is infallible; that is, it moves on in the most suitable and direct road to perfection, without knowing it. Infallibility, then, belongs to the movement; that is, such infallibility as directs it, not to the final truths, which are inaccessible to men, but to such measures and such partial truths as are best calculated to promote the intellectual and moral development and ultimate happiness of human nature. Therefore, when St. Simon says that the early fathers were infallible for the age in which they lived, he means to say that they were the movement party; and now that the clergy are not infallible, is as much to say that the clergy are not the movement party: for the spirit of the movement has gone to the laity, or men of science and the people, who are now the true clergy.
Theology.—This word at present has a very confined meaning, referring exclusively to an abstract speculative system of doctrine respecting some few isolated facts, or supposed facts, of ancient times. Its real universal meaning comprehends universal science. It is only in its limited or scholastic meaning that St. Simon speaks disrespectfully of it.
Bible.—As there are two species of theology—a limited and an enlarged—so there are two Bibles,—the books commonly called sacred, and science, or "Nature Revealed." The one is the revelation of God, the other is the revelation of Nature. The first is merely the type or seed, containing the elements of science in mystery. The second is the fruit developed; but the one is not to be perfected without the other. The clergy err in confining themselves to the mere seed, the original uncultivated element, which, for want of culture, corrupts in their possession, till it becomes a stink in the nostrils of society; and the men of science cannot systematize their discoveries, and refer them to a common root and focus, without unriddling and systematizing the book upon scientific principles.
Revelation.—All thought is revelation. Whence can knowledge and ideas come, but from the great universal fountain of intelligence? Hence all books, and all religions, and all sciences, are revelations. But, it may be replied, if every religion, and every book, is revelation, then they are all equal. Nay; this is a very false conclusion. All animals were created by God, but they are very unequal, both in beauty, strength, and intelligence. Moreover, there is only one animal who is a moral and scientific animal. All the rest are brutish and unprogressive. Reasoning upon this principle of analogy, therefore, only one of the infinite
