of biology; yet more concrete, special, indeterminate, and variable than chemistry. No one doubts that the physiological action of organized beings is entirely subject to a system of laws, the study of which is of the first importance, though they are infinitely more elusory, complicated, and embarrassed than those of mechanical relation.

"When, in the last stage, we arrive at political relations, with the various branches of intellectual, moral, and spiritual, the question whether these are the subjects of positive science depends only on the question whether there are laws of social action and development. That there are such laws was not for the first time suggested by M. Auguste Comte. It was affirmed, with all the dogmatism of inspiration, by King David, centuries ago; and before him by a long line of prophets which have been since the world began. I need not refer you to a production known as the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm, to find, in every several verse of that sublime service of adoration, a several reassertion of the establishment and eternal duration of the moral, spiritual, and social laws which God has founded in the nature of man. These are the statutes, the testimonies, the judgments, the ways, the word, the understanding, the knowledge, the wisdom for which David prayed, and which were revealed to his heart thousands of years antecedently to the time when men have begun to apprehend that there are such principles, capable of being explored and known; and which enabled him to foretell the swift destruction of the wicked, and the certain, though deferred triumph of the righteous. That there are such laws, in the view of the divine mind, no religious person doubts. What M. Comté affirms (and he was by no means the first to suggest it, though the ablest in giving it a philosophic base and a systematic consistence) is, that these laws are capable of being contemplated and comprehended by man's mind, in more or less completeness; at least, that they are worth being studied by him. He says, therefore, that there is a positive science of moral and political truth. But, in accordance with the nature of the subject, that science will be almost indefinitely less exact in its premises, less certain in its processes, and less particular and applicable in its conclusions, than the lower and simpler science of mathematics. Scientific conception, as applied to social subjects, will, perhaps, hardly ever get beyond some very general notion of the character of the laws, or some one or more of them, that preside over the evolution of society; and scientific reasoning upon it will never pass beyond the indications or monstrations of a rational instinct. M. Comte, I apprehend, never uttered so monstrous a fallacy and sciolism, as that mathematical science is applicable to social subjects. His first four volumes are written for the special purpose of proving and exhibiting, by a regularly ascending scale, how extremely remote from a mathematical character are the subjects with which morals and politics deal, and how alien from mathematical processes must be the mode of reasoning applied to them. But, fortunately, just as the certainty and distinctness of scientific [theory?] diminishes in its ascent from the material to the moral, the importance and applicability of the least degree of scientific truth increases. In regard to politics, the establishment, as a probable and reliable principle, of the mere fact that the subject is governed by inherent laws, though no one of those laws should ever be discovered, or even remotely indicated, would be the greatest benefit ever conferred upon the world of a temporal kind: because it would at once enable us to repel and destroy the assaults of all those metaphysical sophisms-as that all men have equal rights-all political power rightfully springs only from the consent of the governed-which have tormented and vexed society like diseases. We should at once be able to say, We cannot indeed yet establish the general theory of political government; we cannot tell the law or laws of the evolvement or construction of government; but as for these democratic maxims of the rights of man, they are clearly false and mischievous, because they

are metaphysical, and not consistent with the phenomena of society as recorded in history. Those notions are clearly not the laws implanted in the social nature of man, because society has never obeyed them, or been consistent with them. By thus paralyzing the force of the disorganizing elements of metaphysical axioms, upon which all the disturbing agencies of modern life are based, we should do incalculable service to the social patient; for though we should administer no new remedies, we should withdraw the sources of ailment on the one hand, and the appliances of false treatment on the other, and afford free action to the recovering powers of the social constitution.

"So much for what I suggest as one of the errors of your reviewer, in thinking that scientific or positive methods are not applicable to society; an error into which he fell from not sufficiently attending to M. Comte's scale or hierarchy of sciences.

"I think, also, that he has not done full justice to M. Comte's law of the three successive modes of philosophizing, which he calls the theological, metaphysical, and positive. I take this to be a true law, and of general application. It is to be considered as a law of the human mind, founded upon the structure of our nature; but it has no higher truth than in its application to man's nature, as it has thus far been developed. Bacon fully established the distinction between the metaphysical and the positive; but the law of the relation and succession of the three may be considered one of M. Comte's discoveries. I think your reviewer errs in considering that theological, in this use, is synonymous with religious or spiritual. M. Comte's use of that word is not altogether appropriate; and I agree to what your reviewer says, on page thirty-one, in there being something of unfairness and prejudice in the use of it.

"I do not understand that M. Comte explodes, as destitute of truth, the theological and metaphysical methods or forms of philosophy. They are just and true, according to their own point of view; but they contemplate different purposes from the positive. He does not, I think, deny, but admits and asserts the coexistence of these three systems; not only in different minds and on different subjects, but also in the same mind, and on the same subject, and even at one time. I see no reason why, in their complete development, they should not all exist together.

"I cannot follow your critic's meaning when he speaks, at page twenty-nine, of M. Comte's entire negation of logic and metaphysics.' Metaphysical processes, as applied to scientific investigation, he certainly explodes; but as to his denying logic, if he has ever done that, I should say that he must have taken leave of his sense.

"On one other small point I cannot quite agree. Your reviewer says, on page twenty-one: 'Lord Bacon, whom he regards, most erroneously, as the apostle of Positivism.' I think that he was so; unless you prefer to call him the inspired prophet of the system of which Comte is the enlightened demonstrator. Of the positive method, as applicable to all subjects, Bacon had a perfectly true apprehension. I find scarcely anything in Comte that was not beforehand in Bacon. But Comte, by his profound and perfect exposition of Positivism, has enabled us to understand much in Bacon that without him we should probably not have understood. In speaking thus of Bacon, Lord Verulam, I am, of course, aware of the circumstance to which Forster long ago called attention, that much of the doctrine of the Novum Organon is to be found in the Opus Majus of the elder Bacon, to which also your reviewer alludes.

"I ought not to end without adding a word or two in respect to my position in respect to M. Comte, and his position in respect to Positivism. From his Atheism I totally dissent. Atheism may be the accident of the individual; it is not a characteristic of the system. In my view, the positive system is a

certain and universal method; and religion-the religion revealed to the Church and recorded in the inspired Scriptures-is a reality as certain as life itself; and the correct application of the positive method to the subject of religion, so far from upsetting, will verify and demonstrate the catholic faith. In attempting this application M. Comte has altogether broken down.

"I think that I can state to you precisely the character and extent of M. Comte's intellectual merit, and draw the line within which he is an oracle and beyond which he is a babbler.

"It is almost a law of man's intelligence, that abstract and logical reasoning is a different sort of mind, or an opposite mode of application, from special and practical sagacity in investigation; that they are distinct faculties or reversed actions of the intellect; and that a person is gifted with immense perfection in one of these ways only under the condition of becoming thereby incapacitated in a corresponding degree as to the other. Thus it was with Bacon. After apprehending and defining with infallible justness the true method of investigation and discovery, and foretelling with accuracy the results that would follow from employing it-after himself fashioning the instrument, and explaining precisely how it was to be dealt with-when he attempted himself to apply it in particular use, as in his collections in natural history, he fell into fooleries the most inconceivable. He seems not to have been in the least degree competent to conduct the operation of the machine which he had invented. M. Comte's failure is not greater than Bacon's, and is quite analogous to it. When he generalizes, philosophizes, and systematizes when he reasons upon what has been done, determines upon what principles it has been done, and thence points out what ought henceforth to be done, we are astonished by his piercing analysis, his all-comprehending wisdom. When he attempts to apply his own method to the exploration and establishment of truth in a new department, he exposes himself. The Cours de Philosophie Positive' is a monument of his prodigious powers in an abstract and analytic way: the Système de Politique Positive, in its bearing upon religion, an equally significant measure of his puny capacity as an original investigator. In applying Positivism to spiritual matters, he proceeds in a style directly repugnant to all his principles and teachings. He sets out by stultifying history, and the experience of forty centuries, and sets up the metaphysical contrivances of his own brain in opposition to the collective and traditionary sense of the race. The attempts of M. Littré and the Republique Occidentale, to make an application of the positive method to politics, are equally distressing. Those synthetic suggestions toward a so-called reconstruction of society exhibit a complete departure from the principles of the positive method. M. Comte thinks that Positivism is Atheistic. M. Littré thinks that it is republican or radical. I agree with neither. I am a conservative of the conservatives: and it is upon the positive system, as applied to morals and politics, that I found my confidence in the ultimate triumph of sound principles.

"M. Comte's writings are of inestimable value to those who know how to use what is valuable in them; dangerous to undiscriminating minds. To derive the fullest benefit from him, we must try him severely and judge him fearlessly. As a guide in regard to the philosophy of philosophy, he is the most enlightened that has appeared since Bacon. I cannot speak of him but in terms of enthusiastic reverence. He is an object of boundless admiration and gratitude to me. But at a certain point his inspiration stops. His illumination extends only through a certain department; beyond it he sees less than the dullest; like the son of Balak, whose common sight was darkened as much as the eyes of his mind were open, who, when he stood upon the mountain-rock, foresaw the advent of Messiah and foreknew the countless hosts of the spiritual Israel, yet upon the road thither pushed against the armed angel of the Lord, more blindly than the ass he bestrode.

"We have abundant means of judging M. Comte. He was not the discoverer of the Positive Method; nor is he the highest authority in respect to its characteristics. He was not the first to apply it either to science, or to politics, or to theology. It had been brought to bear upon history, religion, and social subjects before he appeared; and with results eminently conservative and satisfactory. A student of Bacon and of those great men who after him had taken up and extended the inductive method, I was myself engaged in applying it to politics, morals, and spirituality, before I heard of Comte. From the perusal of his works I have derived immeasurable benefit; but when he comes to fit his method to spiritual affairs, he ciphers entirely, and I proceed without him upon my own original and independent course. As I consider that the religious bearings of Positivism ought to be brought right, before it is introduced to the public, I have been long endeavouring to elaborate that part of the task, and to rectify M. Comte's aberrations in respect to it. I think myself able to contribute some slight suggestions toward founding the true positive conceptions of the religious subject, and developing it demonstratively; and as the results thus arrived at will be found identical with the system of the Church, both in doctrine and in operation, it will follow that the Scripture system was a true revelation. The time is not distant when Christianity will rely entirely upon the positive philosophy for its argumentative support. That philosophy is destined to furnish the demonstration of the Christian truth, and thereby to convert the world.

"As I look upon the positive system, also, as affording the only protection in politics against the disorganizing maxims and passions of the revolutionary and destructive parties of the day, I have thought it most important to present the political bearings of this system in a complete and satisfactory way. I have, therefore, occupied myself for some time upon a history of political philosophy, which I shall perhaps complete in the form of a report to the Smithsonian Institute. I desire therein to trace the rise, and operation, and failure of all the metaphysical systems, and the rise, and partial developments, and imperfect apprehension of it down to the present day. The positive philosophy, as applied to politics, has been used by many before Comte; most of all by Burke, whose mind was imbued with it in a concrete way, and who always reasons according to it. M. Comte taught us the true philosophy of that philosophy: he estimated and analyzed the method; but the method was in use before him, not only by Burke, but by Montesquieu, Machiavel, and, greatest of all, the half-inspired Vico."

Of the profound and comprehensive intellect which this letter bespeaks, we need say nothing-but to mourn that its light has been so suddenly extinguished. Of its doctrines, this is not the place nor the time to speak. It may be proper for us to say, however, in justice to the author of the papers on the Positive Philosophy that have appeared in this journal, that M. Comte himself goes even far beyond Mr. Wallace in his estimate of the ability of those articles. In private letters to the editor he has said, in substance, that they are fairer, fuller, and more thorough than any criticisms of his work that have appeared in Europe. Sir William Hamilton-with whom no living critic on such topics can be compared-has also expressed to us his high sense of their value.

We trust that Mr. Wallace's literary remains will in due time be given to the public. Even the unfinished productions of such a

man must be inestimable.

ART. IX.-MISCELLANIES.

Narrative of a Journey round the Dead Sea and in the Bible Lands, in 1850 and 1851. By F. DE SAULCY, Member of the French Institute. Edited, with Notes, by the Count Edward de Warren. 2 vols., 8vo. London: Bentley. 1853.

THIS work has excited much attention in Europe. As, through some mishap, our copy has not reached us, we avail ourselves of a notice in the October number of "The Journal of Biblical Literature," (London,) in order to give our readers an idea of the book:

"The idea of an Eastern journey was suggested to M. de Sauley by 'a severe domestic bereavement,' (the loss of his wife,) which made him desire to absent himself for a time from Paris and its familiar scenes. Wishing to turn his absence to the best account, he determined to visit, with his son, Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor. Indeed, he conceived that a journey of this kind was calculated to complete advantageously the education of a young man who had just finished his college course. It was also his hope, for himself, to find subjects sufficiently new and interesting to be offered to the distinguished Academy to which he belonged. He considered, further, that it would be no advantage to science to tread again the beaten paths already traced by hundreds of other tourists; and that the object of his travelling would be completely lost if he did not attempt to visit countries still unexplored. Hence his attention to the Dead Sea and its valley, as a scene over which mystery still hung, and where danger might still be worthily encountered. This sounds strangely in our ears. We did suppose that the Dead Sea was no longer an unexplored region, and that through the labours of Seetzen, Burckhardt, Irby and Mangles, Robinson, and Captain Lynch's expedition, we were already pretty well acquainted with that lake, its shores, and its valley. The whole coast had been examined at a little distance from the shore, and often on shore, by Lynch; considerable parts of the western coast have been explored on shore by Robinson and others; and the entire of the southern backwater and peninsula by Irby and Mangles, and others. The eastern coast has not been examined by land-travellers, and this precisely-being about onethird of the whole, and the least known, though not unknown, portion-is that which M. de Saulcy left unvisited. So far, therefore, his journey is not one *round' the Dead Sea; but what he has done is, that by traversing the entire western margin, he has visited the parts thereof not previously explored by land-travellers, though surveyed by Lynch, and that he struck out a new route to Kerek from the Dead Sea, returning however by the usual route. In the other parts of the country, to and from the Dead Sea, we do not perceive that any new routes have been followed, or any new country explored. We may say, also, that the indications of Scriptural sites, in the quarters away from the Dead Sea, are very generally the same as those first indicated by Dr. Robinson, without anything to convey to the mind of the reader of the work before us that the discoveries and conjectures are not here offered for the first time. Still M. de Sauley, who names that learned traveller with high and just commendation, frequently differs from him, and advances ingenious, plausible, and often good grounds for the difference.

Burckhardt did not visit the lake itself, but he got some good information concerning it at Kerek, and explored the neighbourhood lying east from its shores.