In Carlyle, indeed, I found bitter denunciations of an "age of unbelief," and of the present age as such, which I, like most people at that time, supposed to be passionate protests in favour of the old modes of belief.

But all that was true in these denunciations, I thought that I found more calmly and philosophically stated by the St.Simonians.Among their publications, too, there was one which seemed to me far superior to the rest; in which the general idea was matured into something much more definite and instructive.

This was an early work of Auguste Comte, who then called himself, and even announced himself in the title-page as, a pupil of Saint Simon.

In this tract M.Comte first put forth the doctrine, which he afterwards so copiously illustrated, of the natural succession of three stages in every department of human knowledge: first, the theological, next the metaphysical, and lastly, the positive stage; and contended, that social science must be subject to the same law; that the feudal and Catholic system was the concluding phasis of the theological state of the social science, Protestantism the commencement, and the doctrines of the French Revolution the consummation, of the metaphysical; and that its positive state was yet to come.

This doctrine harmonized well with my existing notions, to which it seemed to give a scientific shape.