary obligations, much more must such a liberty exist under the positive system, which excludes no subject whatever from discussion, under fitting conditions, to say nothing of the greater precision and indisputableness of moral prescriptions under the positive system.

I have exhibited the nature and character The Temporal of the spiritual reorganization which must authority. result from the preparation of past ages. It

is not possible to perform the same office in regard to the temporal system, because it must issue from the other; and it is impossible for any one to foresee more than the general principle and spirit which will regulate the classifi cation of society. Of that principle and spirit I may briefly speak; but it would be countenancing the empiricism of the present day to enter into detail, which must be altogether premature. First, we must discard the distinction between public and private functions,-a distinction. which could never be more than temporary, and which it is impossible to refer to any rational principle. The separation was never contemplated till the industrial system succeeded

Public and private function.

to that of personal bondage: and then the distinction referred to the old system, on the one hand, with its normal functions; and, on the other, to the new system, with its partial and empirical operations, which were not perceived to have any tendency towards a new economy. Thenceforward the conception represents our view of the whole past, in its negative and its positive progression; and it assumed its present preponderance when the final crisis began, when public professions, spiritual and temporal, dissolved, as an extension took place of functions which were formerly private. The distinction will endure till the primary conception of the new system shall have taught all men that there is a public utility in the humblest office of co-operation, no less truly than in the loftiest function of government. Other men would feel, if their labour were but systematized, as the private soldier feels in the discharge of his humblest duty, the dignity of public service, and the honour of a share in the action of the general economy. Thus, the abolition of this distinction depends on the universal regeneration of modern ideas and manners. We have thus to discard altogether the notion of private functions, as belonging to a transitory system, and to consider all as alike social, after having put out of the question whatever functions have to be eliminated; that is, the theological and metaphysical offices which will then have expired. The modern economy thus presenting only homogeneous elements, it becomes possible to form a conception of the classification that is to ensue. The elevation of private professions to the dignity of public functions need occasion no essential change in the manner of their discharge; but it will make all the difference in the world in their general spirit, and not a little in their ordinary conditions. While on the one hand there will be a universal personal sense of social value, there will be on the other hand an admission of the necessity of systematic discipline, incompatible with a private career, but guaranteeing the obligations belonging to each function. one change will be a universal symptom of modern regeneration.

Principle of co-ordination.

This

The co-ordinating principle must be the same that I have applied in establishing the

THE CO-ORDINATING PRINCIPLE.

327

hierarchy of the sciences,-that of the degree of generality and simplicity of the subject, according to the nature of the phenomena. The same principle was tested in its application in the interior of each science; and when we were applying it in biology, we found it assuming a more active character, indicating its social destination. Transferred from ideas and phenomena to actual beings, it became the principle of zoological classification. We then found it to be the basis of social statics; and our dynamical inquiry showed us that it has determined all the elementary evolutions of modern social practice. It must thus be regarded as the law of all hierarchies; and its successive coincidences are explained by the necessary universality of logical laws. It will always be found working identically in every system which consists of homogeneous elements, subjecting all orders of activity to their due classification, according to their respective degrees of abstractness and generality. This was the principle of classification in old societies ; and we see vestiges of it yet in the military organization, where the very terms of office indicate that the less general are subordinated to the more general functions. It needs no proof then, that, in a regenerated society, homogeneous in its elements, the change that will take place will be found to be in the elements, and not in their classification; for such classification as has taken place during the modern transition has been all in accordance with the principle. The only difficulty therefore lies. in estimating the degrees of generality inherent in the various functions of the positive organism: and this very task has been almost entirely accomplished at the beginning of the last chapter, while the rest of the necessary material is furnished by the preceding part of the Work; so that I have only to combine these different particulars to create a rational conception of the final

economy.

The idea of social subordination is common to the old and the new philosophy, opposite as are their points of view, and transitory as is the one view in comparison with the other. The old philosophy, explaining everything by the human type, saw everywhere a hierarchy regulated in imitation of the social classification. The new philosophy,

studying Man in connection with the universe at large, finds this classification to be simply a protraction of the biological hierarchy. But science and theology, considering Man each in its own way, the one as the first of animals, and the other as the lowest of angels,-lead to a very similar conclusion. The office of positive philosophy in this case is to substantiate the common notion of social subordination by connecting it with the principle which forms all hierarchies.

The highest rank is held, according to that Speculative classes highest. principle, by the speculative class. When the separation of the two powers first took place under monotheism, the legal superiority of the clergy to all other orders was by no means owing only or chiefly to their religious character. It was more on account of their speculative character; and the continued growth of the tendency, amidst the decay of religious influences, shows that it is more disinterested than is commonly supposed, and testifies to the disposition of human reason to place the highest value on the most general conceptions. When the speculative class shall have overcome its dispersive tendencies, and returned to unity of principle amidst its diversity of employments, it will obtain the eminent position for which it is destined, and of which its present situation can scarcely afford any idea. While the speculative class is thus superior in dignity, the active class will be superior in express and immediate power, the division answering to the two opposite ways of classifying men, by capacity and by power. The same principle determines the next subdivision of each class, before pointed out in another connection. The speculative class divides itself, according to the direction taken by the contemplative spirit, into the scientific or philosophical (which we know to be ultimately one), and the æsthetic or poetic. Alike as these two classes are in their distinction from the active, they so differ from each other as to require division on the same principle as runs throughout. Whatever may be the ultimate importance and eminent function of the fine arts, the æsthetic point of view can never compare in generality and abstractness with the scientific or philosophical. The one is concerned with the fundamental