Hypothesis on the nature of Light

The emancipation of natural philosophy from theological and metaphysical influence has thus far gone on by means of a succession of partial efforts, each isolated in intention, though all converging to a final end, amidst the entire unconsciousness of those who were bringing that result to pass. Such an incoherence is a valuable evidence of the force of that instinct which universally characterizes modern intelligence; but it is an evil, in as far as it has retarded and embarrassed and even introduced hesitation into the course of our liberation. No one having hitherto conceived of the positive philosophy as a whole, and the conditions of positivity not having been analysed, much less prescribed, with the modifications appropriate to different orders of researches, it has followed that the founders of natural philosophy have remained under theological and metaphysical influences in all departments but the one in which they were working, even while their own labours were preparing the overthrow of those influences.