Nothing Is Destroyed Until It Is Replaced.

Nd Now That Man's History Has Been For The First Time Systematically Considered As A Whole, And Has Been Found To Be, Like All Other Phenomena, Subject To Invariable Laws, The Preparatory Labours Of Modern Science Are Ended.

Monotheism Occupies So Large A Space In The View Of Modern Minds, That It Is Scarcely Possible To Form A Just Estimate Of The Preceding Phases Of The Theological Philosophy.

In The Final, The Positive, State, The Mind Has Given Over The Vain Search After Absolute Notions, The Origin And Destination Of The Universe, And The Causes Of Phenomena, And Applies Itself To The Study Of Their Laws - That Is, Their Invariable Relations Of Succession And Resemblance. Reasoning And Observation, Duly Combined, Are The Means Of This Knowledge. What Is Now Understood When We Speak Of An Explanation Of Facts Is Simply The Establishment Of A Connection Between Single Phenomena And Some General Facts.

The Law Is This: That Each Of Our Leading Conceptions-each Branch Of Our Knowledge-passes Successively Through Three Different Theoretical Conditions: The Theological, Or Fictitious: The Metaphysical, Or Abstract; And The Scientific, Or Positive.

All Good Intellects Have Repeated, Since Bacon's Time, That There Can Be No Real Knowledge But That Which Is Based On Observed Facts. This Is Incontestable, In Our Present Advanced Stage; But, If We Look Back To The Primitive Stage Of Human Knowledge, We Shall See That It Must Have Been Otherwise Then. If It Is True That Every Theory Must Be Based Upon Observed Facts; It Is Equally True That Facts Can Not Be Observed Without The Guidance Of Some Theory. Without Such Guidance, Our Facts Would Be Desultory And Fruitless; We Could Not Retain Them: For The Most Part We Could Not Even Perceive Them.