Destination  of  ^uch  IS  thc  uatuve  of  thc  positive  method.  The  next
the  Method.  inquiry  is  of  its  destination, — in  regard  to  the  indi-
vidual, the  race,  speculative  life  and  practical  life.  The  theoretical
office  in  regard  to  the  individual  consists  in  satisfying  the  double
need  of  extending  and  connecting  his  real  knowledge.  The  con-
nection between  our  conceptions  offered  by  the  old  philosophies,
hindered  their  extension  by  providing  beforehand  an
explanation  to  suit  all  imaginable  cases ;  and  the  con-
sequence would  have  been  a  total  obstruction  of  knowledge,  but  for
the  secondary  questions,  pertaining  to  common  affairs,  which  dis-
closed the  operation  of  laws,  without  which  Man  could  not  have
guided  his  conduct  from  hour  to  hour.  Prom  this  accessory,  special
and  desultory  positivity,  genuine  investigation  proceeded  at  length,
and  manifested  its  aptitude,  first  to  connect  our  conceptions,  and
by  that  very  connection  to  extend  them ;  and  then,  using  every  ex-
tension to  perfect  the  anterior  connection.  Though  the  introduction
of  new  facts  may  appear  to  disturb  the  positive  arrangement,  all
experience  proves, — and  the  experience  is  now  long  enough  to  be
relied  on, — that  the  positive  method  solves  all  such  difficulties  by
its  faithful  subordination  of  conceptions  to  realities.  Meeting  these
two  needs  as  it  meets  those  of  order  and  progress  in  social  affairs,
its  function  may  be  simply  described  as  constituting  the  general
harmony  of  our  intellectual  system,  so  as  to  express  the  natural
pre-eminence  of  statical  over  dynamical  need?, — those  of  existence
over  those  of  motion,  in  the  case  of  the  race  as  well  as  the  indi-
vidual. Th5  relative  character  of  the  philosophical  spirij'exhibits
this  logical  coherence  as  always  constituting  the  most  decisive  testi-
mony to  the  reality  of  our  conceptions,  because  their  correspondence
with  our  observations  is  thus  secured,  and  we  may  depend  upon
being  as  near  the  truth  as  the  corresponding  state  of  things  allows.
