We avail ourselves of the aid afforded by all these branches of science in order to comprehend the true nature of man, and the place which he really occupies in the animal creation.  Man should be estimated as all other products and phenomena of nature are estimated, according to his absolute value, divested, as in the case of all other physical and organic sciences, of preconceived ideas or prejudices in favour of the supernatural.  He should be studied as in physics we study bodies and the laws which govern them, or as the laws of their motions and combinations are studied in chemistry, allowance always being made for their reciprocal relations, and for their appearance as a whole.  For if there be in the universe a distinction of modes, there is no absolute separation of laws and phenomena.

The various branches of science are only subjective necessities, consequent on the successive and gradual order of our comprehension of things; they are classifications of method, with no special reference to the undivided personality of nature.  All are parts of the whole, and so also the whole is revealed in its several parts.  They come to be in thought, as well as in reality, reciprocal conditions of each other; and he who is able to solve the problem of the world correctly in a simple movement of an atom, would be able to explain all laws and all phenomena, since every thing may ultimately be reduced to this movement.  It is precisely this which has been attained by certain laws, so that the study of man must not be dissociated from this conception.  It is necessary to regard him as a product of the forces of nature, with which he has certain properties in common.  Although man may appear to be a special and peculiar subject, yet he is connected with the universal system in which he lives by the elements, phenomena, and forces of which he consists.

It must not be supposed, as it is asserted with ever-increasing clamour, that such a method and theory can ever destroy the civilized basis of society, and the morality and dignity with which it should be informed, as if we were again reducing man to the condition of a beast.  Such an outcry is in itself a plain and striking proof that we have not yet emerged from the mythical age of thought, since it is precisely a mythical belief which prompts this angry protest against the noble and independent research after truth.

It is impossible that the results of positive and rational science should in any way destroy the necessary conditions of civilized life and of the high standard of goodness which should form, elevate, and bring it to perfection.  We must, however, remember that it was not rational science, nor the ethics of law, which established the a priori rules of a just and free society, but the necessities of society itself led to the a posteriori formulation of laws.  Theoretic science subsequently explained these laws, and perfected their form and organism, infusing into