text:  Comte's system--as it is perpetually referred to throughout his work--as it is by this law he proceeds to view history in a scientific manner--as moreover it is by aid of this law that he undertakes to explain the _provisional existence_ of all theology explaining it in the past and removing it from the future--it becomes necessary to enter into some examination of its claims and we must request our readers' attention to the following statement of it:-- "In studying the entire development of the human intelligence in its different spheres of activity from its first efforts the most simple up to our own days I believe I have discovered a great fundamental law to which it is subjected by an invariable necessity and which seems to me capable of being firmly established whether on those proofs which are furnished by a knowledge of our organization or on those historical verifications which result from an attentive examination of the past