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Rh objective method by a subjective method. Nature as a whole must be construed from the human standpoint and humanity described as the highest being (le grande être). The affections and not merely the understanding are now to be the final arbiter, and synthesis, i. e., the conception of unity, is to be regarded as superior to analysis and specialization. The new religion is to be a worship of humanity, of which we are all members,—those now living as well as those who have died and those as yet unborn. Every thought and action is to be directed towards the development of this Grand être. The constitution of the future is to be a Sociocracy, a social community without fixed institutions. The patricians direct production, whilst the proletariat represent the dynamic, the philosophers the reason, and the women the affections of the social body. Public opinion and the right of refusal to cooperate will furnish an adequate check against any misuse of power on the part of the spiritual or temporal authorities.—Thus the founder of positivism ends up as a Utopian romantist. His school divides on this point, several of them (as e. g. Littré) maintaining the theory of the Cours, whilst others (such as Lafitte and Robinet) regarded the Politique positive as the actual culmination of the positive philosophy.

C.

Both in Germany and in France the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century was effected by a revolution—in Germany by the romantic revolution in the sphere of thought, in France by the political revolution. In England on the other hand there were a number of energetic philosophic thinkers who