contrary, observation proves that, since the fifteenth century until this day, it has proceeded in a manner opposite to that which it had followed from the establishment of Christianity up to the fifteenth century.
From the establishment of Christianity, until the fifteenth century, the human race was principally occupied with the co-ordination of its general sentiments with the establishment of a universal and unique principle, and with the founding of a general institution, having for its object to raise the aristocracy of talent above the aristocracy of birth; and thus to subject all private interests to the general interest. During all this period, direct observations upon private interests, upon particular facts, and secondary principles, were neglected; they were rejected by the mass of minds; and upon this subject a general opinion prevailed that secondary principles ought to be deduced from general facts, and one universal principle; an opinion certainly purely speculative, since human intelligence has not the means of establishing generalities precise enough to render it possible to draw from them, as direct consequences, all specialities.
It is to this important fact that the observations which I have presented in this dialogue, in the examination of Catholicism and Protestantism, attach themselves.
Since the dissolution of the spiritual European power, a consequence of the insurrection of Luther, that is, since the fifteenth century, the human mind has detached itself from general views, and given itself up to specialities. It has occupied itself with the analysis of particular facts, with the private interest of the different classes of society. It has laboured to lay down secondary principles, which should serve as bases for the different branches of knowledge; and during this second period, an opinion has prevailed that reasonings upon general facts, upon general principles, and general interests of the human race, were only vague and metaphysical reasonings, not capable
