It says only that if it be, a change, not at present counted on, will be effected in human life.

It says that human life will degenerate if the creed of positivism be ever generally accepted; but it not only does not say that it ever will be accepted by everybody: rather, it emphatically points out that as yet it has been accepted fully by nobody.

The positive school say that their view of life is the only sound one.

They boast that it is founded on the rock of fact, not on the sand-bank of sentiment; that it is the final philosophy, that will last as long as man lasts, and that very soon it will have seen the extinction of all the others.

It is the positivists who are the prophets, not I.My aim has been not to confirm the prophecy, but to explain its meaning; and my arguments will be all the more opportune at the present moment, the more reason we have to think the prophecy false.
It may be asked why, if we think it false, we should trouble our heads about it.