This is because its _universality_ is not steadily kept in view and constantly borne in mind.

If it were, the above short and plain remark would be an effectual antidote to the poison.

But, in practice, it is an armory from which weapons are taken to be employed against _some_ opinions, while it is hidden from notice that the same weapons would equally cut down _every other_ conviction.

It is thus that Mr.Hume's _theory of causation_ is used as an answer to arguments for the existence of the Deity, without warning the reader that it would equally lead him to expect--that _the sun will not rise to-morrow_."[88] The exclusion of all knowledge of causes is so indispensable to M.
Comte's theory that he admits "the inevitable tendency of our intelligence towards a philosophy radically Theological, as often as we seek to penetrate, on whatever pretext, into the intimate nature of the phenomena."[89] The exclusion of such knowledge would, of course, be fatal to Theology, since, without taking some account of causes, efficient and final, we cannot rise to God as the author of the universe.

But did it never occur to M.Comte that the self-same principle may possibly be destructive of his present, or, at least, of his posthumous fame, as the author of the Positive Philosophy?
For, if we can know nothing of _efficient causes_, in what sense, or on what ground, shall any one presume to ascribe the authorship of this system to M.Comte?
True, it may be said,--Here is an effect which exhibits manifest signs of intelligence, order, and scientific skill; its parts are regularly adjusted and all directed to a common end; and, reasoning after the _teleological_ method, we must infer that it proceeded from a very clever, but somewhat eccentric mind; but, unfortunately, _final causes_ are as expressly interdicted as efficient ones; and, on the principles of his own theory, the "Course of Positive Philosophy" can never be warrantably ascribed to the authorship of M.Comte.
A still more serious objection to M.Comte's theory respecting the law of human development arises from the false view which it exhibits of _the nature and history of Truth_, considered as the object of human knowledge.