It may be useful, however, to advert, in conclusion, to some considerations which afford decisive objections against it, arising from the testimony of authentic history and the plainest principles of reason.
In so far as the testimony of history and tradition is concerned, nothing can be more certain than that the progress of the race has followed a very different course from that which M.Comte has traced out for it by his grand fundamental law.

The theory of a primitive state of ignorance and barbarism, in which a rude Theology existed, in the form of Fetishism, is opposed not more to the authority of Scripture, the earliest record of our race, than to the unanimous voice of antiquity, which attests the general belief of mankind in a primeval state of light and innocence.

There is a sad but striking contrast between the views which are generally held by the Christian Theist, and those which are avowed by M.Comte on this subject.

The Christian Theist admits the doctrine of a primeval Revelation and a pristine state of purity and peace; M.Comte maintains the doctrine of a primitive barbarism and a natural aboriginal Superstition.

The Christian Theist believes in a fall subsequent to the creation of man, and ascribes the ignorance and error, the superstition and idolatry which ensued, to the perversion and abuse of his intellectual and moral powers; M.Comte affirms that man did not _fall_, that he did actually _rise_ by a process of slow but progressive self-elevation, and that, in _advancing_ from Fetishism to Polytheism, and from Polytheism to Monotheism, and from Monotheism to Atheism, he has all along been determined by the law of his normal development.