“Analyze, for example, the vain attempts, so frequently renewed during two centuries by so many distinguished minds, to subordinate, according to the theologic formula, reason to faith; it is easy to recognize the radical contradiction this attempt involves, which establishes reason herself as supreme judge of this very submission, the extent and the permanence of which is to depend upon her variable and not very rigid decisions.  The most eminent thinker of the present catholic school, the illustrious De Maistre, himself affords a proof, as convincing as involuntary, of this inevitable contradiction in his philosophy, when, renouncing all theologic weapons, he labours in his principal work to re-establish the Papal supremacy on purely historical and political reasonings, instead of limiting himself to command it by right divine—­the only mode in true harmony with such a doctrine, and which a mind, at another epoch, would not certainly have hesitated to adopt.”—­P. 25.

After some further observations on the theologic or retrograde school, he turns to the metaphysic, sometimes called the anarchical, sometimes doctrine critique, for M. Comte is rich in names.

“In submitting, in their turn, the metaphysic doctrine to a like appreciation, it must never be overlooked that, though exclusively critical, and therefore purely revolutionary, it has not the less merited, for a long time, the title of progressive, as having in fact presided over the principal political improvements accomplished in the course of the three last centuries, and which have necessarily been of a negative description.  If, when conceived in an absolute sense, its dogmas manifest, in fact, a character directly anarchical, when viewed in an historical position, and in their antagonism to the ancient system, they constitute a provisional state, necessary to the introduction of a new political organization.

“By a necessity as evident as it is deplorable, a necessity inherent in our feeble nature, the transition from one social system to another can never be direct and continuous; it supposes always, during some generations at least, a sort of interregnum, more or less anarchical, whose character and duration depend on the importance and extent of the renovation to be effected. (While the old system remains standing, though undermined, the public reason cannot become familiarized with a class of ideas entirely opposed to it.) In this necessity we see the legitimate source of the present doctrine critique—­a source which at once explains the indispensable services it has hitherto rendered, and also the essential obstacles it now opposes to the final reorganization of modern societies....

“Under whatever aspect we regard it, the general spirit of the metaphysic revolutionary system consists in erecting into a normal and permanent state a necessarily exceptional and transitory