These  are  the  five  phases  of  the  positive  method,  through  whose
succession  the  scientific  spirit  rises  gradually  to  the  dignity  of  the
philosophical  spirit,  effacing  at  length  the  provisional  distinction
between  them  which  had  been  necessary  during  the  earlier  part  of
the  human  evolution.  If  we  consider  the  miserable  theoretical  state
from  which  human  reason  set  out,  we  shall  not  wonder  that  so  long


ESTIMATE   OP   THE  RESULTS   OP  POSITIVE   DOCTRINE.  817

a  tutelage  was  required  to  enable  Man  to  extend  to  his  abstract  and
general  speculations  the  same  mental  training  that  popular  wisdom
spontaneously  employs  in  its  partial  and  practical  acts.  Though
there  can  be  no  exemption  from  the  necessity  of  reproducing  this
natural  succession  for  ever,  the  systematic  educatjon  now  prepared
for,  in  place  of  the  instinctive,  will  render  the  process  much  more
rapid  and  easy  ;  and  I  rejoice  in  the  privilege  of  having  prepared
it  &r  my  successors,  by  the  elaboration  of  this  my  original  scheme.
