the new paul and virginia or positivism on an island by w.h. mallock author of 'the new republic' etc. london chatto & windus, piccadilly 1890 _'pessimism as to the essential dignity of man is one of the surest marks of the enervating influence of this dream of a celestial glory.'_ mr frederic harrison 'those who can read the signs of the times read in them that the kingdom of man is at hand'--professor clifford thou art smitten, o god, thou art smitten; thy curse is upon thee, o lord! and the love song of earth as thou diest, resounds through the wind of its wings, glory to man in the highest, for man is the master of things _songs before sunrise_ contents. chapter i. chapter ii. chapter iii. chapter iv. chapter v. chapter vi. chapter vii. chapter viii. chapter ix. chapter x. chapter xi. chapter xii. chapter xiii. chapter xiv. chapter xv. chapter xvi. chapter xvii. chapter xviii. notes _the new paul and virginia._ chapter i. the magnificent ocean-steamer the _australasian_ was bound for england, on her homeward voyage from melbourne, carrying her majesty's mails and ninety-eight first-class passengers. never did vessel start under happier auspices. the skies were cloudless; the sea was smooth as glass. there was not a sound of sickness to be heard anywhere; and when dinner-time came there was not a single absentee nor an appetite wanting. but the passengers soon discovered they were lucky in more than weather. dinner was hardly half over before two of the company had begun to attract general attention; and every one all round the table was wondering, in whispers, who they could possibly be. one of the objects of this delightful curiosity was a large-boned, middle-aged man, with gleaming spectacles, and lank, untidy hair; whose coat fitted him so ill, and who held his head so high, that one saw at a glance he was some great celebrity. the other was a beautiful lady of about thirty years of age, the like of whom nobody present had ever seen before. she had the fairest hair and the darkest eyebrows, the largest eyes and the smallest waist conceivable; art and nature had been plainly struggling as to which should do the most for her; whilst her bearing was so haughty and distinguished, her glance so tender, and her dress so expensive and so fascinating, that she seemed at the same time to defy and to court attention. evening fell on the ship with a soft warm witchery. the air grew purple, and the waves began to glitter in the moonlight. the passengers gathered in knots upon the deck, and the distinguished strangers were still the subject of conjecture. at last the secret was discovered by the wife of an old colonial judge; and the news spread like wildfire. in a few minutes all knew that there were on board the _australasian_ no less personages than professor paul darnley and the superb virginia st. john. chapter ii. miss st. john had, for at least six years, been the most renowned woman in europe. in paris and st. petersburg, no less than in london, her name was equally familiar both to princes and to pot-boys; indeed, the gaze of all the world was fixed on her. yet, in spite of this exposed situation, scandal had proved powerless to wrong her; she defied detraction. her enemies could but echo her friends' praise of her beauty; her friends could but confirm her enemies' description of her character. though of birth that might almost be called humble, she had been connected with the heads of many distinguished families; and so general was the affection she inspired, and so winning the ways in which she contrived to retain it, that she found herself, at the age of thirty, mistress of nothing except a large fortune. she was now converted with surprising rapidity by a ritualistic priest, and she became in a few months a model of piety and devotion. she made lace trimmings for the curate's vestments; she bowed at church as often and profoundly as possible; she enjoyed nothing so much as going to confession; she learnt to despise the world. indeed, such utter dross did her riches now seem to her, that, despite all the arguments of her ghostly counsellor, she remained convinced that they were far too worthless to offer to the church, and she saw nothing for it but to still keep them for herself. the mingled humility and discretion of this resolve so won the heart of a gifted colonial bishop, then on a visit to england, that, having first assured himself that miss st. john was sincere in making it, he besought her to share with him his humble mitre, and make him the happiest prelate in the whole catholic church. miss st. john consented. the nuptials were celebrated with the most elaborate ritual, and after a short honeymoon the bishop departed for his south pacific diocese of the chasuble islands, to prepare a home for his bride, who was to follow him by the next steamer. professor paul darnley, in his own walk of life, was even more famous than virginia had been in hers. he had written three volumes on the origin of life, which he had spent seven years in looking for in infusions of hay and cheese; he had written five volumes on the entozoa of the pig, and two volumes of lectures, as a corollary to these, on the sublimity of human heroism and the whole duty of man. he was renowned all over europe and america as a complete embodiment of enlightened modern thought. he criticised everything; he took nothing on trust, except the unspeakable sublimity of the human race and its august terrestrial destinies. and, in his double capacity of a seer and a _savant_, he had destroyed all that the world had believed in the past, and revealed to it all that it is going to feel in the future. his mind indeed was like a sea, into which the other great minds of the age discharged themselves, and in which all the slight discrepancies of the philosophy of the present century mingled together and formed one harmonious whole. nor was he less successful in his own private life. he married, at the age of forty, an excellent evangelical lady, ten years his senior, who wore a green gown, grey corkscrew curls, and who had a fortune of two hundred thousand pounds. deeply pledged though she was to the most vapid figments of christianity, mrs. darnley was yet proud beyond measure of her husband's worldwide fame, for she did but imperfectly understand the grounds of it. indeed, the only thing that marred her happiness was the single tenet of his that she had really mastered. this, unluckily, was that he disbelieved in hell. and so, as mrs. darnley conceived that that place was designed mainly to hold those who doubted its existence, she daily talked her utmost and left no text unturned to convince her darling of his very dangerous error. these assiduous arguments soon began to tell. the professor grew moody and brooding, and he at last suggested to his medical man that a voyage round the world, unaccompanied by his wife, was the prescription most needed by his failing patience. mrs. darnley at length consented with a fairly good grace. she made her husband pledge himself that he would not be absent for above a twelvemonth, or else, she said, she should immediately come after him. she bade him the tenderest of adieus, and promised to pray till his return for his recovery of a faith in hell. the professor, who had but exceeded his time by six months, was now on board the _australasian_, homeward bound to his wife. virginia was outward bound to her husband. chapter iii. the sensation created by the presence of these two celebrities was profound beyond description; and the passengers were never weary of watching the gleaming spectacles and the square-toed boots of the one, and the liquid eyes and the ravishing toilettes of the other. virginia's acquaintance was made almost instantly by three pale-faced curates, and so well did their friendship prosper, that they soon sang at nightfall with her a beautiful vesper hymn. nor did the matter end here, for the strains sounded so lovely, and virginia looked so devotional, that most of the passengers the night after joined in a repetition of this touching evening office. the professor, as was natural, held quite aloof, and pondered over a new species of bug, which he had found very plentiful in his berth. but it soon occurred to him that he often heard the name of god being uttered otherwise than in swearing. he listened more attentively to the sounds which he had at first set down as negro-melodies, and he soon became convinced that they were something whose very existence he despised himself for remembering--namely, christian hymns. he then thought of the three curates, whose existence he despised himself for remembering also. and the conviction rapidly dawned on him that, though the passengers seemed fully alive to his fame as a man of science, they could yet know very little of all that science had done for them; and of the death-blow it had given to the foul superstitions of the past. he therefore resolved that next day he would preach them a lay-sermon. at the appointed time the passengers gathered eagerly round him--all but virginia, who retired to her cabin when she saw that the preacher wore no surplice, as she thought it would be a mortal sin to listen to a sermon without one. the professor began amidst a profound silence. he first proclaimed to his hearers the great primary axiom on which all modern thought bases itself. he told them that there was but one order of things--it was so much neater than two; and if we would be certain of anything, we must never doubt this. thus, since countless things exist that the senses _can_ take account of, it is evident that nothing exists that the senses can _not_ take account of. the senses can take no account of god; therefore god does not exist. men of science can only see theology in a ridiculous light, therefore theology has no side that is not ridiculous. he then told them a few of the names that enlightened thinkers had applied to the christian deity--how professor tyndall had called him an 'atom-manufacturer,' and professor huxley a 'pedantic drill-sergeant'. the passengers at once saw how demonstrably at variance with fact was all religion, and they laughed with a sense of humour that was quite new to them. the professor's tones then became more solemn, and, having extinguished error, he at once went on to unveil the brilliant light of truth. he showed them how, viewed by modern science, all existence is a chain, with a gas at one end and no one knows what at the other; and how humanity is a link somewhere; but--holy and awful thought!--we can none of us tell where. 'however,' he proceeded, 'of one thing we can be quite certain; all that is, is matter; the laws of matter are eternal, and we cannot act or think without conforming to them; and if,' he said, 'we would be solemn and high, and happy, and heroic, and saintly, we have but to strive and struggle to do what we cannot for an instant avoid doing. yes,' he exclaimed, 'as the sublime tyndall tells us, let us struggle to attain to a deeper knowledge of matter, and a more faithful conformity to its laws!' the professor would have proceeded, but the weather had been rapidly growing rough, and he here became violently sea-sick. 'let us,' he exclaimed hurriedly, 'conform to the laws of matter and go below.' nor was the advice premature. a storm arose, exceptional in its suddenness and its fury. it raged for two days without ceasing. the _australasian_ sprang a leak; her steering gear was disabled; and it was feared she would go ashore on an island that was seen dimly through the fog to the leeward. the boats were got in readiness. a quantity of provisions and of the passengers' baggage was already stowed in the cutter; when the clouds parted, the sun came out again, and the storm subsided almost as quickly as it rose. chapter iv. no sooner were the ship's damages in a fair way to be repaired than the professor resumed his sermon. he climbed into the cutter, which was still full of the passengers' baggage, and sat down on the largest of virginia's boxes. this so alarmed virginia that she incontinently followed the professor into the cutter, to keep an eye on her property; but she did not forget to stop her ears with her fingers, that she might not be guilty of listening to an unsurpliced minister. the professor took up the thread of his discourse just where he had broken it off. every circumstance favoured him. the calm sea was sparkling under the gentlest breeze; all nature seemed suffused with gladness; and at two miles' distance was an enchanting island, green with every kind of foliage, and glowing with the hues of a thousand flowers. the professor, having reminded his hearers of what nonsense they now thought all the christian teachings, went on to show them the blessed results of this. since the god that we once called all-holy is a fable, that humanity is all-holy must be a fact. since we shall never be sublime, and solemn, and unspeakably happy hereafter, it is evident that we can be sublime, and solemn, and unspeakably happy here. 'this,' said the professor, 'is the new gospel. it is founded on exact thought. it is the gospel of the kingdom of man; and had i only here a microscope and a few chemicals, i could demonstrate its eternal truth to you. there is no heaven to seek for; there is no hell to shun. we have nothing to strive and live for except to be unspeakably happy.' this eloquence was received with enthusiasm. the captain in particular, who had a wife in every port he touched at, was overjoyed at hearing that there was no hell; and he sent for all the crew, that they might learn the good news likewise. but soon the general gladness was marred by a sound of weeping. three-fourths of the passengers, having had time to reflect a little, began exclaiming that as a matter of fact they were really completely miserable, and that for various reasons they could never be anything else. 'my friends,' said the professor, quite undaunted, 'that is doubtless completely true. you are not happy now; you probably never will be. but that, i can assure you, is of very little moment. only conform faithfully to the laws of matter, and your children's children will be happy in the course of a few centuries; and you will like that far, far better than being happy yourselves. only consider the matter in this light, and you yourselves will in an instant become happy also; and whatever you say, and whatever you do, think only of the effect it will have five hundred years afterwards.' at these solemn words, the anxious faces grew calm. an awful sense of the responsibility of each one of us, and the infinite consequences of every human act, was filling the hearts of all; when by a faithful conformity to the laws of matter, the boiler blew up, and the _australasian_ went down. in an instant the air was rent with yells and cries; and all the humanity that was on board the vessel was busy, as the professor expressed it, uniting itself with the infinite azure of the past. paul and virginia, however, floated quietly away in the cutter, together with the baggage and provisions. virginia was made almost senseless by the suddenness of the catastrophe; and on seeing five sailors sink within three yards of her, she fainted dead away. the professor begged her not to take it so much to heart, as these were the very men who had got the cutter in readiness; 'and they are, therefore,' he said, 'still really alive in the fact of our happy escape.' virginia, however, being quite insensible, the professor turned to the last human being still to be seen above the waters, and shouted to him not to be afraid of death, as there was certainly no hell, and that his life, no matter how degraded and miserable, had been a glorious mystery, full of infinite significance. the next moment the struggler was snapped up by a shark. our friends, meanwhile, borne by a current, had been drifting rapidly towards the island. and the professor, spreading to the breeze virginia's beautiful lace parasol, soon brought the cutter to the shore on a beach of the softest sand. chapter v. the scene that met paul's eyes was one of extreme loveliness. he found himself in a little fairy bay, full of translucent waters, and fringed with silvery sands. on either side it was protected by fantastic rocks, and in the middle it opened inland to an enchanting valley, where tall tropical trees made a grateful shade, and where the ground was carpeted with the softest moss and turf. paul's first care was for his fair companion. he spread a costly cashmere shawl on the beach, and placed her, still fainting, on this. in a few moments she opened her eyes; but was on the point of fainting again as the horrors of the last half-hour came back to her, when she caught sight in the cutter of the largest of her own boxes, and she began to recover herself. paul begged her to remain quiet whilst he went to reconnoitre. he had hardly proceeded twenty yards into the valley, when to his infinite astonishment he came on a charming cottage, built under the shadow of a bread-tree, with a broad verandah, plate-glass windows, and red window-blinds. his first thought was that this could be no desert island at all, but some happy european settlement. but, on approaching the cottage, it proved to be quite untenanted, and from the cobwebs woven across the doorway it seemed to have been long abandoned. inside there was abundance of luxurious furniture; the floors were covered with gorgeous indian carpets; and there was a pantry well stocked with plate and glass and table-linen. the professor could not tell what to make of it, till, examining the structure more closely, he found it composed mainly of a ship's timbers. this seemed to tell its own tale, and he at once concluded that he and virginia were not the first castaways who had been forced to make the island for some time their dwelling-place. overjoyed at this discovery, he hastened back to virginia. she was by this time apparently quite recovered, and was kneeling on the cashmere shawl, with a rosary in her hands designed especially for the use of anglo-catholics, alternately lifting up her eyes in gratitude to heaven, and casting them down in anguish at her torn and crumpled dress. the poor professor was horrified at the sight of a human being in this degrading attitude of superstition. but as virginia quitted it with alacrity as soon as ever he told his news to her, he hoped he might soon convert her into a sublime and holy utilitarian. the first thing she besought him to do was to carry her biggest box to this charming cottage, that she might change her clothes, and appear in something fit to be seen in. the professor most obligingly at once did as she asked him; and whilst she was busy at her toilette, he got from the cutter what provisions he could, and proceeded to lay the table. when all was ready, he rang a gong which he found suspended in the lobby; virginia appeared shortly in a beautiful pink dressing-gown, embroidered with silver flowers; and just before sunset the two sat down to a really excellent meal. the bread tree at the door of the cottage contributed some beautiful french rolls; close at hand also they discovered a butter-tree; and the professor had produced from the cutter a variety of salt and potted meats, _patã© de foie gras_, cakes, preserved fruits, and some bottles of fine champagne. this last helped much to raise their spirits. virginia found it very dry, and exactly suited to her palate. she had but drunk five glasses of it, when her natural smile returned to her, though she was much disappointed, because paul took no notice of her dressing-gown, and when she had drunk three glasses more she quietly went to sleep on the sofa. the moon had by this time risen in dazzling splendour, and the professor went out and lighted a cigar. all during dinner there had been a feeling of dull despair in his heart, which even the champagne did not dissipate. but now, as he surveyed in the moonlight the wondrous paradise in which his strange fate had cast him, his mood changed. the air was full of the scents of a thousand night-smelling flowers; the sea murmured on the beach in soft, voluptuous cadences. the professor's cigar was excellent. he now saw his situation in a truer light. here was a bountiful island, where earth unbidden brought forth all her choicest fruits, and most of the luxuries of civilisation had already been wafted thither. existence here seemed to be purified from all its evils. was not this the very condition of things which all the sublimest and exactest thinkers of modern times had been dreaming and lecturing and writing books about for a good half-century? here was a place where humanity could do justice to itself, and realise those glorious destinies which all exact thinkers take for granted must be in store for it. true, from the mass of humanity he was completely cut away; but virginia was his companion. holiness, and solemnity, and unspeakably significant happiness did not, he argued, depend on the multiplication table. he and virginia represented humanity as well as a million couples. they were a complete humanity in themselves, and humanity in a perfectible shape; and the very next day they would make preparations for fulfilling their holy destiny, and being as solemnly and unspeakably happy as it was their stern duty to be. the professor turned his eyes upwards to the starry heavens, and a sense came over him of the eternity and the immensity of nature, and the demonstrable absence of any intelligence that guided, it. these reflections naturally brought home to him with more vividness the stupendous and boundless importance of man. his bosom swelled violently, and he cried aloud, his eyes still fixed on the firmament, 'oh, important all! oh, important me!' when he came back to the cottage he found virginia just getting off the sofa, and preparing to go to bed. she was too sleepy even to say good-night to him, and with evident want of temper was tugging at the buttons of her dressing-gown. 'ah!' she murmured as she left the room, 'if god, in his infinite mercy, had only spared my maid!' virginia's evident discontent gave profound pain to paul. 'how solemn,' he exclaimed, 'for half humanity to be discontented!' but he was still more disturbed at the appeal to a chimerical manufacturer of atoms; and he groaned in tones of yet more sonorous sorrow, 'how solemn for half humanity to be sunk lower than the beasts by superstition!' however, he hoped that these stupendous evils might, under the present favourable conditions, vanish in the course of a few days' progress; and he went to bed, full of august auguries. chapter vi. next morning he was up betimes; and the prospects of humanity looked more glorious than ever. he gathered some of the finest pats from the butter-tree, and some fresh french rolls from the bread-tree. he discovered a cow close at hand, that allowed him at once to milk it; and a little roast pig ran up to him out of the underwood, and fawning on him with its trotters, said, 'come, eat me.' the professor vivisected it before virginia's door, that its automatic noise, which the vulgar call cries of pain, might awaken her; and he then set it in a hot dish on the table. 'it has come! it has come!' he shouted, rapturously, as virginia entered the room, this time in a blue silk dressing-gown, embroidered with flowers of gold. 'what has come?' said virginia, pettishly, for she was suffering from a terrible headache, and the professor's loud voice annoyed her. 'you don't mean to say that we are rescued, are we?' 'yes,' answered paul, solemnly; 'we are rescued. we are rescued from all the pains and imperfections of a world that has not learnt how to conform to the laws of matter, and is but imperfectly acquainted with the science of sociology. it is therefore inevitable that, the evils of existence being thus removed, we shall both be solemnly, stupendously, and unspeakably happy.' 'nonsense!' said virginia, snappishly, who thought the professor was joking. 'it is not nonsense,' said the professor, 'it is deducible from the teachings of john stuart mill, of auguste comte, of mr. frederic harrison, and of all the exact thinkers who have cast off superstition, and who adore humanity.' virginia meanwhile ate _patã© de foie gras_, of which she was passionately fond; and, growing a little less sullen, she at last admitted that they were lucky in having at least the necessaries of life left to them. 'but as for happiness--there is nothing to do here, there is no church to go to, and you don't seem to care a bit for my dressing-gown. what have we got to make us happy?' 'humanity,' replied the professor eagerly,--'humanity, that divine entity, which is necessarily capable of everything that is fine and invaluable, and is the object of indescribable emotion to all exact thinkers. and what is humanity?' he went on more earnestly; 'you and i are humanity--you and i are that august existence. you already are all the world to me; and i very soon shall be all the world to you. adored being, it will be my mission and my glory to compel you to live for me. and then, as modern philosophy can demonstrate, we shall both of us be significantly and unspeakably happy.' for a few moments virginia merely stared at paul. suddenly she turned quite pale, her lips quivered, and exclaiming, 'how dare you!--and i, too, the wife of a bishop!' she left the room in hysterics. the professor could make nothing of this. though he had dissected many dead women, he knew very little of the hearts of live ones. a sense of shyness overpowered him, and he felt embarrassed, he could not tell why, at being thus left alone with virginia. he lit a cigar and went out. here was a to-do indeed, he thought. how would progress be possible if one half of humanity misunderstood the other? he was thus musing, when suddenly a voice startled him; and in another moment a man came rushing up to him, with every demonstration of joy. 'oh, my dear master! oh, emancipator of the human intellect! and is it indeed you? thank god!----i beg pardon for my unspeakable blasphemy--i mean, thank circumstances over which i have no control.' it was one of the three curates, whom paul had supposed drowned, but who now related how he had managed to swim ashore, despite the extreme length of his black clerical coat. 'these rags of superstition,' he said, 'did their best to drown me. but i survive in spite of them, to covet truth and to reject error. thanks to your glorious teaching,' he went on, looking reverentially into the professor's face, 'the very notion of an almighty father makes me laugh consumedly, it is so absurd and so immoral. science, through your instrumentality, has opened my eyes. i am now an exact thinker.' 'do you believe, said paul, 'in solemn, significant, and unspeakably happy humanity? 'i do,' said the curate, fervently. 'whenever i think of humanity, i groan and moan to myself out of sheer solemnity.' 'then two thirds of humanity,' said the professor, 'are thoroughly enlightened. progress will now go on smoothly.' at this moment virginia came out, having rapidly recovered composure at the sound of a new man's voice. 'you here--you, too!' exclaimed the curate. 'how solemn, how significant! this is truly providential----i mean this has truly happened through conformity to the laws of matter.' 'well,' said virginia, 'since we have a clergyman amongst us, we shall perhaps be able to get on.' chapter vii. things now took a better turn. the professor ceased to feel shy; and proposed, when the curate had finished an enormous breakfast, that they should go down to the cutter, and bring up the things in it to the cottage. 'a few hours' steady progress,' he said, 'and the human race will command all the luxuries of civilisation--the glorious fruits of centuries of onward labour.' the three spent a very busy morning in examining and unpacking the luggage. the professor found his favourite collection of modern philosophers; virginia found a large box of knick-knacks, with which to adorn the cottage; and there was, too, an immense store of wine and of choice provisions. 'it is rather sad,' sighed virginia, as she dived into a box of french chocolate-creams, 'to think that all the poor people are drowned that these things belonged to.' 'they are not dead,' said the professor: 'they still live on this holy and stupendous earth. they live in the use we are making of all they had got together. the owner of those chocolate-creams is immortal because you are eating them.' virginia licked her lips and said, 'nonsense!' 'it is not nonsense,' said the professor. 'it is the religion of humanity.' all day they were busy, and the time passed pleasantly enough. wines, provisions, books, and china ornaments were carried up to the cottage and bestowed in proper places. virginia filled the glasses in the drawing-room with gorgeous leaves and flowers and declared by the evening, as she looked round her, that she could almost fancy herself in st. john's wood. 'see, said the professor, 'how rapid is the progress of material civilisation! humanity is now entering on the fruits of ages. before long it will be in a position to be unspeakably happy.' virginia retired to bed early. the professor took the curate out with him to look at the stars; and promised to lend him some writings of the modern philosophers, which would make him more perfect in the new view of things. they said good-night, murmuring together that there was certainly no god, that humanity was very important, and that everything was very solemn. chapter viii. next morning the curate began studying a number of essays that the professor lent him, all written by exact thinkers, who disbelieved in god, and thought humanity adorable, and most important. virginia lay on the sofa, and sighed over one of miss broughton's novels; and it occurred to the professor that the island was just the place where, if anywhere, the missing link might be found. 'ah!' he exclaimed; 'all is still progress. material progress came to an end yesterday. mental progress has begun to-day. one third of humanity is cultivating sentiment; another third is learning to covet truth. i, the remaining and most enlightened third, will go and seek it. glorious, solemn humanity! i will go and look about for its arboreal ancestor.' every step the professor took he found the island more beautiful. but he came back to luncheon, having been unsuccessful in his search. events had marched quickly in his absence. virginia was at the beginning of her third volume; and the curate had skimmed over so many essays, that he professed himself able to give a thorough account of the want of faith that was in him. after luncheon the three sat together in easy chairs, in the verandah, sometimes talking, sometimes falling into a half-doze. they all agreed that they were wonderfully comfortable, and the professor said-'all humanity is now at rest, and in utter peace. it is just taking breath, before it becomes unspeakably and significantly happy.' he would have said more, but he was here startled by a piteous noise of crying, and the three found themselves confronted by an old woman dripping with sea-water, and with an expression on her face of the utmost misery. they soon recognised her as one of the passengers on the ship. she told them how she had been floated ashore on a spar, and how she had been sustained by a little roast pig, that kindly begged her to eat it, having first lain in her bosom to restore her to warmth. she was now looking for her son. 'and if i cannot find him,' said the old woman, 'i shall never smile again. he has half broken my heart,' she went on, 'by his wicked ways. but if i thought he was dead--dead in the midst of his sins--it would be broken altogether; for in that case he must certainly be in hell.' 'old woman,' said the professor, very slowly and solemnly, 'be comforted. i announce to you that your son is alive.' 'oh, bless you, sir, for that word!' cried the old woman. 'but where is he? have you seen him? are you sure that he is living?' 'i am sure of it,' said the professor, 'because enlightened thought shows me that he cannot be anything else. it is true that i saw him sink for a third time in the sea, and that he was then snapped up by a shark. but he is as much alive as ever in his posthumous activities. he has made you wretched after him; and that is his future life. become an exact thinker, and you will see that this is so. old woman,' added the professor solemnly, 'old woman, listen to me--_you and your son are in hell._' at this the old woman flew into a terrible rage. 'in hell, sir!' she exclaimed; 'me in hell!--a poor lone woman like me! how dare you!' and she sank back in a chair and fainted. 'alas!' said the professor, 'thus is misery again introduced into the world. a fourth part of humanity is now miserable.' the curate answered promptly that if no restoratives were given her, she would probably die in a few minutes. 'and to let her die,' he said, 'is clearly our solemn duty. it will be for the greatest happiness of the greatest number.' 'no,' said the professor; 'for our sense of pity would then be wounded, and the happiness of all of us would be marred by that.' 'excuse me,' said the curate; 'but exact thought shows me that pity for others is but the imagining of their misfortune falling on ourselves. now, we can none of us imagine ourselves exactly in the old woman's case; therefore it is quite impossible that we can pity her.' 'but,' said the professor, 'such an act would violate our ideas of justice.' 'you are wrong again,' said the curate, 'for exact thought shows me that the love of justice is nothing but the fear of suffering injustice. if we were to kill strong men, we might naturally fear that strong men would kill us. but whatever we do to fainting old women, we cannot expect that fainting old women will do anything to us in return.' 'your reasoning cannot be sound,' said the professor, 'for it would lead to the most horrible conclusions. i will solve the difficulty better. i will make the old woman happy, and therefore fit to live. old woman,' he exclaimed, 'let me beg you to consider this. you are yourself by your own unhappiness expiating your son's sins. do but think of that, and you will become unspeakably happy.' meanwhile, however, the old woman had died. when the professor discovered this he was somewhat shocked; but at length with a sudden change of countenance, 'we neither of us did it,' he exclaimed; 'her death is no act of ours. it is part of the eternal not-ourselves that makes for righteousness--righteousness, which is, as we all know, but another name for happiness. let us adore the event with reverence.' 'yes,' said the curate, 'we are well rid of her. she was an immoral old woman, for happiness is the test of morality, and she was very unhappy.' 'on the contrary,' said the professor, 'she was a moral old woman; for she has made us happy by dying so very opportunely. let us speak well of the dead. her death has been a holy and a blessed one. she has conformed to the laws of matter. thus is unhappiness destined to fade out of the world. quick! let us tie a bag of shot to all the sorrow and evil of humanity, which, after all, is only a fourth part of it, and let us sink her in the bay close at hand, that she may catch lobsters for us.' chapter ix. at last,' said the professor, as they began dinner that evening, 'the fulness of time has come. all the evils of humanity are removed, and progress has come to an end because it can go no further. we have nothing now to do but to be unspeakably and significantly happy.' the champagne flowed freely. our friends ate and drank of the best, their spirits rose, and virginia admitted that this was really 'jolly.' the sense of the word pleased the professor, but its sound seemed below the gravity of the occasion; so he begged her to say 'sublime' instead. 'we can make it mean,' he said, 'just the same, but we prefer it for the sake of its associations.' it soon, however, occurred to him that eating and drinking were hardly delights sufficient to justify the highest state of human emotion, and he began to fear he had been feeling sublime prematurely; but in another moment he recollected he was an altruist, and that the secret of their happiness was not that any one of them was happy, but that they each knew the others were. 'yes, my dear curate,' said the professor, 'what i am enjoying is the champagne that you drink, and what you are enjoying is the champagne that i drink. this is altruism; this is benevolence; this is the sublime outcome of enlightened modern thought. the pleasures of the table, in themselves, are low and beastly ones; but if we each of us are only glad because the others are enjoying them, they become holy and glorious beyond description.' 'they do,' cried the curate rapturously, 'indeed they do. i will drink another bottle for your sake. it is sublime!' he said, as he tossed off three glasses. 'it is significant!' he said as he finished three more. 'tell me, my dear, do i look significant?' he added, as he turned to virginia, and suddenly tried, to crown the general bliss by kissing her. virginia started back, looking fire and fury at him. the professor was completely astounded by an occurrence so unnatural, and exclaimed in a voice of thunder, 'morality, sir--remember morality! how dare you upset that which professor huxley tells us must be for ever strong enough to hold its own?' but the last glass of champagne had put the curate beyond the reach of exact thought. he tumbled under the table, and the professor carried him off to bed. chapter x. the professor, like most serious thinkers, knew but little of that trifle commonly called 'the world.' he had never kissed any one except his wife; even that he did as seldom as possible; and the curate lying dead drunk was the first glimpse he had of what, _par excellence_, is described as 'life.' but though the scene just recounted was thus a terrible shock to him, in one way it gave him an unlooked-for comfort. he had felt that even yet things were not quite as sublime as they should be. he now saw the reason. 'of course,' he said, 'existence cannot be perfect so long as one third of humanity makes a beast of itself. a little more progress must be still necessary.' he hastened to explain this next morning to virginia, and begged her not to be alarmed at the curate's scandalous conduct. 'immorality,' he said, 'is but a want of success in attaining our own happiness. it is evidently most immoral for the curate to be kissing you; and therefore kissing you would not really conduce to his happiness. i will convince him of this solemn truth in a very few moments. then the essential dignity of human nature will become at once apparent, and we shall all of us at last begin to be unspeakably happy.' the curate, however, altogether declined to be convinced. he maintained stoutly that to kiss virginia would be the greatest pleasure that humanity could offer him. 'and if it is immoral as well as pleasant,' he added, 'i should like it all the better.' at this the professor gave a terrible groan; he dropped almost fainting into a chair; he hid his face in his hands; and murmured half-articulately, 'then i can't tell what to do!' in another instant, however, he recovered himself; and fixing a dreadful look on the curate, 'that last statement of yours,' he said, 'cannot be true; for if it were, it would upset all my theories. it is a fact that can be proved and verified, that if you kissed virginia it would make you miserable.' 'pardon me,' said the curate, rapidly moving towards her, 'your notion is a remnant of superstition; i will explode it by a practical experiment.' the professor caught hold of the curate's coat-tails, and forcibly pulled him back into his seat. 'if you dare attempt it,' he said, 'i will kick you soundly, and, shocking, immoral man! you will feel miserable enough then.' the curate was a terrible coward, and very weak as well. 'you are a great hulking fellow,' he said, eyeing the professor; 'and i am of a singularly delicate build. i must, therefore, conform to the laws of matter, and give in.' he said this in a very sulky voice; and, going out of the room, slammed the door after him. a radiant expression suffused the face of the professor. 'see,' he said to virginia, 'the curate's conversion is already half accomplished. in a few hours more he will be rational, he will be moral, he will be solemnly and significantly happy.' the professor talked like this to virginia the whole morning; but in spite of all his arguments, she declined to be comforted. 'it is all very well,' she said, 'whilst you are in the way. but as soon as your back is turned, i know he will be at me again.' 'will you never,' said paul, by this time a little irritated, 'will you never listen to exact thought? the curate is now reflecting; and a little reflection must inevitably convince him that he does not really care to kiss you, and that it would give him very little real pleasure to do so.' 'stuff!' exclaimed virginia, with a sudden vigour at which the professor was thunderstruck. 'i can tell you,' she went on, 'that better men than he have borne kicks for my sake; and to kiss me is the only thing that that little man cares about.--what _shall_ i do?' she exclaimed, bursting into tears. 'here is one of you insulting me by trying to kiss me; and the other insulting me by saying that i am not worth being kissed!' 'ah, me!' groaned the poor professor in an agony, 'here is one third of humanity plunged in sorrow; and another third has not yet freed itself from vice. when, when, i wonder, will the sublimity begin?' chapter xi. at dinner, however, things wore a more promising aspect. the curate had been so terrified by the professor's threats, that he hardly dared to so much as look at virginia; and to make up for it, he drank and drank champagne, till the strings of his tongue were loosed, and he was laughing and chattering at a rate that was quite extraordinary. virginia, seeing herself thus neglected by the curate, began to fear that, as paul said, he really did not so much care to kiss her after all. she, therefore, put on all her most enticing ways; she talked, flirted, and smiled her best, and made her most effective eyes, that the curate might see what a prize was for ever beyond his reach. this state of affairs seemed full of glorious promise. virginia's tears were dried, she had never looked so radiant and exquisite before. the curate had foregone every attempt to kiss virginia, and yet apparently he was happiness itself; and paul took him aside, as soon as the meal was over, to congratulate him on the holy state to which exact thought had conducted him. 'you see,' paul said, 'what a natural growth the loftiest morality is. virginia doesn't want to be kissed by you. i should be shocked at your doing so shocking a thing as kissing her. if you kissed her, you would make both of us miserable; and, as a necessary consequence, you would be in an agony likewise; in addition to which, i should inevitably kick you.' 'but,' said the curate, 'suppose i kissed virginia on the sly,--i merely put this as an hypothesis, remember,--and that in a little while she liked it, what then? she and i would both be happy, and you ought to be happy too, because we were.' 'idiot!' said the professor. 'virginia is another man's wife. nobody really likes kissing another man's wife; nor do wives ever like kissing any one except their husbands. what they really like is what professor huxley calls "the undefined but bright ideal of the highest good," which, as he says, exact thought shows us is the true end of existence. but, pooh! what is the use of all this talking? you know which way your higher nature calls you; and, of course, unless men believe in god, they cannot help obeying their higher nature.' 'i,' said the curate, 'think the belief in god a degrading superstition; i think every one an imbecile who believes a miracle possible. and yet i do not care two straws about the highest good. what you call my lower nature is far the strongest; i mean to follow it to the best of my ability; and i prefer calling it my higher, for the sake of the associations.' this plunged the professor in deeper grief than ever. he knew not what to do. he paced up and down the verandah, or about the rooms, and moaned and groaned as if he had a violent toothache. virginia and the curate asked what was amiss with him. 'i am agonising,' he said, 'for the sake of holy, solemn, unspeakably dignified humanity.' the curate, seeing the professor thus dejected, by degrees took heart again, and as virginia still continued her fascinating behaviour to him, he resolved to try and prove to her that, the test of morality being happiness, the most moral thing she could do would be to allow him to kiss her. no sooner had he begun to propound these views, than the professor gave over his groaning, seized the curate by the collar, and dragged him out of the room with a roughness that nearly throttled him. 'i was but propounding a theory--an opinion,' gasped the curate. 'surely thought is free. you will not persecute me for my opinions?' 'it is not for your opinions,' said the professor, 'but for the horrible effect they might have. opinions,' he roared, 'can only be tolerated which have no possible consequences. you may promulgate any of those as much as you like; because to do that would be a self-regarding action.' chapter xii. 'well,' said the curate, 'if i may not kiss virginia, i will drink brandy instead. that will make me happy enough; and then we shall all be radiant.' he soon put his resolve into practice. he got a bottle of brandy, he sat himself down under a palm-tree, and told the professor he was going to make an afternoon of it. 'foolish man!' said the professor; 'i was never drunk myself, it is true; but i know that to get drunk makes one's head ache horribly. to get drunk is, therefore, horribly immoral; and therefore i cannot permit it.' 'excuse me,' said the curate; 'it is a self-regarding action. nobody's head will ache but mine; so that is my own look-out. i have been expelled from school, from college, and from my first curacy for drinking. so i know well enough the balance of pains and pleasures.' here he pulled out his brandy bottle, and applied his lips to it. 'oh, humanity!' he exclaimed, 'how solemn this brandy tastes!' matters went on like this for several days. the curate was too much frightened to again approach virginia. virginia at last became convinced that he did not care about kissing her. her vanity was wounded, and she became sullen; and this made the professor sullen also. in fact, two thirds of humanity were overcast with gloom. the only happy section of it was the curate, who alternately smoked and drank all day long. 'the nasty little beast!' said virginia to the professor, 'he is nearly always drunk. i am beginning quite to like you, paul, by comparison with him. let us turn him out, and not let him live in the cottage.' 'no,' said the professor; 'for he is one third of humanity. you do not properly appreciate the solidarity of mankind. his existence, however, i admit is a great difficulty.' one day at dinner-time, shortly afterwards, paul came in radiant. 'oh holy, oh happy event!' he exclaimed; 'all will go right at last.' virginia inquired anxiously what had happened, and paul informed her that the curate, who had got more drunk than usual that afternoon, had fallen over a cliff, and been dashed to pieces. 'what event,' he asked, 'could be more charming more unspeakably holy? it bears about it every mark of sanctity. it is for the greatest happiness of the greatest number. come,' he continued, 'let you and me together, purged of sin, and purged of sorrow as we are--let us begin our love-feast. let us each seek the happiness of the other. let us instantly be sublime and happy.' chapter xiii. 'the supreme moment is come,' said paul solemnly, as they sat down to dinner. 'let us prepare ourselves for realising to the full the essential dignity of humanity--that _grand ãªtre_, which has come, in the course of progress, to consist of you and me. virginia, consider this. every condition of happiness that modern thinkers have dreamed of is now fulfilled. we have but to seek each the happiness of the other, and we shall both be in a solemn, a significant, and unspeakable state of rapture. see, here is an exquisite leg of mutton. i,' said paul, who liked the fat best, 'i will give up all the fat to you.' 'and i,' said virginia, resignedly, 'will give up all the lean to you,' a few mouthfuls made virginia feel sick. 'i confess,' said she, 'i can't get on with this fat.' 'i confess,' the professor answered, 'i don't exactly like this lean.' 'then let us,' said virginia, 'be like jack sprat and his wife.' 'no,' said the professor, meditatively, 'that is quite inadmissible. for in that case we should be egoistic hedonists. however, for to-day it shall be as you say. i will think of something better to-morrow.' next day he and virginia had a chicken apiece; only virginia's was put before paul, and paul's before virginia; and they each walked round the table to supply each other with the slightest necessaries. 'ah!' cried paul, 'this is altruism indeed. i think already i can feel the sublimity beginning.' virginia liked this rather better. but soon she committed the sin of taking for herself the liver of paul's chicken. as soon as she had eaten the whole of it her conscience began to smite her. she confessed her sin to paul, and inquired, with some anxiety, if he thought she would go to hell for it? 'metaphorically,' said paul, 'you have already done so. you are punished by the loss of the pleasure you would have had in giving that liver to me, and also by your knowledge of my knowledge of your folly in foregoing the pleasure.' virginia was much relieved by this answer; she at once took several more of the professor's choicest bits, and was happy in the thought that her sins were expiated in the very act of their commission, by the latent pain she felt persuaded they were attended by. feeling that this was sufficient, she took care not to add paul's disapproval to her punishment, so she never told him again. for a short time this practice of altruism seemed to virginia to have many advantages. but though the professor was always exclaiming, 'how significant is human life by the very nature of its constitution!' she very soon found it a trifle dull. luckily, however, she hit upon a new method of exercising morality, and, as the professor fully admitted, of giving it a yet more solemn significance. the professor having by some accident lost his razors, his moustaches had begun to grow profusely, and virginia had watched them with a deep but half-conscious admiration. at last, in a happy moment, she exclaimed, 'oh, paul, do let me wax the ends for you,' paul at first giggled, blushed, and protested, but, as virginia assured him it would make her happy, he consented. 'then,' she said, 'you will know that i am happy, and that in return will make you happy also. ah!' she exclaimed when the operation was over, 'do go and examine yourself in the glass. i declare you look exactly like jack barley--barley-sugar, as we used to call him--of the blues.' virginia smiled; suddenly she blushed; the professor blushed also. to cover the blushes she begged to be allowed to do his hair. 'it will make me so much happier, paul,' she said. the professor again assented, that he might make virginia happy, and that she might be happy in knowing that he was happy in promoting her happiness. at last the professor, shy and awkward as he was, was emboldened to offer to do virginia's hair in return. she allowed him to arrange her fringe, and, as she found he did no great harm to it, she let him repeat the operation as often as he liked. a week thus passed, full, as the professor said, of infinite solemnity. 'i admit, paul,' sighed virginia, 'that this altruism, as you call it, is very touching. i like it very much. but,' she added, sinking her voice to a whisper, 'are you quite sure, paul, that it is perfectly moral?' 'moral!' echoed the professor, 'moral! why, exact thought shows us that it is the very essence of all morality!' chapter xiv. matters now went on charmingly. all existence seemed to take a richer colouring, and there was something, paul said, which, in professor tyndall's words, 'gave fulness and tone to it, but which he could neither analyse nor comprehend.' but at last a change came. one morning, whilst virginia was arranging paul's moustaches, she was frightened almost into a fit by a sudden apparition at the window. it was a hideous hairy figure, perfectly naked but for a band of silver which it wore about its neck. for a moment it did nothing but grin and stare; then, uttering a discordant scream, it flung into virginia's lap a filthy piece of carrion, and in an instant it had bounded away with an almost miraculous activity. virginia shrieked with disgust and terror, and clung to paul's knees for protection. he, however, in some strange way, seemed unmoved and preoccupied. all at once, to her intense surprise, she saw his face light up with an expression of triumphant eagerness. 'the missing link!' he exclaimed, 'the missing link at last! thank god.--i beg pardon for my unspeakable blasphemy--i mean, thank circumstances over which i have no control. i must this instant go out and hunt for it. give me some provisions in a knapsack, for i will not come back till i have caught it.' this was a fearful blow to virginia. she fell at paul's feet weeping, and besought him in piteous accents that he would not thus abandon her. 'i must,' said the professor solemnly, 'for i am going in pursuit of truth. to arrive at truth is man's perfect and most rapturous happiness. you must surely know that, even if i have forgotten to tell it to you. to pursue truth--holy truth for holy truth's sake--is a more solemn pleasure than even frizzling your hair.' 'oh,' cried. virginia, hysterically, 'i don't care two straws for truth. what on earth is the good of it?' 'it is its own end,' said the professor. 'it is its own exceeding great reward. i must be off at once in search of it. good-bye for the present. seek truth on your own account, and be unspeakably happy also, because you know that i am seeking it.' the professor remained away for three days. for the first two of them virginia was inconsolable. she wandered about mournfully with her head dejected. she very often sighed; she very often uttered the name of paul. at last she surprised herself by exclaiming aloud to the irresponsive solitude, 'oh, paul, until you were gone, i never knew how passionately i loved you.' no sooner were these words out of her mouth than she stood still, horror-stricken. 'alas!' she cried, 'and have i really come to this? i am in a state of deadly sin, and there is no priest here to confess to! alone, alone i must conquer my forbidden love as i may. but, ah me, what a guilty thing i am!' as she uttered these words, her eyes fell on a tin box of the professor's, marked 'private,' which he always kept carefully locked, and which had before now excited her curiosity. suddenly she became conscious of a new impulse. 'i will pursue truth!' she exclaimed. 'i will break that box open, and i will see what is inside it. ah!' she added, as with the aid of the poker she at last wrenched off the padlock. 'paul may be right, after all. there is more interest in the pursuit of truth than i thought there was.' the box was full of papers, letters, and diaries, the greater part of which were marked 'strictly private.' seeing this, virginia's appetite for truth became keener than ever. she instantly began her researches. the more she read, the more eager she became; and the more private appeared the nature of the documents, the more insatiable did her thirst for truth grow. to her extreme surprise, she gathered that the professor had begun life as a clergyman. there were several photographs of him in his surplice; and a number of devout prayers, apparently composed by himself for his own personal use. this discovery was the result of her labours. 'certainly,' she said, 'it is one of extreme significance. if paul was a priest once, he must be a priest now. orders are indelible--at least in the church of england i know they are.' chapter xv. paul came back, to virginia's extreme relief, without the missing link. but he was still radiant in spite of his failure; for he had discovered, he said, a place where the creature had apparently slept, and he had collected in a card-paper box a large number of its parasites. 'i am glad,' said virginia, 'that you have not found the missing link: though as to thinking that we really came from monkeys, of course that is too absurd. now if you could have brought me a nice monkey, i should really have liked that. the bishop has promised that i shall have a darling one, if i ever reach him--ah me!--if----paul,' continued virginia, in a very solemn voice, after a long pause, 'do you know that whilst you have been away i have been pursuing truth? i rather liked it; and i found it very, very significant.' 'oh, joy!' exclaimed the professor. 'oh, unspeakable radiance! oh, holy, oh essentially dignified humanity! it will very soon be perfect! tell me, virginia, what truths have you been discovering?' 'one truth about you, paul,' said virginia, very gravely, 'and one truth about me. i burn--oh, i burn to tell them to you!' the professor was enraptured to hear that one half of humanity had been thus studying human nature; and he began asking virginia if her discoveries belonged to the domain of historical or biological science. meanwhile virginia had flung herself on her knees before him, and was exclaiming, in piteous accents-'by my fault, by my own fault, by my very grievous fault, holy father, i confess to you----' 'is the woman mad?' cried the professor, starting up from his seat. 'you are a priest, paul,' said virginia; 'that is one of the things i have discovered. i am in a state of deadly sin; that is the other: and i must and will confess to you. once a priest, always a priest. you cannot get rid of your orders, and you must and shall hear me.' 'i was once in orders, it is true,' said paul, reluctantly; 'but how did you find out my miserable secret?' 'in my zeal for truth,' said virginia, 'i broke open your tin box; i read all your letters; i looked at your early photographs; i saw all your beautiful prayers.' 'you broke open my box!' cried the professor. 'you read my letters and my private papers! oh, horrible! oh, immoral! what shall we do if one half of humanity has no feeling of honour?' 'oh!' said virginia, 'it was all for the love of truth--of solemn and holy truth. i sacrificed every other feeling for that. but i have not told you my truth yet; and i am determined you shall hear it, or i must still remain in my sins. paul, i am a married woman; and i discover, in spite of that, that i have fallen in love with you. my husband, it is true, is far away; and whatever we do, he could never possibly be the wiser. but i am in a state of mortal sin, nevertheless; and i would give anything in the world if you would only kiss me.' 'woman!' exclaimed paul, aghast with fright and horror, 'do you dare to abuse truth, by turning it to such base purposes?' 'oh, you are so clever,' virginia went on, 'and when the ends of your moustaches are waxed, you look positively handsome; and i love you so deeply and so tenderly, that i shall certainly go to hell if you do not give me absolution.' at this the professor jumped up, and, staring very hard at virginia, asked her if, after all that he had said on the ship, she really believed in such exploded fallacies as hell, god, and priestcraft. she reminded him that he had preached there without a surplice, and that she had therefore not thought it right to listen to a word he said. 'ah!' cried the professor, with a sigh of intense relief, 'i see it all now. how can humanity ever be unspeakably holy so long as one half of it grovels in dreams of an unspeakably holy god? as mr. frederic harrison truly says, a want of faith in "the essential dignity of man is one of the surest marks of the enervating influence of this dream of a celestial glory."' the professor accordingly re-delivered to virginia the entire substance of his lectures in the ship. he fully impressed on her that all the intellect of the world was on the side of humanity; and that god's existence could be disproved with a box of chemicals. he was agreeably surprised at finding her not at all unwilling to be convinced, and extremely unexacting in her demands for proof. in a few days she had not a remnant of superstition left. 'at last!' exclaimed the professor; 'it has come at last. unspeakable happiness will surely begin now.' chapter xvi. no one now could possibly be more emancipated than virginia. she tittered all day long and whenever the professor asked her why, she always told him she was thinking of 'an intelligent first cause,' a conception which she said 'was really quite killing.' but when her first burst of intellectual excitement was over, she became more serious. 'all thought, paul,' she said, 'is valuable mainly because it leads to action. come, my love, my dove, my beauty, and let us kiss each other all daylong. let us enjoy the charming license which exact thought shows us we shall never be punished for.' this was a result of freedom that the professor had never bargained for. he could not understand it, 'because,' he argued, 'if people were to reason in that way, morality would at once cease to be possible.' but he had seen so much of the world lately, that he soon recovered himself, and recollecting that immorality was only ignorance, he began to show virginia where her error lay---her one remaining error. 'i perceive,' he said, 'that you are ignorant of one of the greatest triumphs of exact thought--the distinction it has established between the lower and the higher pleasures. philosophers, who have thought the whole thing over in their studies, have become sure that as soon as the latter are presented to men they will at once leave all and follow them.' 'they must be very nice pleasures,' said virginia, 'if they would make me leave kissing you for the sake of them.' 'they _are_ nice,' said the professor. 'they are the pleasures of the imagination, the intellect, and the glorious apprehension of truth. compared with these, kissing me would be quite insipid. remain here for a moment, whilst i go to fetch something, and you shall then begin to taste them.' in a few moments paul came back again, and found virginia in a state of intense expectancy. 'now--,' he exclaimed triumphantly. 'now--,' exclaimed virginia, with a beating heart. the professor put his hand in his pocket, and drew slowly forth from it an object which virginia knew well. it reminded her of the most innocent period of her life; but she hated the very sight of it none the less. it was a colenso's arithmetic. 'come,' said the professor, 'no truths are so pure and necessary as those of mathematics; you shall at once begin the glorious apprehension of them.' 'oh, paul,' cried virginia, in an agony, 'but i really don't care for truth at all; and you know that when i broke your tin box open and read your private letters in my search for it, you were very angry with me.' 'ah!' said paul, holding up his finger, 'but those were not necessary truths. truths about human action and character are not necessary truths; therefore men of science care nothing about them, and they have no place in scientific systems of ethics. pure truths are of a very different character; and, however much you may misunderstand your own inclinations, you can really care for nothing so much as doing a few sums. i will set you some very easy ones to begin with, and you shall do them by yourself, whilst i magnify in the next room the parasites of the missing link.' virginia saw that there was no help for it. she did her sums by herself the whole morning, which, as at school she had been very good at arithmetic, was not a hard task for her, and paul magnified parasites in the next room, and prepared slides for his microscope. when they met again, paul began skipping and dancing, as if he had gone quite out of his senses, and every now and then between the skips he gave a sepulchral groan. virginia asked him in astonishment what on earth was the matter with him. 'matter!' he exclaimed. 'why, humanity is at last perfect! all the evils of existence are removed; we neither of us believe in a god or a celestial future; and we are both in full enjoyment of the higher pleasures and the apprehension of scientific truth. and therefore i skip because humanity is so unspeakably happy, and i groan because it is so unspeakably solemn.' 'alas! alas!' cried virginia, 'and would not you like to kiss me?' 'no,' said the professor, sternly; 'and you would not like me to kiss you. it is impossible that one half of humanity should prefer the pleasure of unlawful love to the pleasure of finding out scientific truths.' 'but,' pleaded virginia, 'cannot we enjoy both?' 'no,' said the professor, 'for if i began to kiss you i should soon not care two straws about the parasites of the missing link.' 'well, said virginia, 'it is nice of you to say that; but still----ah me! ah me!' and her bosom heaved slowly with a soft, long sigh. chapter xvii. virginia was preparing, with a rueful face, to resume her enjoyment of the higher pleasures, when a horrible smell, like that of an open drain, was suddenly blown in through the window. virginia stopped her nose with her handkerchief. the professor's conduct was very different. 'oh, rapture!' he cried, jumping up from his seat, 'i smell the missing link.' and in another instant he was gone. 'well,' said virginia, 'here is one comfort. whilst paul is away i shall be relieved from the higher pleasures. alas!' she cried, as she flung herself down on the sofa, 'he is so nice-looking, and such an enlightened thinker. but it is plain he has never loved, or else very certainly he would love again.' paul returned in about a couple of hours, again unsuccessful in his search. 'ah!' cried virginia, 'i am so glad you have not caught the creature!' 'glad!' echoed the professor, 'glad! do you know that till i have caught the missing link the cause of glorious truth will suffer grievously? the missing link is the token of the solemn fact of our origin from inorganic matter. i did but catch one blessed glimpse of him. he had certainly a silver band about his neck. he was about three feet high. he was rolling in a lump of carrion. it is through him that we are related to the stars--the holy, the glorious stars, about which we know so little.' 'bother the stars!' said virginia; 'i couldn't bear, paul, that anything should come between you and me. i have been thinking of you and longing for you the whole time you have been away.' 'what!' cried paul, 'and how have you been able to forego the pleasures of the intellect?' 'i have deserted them,' cried virginia, 'for the pleasures of the imagination, which i gathered from you were also very ennobling. and i found they were so; for i have been imagining that you loved me. why is the reality less ennobling than the imagination? paul, you shall love me; i will force you to love me. it will make us both so happy: we shall never go to hell for it; and it cannot possibly cause the slightest scandal.' the professor was more bewildered than ever by these appeals. he wondered how humanity would ever get on if one half of it cared nothing for pure truth, and persisted in following the vulgar impulses that had been the most distinguishing feature of its benighted past--that is to say, those ages of its existence of which any record has been preserved for us. luckily, however, virginia came to his assistance. 'i think i know, paul,' she said, 'why i do not care as i should do for the intellectual pleasures. we have both been seeking them by ourselves; and we have been therefore egoistic hedonists. it is quite true, as you say, that selfishness is a despicable thing. let me,' she went on, sitting down beside him, 'look through your microscope along with you. i think perhaps, if we shared the pleasure, the missing link's parasites might have some interest for me.' the professor was overjoyed at this proposal. the two sat down side by side, and tried their best to look simultaneously through the eye-piece of the microscope. virginia in a moment expressed herself much satisfied. it is true they saw nothing; but their cheeks touched. the professor too seemed contented, and said they should both be in a state of rapture when they had got the right focus. at last virginia whispered, with a soft smile-'suppose we put that nasty microscope aside; it is only in the way. and then, oh, paul; dear love, dove of a paul! we can kiss each other to our heart's content.' paul thought virginia quite incorrigible, and rushed headlong out of the room. chapter xviii. 'alas!' cried paul, 'what can be done to convince one half of humanity that it is really devoted to the higher pleasures and does not care for the lower--at least nothing to speak of?' the poor man was in a state of dreadful perplexity, and felt wellnigh distracted. at last a light broke in on him. he remembered that as one of his most revered masters, professor tyndall, had admitted, a great part of humanity would always need a religion, and that virginia now had none. he at once rushed back to her. 'ah!' he exclaimed, 'all is explained now. you cannot be in love with me, for that would be unlawful passion. unlawful passion is unreasonable, and unreasonable passion would quite upset a system of pure reason, which is what exact thought shows us is soon going to govern the world. no! the emotions that you fancy are directed to me are in reality cosmic emotion--in other words, are the reasonable religion of the future. i must now initiate you in its solemn and unspeakably significant worship.' 'religion!' exclaimed virginia, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. 'it is not kind of you to be making fun of me. there is no god, no soul, and no supernatural order, and above all there is no hell. how then can you talk to me about religion?' 'you,' replied paul, 'are associating religion with theology, as indeed the world hitherto always has done. but those two things, as professor huxley well observes, have absolutely nothing to do with each other. "it may be," says that great teacher, "that the object of a man's religion is an ideal of sensual enjoyment, or----"' 'ah!' cried virginia, 'that is my religion, paul.' 'nonsense!' replied paul; 'that cannot be the religion of half humanity, else high, holy, solemn, awful morality would never be able to stand on its own basis. see, the night has fallen, the glorious moon has arisen, the stupendous stars are sparkling in the firmament. come down with me to the sea-shore, where we may be face to face with nature, and i will show you then what true religion--what true worship is.' the two went out together. they stood on the smooth sands, which glittered white and silvery in the dazzling moonlight all was hushed. the gentle murmur of the trees, and the soft splash of the sea, seemed only to make the silence audible. the professor paused close beside virginia, and took her hand. virginia liked that, and thought that religion without theology was not perhaps so bad after all. meanwhile paul had fixed his eyes on the moon. then, in a voice almost broken with emotion, he whispered, 'the prayer of the man of science, it has been said, must be for the most part of the silent sort. he who said that was wrong. it need not be silent; it need only be inarticulate. i have discovered an audible and a reasonable liturgy which will give utterance to the full to the religion of exact thought. let us both join our voices, and let us croon at the moon.' the professor at once began a long, low howling. virginia joined him, until she was out of breath. 'oh, paul,' she said at last, 'is this more rational than the lord's prayer?' 'yes,' said the professor, 'for we can analyse and comprehend that; but true religious feeling, as professor tyndall tells us, we can neither analyse nor comprehend. see how big nature is, and how little--ah, how little!--we know about it. is it not solemn, and sublime, and awful? come let us howl again.' the professor's devotional fervour grew every moment. at last he put his hand to his mouth, and began hooting like an owl, till it seemed that all the island echoed to him. the louder paul hooted and howled, the more near did he draw to virginia. 'ah!' he said, as he put his arm about her waist, 'it is in solemn moments like this that the solidarity of mankind becomes apparent.' virginia, during the last few moments, had stuck her fingers in her ears. she now took them out, and, throwing her arms round paul's neck, tried, with her cheek on his shoulder, to make another little hoot; but the sound her lips formed was much more like a kiss. the power of religion was at last too much for paul. 'for the sake of cosmic emotion,' he exclaimed, 'o other half of humanity, and for the sake of rational religion, both of which are showing themselves under quite a new light to me, i will kiss you.' the professor was bending down his face over her, when, as if by magic, he started, stopped, and remained as one petrified. amidst the sharp silence, there rang a human shout from the rocks. 'oh!' shrieked virginia, falling on her knees, 'it is a miracle! it is a miracle! and i know--merciful heavens--i know the meaning of it. god is angry with us for pretending that we do not believe on him.' the professor was as white as a sheet; but he struggled with his perturbation manfully. 'it is not a miracle,' he cried, 'but an hallucination. it is an axiom with exact thinkers that all proofs of the miraculous are hallucinations.' 'see,' shrieked virginia again, 'they are coming, they are coming. do not you see them?' paul looked, and there sure enough, were two figures, a male and a female, advancing slowly towards them, across the moonlit sand. 'it is nothing,' cried paul; 'it cannot possibly be anything. i protest, in the name of science, that it is an optical delusion.' suddenly the female figure exclaimed, 'thank god, it is he!' in another moment the male figure exclaimed, 'thank god, it is she!' 'my husband!' gasped virginia. 'my wife!' replied the bishop, for it was none other than he. 'welcome to chasuble island. by the blessing of god it is on your own home you have been wrecked, and you have been living in the very house that i had intended to prepare for you. providentially, too, professor darnley's wife has called here, in her search for her husband, who has overstayed his time. see, my love, my dove, my beauty, here is the monkey i promised you as a pet, which broke loose a few days ago, and which i was in the act of looking for when your joint cries attracted us, and we found you.' a yell of delight here broke from the professor. the eyes of the others were turned on him, and he was seen embracing wildly a monkey which the bishop led by a chain. 'the missing link! he exclaimed, 'the missing link!' 'nonsense!' cried the sharp tones of a lady with a green gown and grey corkscrew curls. 'it is nothing but a monkey that the good bishop has been trying to tame for his wife. don't you see her name engraved on the collar?' the shrill accents acted like a charm upon paul. he sprang away from the creature that he had been just caressing. he gazed for a moment on virginia's lovely form, her exquisite toilette, and her melting eyes. then he turned wildly to the green gown and the grey corkscrew curls. sorrow and superstition, he felt, were again invading humanity. 'alas!' he exclaimed at last, 'i do now indeed believe in hell.' 'and i,' cried virginia, with much greater tact, and rushing into the arms of her bishop, 'once more believe in heaven.' notes. 'we now find it (_the earth_) not only swathed by an atmosphere, and covered by a sea, but also crowded with living things. the question is, how were they introduced?... the conclusion of science would undoubtedly be, that the molten earth contained within it elements of life, which grouped themselves into their present forms as the planet cooled. the difficulty and reluctance encountered by this conception arise _solely_ from the fact that the theologic conception obtained a prior footing in the human mind.... were not man's origin implicated, we should accept without a murmur the derivation of animal and vegetable life from what we call inorganic nature. the conclusion of pure intellect points this way, and no other.' professor tyndall. 'is this egg (_from which the human being springs_) matter? i hold it to be so, as much as the seed of a fern or of an oak. nine months go to the making of it into a man. are the additions made during this period of gestation drawn from matter? i think so, undoubtedly. if there be anything besides matter in the egg, or in the infant subsequently slumbering in the womb, what is it?' professor tyndall. 'matter i define as the mysterious thing by which all this is accomplished.' professor tyndall. 'i do not think that the materialist is entitled to say that his molecular groupings and motions explain everything. in reality, they _explain_ nothing. professor tyndall. 'who shall exaggerate the deadly influence on personal morality of those theologies which have represented the deity ... as a sort of pedantic drill-sergeant of mankind, to whom no valour, no long-tried loyalty, could atone for the misplacement of a button of the uniform, or the misunderstanding of a paragraph of the "regulations and instructions"?' professor huxley. '(_to the jesuit imagination_) god is obviously a large individual, who holds the leading-strings of the universe, and orders its steps from a position outside it all.... according to it (_this notion_) the power whom goethe does not dare to name, and whom gassendi and clark maxwell present to us under the guise of a manufacturer of atoms, turns out annually, for england and wales alone, a quarter of a million of new souls. taken in connection with the dictum of mr. carlyle, that this annual increment to our population are "mostly fools," but little profit to the human heart seems derivable from this mode of regarding the divine operations.... in the presence of this mystery (_the mystery of life_) the notion of an atomic manufacturer and artificer of souls, raises the doubt whether those who entertain it were ever really penetrated by the solemnity of the problem for which they offer such a solution.' professor tyndall. 'i look forward, however, to a time when the strength, insight, and elevation which now visit us in mere hints and glimpses, during moments of clearness and vigour, shall be the stable and permanent possession of purer and mightier minds than ours--purer and mightier, partly because of their deeper knowledge of matter, and their more faithful conformity to its laws.' professor tyndall. 'the world, as it is, is growing daily dimmer before my eyes. the world, as it is to be, is ever growing brighter.' harriet martineau. '... when you and i, like streaks of morning cloud, shall have melted into the infinite azure of the past.' professor tyndall. 'we, too, turn our thoughts to that which is behind the veil. we strive to pierce its secret with eyes, we trust, as eager and as fearless, and even, it may be, more patient in searching for realities behind the gloom. that which shall come _after_ is no less solemn to us than to you.' mr. frederic harrison. 'theological hypotheses of a new and heterogeneous existence have deadened our interest in the realities, the grandeur, and the perpetuity of an earthly life.' mr. frederic harrison. 'as we read, the calm and humane words of condorcet, on the very edge of his yawning grave, we learn, from the conviction of posthumous activity (not posthumous fame), how the consciousness of a living incorporation with the glorious future of his race, can give a patience and happiness equal to that of any martyr of theology.... once make it (_i.e._ "this sense of posthumous participation in the life of our fellows") the basis of philosophy, the standard of right and wrong, and the centre of a religion, and this (_the conversion of the masses_) will prove, perhaps, an easier task than that of teaching greeks and romans, syrians and moors, to look forward to a life of ceaseless psalmody in an immaterial heaven.' mr. frederic harrison. 'we make the future life, in the truest sense, social, inasmuch as our future is simply an active existence prolonged by society; and our future life rests not in any vague yearning, of which we have as little evidence as we have definite conception: it rests on a perfectly certain truth ... that the actions, feelings, thoughts, of each one of us, do marvellously influence and mould each other.... can we conceive a more potent stimulus to rectitude, to daily and hourly striving after a true life, than this ever-present sense that we are indeed immortal; not that we have an immortal something within us--but that in very truth we ourselves, our thinking, feeling, acting personalities, are immortal?' mr. frederic harrison. 'as we _live for others_ in life, so we _live in others_ after death.... how deeply does such a belief as this bring home to each moment of life the mysterious perpetuity of ourselves! for good, for evil, we cannot die. we cannot shake ourselves free from this eternity of our faculties.' mr. frederic harrison. 'we cannot even say that we shall continue to love; but we know that we shall be loved.' mr. frederic harrison. 'it is only when an earthly future is the fulfilment of a worthy earthly life, that we can see the majesty, as well as the glory, of the world beyond the grave; and then only will it fulfil its moral and religious purpose as the great guide of human conduct.' mr. frederic harrison. 'i am confident that a brighter day is coming for future generations.' harriet martineau. 'the humblest life that ever turned a sod sends a wave--no, more than a wave, a life--through the evergrowing harmony of human society.' mr. frederic harrison. 'not a single nature, in its entirety, but leaves its influence for good or for evil. _as a fact, the good prevail_.' mr. frederic harrison. 'to our friends and loved ones we shall give the most worthy honour and tribute if we never say nor remember that they are dead, but, contrariwise, that they have lived; that hereby the brotherly force and flow of their action and work may be carried over the gulf of death, and made immortal in the true and healthy life which they worthily had and used.' professor clifford. 'it cannot be doubted that the "spiritual body" of this book (_the unseen universe_) will be used to support a belief that the dead are subject either to the _shame and suffering of a christian heaven_ and hell, or to the degrading service of a modern witch. from _each_ of these _unspeakable profanities_ let us hope and endeavour that the memories of great and worthy men may be finally relieved.' professor clifford. 'i choose the noble part of emerson, when, after various disenchantments, he exclaimed, "i covet truth." the gladness of true heroism visits the heart of him who is really competent to say this.' professor tyndall. 'the highest, as it is the only, content is to be attained, not by grovelling in the rank and steaming valleys of sense, but by continually striving towards those high peaks, when, resting in eternal calm, reason discerns the undefined but bright ideal of the highest good--"a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night."' professor huxley. 'if it can be shown by observation and experiment, that theft, murder, and adultery, do not tend to diminish the happiness of society, then, in the absence of any but natural knowledge, they are not social immoralities.' professor huxley. 'for my own part, i do not for one moment admit that morality is not strong enough to hold its own.' professor huxley. 'i object to the very general use of the terms religion and theology, as if they were synonymous, or _indeed had anything whatever to do with one another_.... religion is an affair of the affections. it may be that the object of a man's religion--the ideal which he worships--is an ideal of sensual enjoyment.' professor huxley. 'in his hour of health ... when the pause of reflection has set in, the scientific investigator finds himself overshadowed with the same awe. it associates him with a power which gives fulness and tone to his existence, but which he can neither analyse nor comprehend.' professor tyndall. 'he will see what drivellers even men of strenuous intellects may become,' though exclusively dwelling and dealing with theological chimeras. professor tyndall. 'the two kinds of cosmic emotion run together and become one. the microcosm is viewed only in relation to human action, nature is presented to the emotions as the guide and teacher of humanity. and the microcosm is viewed only as tending to complete correspondence with the external; human conduct is subject for reverence only in so far as it is consonant to the demiurgic law, in harmony with the teaching of divine nature.' professor clifford. 'the world will have religion of some kind, even though it should fly for it to the intellectual whoredom of "spiritualism."' professor tyndall. 'all positive methods of treating man, of a comprehensive kind, adopt to the full all that has ever been said about the dignity of man's moral and spiritual life.... i do not confine my language to the philosophy or religion of comte; for the same conception of man is common to many philosophies and many religions.' mr. frederic harrison. _the expositor's library_ modern substitutes for christianity by the very rev. pearson mcadam muir d.d. minister of glasgow cathedral chaplain in ordinary to the king _christus vincit, christus regnat, christus imperat_ hodder and stoughton london -new york -toronto first published . . . december 1909 second edition . . . october 1912 in memoriam s. a. m. june 3, 1847. october 5, 1871 february 12, 1907 {vii} contents i page popular impeachments of christianity . . . . . 1 ii morality without religion . . . . . . . . . . 31 iii the religion of the universe . . . . . . . . . 63 iv the religion of humanity . . . . . . . . . . . 91 {viii} v theism without christ . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 vi the tribute of criticism to christ . . . . . . 171 appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 authorities consulted . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 {2} i popular impeachments of christianity 'why call ye me lord, lord, and do not the things which i say?'--s. luke vi. 46. 'the name of god is blasphemed among the gentiles through you.'--romans ii. 24. 'what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of god without effect?'--romans iii. 3. 'by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.'--2 s. peter ii. 1. 'so is the will of god, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.'--1 s. peter ii. 15. {3} i popular impeachments of christianity that there is at present a widespread alienation from the christian faith can hardly be denied. sometimes by violent invective, sometimes by quiet assumption, the conclusion is conveyed that christianity is obsolete. whatever benefits it may have conferred in rude, unenlightened ages, it is now outgrown, it is not in keeping with the science and discovery of modern times. 'the good lord jesus has had his day,'[1] is murmured in pitying condescension towards those who still suffer themselves to be deceived by the antiquated superstition. the statements in which our forefathers embodied the relations {4} between god and man are no longer, except by a very few, considered adequate; and there is everywhere a demand that those statements should be recast. is not all this an irresistible proof that the beliefs of the church have been abandoned, that the old notions of the divine care, the spiritual world, the everlasting life, cannot be maintained, must be relegated to the realm of imagination? the blessings with which christianity is commonly credited spring from other sources: the evils with which society is infected are its result, direct or indirect. i such accusations, it may occur to us, cannot be made seriously: they bear their refutation in the very making; they cannot be propounded with any expectation of being accepted. this may seem self-evident to us: it is not self-evident to multitudes of eager, {5} earnest men. the accusations are persistently made by vigorous writers and impassioned speakers, and are received as incontrovertible propositions. however astonishing, however painful, it may be for us to hear, it is well that we should know, what, in largely circulated books and periodicals, and in mass meetings of the people, is said about the faith which we profess, and about us who profess it. listen to some of the terms in which christianity is impeached. 'i undertake,' says mr. winwood reade, 'i undertake to show that the destruction of christianity is essential to the interests of civilisation; and also that man will never attain his full powers as a moral being, until he has ceased to believe in a personal god, and in the immortality of the soul. christianity must be destroyed.'[2] 'the hostile evidence,' says mr. philip {6} vivian, 'appears to be overwhelming. christianity cannot be true. provided that we see things as they really are, and not as we wish them to be, we cannot but come to this conclusion. we cannot get away from facts. modern knowledge forces us to admit that the christian faith cannot be true.'[3] 'i want,' exclaims mr. vivian carey, who has apparently, like lord herbert of cherbury, received a revelation to prove that no revelation has been given, 'i want to destroy the fetich of centuries and to instil in its place a life of duty, and of faith in god and man, and i believe there is a power that has impelled me to attempt this task.... a system that has produced such results must be essentially bad.... it will not be difficult to create a faith and a religion that will serve the needs of humanity, where christianity has so deplorably failed.'[4] {7} 'if christianity,' argues mr. charles watts, 'were potent for good, that good would have been displayed ere now.... the ties of domestic affection, the bonds of the social compact, the political relations of rulers and ruled, all have surrendered themselves to its influence. yet with all these advantages, it has proved unable to keep pace with a progressive civilisation.'[5] 'in a really humane and civilised nation,' mr. robert blatchford contends, 'there should be and need be no such thing as ignorance, crime, idleness, war, slavery, hate, envy, pride, greed, gluttony, vice. but this is not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be while it accepts christianity as its religion. these are my reasons for opposing christianity.'[6] 'christianity,' he iterates and reiterates, 'is not true.'[7] 'onward, ye children of the new faith!' {8} exultantly cries mr. moncure d. conway. 'the sun of christendom hastes to its setting, but the hope never sets of those who know that the sunset here is a sunrise there!'[8] such is the manner in which the downfall of christianity is now proclaimed. and the impression is prevalent that, though in all ages christianity has been the object of doubt and of scorn, yet never has it been rejected with such intensity of hatred as now, never have keen criticism and deep earnestness, wide learning and shrewd mother-wit been so combined in the attack. it is not merely the reckless, the dissolute, the frivolous who turn away from its reproofs, seeking excuses for their self-indulgence, but it is the thoughtful, the austere, the high-principled, the reverent, the unselfish, who are engaged in a crusade against all that we, as christians, hold dear. 'to the old spirit of mockery, coarse or refined, to the old wrangle of argument, {9} also coarse or refined, has succeeded the spirit of grave, measured, determined negation.'[9] men whose integrity and elevation of character are beyond suspicion, take their places among the rebels against the authority of christ. they are fighting, they assert, not for the removal of a check to their vices, but for the introduction of a nobler ideal. in the demolition of christianity, in the sweeping away of every vestige of religious belief, religious custom, religious hope, they imagine themselves to be conferring inestimable benefits upon mankind. christianity, in their view, is the product of delusion and the buttress of all social ills. ii the contrast which so many are drawing between the present and the past is not a little exaggerated. there have been few periods in which christianity has not been the {10} object of animadversion and attack, in which its speedy downfall has not been confidently predicted. it was two hundred years ago that dean swift wrote _an argument to prove that the abolishing of christianity in england may, as things now stand, be attended with some inconveniences, and perhaps not produce those many good effects proposed thereby_': the dean, with scathing sarcasm, ridiculing at once the conventional customs by which christianity was misrepresented, and the supercilious ignorance which assumed that it was extinct.[10] it was about a quarter of a century later that bishop butler, in the advertisement to his _analogy of religion to the constitution and course of nature_, stated, 'it is come, i know not how, to be taken for granted by many persons that christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry, but that it is now, at length, discovered to be fictitious. and accordingly they treat it as if, {11} in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment; and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world.' and the bishop drily gave as the aim of the _analogy_: 'thus much, at least, will be here found, not taken for granted but proved, that any reasonable man who will thoroughly consider the matter, may be as much assured as he is of his own being, that it is not, however, so clear a case that there is nothing in it.' the assumption that christianity is a thing of the past can hardly be more prevalent now than it was then; and the groundlessness of the assumption then may lead to the conclusion that the assumption is equally groundless now. since the days of butler or of swift, the progress of christianity has not ceased: its developments of thought and {12} life have been among the most remarkable in its whole career. the exultation over its decay in the twentieth century may possibly be found as premature and as vain as the exultation over its decay in the eighteenth century, or in any of the centuries which have gone before. iii the most popular impeachments of christianity are mainly these. it is a mass of false and superstitious beliefs long exploded. it is the opponent of progress and inquiry, the discoveries of science having been made in direct defiance of its teaching and its influence. it is the champion of oppression and tyranny. it aims at keeping the poor in ignorance and destitution. it prostrates itself before the rich and seeks the patronage of the great. it so insists on people being absorbed in {13} the thought of heaven that it practically precludes them from doing any good on earth. it is a system of selfishness, inculcating the dogma that no one need care for anything except the salvation of his own soul.[11] it is the foster-mother of all the evil and misery by which society is distressed. dishonesty, cruelty, slavery, war, persecution, avarice, drunkenness, vice, would seem to be its natural fruits. 'how calm and sweet the victories of life,' shrieked shelley in one of his early poems. 'how terrorless the triumph of the grave ... ... but for thy aid religion! but for thee, prolific fiend, who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men, and heaven with slaves! thou taintest all thou look'st upon!'[12] what shall we say to these accusations? christians have been credulous and superstitious, have argued and acted as if only in {14} the abnormal and exceptional could the divine presence be found, as if god were a hard taskmaster and capricious tyrant. they have resisted progress and inquiry, blindly refusing to see the light which was streaming upon them. they have unquestionably been guilty of miserable pride towards inferiors in wealth or in station, and guilty of miserable sycophancy towards the rich and the powerful. christians have too frequently neglected the material well-being of the community, have suffered disgraceful outward conditions to remain without protest, have not striven to shed abroad happiness and brightness in squalid and wretched lives. christians have been art and part in fostering such conditions as wrung from compassionate and indignant hearts the _song of the shirt_ and the _cry of the children_. christians have imagined that correctness of belief would make up for falseness of heart, and loudness of profession for depravity of {15} practice. christians have supposed that in religion all that has to be striven for is the salvation of one's own soul, have even represented the joy of the redeemed as heightened by a contemplation of the torments of the lost. christians must bear the responsibility of much of the abounding vice which they have not earnestly tried to combat where it already exists, and which, in various forms, they have introduced into regions where it was unknown before. lawlessness and degradation in the slums, fraud and dishonesty in trade, gross revelations in the fashionable world; bigotry, slander, scandals in the ecclesiastical world; plots, wars, treacheries, assassinations, in the political world: these things ought not so to be. the fiercest denunciations, the most withering satires, which unbelievers have employed, do not exceed in intensity of condemnation the judgment which christian preachers and christian writers have pronounced.[13] {16} in all ages of the church the most powerful weapon against christianity has been the example of christians. the faith which they nominally hold has been judged by the lives which they actually lead.[14] 'christianity,' said a bishop of the eighteenth century, 'would perhaps be the last religion a wise man would choose, if he were guided by the lives of those who profess it.'[15] but is this to admit that the hope of the world lies in renouncing christianity? that in confining ourselves to the seen and the temporal, we shall best elevate mankind? that the prospect of annihilation and the absence of wisdom, love, and providence in the order of the universe constitute the most glorious gospel which can be proclaimed? nothing of the kind. it is only proved that many christians are not acting according to their belief, that their practice does not square with their {17} profession. the belief and the profession are not proved to be wrong and bad. it would be unreasonable to argue that, because a man who has been vehemently sounding the praises of truthfulness is convicted of deliberate lying, therefore truthfulness is shown to be worthless. it is equally unreasonable to identify christianity with everything to which it is most definitely opposed, to represent it as the enemy of everything which it was intended to maintain, and then to conclude that christianity is discredited.[16] as we should argue from the detection of a liar, not that lying is right, but that he should return to the ways of truth, so we should argue from the lives of christians who live in flagrant contradiction to the precepts of our lord and his apostles, not that the precepts should be rejected, but that they should be kept; not that christianity should be abolished, but that it should be obeyed. {18} christians have created prejudice, hatred, against christianity, but it is not christianity which they have been exhibiting. we repudiate the hideous travesty which they have made, the hideous travesty which is credulously or maliciously accepted by assailants as a correct representation. christianity is not a religion of darkness and superstition: it calls to its disciples 'be children of light: prove all things: hold fast that which is good.' christianity does not sycophantishly court the rich and despise the poor: it tells the stories of the rich man and lazarus, and of the rich fool, and it declares 'ye cannot serve god and mammon.' christianity does not teach that the life which a man leads is of less consequence than the belief which he professes: it demands, 'why call ye me, lord, lord, and do not the things which i say?' christianity is not selfish, is not a system which inculcates the saving of one's own soul as the first and last of duties: {19} 'he that loveth his life shall lose it. bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of christ. by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another.' it is surely reasonable to demand that christianity shall be judged, not by its misrepresentations, but by what it is in itself, not as it has been perverted by bitter enemies, or by false disciples, but as it is proclaimed and manifested in its author and finisher. iv in the face of such tremendous indictments, what is the duty incumbent on us who profess and call ourselves christians? certainly not that we should abjure the name, but that we should remember what the name signifies. we ought to consider our ways, to give ourselves to self-examination. there must be something amiss when such hideous portraits can be painted with any expectation of their being taken as correct likenesses. it is right {20} that we should repel with indignation the ludicrous and intolerable caricatures which are presented as our belief, the unwarrantable consequences which are deduced from it. it is right that we should remove misapprehensions and refute calumnies; but, above all it is necessary that we should take heed to our own conduct and our own character. the scandals which we have so much reason to deplore owe their existence, not to christianity, but to the absence of christianity. and the very sneers which greet any departure from rectitude or morality on the part of a professing christian prove that such a departure is not a manifestation, but a renunciation of christianity, that what is expected of christians is the highest and the best that human nature can produce. 'if,' argues mr. blatchford, 'if to praise christ in words and deny him in deeds be christianity, then london is a christian city and england is a christian nation. for it is {21} very evident that our common english ideals are anti-christian, and that our commercial, foreign, and social affairs are run on anti-christian lines.'[17] as mr. blatchford's life is spent in deploring the baseness of 'our common english ideals,' and in exposing the iniquity of the methods in which 'our commercial, foreign, and social affairs' are conducted, the logical inference would seem to be that, as anti-christian ideals and anti-christian lines have so signally failed, it might be well to give christian ideals and christian lines a trial. 'in a really humane and civilised nation,' mr. blatchford maintains, 'there should be, and there need be, no such thing as poverty, ignorance, crime, idleness, war, slavery, hate, envy, pride, greed, gluttony, vice. but,' he continues his curious argument, 'this is not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be while it accepts christianity as its religion. these,' {22} so he adds as an irresistible conclusion, 'these are my reasons for opposing christianity.'[18] very good reasons, if christianity taught such a creed and encouraged such a morality. but that any human being should give such a description of the purpose of christian faith indicates either that the describer is swayed by blindest prejudice or else that no genuine christian has ever crossed his path. 'what if some do not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of god of none effect? god forbid: yea, let god be true, but every man a liar.' truth continues to be truth, though people who talk much about it may be false. goodness continues to be goodness, though people who sing its praises may be thoroughly depraved. generosity does not cease to be generosity, though its beauty should be extolled by a miser. courage does not cease to be courage, though its heroism should be extolled by a coward. temperance {23} is temperance, though we should be assured of the fact by the thick speech of a drunkard. the virtue is admirable, even when those who acknowledge how admirable it is do not practise it. that christianity towers so far above the attainments of its average disciples, nay, above the attainments of its saintliest, is itself a kind of evidence of its divine origin. 'when the king of the tartars, who was become christian,' says montaigne, 'designed to come to lyons to kiss the pope's feet, and there to be an eyewitness of the sanctity he hoped to find in our manners, immediately our good s. louis sought to divert him from his purpose: for fear lest our inordinate way of living should, on the contrary, put him out of conceit with so holy a belief. and yet it happened quite otherwise to this other, who going to rome to the same end, and there seeing the dissolution of the prelates and people of that time, settled {24} himself so much the more firmly in our religion, considering how great the force and dignity of it must necessarily be that could maintain its dignity and splendour amongst so much corruption and in so vicious hands.' god's truth abides whether men receive it or deny it. christ is the way, the truth, and the life, though every so-called christian should become apostate. the woes of the world are to be cured by more christianity, not by less; and on us, in whose hands have been placed its holy oracles, rests the responsibility of proving its inestimable advantage ourselves and of conferring it on all mankind. wherever christianity has really flourished, untold blessings have been the result.[19] with all the sad deficiencies and sadder perversions by which its course has been chequered, no influence for good can be compared with it in elevating character, in diffusing peace and {25} goodwill, in fitting men to labour and to endure. the diffusion of the spirit of christianity is a synonym for the diffusion of all that tends to the true well-being of the world. only as genuine christianity, the christianity of christ, prevails, will mankind be morally and spiritually lifted into a higher sphere. put together the wisest and most ennobling suggestions of those who regard christianity as obsolete and you find that it is virtually christianity which is delineated. it is in the prevalence of principles and practices which, however they may be designated, are in reality christian, that the salvation of society and of individuals will be found. in the absence of such principles and practices will be found the secret of ruin, disorder, dissolution, and decay. it is false christianity against which the tornado of abuse is really directed. where genuine christianity appears, and is recognised as genuine, it commands respect. {26} even the most virulent of recent assailants, who seriously considers that, until we get rid of the 'incubus of the modern christian religion, our civilisation will so surely decay that we shall become an entirely decadent race,' and who complacently announces that 'it will not be difficult to create a faith and a religion which will serve the needs of humanity where christianity has so signally failed,' even he is graciously pleased to allow, 'i have no quarrel with christianity as a code of morals. the sermon on the mount, no matter who preached it, is quite sufficient, if its teaching was only practised instead of preached, to make this world an eminently desirable place in which to live. my quarrel is concerned with the professional promoters and organisers of religion who have made the very name of christianity to stink in the nostrils of honest men.' in other words, it is not to christianity, but to christians by whom it is misrepresented, that he is opposed, and he {27} cannot refrain from granting, though surely with transparent inconsistency, that it is by the noble lives of christians that christianity has been so long preserved. 'it won, with its beauty and sentiment, the allegiance of many who were true and manly. and it is such as these who have raised the gospel from the slough of infamy. it is such as these who, in the darkest ages, have perpetuated by the goodness of their lives the faith that is left to-day. it is the virtues of christians, not the virtue of christianity, that keeps the faith alive.'[20] the very opposite is nearer the truth. the virtues of christians are simply the outcome of the virtue of christianity: it is the vices of christians which compose the deepest 'slough of infamy' into which the gospel has ever been plunged. but from all these charges and counter-charges, it would seem to be clear that real {28} christianity compels respect even where it is viewed with aversion, that its progress is hindered by nothing so much as by the unworthiness of its adherents, that it gains assent by nothing so much as by the manifestation of christian lives. will any one venture to deny that the world would be vastly improved were every one in it to be a genuine christian, animated by christian motives, doing christian deeds? the revolution would be immense, indescribable: it would be the end of all evil: it would be the establishment of all good. no man's hand would be against another, all would strive together for the welfare of the whole, there would be no contention save how to excel in love and in good works. the human imagination cannot depict anything more glorious, more ennobling, than the will of god done on earth as it is done in heaven, and this is what would be if the thoughts of every heart were brought {29} into captivity to the obedience of christ. the most splendid dreams of the most exalted visionaries would be more than fulfilled: everything true and lovely and of good report would be ratified and confirmed: everything false and vile would be changed and purified, and nothing to hurt or destroy or defile would remain. the fulfilment of that ideal is simply the universal prevalence of christianity, the universal triumph of christ. the systems and tendencies at which we are about to glance owe their vitality to the faith which they attempt to supersede. they are, in so far as they are good, either tending towards christianity or borrowing from it. the insufficiency of mere material well-being, the irresistible association of religion with morality, the worship of the universe, the worship of humanity, all are signs of the ineradicable instinct of the unseen and eternal, of the unquenchable thirst for the living god; and belief in the living {30} god finds its noblest illustration and confirmation in him who said, 'he that hath seen me hath seen the father,' in him to whom the searching scrutiny of critical inquirers, as well as the fervid devotion of believers, bears so marvellous a witness. we hope to show not only that the abolition of christianity might 'be attended with sundry inconveniences,' or that the assumption of there being 'nothing in' christianity is 'not so clear a case,' but we hope to show that if, amid present perplexity and estrangement, many feel themselves obliged to go back and walk no more with christ, we, for our part, as we hear his voice of tender reproach, 'will ye also go away?' can only, with heartfelt conviction, give the answer, 'lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.' [1] tennyson, _in the children's hospital_. [2] _the martyrdom of man_. [3] _the churches and modern thought_. [4] _parsons and pagans_. [5] _secularists' manual_. [6] _god and my neighbour_. [7] _ibid_. [8] _earthward pilgrimage_. [9] dean church, _pascal and other sermons_, p. 348. [10] appendix i. [11] appendix ii. [12] _queen mab_. [13] hans faber, _das christentum der zukunft_. [14] appendix. [15] sir leslie stephen, _english thought in the eighteenth century_, vol. i. p. 144 [16] appendix iv. [17] _god and my neighbour_. [18] _god and my neighbour_, ch. ix. p. 197. [19] appendix v. [20] _parsons and pagans_. {32} ii morality without religion 'i am sought of them that asked not for me: i am found of them that sought me not.'--isaiah lxv. 1. 'not the hearers of the law are just before god, but the doers of the law shall be justified. for when the gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.'--romans ii. 13-15. 'strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without god in the world.'--ephesians ii. 12. 'the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness.'--titus i. 1. {33} ii morality without religion that religion and morality have no necessary connection is a popular assumption. in books, in pamphlets, in magazines, on platforms, in ordinary conversation, it is loudly proclaimed or quietly insinuated that the morality of the future will be independent morality, morality without sanction. morality, it is iterated and reiterated, can get on quite well without religion: religion is a positive hindrance to morality. this view is, no doubt, extreme. perhaps it is only here and there in the writings which fall into the hands of most of us, or in the circles with which most of us mingle, that the matter is stated so bluntly and so plainly. but in {34} not a few writings of wide circulation, and in whole classes of the community, the statement is made as if beyond contradiction. even in works which we are all reading, and in companies where we daily find ourselves, the logical conclusion of arguments, the natural inference from assumptions, would be simply that extreme position. there is no use in evading the fact that if some highly popular opinions are accepted, no statement of the uselessness of religion in any form or system can be too extreme. the mere assurance that religion is a reality, is a benefit, is a necessity, though it may not seem a great deal to establish, though it may leave a host of problems still to solve, would be a gain to many, would sweep away the chief doubts by which they are perplexed. there need not, on our part, be any hesitation in declaring, to begin with, that religion {35} without morality is worthless. the attempt to keep them apart, to regard them as independent of each other, has often enough been made by nominal champions of religion. the upholding of certain views regarding god and his relations to mankind has been considered sufficient to make up for neglect of the duties incumbent on ordinary mortals. the performance of certain rites and ceremonies has been considered an adequate compensation for the commission of deliberate crimes. instances might easily be cited of persons engaged in villainous schemes, achieving deeds of dishonesty which will cause ruin to hundreds of innocent victims, executing plots of fiendish revenge, with little regard for human life, and no regard at all for truth, but exceedingly punctilious in attention to religious observances. one of the most cold-blooded murderers that ever disgraced the habitable globe was careful not to neglect any act of devotion, and while {36} perpetrating the most nefarious basenesses never failed to write in his diary the most pious sentiments. that kind of religion is worse than nothing, was rightly regarded as increasing the horror and loathsomeness of the monster's life. in a minor degree, we have all seen illustrations of the same incongruity, we may even have detected indications of it in ourselves, the tendency to imagine that the more we go to church or frequent the sacraments or read the bible, we are entitled to latitude in our conduct. there is no tendency against which we need to be more constantly on our guard, none which is more strongly, more terrifically, denounced in the old testament and in the new, by prophets and apostles, and by the lord jesus christ himself. unbelievers in christianity are perfectly right when they say that religion without morality is absolutely worthless. {37} ii we may go further. we may admit, nay, we must vehemently maintain, that morality without religion is far better than religion without morality. look at this man who makes no profession of religion, but who is temperate, honest, self-sacrificing for the public good. look at that man who made a loud profession, but who was leading a life of secret vice, who was false to the trust reposed in him, who appropriated what had been committed to his charge. can there be any doubt, we are triumphantly asked, that of these two, the religious is inferior to the irreligious? there can be no doubt whatever, would be the reply of every well-instructed christian. morality without religion is incalculably better than religion without morality. but what does this prove with regard to christianity? it simply proves how eternally true is the parable {38} of our lord: 'a certain man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, son, go work to-day in my vineyard. he answered and said, i will not, but afterwards he repented and went. and he came to the second and said likewise. and he answered and said, i go, sir, and went not. whether of them twain did the will of his father? they say unto him, the first,' and our lord confirmed the answer. iii that kind of comparison between religion and morality is most misleading, for such 'religion' is not religion at all. it may be hypocrisy, it may be superstition, it may be self-deception: christianity it is not, and never can be. the contrast is not really between morality and religion, but between morality and immorality, falsehood, fraud, and wilful imposition. whatever else the kingdom of god may be, it is at least {39} righteousness: where there is no righteousness, there can be no kingdom of god. whatever else christian doctrine may be, it is at least a doctrine according to godliness, a teaching in accordance with the eternal laws of righteousness. for purposes of analysis and convenience, we may distinguish between religion and morality, and show them working in different spheres, but it is utterly erroneous to suppose that they can be actually divorced. in every right and rational representation of the christian religion, morality is included and imbedded, otherwise it is only a maimed and mutilated religion which is held out for acceptance. on the other hand, in all true morality, especially in its highest and purest manifestations, religion is present. it is possible to decry morality. 'mere morality,' in the current acceptation of the phrase, may lack a good deal, may be a phase of self-righteousness, self-interest, cold calculation, {40} a keeping up of appearances before the world, but morality itself is of a higher strain: it is the fulfilment of every duty to one's self and to one's neighbour: it implies that each duty is done from the right motive: the purer and loftier it becomes the more it encroaches on the religious domain: it is crowned and glorified with a religious sanction: it is, visible or hidden, conscious or unconscious, a doing of the will of god. morality, to hold its own, must be 'touched by emotion,' and morality touched by emotion is identical with religion. to admit moral obligation in all its length and breadth, and depth and height, is to admit god.[1] iv a curious illustration of the fact that morality, to be permanent, needs the inspiration of religion, that morality, at its best and purest, tends to become religion, is {41} afforded in such a work as dr. stanton coit's _national idealism and a state church_. dr. coit has for twenty years been engaged in founding ethical societies, and his high and disinterested aims need not be called in question. but the book is evidence that in order to support the lofty principles which he so earnestly expounds, he is obliged to call in the aid of principles which he imagined himself to have discarded. he begins by denying the supernatural in every shape and form. he will have none of a personal god, or of a personal immortality. there is no higher being than man. all trust must be shifted from supernatural to human agencies. 'combined human foresight, the general will of organised society, assumes the rã´le of creative providence.' 'this is, then, the presupposition of all moral judgment in harmony with which i would reconstruct the religions of the world: that no crime and no good deed that happens in this world shall {42} ever be traced to any other moral agencies than those actually inhabiting living human bodies and recognised by other human beings as fit subjects of human rights and privileges.' in other words, morality, morality alone, morality without any sanction from above, or any hope from beyond, is the all-sufficient strength and ennoblement of man. but what is the superstructure which dr. stanton coit proceeds to build upon this foundation? one would naturally expect that prayer and churches and sacraments would have no place. but these are exactly what he insists on retaining; these will apparently be more important, more necessary, in the future than in the past. 'we should appropriate and adapt the materials furnished us by the rites and ceremonies of the historic church. as the woodbird, bent on building her nest, in lieu of better materials makes it of leaves and of feathers from her breast, so may we use what is familiar, old, {43} and close at hand. it is all ours; and the homelike beauty of the church of the future will be enhanced by the ancient materials wrought into its new forms.' so much enhanced, indeed, that most people will be inclined to tolerate the new forms simply because of the ancient materials which are allowed to remain. among the ancient materials which dr. coit appropriates or adapts, prayer occupies a prominent place. and he is severe upon those, _e.g._, comte and dr. congreve, who would banish petition from the sphere of worship. he delights in pointing out that, in despite of themselves, they include requests for personal blessings. nor is prayer to be a mere aspiration or inarticulate longing of the soul. 'no mental activity can become definite, coherent, and systematic, and remain so, except it be embodied and repeated in words.... a petition that does not, or cannot, or will not, formulate itself in words, and let the lips move to shape them, and the {44} voice to sound them, and the eye to visualise them on the written or printed page, becomes soon a mere torpor of the mind, or a meaningless movement of blind unrest, or a trick of pretending to pray. perfected prayer is always spoken.' to whom, or to what, this prayer, uttered or unexpressed, is to be offered, may be difficult of comprehension. it is not to god, as we have hitherto employed that sacred name; but dr. coit insists that the word 'god' shall be retained, and that we have no right to deny to this god the attribute of personality. 'any one who worships either a concrete social group or an abstract moral quality may justly protest against the charge that his god is impersonal: he may insist that it is either superpersonal or interpersonal, or both.' the worship of nature appears to be discouraged, and to be considered as of comparatively little worth. 'we dare never forget that moral qualities stand to us in a {45} different dynamic relation from the grass and the stars and the sea--no effects upon us or upon these will result from petitions even of a most righteous man to them. but no one can deny that prayers to purity, serenity, faith, humanity, england, man, woman, to milton, to jesus, do create a new moral heaven and a new earth for him who thirsts after righteousness.' leaving the name of our lord out of the discussion, why should a prayer to serenity have more moral influence than a prayer to the sea? why should a prayer to the stars be less efficacious than a prayer to milton, whose soul was like a star and dwelt apart? we have only to invest the stars and the sea with certain qualities evolved from our own imagination to make them as worthy of worship as either milton or serenity. dr. coit is scathing in his criticism of the positivist prayers, whether of comte or of dr. congreve: they are 'screamingly funny': 'the most monstrous {46} absurdity ever perpetrated by a really good and great man.' the epithets are possibly justified; but are they quite inapplicable to one who supposes that an invocation of the living and eternal god means no more than an invocation of england, or faith, or woman? it is only when god has become to us an abstraction that an abstraction can take the place of god. a manual of services fitted to a nation's present needs is what, according to dr. coit, is required to ensure the progress and triumph of the ethical movement. 'until the new idealism possesses its own manual of religious ritual, it cannot communicate effectively its deeper thought and purpose. the moment, however, it has invented such a means of communication, it would seem inevitable that a rapid moral and intellectual advancement of man must at last take place, equal in speed and in beneficence to the material advancement which followed {47} during the last century in the wake of scientific inventions.' the ritual of ethical societies will not outwardly differ much from the ritual to be found in existing religions. its details have yet to be arranged or 'invented.' the only things certain are that a book of prayers ought to be provided at once, and that in swinburne's _songs before sunrise_ may be found an 'anthology of prayer suitable for use in the church of humanity,' prayers 'as sublime and quickening in melody and passion as anything in the hebrew prophets or the litany of the church.' dr. coit does not denounce theology as theology, he even insists on being himself ranked among theologians. his readers may be surprised to learn on what doctrines he dwells with particular fondness. he laments that belief in the existence and power of the devil should be waning. 'we may not believe in a personal devil, but we must believe in a devil who acts very like a person.' {48} he predicts that teachers will more and more teach a doctrine of hell-fire. out of kindness they will terrify by presenting the evil effects, indirect and remote, of selfish thoughts and dispositions. 'we must frighten people away from the edge of the abyss which begins this side of death.' finally, though, of course, the word is not used in the ordinary sense, the necessity of the doctrine of the incarnation is upheld. 'the incarnation must for ever remain a fundamental conception of religion. until all men are incarnations of the principle of constructive moral beneficence, and to a higher degree, jesus will remain pre-eminent; and it is quite possible that in proportion as he is approached, gratitude to him will increase rather than diminish.' 'even should any one ever in the future transcend him, still it will only be by him and in glad acknowledgment of the debt to him. there never can in the future be a dividing of the world into christianity {49} and not christianity. it will only be a new and more christian christianity, compatible with liberty and reason.' thus the drift and tendency of this book bring us back, however unintentionally, to the faith of which it appears, at first sight, to be the renunciation. it establishes irresistibly that morality, to be living and permanent, must have religious sanction and inspiration, that we need to be delivered from the awful thraldom of evil, that the supreme realities are the things which are unseen; that prayer is the life of the soul; that public worship is a necessity; that in christ the greatest redemptive power has been embodied, and the purest vision of the eternal has been granted; and that, in its adaptation to human needs, its fostering of human aspirations, its ministering to human sorrows, its renewal of human penitence, its consecration of life and its hope in death, no ethical society yet devised gives any {50} symptom of being able to supplant the church of him who said, 'come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and i will give you rest.' v now, from the fact that morality at its best assumes a religious tinge, merges itself in religion, we may legitimately infer that, without the inspiration of religion, morality at its best will not long prevail.[2] 'love, friendship,' said sir james fitzjames stephen, 'good nature, kindness carried to the height of sincere and devoted affection, will always be the chief pleasures of life, whether christianity is true or false; but christian charity is not the same as any of these, or all of these put together, and i think that if christian theology were exploded, christian charity would not survive it.'[3] at present, when religion has pervaded everything with its sacred sanctions, it is easy to say that religion {51} would not be greatly missed were it discarded, and that morality would be unaffected. this is pure conjecture. to test its worth we should need a state of society from which every vestige of religion had disappeared. it will not do to retain any of the beliefs or the customs which owe their origin to a sense of the unseen and eternal, to a sense of any power above ourselves, ruling our destinies and instilling into our minds thoughts and desires and hopes beyond the visible and the material. if morality, in the limited acceptation of the term, is sufficient for the elevation and welfare of mankind, it is not to be supported by any admixture of religion: it must prove its power by itself. religion must be utterly abolished, its every sanction must be universally rejected, its every impulse must have universally ceased before it can be contended with any measure of assurance that the world will be none the worse, may be even the better, for its vanishing. {52} if religion is a delusion, remember what must be eliminated from our convictions. there can be no higher tribunal than that of man by which our actions can be judged.[4] a life of outward propriety is the utmost that can be demanded of us, if it is only against the wellbeing of our neighbour or the promotion of our own happiness that we can transgress. what has human law to do with our hearts? what legislation can deal with 'envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness,' unless they manifest themselves in outward acts? a base, unloving, impure, acrimonious, untruthful man may crawl through life, never having been arrested, never having been sentenced to any term of penal servitude. he can stand erect before all the laws of the country and say, 'all these have i kept from my youth up.' and unless there be a higher law than the law of man, unless there be a law written on our hearts by the finger of {53} god, unless there be one to whom, above and beyond all earthly appearances, we can mournfully declare, 'against thee, thee only, have i sinned,' nothing more can be reasonably demanded. if there is nothing higher than the visible, it can be only visible results which are of any value. the giving of money to help the needy, and the giving of money in order to obtain a reputation for generosity, must stand on the same level. the widow's mite will be worth infinitely less than the shekels which come from those who devour widows' houses. if there be none to search the heart, none save poor frail fellow-mortals to whom we must give account, what an incentive to purity of motive and loftiness of aspiration is removed! but let men talk as they will, there is a conscience in them which whispers, it does matter whether our hearts as well as our actions are right; it does matter whether we have good motives, good intentions; there is a scrutiny of hearts, {54} making and to be made more fully yet; there is one before whom, even though we have not broken the law of the land, we confess with anguish, against thee have i sinned and done evil in thy sight: where i appear most irreproachable, thine eye detecteth error: it is not the occasional trespass that i have chiefly to lament, it is the sin that is almost part and parcel of my very being, the sin that corrodes even where it does not glare, the sin that undermines even where it does not crash. vi the most thoughtful of those who have lost faith in the living god and in fellowship with him hereafter, look on this life with a pessimistic eye. without trust in the unseen and eternal, life is worthless, an idle dream. with its harassing cares, with its petty vexations, with its turbulence and strife, its sorrows, its breaking up of old associations, its quenching the light of our {55} eyes, 'o dreary were this earth, if earth were all!' on the stage of the world, 'the play is the tragedy man, the hero the conqueror worm!' we cannot but extend the deepest sympathy, the warmest admiration to those who, bereft of belief and of hope, yet cling tenaciously to moral goodness.[5] 'what is to become of us,' asks the pensive amiel, 'when everything leaves us, health, joy, affections, the freshness of sensation, memory, capacity for work, when the sun seems to us to have lost its warmth, and life is stripped of all its charms? ... there is but one answer, keep close to duty. be what you ought to be; the rest is god's affair.... and supposing there were no good and holy god, nothing but universal being, the law of the all, an ideal without hypostasis or reality, duty would still be the key of the enigma, the pole star of a wandering {56} humanity.'[6] who does not see that it is the lingering faith in god which gives strength to this conviction and that, were the faith obliterated, the natural conclusion would be for the cultured, 'vanity of vanities: all is vanity'; and for the multitudes, 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' 'i remember how at cambridge,' says mr. f. w. h. myers of george eliot, 'i walked with her once in the fellows' garden of trinity on an evening of rainy may: and she, stirred somewhat beyond her wont, and taking as her text the three words which have been used so often as the inspiring trumpet calls of men--the words _god, immortality, duty_--pronounced with terrible earnestness, how inconceivable was the _first_, how unbelievable the _second_, and yet how peremptory and absolute the _third_. never, perhaps, have sterner accents affirmed the sovereignty of impersonal and uncompromising law. i {57} listened and night fell: her grave, majestic countenance turned toward me like a sibyl's in the gloom, and it was as though she withdrew from my grasp one by one the two scrolls of promise, and left me the third scroll only, awful with inevitable fates. and when we stood at length and parted, amid that columnar circuit of the forest trees, beneath the last twilight of starless skies, i seemed to be gazing, like titus at jerusalem, on vacant seats and empty halls, on a sanctuary with no presence to hallow it, and heaven left lonely of a god.'[7] withdraw belief in a god above and in a life beyond, the only reason for obedience to duty and morality will be either our own pleasure, the doing what is most agreeable to ourselves; or sympathy, the bearing of others' burdens, in the hope that when we have passed away there may be some on earth who will reap the harvest which we have {58} sown; or public opinion, the views which are prevalent in a particular time in a particular region; and these reasons are hardly likely to produce a morality which will be other than that of self-indulgence, of despair, or of conventionality.[8] 'we can get on very well without a religion,' said sir james fitzjames stephen, 'for though the view of life which science is opening to us gives us nothing to worship, it gives us an infinite number of things to enjoy. the world seems to me a very good world, if it would only last. it is full of pleasant people and curious things, and i think that most men find no difficulty in turning their minds away from its transient character.' if it would only last! but it does not last: those dearer to us than ourselves are snatched away. could anything be more selfish, more despicably base than to go about saying, all that is of no {59} consequence, so long as i meet with pleasant people and have an infinite number of things to enjoy? it is true that an infinite number of my fellow-creatures may not be enjoying an infinite number of things, may have trouble in recalling almost anything worthy of the name of enjoyment, but why should i be depressed by that? i find no difficulty in turning away my mind from the misfortunes of others. 'we can get on very well without religion.' no doubt without it some of us can have agreeable society and a variety of pleasures more or less refined; but this does not prove that religion is no loss. on the same principle, we can get on very comfortably without honesty, without sobriety, without purity, without generosity. we can get on very comfortably indeed without anything except without a heart which is intent on self-gratification, and which excludes all thought of the wants and woes of the world. 'let us eat and drink, for {60} to-morrow we die,' is the irresistible, though rather inconsistent, conclusion of that sublime austerity which so indignantly repudiates the merest hint of reward or hope within the veil, and which so sensitively shrinks from the mercenariness of the religion of the cross. 'the wages of sin is death: if the wages of virtue be dust, would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly!'[9] what are the facts? what is the growing tendency where men think themselves strong enough to do without religious beliefs, when they have been proclaiming that the suppression of religion will be the exaltation of a purer morality? there are plenty of indications that the laws of morality are found to be as irksome as the dictates of religion. the first step is to cry out for a higher morality, to censure the morality of {61} the new testament as imperfect and inadequate, as selfish and visionary. the next step is to question the restraints of morality, to clamour for liberty in regard to matters on which the general voice of mankind has from the beginning given no uncertain verdict. the last step is to declare that morality is variable and conventional, a mere arbitrary arrangement, which can be dispensed with by the emancipated soul. the literature which assumes that religion is obsolete does not, as a rule, suffer itself to be much hampered by the fetters of morality. the non-religion of the future is what, we are confidently told, increasing knowledge of the laws of sociology will of necessity bring about. should that day ever dawn, or rather let us say, should that night ever envelop us, it will mean the diffusion of non-morality such as the world has never known.[10] [1] appendix. [2] appendix vi. [3] _nineteenth century_, june 1884. [4] appendix vii. [5] appendix viii. [6] _journal intime_, ii. [7] _modern essays_. [8] appendix ix. [9] tennyson, _wages_. [10] appendix x. {64} iii the religion of the universe 'whither shall i go from thy spirit? or whither shall i flee from thy presence.'--psalm cxxxix. 7. 'do i not fill heaven and earth? saith the lord.'--jeremiah xxiii. 24. 'the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.'--1 kings viii. 27. 'in him we live, and move, and have our being.'--acts xvii. 28. 'one god and father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'--ephesians iv. 6. 'of him, and through him, and to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. amen.'--romans xi. 36. 'that god may be all in all.'--1 corinthians xv. 28. {65} iii the religion of the universe among proposed substitutes for christianity, none occupies a more prominent place than pantheism, the identity of god and the universe. 'pantheism,' says haeckel, 'is the world system of the modern scientist.'[1] pantheism, or the religion of the universe, is, in one aspect, a protest against anthropomorphism, the making of god in the image of man. it is in supposing god to be altogether such as we are, to be swayed by the same motives, to be actuated by the same passions as we are, that the most deadly errors have arisen. robert browning, in _caliban upon setebos_, represents a half-brutal {66} being who lives in a cave speculating upon the government of the world, wondering why it came to be made, and what could be the purpose of the creator in making it. every motive that could sway the savage mind is in turn discussed: pleasure, restlessness, jealousy, cruelty, sport. 'because i, caliban,' such is the process of his reasoning, 'delight in tormenting defenceless animals, or would crush any one that interfered with my comfort, or do things because my taskmaster obliges me to do them, so must it be with him who made the world.' with great grotesqueness, but with marvellous power, the degraded monster argues as to the reasons which could have prompted the unseen ruler to frame the earth and its inhabitants. everything that he attributes to god is in keeping with his own base nature. what is the explanation of the horrors which have been perpetrated in the name of god? the sacrifice of human {67} beings, of vanquished enemies, or of the nearest and the dearest, the agonies of self-torture, did not these originate in the transference to the invisible god of the emotions and principles by which men were guiding their own lives? they had no notion of forbearance and forgiveness and patience, therefore they did not think that there could be forgiveness with god. they were to be turned aside from their fierce, revengeful purposes by bribes and by the protracted sufferings of their foes, therefore they thought that god might be bribed by gifts or propitiated by pains. what they were on earth, delighting in bloodshed and conquest and revelry, that, they supposed, must be the being or the beings who ruled in the world unseen. i god is not as man is, this was a lesson which ancient prophets struggled to teach. he is not a man that he should lie, or a son {68} of man that he should repent. he is not to be conceived as influenced by the petty hopes and fears and jealousies which influence the mass of mortals. 'my thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the lord. for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.' he is infinitely exalted above the best and wisest of his children and to see in him only their likeness is not to see him aright. it is not to be denied that the writers of the old testament employ anthropomorphic language to vivify the justice and goodness of the eternal. they speak of his eyes and of his face, of his hands and of his arm and of his voice. they speak of him walking in the garden and smelling a sweet savour. they speak of him repenting and being jealous and coming down to see what is done on earth. such figures, however, as a rule, have a force {69} and an appropriateness which never can become obsolete or out of date. they even heighten the majesty and spotless holiness of god. they are felt to be, at most, words struggling to express what no words can ever convey: they are the readiest means of impressing on the dull understanding of men their practical duty, of letting them know with what purity and righteousness they have to do. it is not in such figures that any harm can ever lie. the error of taking literally such phrases as 'hands' or 'arm' or 'voice' is not very prevalent, but the error of framing god after our moral image is not distant or imaginary. there is a mode of speaking about divine purposes and divine motives which must jar on those who have begun to discern the divine majesty, to whom the thought of the all-embracing presence has become a reality. {70} ii the representation of the almighty and eternal as one of ourselves, as animated by the lowest passions and paltriest prejudices of mankind, as a 'magnified and non-natural' human being, is recognised as ludicrously inadequate and terribly distorted. the representation of the creator as 'sitting idle at the outside of the universe and seeing it go,' as having brought it into being and afterwards left it to itself, as mingling no more in its events and evolution, is utterly discarded. it is, however, to such representations that the assaults of modern critics are directed, and in the overthrow of such representations it is imagined that christianity itself is overthrown. the assailants maintain that christianity in attributing personality to god makes him in the image of man, and separates him from the universe. but what is meant by personality? it does not mean a {71} being no higher than man, with the limitations and imperfections of man.[2] mr. herbert spencer, who would not ascribe personality to god, yet affirmed that the choice was not between personality and something lower than personality, but between personality and something higher. 'is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending intelligence and will as these transcend mechanical motion?'[3] the description of personality given by the author of the _riddle of the universe_ would be repudiated by every educated christian. 'the monistic idea of god, which alone is compatible with our present knowledge of nature, recognises the divine spirit in all things. it can never recognise in god a "personal being," or, in other words, an individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form. god is everywhere.'[4] that conclusion,--we {72} are not concerned with the steps by which the conclusion is reached,--does not strike one as a modern discovery. in what authoritative statement of christian doctrine god is defined as _not_ being everywhere, or 'an individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form,' we are unaware. there is apparent misunderstanding in the supposition that we have to take our choice between god as entirely severed from the world, and god existing in the world. god, it is asserted in current phraseology, cannot be both immanent and transcendent; he cannot be both in the world and above it. 'in theism,' so haeckel draws out the comparison, 'god is opposed to nature as an extra-mundane being, as creating and sustaining the world, and acting upon it from without, while in pantheism god, as an intra-mundane being, is everywhere identical with nature itself, and is operative within the world as "force" or {73} "energy."'[5] if there is no juggling with words here, it can hardly be juggling with words to point out that so far as 'space' goes, an intra-mundane being, rather than an extra-mundane, is likely to be 'limited in extension.' iii the imagination that the christian god is a personality like ourselves, and is to be found only above and beyond the world, finds perhaps its strangest expression in some of the writings of that ardent lover of nature, the late richard jefferies. 'i cease,' so he writes in _the story of my heart_, 'to look for traces of the deity in life, because no such traces exist. i conclude that there is an existence, a something higher than soul, higher, better, and more perfect than deity. earnestly i pray to find this something better than a god. there is something superior, higher, more good. for this i search, labour, {74} think, and pray.... with the whole force of my existence, with the whole force of my thought, mind, and soul, i pray to find this highest soul, this greater than deity, this better than god. give me to live the deepest soul-life now and always with this soul. for want of words i write soul, but i think it is something beyond soul.' could anything be more pathetic or, at the same time, more self-refuting? how can anything be greater than the infinite, more enduring than the eternal, better than the all-pure and all-perfect? it could be only the god of unenlightened, unchristian teaching, whom he rejected. the god whom he sought must be not only in but beyond and above all created or developed things. it was, indeed, the higher than the highest that he worshipped. it was for god, for the living god, that his eager soul was athirst, and it is in god, the living god, that his eager soul is now, we humbly trust, for ever satisfied. {75} iv 'the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him.' 'whither shall i go from thy spirit? or whither shall i flee from thy presence?' 'my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways saith the lord.' 'in him we live and move and have our being.' 'of him and through him and to him are all things, to whom be glory for ever. amen.'[6] now it cannot be denied that some who have striven to express after this fashion the unutterable majesty and the universal presence of god, who have endeavoured to demonstrate that god is in all things, and that all things are in god, have at times failed to make their meaning plain. either from the obscurity of their own language, or from the obtuseness of their readers, they have been considered atheists. while vehemently asserting that god is {76} everywhere, they have been taken to mean that god is nowhere. the actual conclusion to be drawn from the treatises of spinoza, the reputed founder of modern pantheism, is still undecided. but no one now would brand him with the name of atheist. he was excommunicated by jews and denounced by christians, yet there are many who think that his aim, his not unsuccessful aim, was to establish faith in the unseen and eternal on a basis which could not be shaken. so far from denying god, he was, according to one of the greatest of german theologians, 'a god-intoxicated man.' 'offer up reverently with me a lock of hair to the manes of the holy, repudiated spinoza! the high world-spirit penetrated him: the infinite was his beginning and his end: the universe his only and eternal love.... he was full of religion and of the holy spirit, and therefore he stands alone and unreachable, master in his art above the profane multitude, {77} without disciples and without citizenship.'[7] dean stanley went so far as to say that 'a clearer glimpse into the nature of the deity was granted to spinoza, the excommunicated jew of amsterdam, than to the combined forces of episcopacy and presbytery in the synod of dordrecht.'[8] such a judgment is rather hard upon the divines who took part in that celebrated synod, but at any rate it indicates that the great philosopher, misunderstood and persecuted, was elaborating in his own way, this great truth, 'in him we live and move and have our being.' 'of him, and through him are all things.' v in their loftiest moments, contemplating the marvels of the heavens above and the earth beneath, devout souls have, wherever they looked, been confronted with the vision of god. 'what do i see in all {78} nature?' said fã©nelon, 'god. god is everything, and god alone.' 'everything,' said william law, 'that is in being is either god or nature or creature: and everything that is not god is only a manifestation of god; for as there is nothing, neither nature nor creature, but what must have its being in and from god, so everything is and must be according to its nature more or less a manifestation of god.' it is the thought which has inspired poets of the most diverse schools, which has been their most marvellous illumination and ecstasy. now it is alexander pope: all are but parts of one stupendous whole whose body nature is, and god the soul. now it is william cowper: there lives and works a soul in all things and that soul is god. now it is james thomson of _the seasons_: these, as they change, almighty father! these are but the varied god. the rolling year is full of thee. {79} now it is william wordsworth: i have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man a motion and a spirit which impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things. now it is lord tennyson: the sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains, are not these, o soul, the vision of him who reigns? * * * * * speak to him thou, for he hears, and spirit with spirit can meet. closer is he than breathing and nearer than hands or feet. certainly, we may say, nothing atheistic in utterances like these: they are the utterances of lofty thought, of profound piety, of soaring aspiration, and of childlike faith. they have a pantheistic tinge: what is there to dread in pantheism? not much in {80} pantheism of that kind: would there were more of it! but it will be observable that, in the instances cited, though god is in nature and manifesting himself through it, there is a clear distinction between nature and god. it may seem as if it were merely the sky, the sun, the stars, the ocean, that are apostrophised: in reality it is a life, a spirit, a power not themselves, in which they live and move and have their being: not to them, but to that, are the prayers addressed. and, we venture to think, it is scarcely ever otherwise: scarcely ever is the visible alone invoked: identify god as men will with the material universe, or even with the force and energy with which the material universe is pervaded, when they enter into communion with it, in spite of themselves they endow it with the life and the will and the purpose which they have in theory rejected. but the absolute identification of god and the universe, the assumption that above and {81} beneath and through all there is no conscious righteousness and wisdom and love overruling and directing, _that_ is a belief to be resisted, a belief which enervates character and enfeebles hope.[9] 'whoever says in his heart that god is _no more_ than nature: whoever does not provide _behind the veil of creation_ an infinite reserve of thought and beauty and holy love, that might fling aside this universe and take another, as a vesture changing the heavens and they are changed, ... is bereft of the essence of the christian faith, and is removed by only accidental and precarious distinctions from the atheistic worship of mere "natural laws."'[10] 'in our worship we have to do, not so much with his finite expression in created things as with his own free self and inner reality ... all _religion_ consists in _passing nature by_, in order to enter into direct personal relation {82} with him, soul to soul. it is _not_ pantheism to merge all the life of the physical universe in him, and leave him as the inner and sustaining power of it all. it is pantheism to rest in this conception: to merge him in the universe and see him only there: and not rather to dwell with him as the living, holy, sympathising will, on whose free affection the cluster of created things lies and plays, as the spray upon the ocean.'[11] vi god is _not_ as we are, and yet he _is_ as we are. god is not made in the image of man, but man is made in the image of god. it is through human goodness and human purity and human love that we attain our best conceptions of the divine goodness and purity and love. 'if ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your heavenly father {83} give the holy spirit to them that ask him?' picture to yourself what is highest and best in the human relationship of father and child: be sure that the heavenly father will not fall below, but will infinitely transcend, that standard. all the justice and goodness which we have seen on earth are the feebler reflection of his. it is by learning that the utmost height of human goodness is but a little way towards him that we learn to think of him at all aright. but the justice and the love by which he acts are different only in degree, and not in kind, from ours. when we think of god as altogether such as we are, we degrade him, we have before us the image of the imperfect; when we try to think of him under no image and to discard all figures, he vanishes into unreality and nothingness, but when we see him in christ, we have before us that which we can grasp and understand, and that in which there is no imperfection. {84} if there is no god but the universe, we have a universe without a god. worship is meaningless, faith is a mockery, hope is a delusion. if the universe is god, all things in the universe are of necessity divine. the distinction between right and wrong is broken down. in a sense very different from that in which the phrase was originally employed, 'whatever is, is right.' nothing can legitimately be stigmatised as wrong, for there is nothing which is not god. 'if all that is is god, then truth and error are equally manifestations of god. if god is all that is, then we hear his voice as much in the promptings to sin as in the solemn imperatives of conscience. this is the inexorable logic of pantheism, however disguised.'[12] 'i know,' says mr. frederic harrison, 'what is meant by the power and goodness of an almighty creator. i know what is meant by the genius and patience {85} and sympathy of man. but what is the all, or the good, or the true, or the beautiful? ... the "all" is not good nor beautiful: it is full of horror and ruin.... there lies this original blot on every form of philosophic pantheism when tried as the basis of a religion or as the root-idea of our lives, that it jumbles up the moral, the unmoral, the non-human and the anti-human world, the animated and the inanimate, cruelty, filth, horror, waste, death, virtue and vice, suffering and victory, sympathy and insensibility.'[13] where these distinctions are lost, where this confusion exists, what logically must be the consequence? honesty and dishonesty, truth and falsehood, purity and impurity, kindness and brutality, are put upon a level, are alike manifestations of the one or the all. it is said that in our day the sense of sin has grown weak, that men are not troubled {86} by it as once they were. there is a morbid, scrupulous remorsefulness for wrong-doing, a desponding conviction that repentance and restoration are impossible, which may well be put away. but that sin should be no longer held to be sin, that evil should be wrought and the worker experience no pang of shame, would surely indicate moral declension and decay. were the time to come when, universally, mankind should commit those actions and cherish those passions which, through all ages in all lands, have gone by the name of sin, should become so heedless to the voice of conscience, that conscience should cease to speak, the time would have come when men, being past feeling, would devote themselves with greediness to anything that was vile, so long as it was pleasant, the bonds of society would be loosened and destruction would be at hand. the religion of the universe ignores the facts of life, the sorrow, the struggle, {87} the depravity, the need of redemption. fortunately, human beings in general are still inclined to mourn because of imperfection or of baseness: still they are inclined at times to cry out, 'who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' and still they have the opportunity of joyfully or humbly saying, 'i thank god through jesus christ our lord.' 'and now at this day,' listen to the ungrudging admission of perhaps the most earnest english apostle of pantheism, mr. allanson picton: 'we of all schools, whether orthodox or heterodox so-called, whether believers or unbelievers in supernatural revelation, all who seek the revival of religion, the exaltation of morality, the redemption of man, draw, most of us, our direct impulse, and all of us, directly or indirectly, our ideals from the speaking vision of the christ. such a claim is justified, not merely by the spiritual power still remaining in the church, {88} but almost as much by the tributes paid, and the uses of the gospel teaching made in the writings of the most distinguished among rationalists.... such writers have felt that somehow jesus still holds, and ought to hold, the heart of humanity under his beneficial sway. excluding the partial, imperfect and temporary ideas of nature, spirits, hell, and heaven, which the galilean held with singular lightness for a man of his time, they have acquiesced in and even echoed his invitation to the weary and heavy laden, to take his yoke upon them and learn of him. and that means to live up to his gospel of the nothingness of self, and of unreserved sacrifice to the eternal all in all.'[14] if such is the conclusion of rationalism and of pantheism, how much more ought it to be the conclusion of christianity. the imagination of a god confined to times and places, visiting the world only occasionally, {89} manifesting himself in the past and not in the present, ought to be as foreign to the christian church as to any rationalist or pantheist. be it ours to show that we believe in god who filleth all things with his presence, who is from everlasting to everlasting, that to us there is but one god the father, by whom are all things and we in him, and one lord, jesus christ, by whom are all things and we by him, that god has identified himself with us in jesus christ, his son. be it ours to lose ourselves in him. for, after all our questionings as to the government of the world, as to abounding misery and degradation, as to what lies beyond the veil for ourselves and for others, this is our hope and our confidence: 'god hath concluded all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all. o the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of god! how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. for who hath {90} known the mind of the lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? for of him and through him and to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. amen.' [1] _riddle of the universe_. [2] appendix xi. [3] _first principles_. [4] _confession of faith of a man of science_. [5] _riddle of the universe_. [6] appendix xii. [7] schleiermacher. [8] _st. andrews addresses_. [9] appendix xiii. [10] martineau, _hours of thought_, ii. p. 110. [11] martineau, _hours of thought_, ii. p. 114. [12] _faith of a christian_. [13] _creed of a layman_, p. 203. [14] _religion of the universe_. {92} iv the religion of humanity 'and god said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'--genesis i. 26. 'when i consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him? for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour.'--psalm viii. 3-5 thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. but now we see not yet all things put under him. but we see jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that he by the grace of god should taste death for every man.'--hebrews ii. 8, 9. {93} iv the religion of humanity the position which religion, and especially the christian religion, assigns to man, to man as he ought to be, is very high. he is made in the image of god, he is a little lower than the angels, a little lower than god, he is a partaker of the divine nature. but as the corruption of the best is the worst, there is nothing in the whole creation more miserable, more loathsome, than man as he has forgotten his high estate and plunged himself into degradation. 'what man has made of man,' is the saddest, most deplorable sight in all the world. amid the awful splendour of the winning loveliness of nature, 'only man is vile.' that is the terrible {94} verdict which may be pronounced upon him renouncing his birthright, surrendering himself to the powers which he was meant to keep in subjection. it is not the verdict to be pronounced on man as man, the child of the highest and the heir of all the ages. the appeal of religion, the appeal of christianity above all, has continually been, o sons of men, sully not your glorious garments, cast not away your glorious crown. i it is irreligion, it is unbelief, which comes and says, lay aside these fantastic notions as to your greatness: you are the creatures of a day: you belong, like other animals, to the world of sense, and you pass away along with them: a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast. banish your delusive hopes; confine yourselves to reality; waste not your time in the pursuit of phantoms: make the best of the world in {95} which you are: seize its pleasures: shut your eyes to its sorrows: enjoy yourselves in the present and let the future take care of itself: follow the devices and desires of your own hearts in the comfortable assurance that there is no judgment to which you can be brought, save that which exists in the realm of imagination. listening to such whispers, obeying such suggestions, walking in such courses, the spectacle which man presents can be viewed only with compassion, with horror, or with disdain. his ideals, his aspirations, his self-sacrifices are only so many phases of self-deception. the natural conclusion to be drawn from denying the spiritual origin and eternal prospects of man must be that he is of no more account than any of the transitory beings around him, that, if he has any superiority over them, it is only the superiority of a skill with which he can make them the instruments of {96} his purposes. with no glimpses of a higher world, with no inspirations from a spirit nobler than his own, he can hardly regard the achievements of heroism as other than acts of madness, he can be fired with no desire to emulate them, he cannot well be trusted to perform ordinary acts of honesty and morality, let alone extraordinary acts of generosity and magnanimity, should they come in collision with his objects and ambitions. unless above himself he can erect himself, how mean a thing is man! deny his divine fellowship, extirpate his heavenly anticipations, and it might seem as if no race on earth would be so poor as do him reverence. ii one thing is assumed by not a few, the absurdity of the almighty caring for such a race, and therefore the impossibility of the incarnation. 'which,' asks mr. frederic {97} harrison, 'is the more deliriously extravagant, the disproportionate condescension of the infinite creator, or the self-complacent arrogance with which the created mite accepts, or rather dreams of, such an inconceivable prerogative? his planet is one of the least of all the myriad units in a boundless infinity; in the countless ã¦ons of time he is one of the latest and the briefest; of the whole living world on the planet, since the ages of the primitive protozoon, man is but an infinitesimal fraction. in all this enormous array of life, in all these ã¦ons, was there never anything living which specially interested the creator, nothing that the redeemer could care for, or die for? if so, what a waste creation must have been! ... why was all this tremendous tragedy, great enough to convulse the universe, confined to the minutest speck of it, for the benefit of one puny and very late-born race?'[1] {98} but is it not the fact that along with the discovery of man's utter insignificance, there has come the discovery of powers and faculties unknown and unsuspected, so that more than ever all things are in subjection to him, his dominion has become wider, his throne more firmly established? is it not the fact that the whole realm of nature is explored by him, is compelled to minister to his wants or to unfold its treasures of knowledge? is it not the fact that more than ever it can be said: the lightning is his slave: heaven's utmost deep gives up her stars, and, like a flock of sheep, they pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on. the tempest is his steed: he strides the air. and the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare 'heaven, hast thou secrets? man unveils me: i have none.'[2] is it not the fact that deposed from his position of proud pre-eminence as centre of the universe, man has by his labours and his ingenuity reasserted his high prerogative {99} to be lord of the creation? the printing-press, the railway, the telegraph, how have inventions like these invested him with an influence which he did not possess before! and is it not the fact that when most conscious of our nothingness before the immensities around us, when humbled and prostrate before the infinite of which we have caught a transitory glimpse, we are also most conscious of our high destiny, we are lifted above the earthly to the heavenly, we discern that, though we cannot claim a moment, yet eternity is ours? 'what, then, is man! what, then, is man! he endures but an hour and is crushed before the moth. yet in the being and in the working of a faithful man is there already (as all faith, from the beginning, gives assurance) a something that pertains, not to this wild death element of time; that triumphs over time, and _is_, and will be, when time shall be no more.'[3] {100} man's place in the universe may, according to dr. alfred russel wallace, be nearer the centre of things than has so commonly come to be accepted. modern discovery, he maintains, has thrown light on the interesting problem of our relation to the universe; and even though such discovery may have no bearing upon theology or religion, yet, he thinks, it proves that our position in the material creation is special and probably unique, and that the view is justified which holds that 'the supreme end and purpose of this vast universe was the production and development of the living soul in the perishable body of man.' and another, a convinced and ardent disciple of evolution, the late professor john fiske, argues that, 'not the production of any higher creature, but the perfecting of humanity is to be the glorious consummation of nature's long and tedious work.... man seems now, much more clearly than ever, the chief among god's {101} creatures.... the whole creation has been groaning and travailing together in order to bring forth that last consummate specimen of god's handiwork, the human soul.'[4] if this be so, this conclusion arrived at by those who do not hold the ordinary faith of christendom, then the objection that the incarnation could not have taken place for the redemption of such a race as ours, in a world which is so poor a fraction of the infinite universe, falls to the ground; and the protest of a devout modern poet carries conviction with it: this earth too small for love divine! is god not infinite? if so, his love is infinite. too small! one famished babe meets pity oft from man more than an army slain! too small for love! was earth too small to be of god created? why then too small to be redeemed?[5] man may, or may not, occupy a 'central position in the universe': other worlds may, {102} or may not, be inhabited: this earth may be but a minute and insignificant speck amid the mighty all, this at least is certain, that not by mere magnitude is our rank in the scale of being to be decided, and that in the spirit of man will be found that which approaches most nearly to him who is spirit. 'the man who reviles humanity on the ground of its small place in the scale of the universe is,' according to mr. frederic harrison, 'the kind of man who sneers at patriotism and sees nothing great in england, on the ground that our island holds so small a place in the map of the world. on the atlas england is but a dot. morally and spiritually, our fatherland is our glory, our cradle, and our grave.'[6] iii hence, one of the ablest attempts to supersede christianity is that which goes by {103} the name of positivism or the religion of humanity, which sets man on the throne of the universe, and makes of him the sole object of worship. 'a helper of men outside humanity,' said the late professor clifford, 'the truth will not allow us to see. the dim and shadowy outlines of the superhuman deity fade slowly away from before us, and, as the mist of his presence floats aside, we perceive with greater and greater clearness the shape of a yet grander and nobler figure, of him who made all gods and shall unmake them. from the dim dawn of history, and from the inmost depths of every soul, the face of our father _man_ looks out upon us with the fire of eternal youth in his eyes, and says, "before jehovah was, i am." the founder of the organised religion of humanity was auguste comte, who died in the year 1857. he held that in the development of mankind there are three stages: the first, the theological, in which {104} worship is offered to god or gods; the second, the metaphysical, in which the human mind is groping after ultimate truth, the solution of the problems of the universe; the third, the positive, in which the search for the illusive and the unattainable is abandoned, and the real and the practical form the exclusive occupation of the thoughts. on sunday, october 19, 1851, he concluded a course of lectures on the general history of humanity with the uncompromising announcement, 'in the name of the past and of the future, the servants of humanity, both its philosophical and practical servants, come forward to claim as their due the general direction of this world. their object is to constitute at length a real providence, in all departments, moral, intellectual, and material. consequently they exclude, once for all, from political supremacy, all the different servants of god, catholic, protestant, or deist, as being at once behindhand and {105} a source of disturbance.' all religions were banished by the truly 'uncompromising announcement': they were all condemned as futile and unreal. the best that could be said of the worship of the past was that it directed 'provisionally the evolution of our best feelings, under the regency of god, during the long minority of humanity.' but the fact that religion will not be banished, that it must somehow find expression, never received fuller verification. we do not dwell upon the private life of comte, its eccentricities and inconsistencies, but this at least cannot be omitted: he practised a course of austere religious observances, he worshipped not only humanity at large, but he paid special adoration to a departed friend such as hardly the devoutest of roman catholics has ever paid to the virgin mary. positivism became, what professor huxley called it, 'catholicism _minus_ christianity.' comte laid down for the guidance of his {106} disciples, who are potentially all mankind, rules which no existing religious communion can surpass in minuteness. the supreme object of worship is the great being, humanity, the sum of human beings, past, present, and future. but as it is only too evident that too many of these beings in the past and the present, whatever may be said about the future, are not very fitting objects of worship, humanity, the great being, must be understood as including only worthy members, those who have been true servants of humanity. the emblem of this great being is a woman of the age of thirty, with her son in her arms; and this emblem is to be placed in all temples of humanity and carried in all solemn processions. the highest representatives of humanity are the mother, the wife, and the daughter; the mother representing the past, the wife the present, and the daughter the future. these are in the abstract to be regarded as the guardian {107} angels of the family. to these angels every one is to pray three times daily, and the prayers, which may be read, but which must be the composition of him who uses them, are to last for two hours. humanity, the world, and space form the completed trinity of the positivist religion. there are nine sacraments: presentation, initiation, admission, destination, marriage, maturity, retirement, transformation, incorporation. there is a priesthood, to whom is committed the duties of deciding who may or may not be admitted to certain offices during life, of deciding also whether or not the remains of those who have been dead for seven years should be removed from the common burial-place, and interred in 'the sacred wood which surrounds the temple of humanity,' every tomb there 'being ornamented with a simple inscription, a bust, or a statue, according to the degree of honour awarded.' the priests are to receive so comprehensive {108} a training that they are not to be fully recognised till forty-two years of age. they are to combine medical knowledge with their priestly qualifications. three successive orders are necessary for the working of the organisation: the aspirants admitted at twenty-eight, the vicars or substitutes at thirty-five, and the priests proper at forty-two. the religion of humanity has a calendar, each month of twenty-eight days being in one aspect dedicated to some social relation, and in another to some famous man representing some phase of human progress: moses, homer, aristotle, cã¦sar, st. paul, gutenberg, shakespeare. each day of the year is dedicated to one or more great men or women, five hundred and fifty-eight in number, and the last day of the year is the festival of all the dead. 'our calendar is designed to remind us of all types of the teachers, leaders, and makers of our race: of the many modes in which the servants of humanity {109} have fulfilled their service. the prophets, the religious teachers, the founders of creeds, of nations and systems of life: the poets, the thinkers, the artists, kings, warriors, statesmen and rulers: the inventors, the men of science and of all useful arts.... every day of the positivist year is in one sense a day of the dead, for it recalls to us some mighty teacher or leader who is no longer on earth.... but the three hundred and sixty-four days of the year's calendar have left one great place unfilled.... those myriad spirits of the forgotten dead, whom, no man can number, whose very names were unknown to those around them in life, the fathers and the mothers, the husbands and the wives, the brothers and the sisters, the sturdy workers and the fearless soldiers in the mighty host of civilisation--shall we pass them by? ... it is those whom to-night we recall, all those who have lived a life of usefulness in their generation, though {110} they tugged as slaves at the lowest bank of oars in the galley of life, though they were cast unnoticed into the common grave of the outcast, all whose lives have helped and not hindered the progress of humanity, we recall them all to-night.'[7] iv the religion of humanity has numbered among its adherents, in part or in whole, several celebrated persons in this country, such as richard congreve, dr. bridges, professor beesley, cotter morison, george eliot. but at present it has no more eloquent and earnest advocate than mr. frederic harrison, who, in _the creed of a layman_, and several other recent volumes, has passionately proclaimed its principles. for more than fifty years he has been its apostle: 'every other aim or occupation has been subsidiary and instrumental to this.'[8] it {111} is true that in some points he has retained his independence, and while those outside accuse him of fanaticism, some of his fellow-believers suspect him of heresy.[9] but he himself is assured that in the worship of humanity he has obtained the solution of his doubts[10] and the satisfaction of his spirit, and on his gravestone or his urn he would have inscribed the words, _he found peace_.[11] there is much that is marvellously elevated in thought as well as exquisite in expression, profoundly devout as well as brilliantly argued, in the narrative of his progress towards his present position. but when his vehement statements are carefully examined, it will almost inevitably be seen that all that is good and sensible in them is an unconscious reproduction of christianity. his negations disappear: the affirmations which he makes are those which the church has always {112} maintained. the faith of his childhood permeates and strengthens and beautifies the creed which he adopted in his maturer years. the unity of mankind, the memory of the departed, the necessity of living for others, these are no novelties in christianity. it is in christ that they have specially been brought to light, in him that they find their highest ratification, without him they remain unfulfilled, with him they attain to consistency and power. the great being, humanity, is only an abstraction.[12] 'there is no such thing in reality,' principal caird reminds us, 'as an animal which is no particular animal, a plant which is no particular plant, a man or humanity which is no individual man. it is only a fiction of the observer's mind.' there is logical force as well as humorous illustration in the contention of dean page roberts, that there is no more a humanity apart {113} from individual men and women than there is a great being apart from all individual dogs, which we may call caninity, or a transcendent durham ox, apart from individual oxen, which may be named bovinity.'[13] nor does the geniality of mr. chesterton render his argument the less telling: 'it is evidently impossible to worship humanity, just as it is impossible to worship the savile club: both are excellent institutions to which we may happen to belong. but we perceive clearly that the savile club did not make the stars and does not fill the universe. and it is surely unreasonable to attack the doctrine of the trinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism, and then to ask men to worship a being who is ninety million persons in one god, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.'[14] can it be doubted that the great being, {114} the sum of human beings, is less conceivable, less worthy of worship than the great being, the god and father of our lord jesus christ?[15] can it be doubted that the claim of humanity to worship is less credible if we exclude the perfect man, christ jesus, from our view? can it be doubted that the positivist motto, 'live for others,' gains a force and a meaning unapproached elsewhere from the life and death of him who said, 'the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many?' humanity knit together in one, purified from every stain, glorious and adorable, is a lofty and inspiring idea, but nowhere has it been disclosed save in the man christ jesus, the word made flesh, the brightness of the father's glory and the express image of his person. {115} v dr. richard congreve owns that much of the religion of humanity exists already in the christian faith, but, in one respect, he asserts that the religion of humanity can claim to be entirely original. 'we accept, so have all men. we obey, so have all men. we venerate, so have some in past ages, or in other countries. we add but one other term, we love.'[16] that is what distinguishes this new religion and proves its superiority to the old: its votaries have attained this new principle and mode of life: they love one another. the boldness of the claim may stagger us. we turn over the pages of the new testament. we see that love is the fulfilling of the law; is the end of the commandment; is the sum of the law and the prophets; is placed at the very summit of christian graces; is the bond of perfectness; {116} is manifested in a life and a death which, after nineteen centuries, remain without a parallel. we recall the touching legend that in his old age the apostle s. john was daily carried into the assembly of the ephesian christians, simply repeating to them, over and over, the words, 'love one another. this is our lord's command, fulfil this and nothing else is needed.' we recall that in early centuries the sympathy and helpfulness by which christians of all ranks and races were united called forth from heathen spectators the amazed and respectful exclamation, 'see how these christians love one another!' recalling these things, we cannot but be startled that, in the nineteenth century of the christian era, a teacher should, with any expectation of being believed, have ventured to affirm that the great discovery which it has been reserved for the present day to make is that of loving one another. ignorance of christianity, misrepresentation {117} of christianity, we may well call it: ignorance inconceivable, misrepresentation inconceivable: and yet, as we consider the state of christendom, do we not see what palliates the ignorance and the misrepresentation? have we not reason to confess that, if the commandment be not new, universal obedience to it would be new indeed? may the calm assurance that love is foreign to christianity not startle us into the conviction that we have forgotten what, according to our lord's own declaration, the chief feature of christianity ought to be? 'by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.' vi 'how can we,' it has been well said, 'be asked to give the name of religion of humanity to a religion that ignores the greatest human being that ever lived, and the very source from which the religion of humanity {118} sprang?'[17] man in himself, man so full of imperfections, man having no connection with any world but this, man unallied to any power higher, nobler than himself, is this to be our god? which is more reasonable: to set up the race of man, unpurified, unredeemed, worthless and polluted, as the object of adoration, or to maintain that 'man indeed is the rightful object of our worship, but in the roll of ages, there has been but one man whom we can adore without idolatry, the man christ jesus'?[18] the religion of humanity, so called, would have us worship man apart from christ whom yet all acknowledge to be the glory of mankind, but we call on men to worship christ jesus, for in him we see man without a stain, we see our nature redeemed and consecrated, we see ourselves brought nigh to the infinite god. we adore humanity, but humanity {119} in its purity: we adore humanity, but only as manifesting in the only begotten son the glory of the eternal father. thus we place no garland around the vices of the human race: thus we abase, and thus we exalt: thus are we humbled to the dust, thus are we raised to the highest heavens. apart from christ, the magnitude of the creation may well depress and overwhelm: apart from christ the human race is morally imperfect instead of being a fit object of blind adoration. seeing christ, we not only feel our inconceivable nothingness in presence of the infinite majesty, but we stand erect and unpresumptuously say, 'we wonder not that thou art mindful of those for whom that son of man lived and died, we are in him partakers of the divine nature. there thou beholdest thine own image.' made in the image of god, such is the ideal of man that comes to us from the beginning of his history; and such is the ideal {120} that once, and once only, has been realised. '_ecce homo_! behold the man!' said pontius pilate, in words more full of significance than he knew, pointing to the victim of priestly hatred and popular fickleness. behold the man! man as he ought to be, the image of god. before that divine humanity we reverently bow, to that divine humanity we humbly consecrate ourselves, in fellowship with it alone we learn and manifest the true worth and dignity of man. one writing frantically to exalt mankind and to depreciate christianity, tells us how he sat on a cliff overhanging the seashore and gazed upon the stars, murmuring, 'o prodigious universe, and o poor ignorant, that could believe all these were made for him!' but the sight of a steamship caused him to rejoice at the triumph of art over nature, and to exclaim, 'if man is small in relation to the universe, he is great in relation to the earth: he abbreviates distance and time, {121} and brings the nations together.' then he saw that man is ordained to master the laws of which he is now the slave; he believed that if man could understand this mission, a new religion would animate his life, and, in the strength of this revelation, the writer says that he sang in ecstasy to the waters and winds and birds and beasts, he felt a rapture of love for the whole human race, he resolved to preach the new gospel far and wide, and proclaim the glorious mission of mankind.[19] on the whole the old gospel will be found as ennobling, as inspiring, as practical as the new. all that this new gospel aims at, we, as christians, already believe: and we possess a divine token, a sacred pledge which is foreign to it: we believe that a higher destiny is in store for us than even the construction of wonders of mechanical skill.[20] stripped of all rhetoric, the conclusion of unbelief in god and immortality can only {122} be 'man is what he eats': the conclusion of christianity, 'there is but one object greater than the soul, and that is its creator.' one in a certain place testified, saying, 'what is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him? thou madest him a little lower than the angels: thou crownest him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.' for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. but now we see not yet all things put under him. but we see jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour. we see him who is our brother and our forerunner within the veil; and in his exaltation we behold our own.[21] no vision of the future can surpass that which the christian church {123} has cherished from the beginning, that we shall all 'come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of god, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of christ ... from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.' [1] _creed of a layman_, p. 67. [2] shelley, _prometheus unbound_. [3] thomas carlyle. [4] _man's destiny_, p. 31, [5] aubrey de vere. [6] _creed of a layman_, p. 76. [7] frederic harrison, _creed of a layman_. [8] _memories and thoughts_, p. 14. [9] _memories and thoughts_, p. 15. [10] appendix xiv. [11] _creed of a layman_. [12] appendix xv. [13] _some urgent questions in christian lights_. [14] _heretics_, p. 96. [15] appendix xvi. [16] appendix xvii. [17] e. a. abbott, _through nature to christ_. [18] frederick william robertson, _sermon on john's rebuke of herod_. [19] winwood reade, _the outcast_. [20] appendix xviii. [21] appendix xix. {126} v theism without christ 'ye believe in god, believe also in me.'--s. john xiv. 1. 'i am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the father but by me.'--s. john xiv. 6. 'he that hath seen me hath seen the father.'--s. john xiv. 9. 'neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.'--acts iv. 12. 'he that abideth in the doctrine of christ, he hath both the father and the son.'--2 s. john 9. {127} v theism without christ by theism without christ is not meant a system like judaism or mohammedanism, but a modern school which maintains that faith in god becomes weakened and impaired by being associated with faith in jesus. there are those who cling with tenacity to the first article of the apostles' creed, 'i believe in god the father almighty,' but who reject with equal fervour the second article of the creed, 'and in jesus christ, his only son, our lord.' they resist with horror the suggestion that the world is under no overruling providence, or that the humblest human being is not regarded with the tender love of the infinite god: they rival the most {128} mystical worshipper in the ardour of the language with which in prayer they address the father in heaven, but they refuse to bow in the name of jesus: they go to the father, as they think, without him: they assert that to look to him is virtually to look away from god. they are as hostile as we can be to the substitutes for christianity which we have been considering. they have no sympathy with those who loudly deny that there is a god, or with those who say that it is impossible to find out whether there is a god or not, or with those who think that the creator and the creation are one, that the universe is god, or with those who, not believing in any unseen and eternal god, insist that the proper object of the worship of mankind is man. in the proclamation of the existence of an all-wise and all-holy being, in the proclamation that he has made the world and rules it to its minutest detail, in the proclamation that {129} there is a life beyond the grave, they are the allies of the christian church. but then they go on to argue, for those who hold these doctrines, christ is quite superfluous: to hold them in their purity christ must be dethroned and his name no longer specially revered. some may still wish to speak of him as among the great teachers of the world, but some, in order to preserve these precious truths unmixed, decline in a very fanaticism of unbelief to assign him even that position. i the declaration of our lord, 'no man cometh unto the father but by me,' has been a chief stumbling-block and rock of offence. are we to believe, it is asked, that only the comparatively few to whom the knowledge of jesus christ has come can possibly be accepted of the father? when the words were spoken the number of his disciples was exceedingly small. did he mean that the {130} father could be approached only by that handful of people, that all beyond were banished from the divine presence and must inevitably perish? that this is what he meant both the friends and the foes of christianity have at times been agreed in holding. the friends have imagined that they were thereby exalting the claim of christ to be the one mediator. it may be a terrible mystery that the vast majority of the human race should have no opportunity of believing in him, should be even unacquainted with his name. we can only bow before the inscrutable decree, and strive with all our might, not only that our own faith may be deepened, but that the knowledge of christ may be diffused over all the earth, so that some here and there may be rescued. there is little wonder that such a view should have given rise to questionings and opposition, should have been rejected as inconsistent with mercy and with justice. it is an {131} interpretation on which hostile critics have laid stress as incontestably proving the narrowness and bigotry of the christian creed. if we bear in mind who it is that is presumed to say, 'no man cometh unto the father but by me,' the misconception disappears. it is not merely an individual man, separate from all others, giving himself out as a wise and infallible teacher. he who makes the stupendous claim is one who by the supposition embodies in himself human nature in its perfection, who is identified with his brethren, who says, 'he that hath seen me hath seen the father.' the life which he manifests is the life of god. he is set forth as the way to the father: in mercy and in blessing the way is disclosed in him: it is not in harsh and rigid exclusiveness that he speaks, debarring the mass of mankind: it is in tender comprehensiveness, inviting all without distinction of race or circumstance, opening a new {132} and living way for all into the holiest. it is the breaking down of all barriers between man and man, between man and god, not the setting up of another barrier high and insurmountable. when christ declares 'no man cometh unto the father but by me,' he is not declaring that the way is difficult and impassable, he is pointing out a way of deliverance which all may tread. so far from laying down a hard and burdensome dogma to be accepted on peril of pains and penalties, he is imparting a hope and a consolation in which all may rejoice. if we believe him to be the word of god made flesh, if we see in him the brightness of the father's glory, it becomes a truism to say that only through him can life and healing be imparted to mankind. when he himself says, 'i am the way, the truth and the life,' it is natural for him to add, 'no man cometh unto the father but by me.' it will {133} be granted by all who believe in god that, apart from god, no soul of man can have life eternal. the most strenuous advocate of the salvation of the virtuous heathen will grant that their salvation does not descend from the idol of wood and stone before which they grovel. it is from the true god, the living god, that the blessing proceeds. it is his touch, his spirit, his presence which has consecrated the earnest though erring worship of the poor idolater. no one who believes in the infinite and eternal god could possibly say that the monstrous image whose aid is invoked by the devout heathen is itself the answerer of his prayer, the cause of his deliverance from sin, the bestower of immortality upon him. the utmost that can be said is that in the costly sacrifices, the painful penances, the passionate prayers which he presents to the object of his adoration, the almighty love discerns a longing after something nobler and better, {134} and accepts the service as directed really, though unconsciously, to him. the feeble hands and helpless, groping blindly in the darkness, touch god's right hand in that darkness and are lifted up and strengthened.[1] but it is the hand of god that they touch. it is from the one omnipotent god that every blessing comes: it is the one omnipotent god who turns to truth and life and reality every sincere and struggling and imperfect attempt to serve him on the part of those who know not his nature or his name. and what is true of god is equally true of christ, the manifestation of god. only grant him to be the incarnate word of god, and it becomes plain that salvation can no more exist apart from him than apart from the father. this word of god is the light that lighteth every man. whatever truth, whatever knowledge of the divine, anywhere {135} exists is the result of that illumination. the sparks which shine even in the darkness of heathendom betoken the presence of that light, not wholly extinguished by the folly and ignorance of man. that is the one sun of righteousness which gives light everywhere, though in many places the clouds are so dense that the beams can scarcely penetrate. now, if that word has become flesh, if that light has become embodied in human form, we are still constrained to say, there is no true light but his, it is in his light that all must walk if they would not stray, there is no guide, no deliverer, save him. christ discloses, brings to view, all the saving health which has ever been, all the power of restoring, cleansing, healing, which has ever worked in the souls of men. the one power by which any human being, in any age or in any land, has ever been fitted for the presence of the all holy god, is made manifest in christ. 'neither is there {136} salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.' we need have no hesitation in asserting that all who in any age or in any land, or in any religion, have come to the father must have come through the son of man, the eternal word made flesh. we do not contend, as has too frequently been contended, that beyond the limits of christianity, beyond, it may be, the limits of one section of christianity, there is no truth believed, no acceptable service rendered. we hail with gratitude the lofty thoughts and the noble achievements of some who do not in word acknowledge christ as lord. in the vision of the light that lighteth every man, we see how light can find its way to regions farthest from the fount of day.[2] 'now,' as is well said by the present bishop {137} of birmingham, who will hardly be accused of any tendency to minimise the claims of christianity, 'this is no narrow creed. christianity, the religion of jesus, is the light: it is the one final revelation, the one final religion, but it supersedes all other religions, jewish and pagan, not by excluding, but by including all the elements of truth which each contained. there was light in zoroastrianism, light in buddhism, light among the greeks: but it is all included in christianity. a good christian is a good buddhist, a good jew, a good mohammedan, a good zoroastrian; that is, he has all the truth and virtue that these can possess, purged and fused in a greater and completer light. christianity, i say, supersedes all other religions by including these fragments of truth in its own completeness. you cannot show me any element of spiritual light or strength which is in other religions and is not in christianity. nor can you {138} show me any other religion which can compare with christianity in completeness of light: christianity is the one complete and final religion, and the elements of truth in other religions are rays of the one light which is concentrated and shines full in jesus christ our lord.'[3] ii from whatever cause, whether as a reaction against the mode in which this great truth has been at times presented, there have been, and there are, attempts to supersede christianity because of its narrowness. religion must not be identified with any one name: god manifests himself to all, and no mediator is needed. theism, therefore, the worship of the one almighty and eternal being, not christianity, in which a human name is associated with the divine name, can alone pretend to be the universal religion, the {139} religion of all mankind. it is not the first time that such an attempt to do without christianity and to do away with it has been made. in the eighteenth century there was a similar movement. to this day at ferney, near geneva, is preserved the chapel which voltaire erected for the worship of god, of god as distinguished from christ as divine or as mediator between god and man. voltaire thought that he could overthrow and crush the faith of christ, but he none the less erected a temple to god. the deists upheld what they called the religion of nature and repudiated revelation. _christianity not mysterious; christianity as old as the creation_, were among the works issued to show the superiority of natural religion, its freedom from difficulties, its agreement with reason, its universality. the most enduring memorial of the controversy is bishop butler's _analogy of religion to the constitution and course of nature_, {140} in which it was argued that the natural religion of the deists was beset by as many difficulties as the revelation of the christians, that those who were not hindered from believing in god by the problems which nature presented need not be staggered by the problems which were presented by christianity. bishop butler's argument was directed against a special set of antagonists, an argument, it may be said, of little avail against the scepticism of the present day. the argument seems to have been unanswerable by those to whom it was addressed. the grounds on which they rejected the revelation of christ were shown to be inadequate. when they accepted this or that article of natural religion, they had accepted what was as difficult of belief as this or that part of the revelation which they rejected. the mysteries which existed in the religion with which they would have nothing to do were in harmony with the {141} mysteries which existed in the religion which they declared to be necessary for the welfare of society. that retort may be made with even more effect to those who so far occupy that same ground to-day. they rejoice to believe that there is a god, that he is not far off, that he communicates himself to their souls, that the love which we bear to one another is but a faint image of the love which he bears to us, that the noblest qualities which exist in us exist more purely, more gloriously in him, that we are in very deed his children and are called to manifest his likeness. it is by prayer, both in public and in private, both in congregations and alone with the alone, that his love and his help can be comprehended and used. he is no absent god: his ear is not heavy that it cannot hear, nor his arm shortened that it cannot save. with this belief we, as christians, have no dispute: we gladly go along with theists in asserting it: we {142} only wonder at their unwillingness to go along with us a little further. for if god be such as they glowingly depict him, if our relations to him be such as they esteem it our greatest dignity to know, there is nothing antecedently impossible in the thought that one man has heard his voice more clearly, has surrendered to his will more entirely, than any other in the history of the ages and the races of mankind: nothing antecedently impossible in the thought that to one man his truth has been conveyed more brightly, more fully than to any other; that in one man the lineaments of the divine image may be seen more distinctly than in any other. if god be such, and if our relations to god be such, as theists describe, why should they shrink with distrust or with antipathy from a son of man who has borne witness to those truths in his life and in his death with a steadfastness of conviction which none other has ever surpassed; who, according {143} to the records which we possess of him, habitually lived to do the father's will and died commending his spirit into the father's hands: a son of man who could truly be said to be in heaven while he was on earth? if god be such, and our relations to god be such, as theists describe, would not that son of man be the confirmation of their thoughts? would not his testimony be of infinite value on their side? would he himself not be the radiant illustration, the eagerly longed for proof of the truth for which they contend? they believe in god: why should it, on their own showing, be so hard to believe in christ? iii the theism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is in some respects different from the deism of the eighteenth. it is not so cold, the god in whom it believes is not so distant from his creatures. but it is not {144} less vehement in its depreciation of christianity as a needless and even harmful addition to the religion of nature. conspicuous among the advocates of this modern theism have been francis william newman, miss frances power cobbe, and the rev. charles voysey. francis newman, in his youth, belonged, like his brother the famous cardinal, to the strictest sect of evangelicals, but, like the cardinal also, drifted away from them, though in a totally different direction.[4] as he found the untenableness of certain views which he had cherished, the insufficiency of certain arguments which he had employed, he came with much anguish of mind to the conclusion that the whole fabric of historical christianity was built upon the sand. he rapidly renounced belief after belief, and caused widespread distress and dismay by a crude attack upon the moral perfection of {145} our lord. his conviction that christianity had nothing special to say for itself, and that one religion was as good as another, seems to have been mainly brought about by a discussion which he had with a mohammedan carpenter at aleppo. 'among other matters, i was particularly desirous of disabusing him of the current notion of his people that our gospels are spurious narratives of late date. i found great difficulty of expression, but the man listened to me with much attention, and i was encouraged to exert myself. he waited patiently till i had done and then spoke to the following effect: "i will tell you, sir, how the case stands. god has given to you english many good gifts. you make fine ships, and sharp penknives, and good cloth and cottons, and you have rich nobles and brave soldiers; and you write and print many learned books (dictionaries and grammars): all this is of god. but there is one thing that god has withheld {146} from you and has revealed to us; and that is the knowledge of the true religion by which one may be saved."'[5] but although newman was led to give up christianity, and practically to hold that one religion was as good as another, he clung tenaciously to what he supposed to be common to all religions, belief in god, a belief deep and ardent. the rationalism of the deists did not approve itself to him. 'our deists of past centuries tried to make religion a matter of the pure intellect, and thereby halted at the very frontier of the inward life: they cut themselves off even from all acquaintance with the experience of spiritual men.'[6] he nourished his soul with psalms and hymns: he sought communion with god. he saw the weakness of morality without the inspiring power of religion. 'morals can seldom gain living energy without the impulsive force derived from spirituals.... however {147} much plato and cicero may talk of the surpassing beauty of virtue, still virtue is an abstraction, a set of wise rules, not a person, and cannot call out affection as an existence exterior to the soul does. on the contrary, god is a person; and the love of him is of all affections by far the most energetic in exciting us to make good our highest ideals of moral excellence and in clearing the moral sight, so that that ideal may keep rising. other things being equal (a condition not to be forgotten) a spiritual man will hold a higher and purer morality than a mere moralist. not only does duty manifest itself to him as an ever-expanding principle, but since a larger and larger part of duty becomes pleasant and easy when performed under the stimulus of love, the will is enabled to concentrate itself more on that which remains difficult and greater power of performance is attained.'[7] where shall we find a more {148} vivid or more spiritual description of the rise and progress of devotion in the soul than in the words of this man, who placed himself beyond the pale of every christian communion? 'one who begins to realise god's majestic beauty and eternity and feels in contrast how little and transitory man is, how dependent and feeble, longs to lean upon him for support. but he is _outside_ of the heart, like a beautiful sunset, and seems to have nothing to do with it: there is no getting into contact with him, to press against him. yet where rather should the weak rest than on the strong, the creature of the day than on the eternal, the imperfect than on the centre of perfection? and where else should god dwell than in the human heart? for if god is in the universe, among things inanimate and unmoral, how much more ought he to dwell with our souls! and they, too, seem to be infinite in their cravings: who but he can satisfy them? thus a restless {149} instinct agitates the soul, guiding it dimly to feel that it was made for some definite but unknown relation towards god. the sense of emptiness increases to positive uneasiness, until there is an inward yearning, if not shaped in words, yet in substance not alien from that ancient strain, "as the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, o god; my soul is athirst for god, even for the living god."'[8] mr. newman, in his later days, we understand, had modified the bitterness of his opposition to historical christianity and was ready to avow himself as a disciple of christ. miss frances power cobbe was another devout spirit who, with less violence but equal decisiveness, accepted theism as apart from christianity. in her case, even more visibly than in mr. newman's, it was not christianity which she rejected, but sundry distortions of it with which it had in her mind become {150} identified. she wrote not a few articles so permeated with the christian spirit and imbued with the christian hope that the most ardent believer in christ could read them with entire approval and own himself their debtor. she took an active part in many philanthropic movements, and she was an earnest and eloquent advocate of faith in the divine ordering of the world and in human immortality. 'theism,' she said, 'is not christianity _minus_ christ, nor judaism _minus_ the miraculous legation of moses, nor any other creed whatsoever merely stripped of its supernatural element. it is before all things the positive affirmation of the absolute goodness of god: and if it be in antagonism to other creeds, it is principally because of, and in proportion to, their failure to assert that goodness in its infinite and all-embracing completeness.'[9] 'god is over us, and heaven {151} is waiting for us all the same, even though all the men of science in europe unite to tell us there is only matter in the universe and only corruption in the grave. atheism may prevail for a night, but faith cometh in the morning. theism is "bound to win" at last: not necessarily that special type of theism which our poor thoughts in this generation have striven to define: but that great fundamental faith, the needful substruction of every other possible religious faith, the faith in a righteous and loving god, and in a life of man beyond the tomb.'[10] 'all the monitions of conscience, all the guidance and rebukes and consolations of the divine spirit, all the holy words of the living, and all the sacred books of the dead, these are our primary evidences of religion. in a word, the first article of our creed is "i believe in god the holy ghost." after this fundamental dogma, we accept {152} with joy and comfort the faith in the creator and orderer of the physical universe, and believe in god the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. and lastly we rejoice in the knowledge that (in no mystic athanasian sense, but in simple fact) "_these two are one_." the god of love and justice who speaks in conscience, and whom our inmost hearts adore, is the same god who rolls the suns and guides the issues of life and death.'[11] in an able paper, _a faithless world_, in which miss cobbe combated the assertion of sir james fitzjames stephen, that the disappearance of belief in god and immortality would be unattended with any serious consequences to the material, intellectual, or moral well-being of mankind, she forcibly said, 'i confess at starting on this inquiry, that the problem, "is religion of use, or can we do as well without it?" seems to me {153} almost as grotesque as the old story of the woman who said that we owe vast obligations to the moon, which affords us light on dark nights, whereas we are under no such debt to the sun, who only shines by day, _when there is always light_. religion has been to us so diffused a light that it is quite possible to forget how we came by the general illumination, save when now and then it has blazed out with special brightness.' the comment is eminently just, but does it not apply with equal force to miss cobbe herself? the theism which she professed was the direct outcome of christianity, could never have existed but for christianity, was, in all its best features, simply christianity under a different name. that theism, as a separate organisation, gives little evidence of conquering the world is shown by the fact that, after many years, it boasts of only one congregation, that of the theistic church, swallow street, piccadilly, {154} of which the rev. charles voysey is minister. mr. voysey was at one time vicar of a parish in yorkshire, where he issued, under the title of _the sling and the stone_, sermons attacking the commonly accepted doctrines of the church of england, and was in consequence deprived of his living. he is distinctly anti-christian in his teaching; strongly prejudiced against anything that bears the christian name: criticising the sayings and doings of our lord in a fashion which indicates either the most astonishing misconception or the most melancholy perversion. but his sincerity and fervour on behalf of theism are unmistakable. he describes it as _religion for all mankind, based on facts which are never in dispute_. the book which is called by that title is written for the help and comfort of all his fellowmen, 'chiefly for those who have doubted and discarded the christian religion, and in consequence have become agnostics or {155} pessimists.' it is prefaced by a dedication, which is also a touching confession of personal faith: 'in all humility i dedicate this book to my god who made me and all mankind, who loves us all alike with an everlasting love, who of his very faithfulness causeth us to be troubled, who punishes us justly for every sin, not in anger or vengeance, but only to cleanse, to heal, and to bless, in whose everlasting arms we lie now and to all eternity.'[12] mr. voysey has compiled a prayer book for the use of his congregation. the ordinary service is practically the morning or evening service of the book of common prayer, with all references to our lord carefully eliminated. the hymn _jesus, lover of my soul_ is changed to _father, refuge of my soul_; and the hymn just as i am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, o lamb of god, i come, {156} is rendered: just as i am without one plea, but that thy lore is seeking me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, o loving god, i come. the service respecting our duty, and the service of supplication have merits of their own, but, except for the wanton omission of the name which is above every name, there is nothing in them which does not bear a christian impress. 'christianity _minus_ christ' would seem to be no unfair definition of their standpoint: and without christ they could not have been what they are. the father who is set forth as the object of worship and of trust is the father whom christ declared, the father who, but for the manifestation of christ, would never have been known. far be it from us to deny that the father has been found by those who have sought him beyond the limits of the church: this only we affirm that those by whom he {157} has been found, have, consciously or unconsciously, drawn near to him by the way of christ. nothing of value in modern theism is incompatible with christianity: nothing of value which would not be strengthened by faith in him who said, 'he that hath seen me hath seen the father.' iv the strange objection to faith in christ is sometimes made that it interferes with faith in the father. the notion of mediation is regarded as derogatory alike to god and to man. there is no need for any one to come between: no need for god to depute another to bear witness of him: no need for us to depute another to secure his favour, as from all eternity he is love. the assumption, the groundless assumption, underlying this conception is that the mediator is a barrier between man and god, a hindrance not a help to fellowship with the divine: that one {158} goes to the mediator because access to god is debarred. whatever may occasionally have been the unguarded statements of representatives of christianity, it is surely plain that no such doctrine is taught, that the very opposite of such doctrine is taught, in the new testament. 'we do not,' says m. sabatier, 'address ourselves to jesus by way of dispensing ourselves from going to the father. far from this, we go to christ and abide in him, precisely that we may find the father. we abide in him that his filial consciousness may become our own; that the spirit may become our spirit, and that god may dwell immediately in us as he dwells in him. nothing in all this carries us outside of the religion of the spirit: on the contrary, it is its seal and confirmation.'[13] the whole object of the work of christ, as proclaimed by himself, or as interpreted {159} by his apostles, was to show the father, to bring men to the father. 'believest thou not that i am in the father, and the father in me? the words that i speak unto you i speak not of myself: but the father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.' he 'came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh. for through him we both have access by one spirit unto the father.' to argue that to come to christ is a substitute for coming to god, is an inducement to halt upon the way, is an absolute travesty and perversion. to refuse to see the glory of god in the face of jesus christ is not to bring god near: it is to remove him further from our vision. that god should come to us, that we should go to god, through a mediator, is only in accordance with a universal law. 'why,' says one, who might be expected from his theological training to speak otherwise, 'why, _all_ knowledge is "mediated" even of {160} the simplest objects, even of the most obvious facts: there is no such thing in the world as immediate knowledge, and shall we demur when we are told that the knowledge of god the father also must pass, in order to reach us at its best and purest, through the medium of "that son of god and son of man in whom was the fulness of the prophetic spirit and the filial life?" ... of this at least i feel convinced, that where faith in the father has grown blurred and vague in our days, and finally flickered out, the cause must in many instances be sought--i will not say in the wilful rejection, but--in the careless letting go of the message and personality of the son.'[14] so far from the thought of the father being ignored or set aside by the thought of christ, we may rather say with s. john, 'whosoever denieth the son, the same hath not the father: he that confesseth the son hath the father also.' 'he {161} that abideth in the doctrine of christ, he hath both the father and the son.' the homage that we render thee is still our father's own; nor jealous claim or rivalry divides the cross and throne.[15] v the notion that theism as contrasted with christianity is a mark of progress and of spirituality is a pure imagination. 'more spiritual it may be than the traditional christianity which consists in rigid and stereotyped forms of practice, of ceremonial, of observance, of dogma: but not more spiritual than the teaching of christ himself, the end and completion of whose work was to bring men to the father, to teach them that god is a spirit, and to send the spirit of the father into the hearts of the disciples. it would be a strange perversity if men should reject christ in the name of spiritual {162} religion when it is to christ, and to him alone, that they owe the conception of what spiritual religion is.'[16] to preach the doctrines of theism without reference to christ is to deprive them of their most sublime illustration, their most inspiring force, and their most convincing proof. it is as christ is known that god is believed in. the attempt to create enthusiasm for god while banishing the gospel of christ meets with astonishingly small response. the 'religion for all mankind' makes but little progress, is, in spite of the labours of five-and-thirty years, confined, as we have seen, almost to a solitary moderately sized congregation. and whether or not the 'facts' on which the religion is based 'are never in dispute,' the religion itself is often-times disputed very keenly. modern assaults upon religious faith are, as a rule, directed quite as much against theism as {163} against christianity.[17] it is the love, or even the existence, of the living god, it is human responsibility, it is life beyond the grave, that are called in question as frequently as the resurrection of christ. the assurance that god at sundry times and in divers manners has spoken by prophets renders it not more but less improbable that he should speak by a son: the assurance that there is life beyond the grave for all renders it not more but less improbable that jesus rose from the dead. conversely those who believe in jesus believe with a double intensity in him whom he revealed. 'ye believe in god,' said christ, 'believe also in me.' for many of us now, it is because we believe in christ that we believe also in god. the almighty and eternal is beyond our ken: the grace and truth of jesus christ come home to our hearts. the word that was in the beginning with god and was god, {164} is wrapt in impenetrable mystery: the word made flesh can be seen and handled: has wrought with human hands the creed of creeds in loveliness of perfect deeds, more strong than all poetic thought.[18] and however it may be in a few exceptional cases, where people nominally renouncing christ desperately cleave to a fragment of the faith of their childhood, the fact remains that, where he ceases to be acknowledged, faith in the father whom he manifested tends, gradually or speedily, to vanish. vi the superiority of theism to deism simply consists in its being more christian. with the ideas of god which 'theists' hold, we can, as christians, most cordially sympathise. we can sincerely say, 'hold to them firmly, they are your life: let no man rob you of {165} them by any vain deceit.' but we cannot help also asking, 'whence have you drawn those lofty ideas? where have you obtained so exalted a conception of the divine being in his mingled majesty and lowliness, in his inconceivable greatness, and his equally inconceivable compassion? we turn from the picture of god which, with so much labour, so much skill, so much moral earnestness, you have exhibited, and we behold the original in christ and his teaching. however unconsciously, it is his truth, it is his features, that you have reproduced. you have been brought up in the church of christ, or you have been brought into contact with its influences, and you have imbibed its teachings, perhaps more deeply than some who would not dare to question its smallest precepts. still, christ's teaching you have not outgrown, from christ himself you have not escaped. you cannot go from his presence or flee from his spirit. those {166} views which you hold so strongly, which are to you the most ennobling that have ever been given of god and of religion, where is it that alone they are to be found? in places where christianity has gone before. no doubt, belief in god is not confined to christian countries: worship of the maker of heaven and earth exists where the name of christ has never been heard, but not such belief, _such_ worship, as that for which those persons contend. the god whom they adore will not be found anywhere save where christianity has penetrated. in this country it is the desperate clinging to one portion of the christian faith when all else has been abandoned: in other lands, in india, for example, where representatives of this way of thinking are not uncommon, it is the rapturous welcome of one of the sublime truths of christianity before which the idolatries of their forefathers are passing away. it is safe to call it a transition stage: {167} it will either part with the fragment of christianity which it retains and become merged in doubt and speculation and unbelief; or it will include yet more of the christianity of which it has grasped a part: its belief in god will be crowned and confirmed by its belief in christ. for, speaking to those who cherish faith in the all-righteous and all-loving god as the only hope for the regeneration of mankind, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that where faith in christ fades, faith in god has a tendency to become vague and dim. he ceases to be thought of as a friend and help at hand: he is resolved into a creator infinitely distant or into a law, immovable, inexorable, a blind, unconscious fate. it is christ who gives life to the thought of god. it is the word made flesh that makes the eternal word more real. the attempt of the deists to purify religion by the preaching of a god who had not {168} revealed himself, and could not reveal himself, in a son, came to nothing. voltaire's chapel at ferney still stands, but nobody worships in it. religion seemed to slumber: belief in god seemed to be decaying, when the preaching of the name and the work of christ again aroused it into life. and so it is now. whatever the ability, whatever the sincerity of the advocates of belief in god without reference to christ, it lacks motive-power, it lacks the missionary spirit. if we may judge by the past, theism without christ is a faith which will not spread, which will not lay hold on the labouring and the heavy laden: which may be maintained as a theory, but which will not be as a fire in the souls of men diffusing itself by kindling other souls. it is from christ alone, from christ the manifestation of what god is in heart and mind, from christ the manifestation of what man ought to be, from christ who said, 'in my father's house are many {169} mansions: he that hath seen me hath seen the father,' that there comes with an authority to which, in face of the difficulties besetting the present and the future, the human soul will bow, with a soothing power to which the human spirit will gladly yield--it is from christ alone that there comes the divine injunction, 'let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in god, believe also in me.' it is as he is clearly seen and truly known that the clouds of error and superstition vanish from the face of god, and men are drawn to worship and to trust. [1] longfellow, _song of hiawatha_. [2] keble, _christian year_. [3] bishop gore, _the christian creed_. [4] appendix xx. [5] _phases of faith_. [6] _the soul: its sorrows and aspirations_. [7] _the soul: its sorrows and aspirations_. [8] _the soul_. [9] _alone to the alone_. [10] _alone to the alone_. [11] _alone to the alone_. [12] appendix xxi. [13] _the religions of authority and the religion of the spirit_. [14] j. warschauer, _coming of christ_. [15] whittier, _our master_. [16] r. b. bartlett, _the letter and the spirit_: bampton lecture. [17] appendix xxii. [18] tennyson, _in memoriam_. {172} vi the tribute of criticism to christ 'for their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.'--deuteronomy xxxii. 31. 'he asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that i, the son of man, am? and they said, some say that thou art john the baptist; some elias; and others jeremias or one of the prophets.'--s. matthew xvi. 13, 14. 'what think ye of christ? whose son is he?--s. matthew, xxii. 42. 'and there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, he is a good man: others said, nay, but he deceiveth the people.'--s. john vii. 12. 'then said jesus unto the twelve, will ye also go away? then simon peter answered him, lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.'--s. john vi. 67, 68. {173} vi the tribute of criticism to christ[1] of the investigations of modern criticism the most serious are those which have concerned the person of our lord. it has been felt both by assailants and by defenders of the faith that, so long as his supremacy remains acknowledged, christianity has not been overthrown. other doctrines once considered all-important may fall into comparative abeyance: whether they are upheld or rejected or modified, matters little to christianity as christianity. but more and more it has grown clear that christ himself {174} is the article of a standing or a falling church. if this doctrine is not of god, if he is not the way, the truth, and the life, christianity, whatever benefits may have been associated with its career, must be ranked among religions which have passed away. but so long as he is admitted to be the authority and standard in the moral and spiritual realm, so long as his name is above every name, the work of destruction is not accomplished. hence, renewed attempts have of late been made to tear the crown from his brow, to reduce him to the level of common men, to relegate him to the domain of myth, even to deny that he ever existed. although, in certain quarters at present, this last and extreme position is loudly asserted, it is hardly necessary to occupy much time in examining it, the trend of all criticism, even of the most rationalistic, being so decidedly opposed to {175} it. to deny that he existed is commonly felt to be the outcome of the most arbitrary prejudice, the conclusions of whately's _historic doubts relative to napoleon buonaparte_ remaining grave and weighty in comparison. that jesus of nazareth lived and taught and was crucified, that, immediately after his death, his disciples were proclaiming that he had risen, and was their living inspiration, these are facts which can be denied only by the very extravagance of scepticism. and the admission of these simple facts implies a great deal more than is commonly supposed. i it is the fashion for hostile critics to say, 'christianity is not dependent upon christ: it is the creation of the semi-historical paul, not of the unhistorical jesus. there is at best no more connection between christendom and christ than between america and {176} amerigo vespucci.[2] see how much christians have been obliged to give up: see how belief after belief has had to be surrendered; see how they are now left with the merest fragment of their ancient creed, how evidently they will soon be compelled to part with the little to which they still desperately cling.' the conclusion is somewhat hasty and premature. the fragment which remains is after all the main portion of the creed of the early disciples. where that fragment is declared and held and lived in, there is the presence and the power of the christian faith. we need not trouble ourselves about sundry points which, at one epoch or another, have come to be denied or ignored: we need not say anything either for them or against them. we have to take our stand on what is accepted, not on what is rejected. and for the moment we may {177} venture to take our stand only on what is accepted by the critics least biassed in favour of the traditional views of christendom. those who have come to imagine it to be a mark of advanced culture to break with all religion, to confine their attention to the fleeting present, to reject all that claims to have divine sanction, may listen with respect to the words of some who appear in fancied hostility to christianity. we are not assuming that because men are great in science or history or philosophy they must be great in spiritual things. their achievements in their own sphere, let us gratefully recognise; their uprightness, their single-heartedness, let us imitate; and if by chance they are sincere christians as well as able men, let us rejoice; if they are not professing christians at all and yet bear witness to the beneficial influence of christianity and the unique power of the words and character of christ, let us hail with {178} pleasure their tribute of admiration as a testimony impartial and unanswerable to the pre-eminence of our lord, but let not our faith in god, our knowledge of our saviour, be dependent on their verdict. the faith of the gospel does not stand or fall with their approval or disapproval. in matters of criticism we do well to defer to scholars, in matters of science we do well to defer to men of science. but in matters pertaining to the inner life, to the development of character, to the knowledge of things pure and lovely and of good report, such men have no exclusive claim to be listened to. and it would be absurd to say that we cannot make up our minds as to whether christ is worthy to be revered and loved and followed until we have ascertained what is said about him by authorities in physics, or geology, or astronomy, by statesmen or novelists or writers of magazine articles, by inventors of ingenious machines or authors of {179} sensational stories. if they speak scoffingly, if they do not recognise any sacredness in his spirit and life, it will be impossible for us to take him as our moral and spiritual guide. we might almost as well say that we will not trust the truthfulness or goodness of our father or mother or brother or friend of many years, unless, from persons eminent in literature or science or politics, we have testimonials assuring us that our affection for those with whom we are so closely associated is not a delusion. that is a matter, we should all feel, with which the great and distinguished, however justly great and distinguished, have really nothing to do. it is a matter for ourselves, a matter in which our own experience is worth more than the verdict of people, however learned in their own line, who do not, and cannot, know the friend or relative as we know him ourselves. still, we regard it as an additional {180} compliment to his worth, and an additional confirmation of our own faith, if those who have been jealously scrutinising his conduct declare that they can find no fault in him.[3] if it is made plain that the positive teaching of men unconnected with any church, untrammelled by any creed, is a virtual assertion of much that is most dear to christianity, if it is made plain that even where there is strong denial there is also much reference to christ, it may have more weight than the most cogent arguments or the most glowing appeals of orthodox divines or devout believers. the evangelists delight to record instances of unexpected, unfriendly, unimpeachable testimony to the power of christ. it is not only that the simple-minded people were astonished at his doctrine, but that the soldiers who were sent to silence him {181} returned, smitten with amazement, saying, 'never man spake like this man.' it is not only that a grateful penitent washed his feet with tears, but that the unprincipled governor who sentenced him to death declared 'i find in him no fault at all.' it is not only that an apostle confesses, 'thou art the christ the son of the living god,' but that the centurion who watched over his crucifixion exclaimed, 'certainly this was a righteous man: this was a son of god.' it is similar unprejudiced witness that we may hear around us still, the witness of those who profess to have another rule of life than ours, and to be in no degree influenced by our traditions. we must not expect too much from this kind of evidence: we must not expect clear logical proof of every article rightly or wrongly identified with the popularly termed 'orthodox' creed. it would destroy the value of the evidence {182} simply to quote orthodox doctrines in orthodox language. what we rather offer is the testimony of those who have resigned their grasp on much that we may deem essential. it is because in a sense we may call them 'enemies' that we ask them to be 'judges' in the great controversy. it is exactly because they are incredulous, or sceptical, or irreligious that we cite them at all. we confine ourselves to the utterances of men who are commonly cited as hostile to the commonly accepted faith of christ, or who do not rank among the number of his nominal disciples, or who at least have discussed his claims by critical and historical methods, endeavouring fairly to take into account all the facts which the circumstances warrant. we say to those who disown the authority of christ: it is not to the words of evangelists or preachers that your attention is sought: it is to the words of those whom you {183} profess to respect, of those because of whose supposed antagonism to christianity you are rejecting him. we ask you to listen to them and to consider whether he of whom such men speak in such terms is to be so lightly set aside as you have fancied. ii it will be strange if, accepting even that scanty creed, we do not find ourselves speedily accepting much more. when it is heartily acknowledged that jesus of nazareth lived and died, and that his first followers found strength and irresistible power in the conviction that he had conquered death and the grave, it is of necessity that we go further. the extreme sceptics who maintain that he never existed are, for the purpose of controversy, wise in their generation, for, once his existence is admitted, his mysterious power begins to tell. we are confronted {184} with an influence by which, consciously or unconsciously, we must be affected, a knowledge which we must acquire, an authority to which we must bow. let us not think merely of those who have, in utter devotion, yielded their hearts and souls to him through all the centuries, of the institutions and customs which owe their existence directly to him; let us think of the manifestations which are so often visible in those who do not suspect whence the manifestations come, let us think of the tributes of affection, of homage, of devotion which are paid by those to whom the ancient faith in his divinity appears to be an illusion or an impossible exaggeration. scarcely any critic of recent years has been regarded as more destructive than professor schmiedel. indignant attack after indignant attack has been made upon him for arguing that only nine sayings attributed to our lord can be accepted as genuine, that {185} all else is involved in suspicion. what schmiedel really does maintain is that these nine sayings must of necessity be accepted as genuine, cannot be rejected by any sane canon of criticism, and that the acceptance of these nine sayings, these 'foundation-pillars,' compels the acceptance of a great deal besides. '_what then have i gained in these nine foundation pillars_? you will perhaps say "very little": i reply, "i have gained just enough." having them, i know that jesus must really have come forward in the way he is said to have done.... in a word, i know, on the one hand, that his person cannot be referred to the region of myth; on the other hand, that he was man in the full sense of the term, and that, without of course denying that the divine character was in him, this could be found only in the shape in which it can be found in any human being. i think, therefore, that if we knew no more we should {186} know by no means little about him. but as a matter of fact the foundation-pillars are but the starting-point for our study of the life of jesus.'[4] and this study, he concludes, gives us nothing less than 'pretty well the whole bulk of jesus' teaching, in so far as its object is to explain in a purely religious and ethical way what god requires of man and wherein man requires comfort and consolation from god.' the standpoint of professor schmiedel is not the standpoint of the church as a whole: he fearlessly and aggressively endeavours to remove any misconception on that subject: all the more remarkable that, renouncing so much, he incontrovertibly establishes so much, incontrovertibly establishes, we may not unreasonably contend, a great deal more than he admits: he cannot, we may think, stop logically where he does. all this may, or may not, be legitimately argued: there can {187} be no doubt that one whose dislike of traditional dogmas is excessive, and whose scrutiny of the gospel records is minute and unsparing, forces us to say of jesus, what manner of man is this? it is the same with the general tendency of modern criticism. from the day that strauss accomplished his destructive work, the figure of jesus as a historical reality has been more and more endowed with power.[5] no age has so occupied itself with him, none has so endeavoured to recall the features of his character, to apply his teachings to the solution of social questions, as this age of ruthless inquiry. the inquirers may have abjured tradition, but almost without exception they have profoundly reverenced, if they have not actually worshipped, jesus of nazareth, and they have found in his gospel moral and spiritual light and life. {188} some thirty years ago, m. andrã© lefã¨vre, a fervid disciple of materialism, an uncompromising and bitter opponent of every symptom of religious manifestation, could not help discerning 'with the clairvoyance of hatred,' the influence of christianity in modern thought. 'descartes, leibnitz, locke, condillac, newton, bonnet, kant, hegel, spinoza himself, toland and priestley, rousseau, all are christians somewhere.... voltaire himself has not completely eliminated the virus: his deism is not exempt from it.'[6] the same thing is still occurring. in the most unexpected quarters we find the fascination of christ remaining. men not acknowledging themselves to be his followers, defiantly proclaiming that they are not his followers, that they can hardly be even interested in him, are yet perpetually returning, in what they themselves will confess as their higher moments, to the thought of {189} him, trying to make plain why it is that for them there is in him no beauty that they should desire him. for example, this is how mr. h. g. wells, the popular author of so many imaginative works, attempts frankly to explain his attitude: 'i hope i shall offend no susceptibilities when i assert that this great and very definite personality in the hearts and imaginations of mankind does not, and never has, attracted me. it is a fact i record about myself without aggression or regret. i do not find myself able to associate him in any way with the emotion of salvation.' but mr. wells goes on to say: 'i admit the splendid imaginative appeal in the idea of a divine human friend and mediator. if it were possible to have access by prayer, by meditation, by urgent outcries of the soul, to such a being whose feet were in the darknesses, who stooped down from the light, who was at once great and little, limitless in power {190} and virtue, and one's very brother; if it were possible by sheer will in believing to make and make one's way to such a helper, who would refuse such help? but i do not find such a being in christ. i do not find, i cannot imagine such a being. i wish i could. to me the christian christ seems not so much a humanised god as an incomprehensibly sinless being, neither god nor man. his sinlessness wears his incarnation like a fancy dress, all his white self unchanged. he had no petty weaknesses. now the essential trouble of my life is its petty weaknesses. if i am to have that love, that sense of understanding fellowship which is, i conceive, the peculiar magic and merit of this idea of a personal saviour, then i need some one quite other than this image of virtue, this terrible and incomprehensible galilean with his crown of thorns, his bloodstained hands and feet. i cannot love him any more than i can love a man {191} upon the rack.' 'the christian's christ is too fine for me, not incarnate enough, not flesh enough, not earth enough. he was never foolish and hot-eared and inarticulate, never vain, he never forgot things, nor tangled his miracles.'[7] there is no disputing about tastes; and it is impossible to refute one who tells us that he cannot see and cannot understand, though we may lament and be astonished at his disabilities. why a man upon the rack should not be loved, or why the prime qualification for the saviour of mankind should be the plentiful possession of petty weaknesses, or why it should be necessary for him to be sometimes foolish and to have a bad memory, or what necessary connection there is between hot-ears and the salvation of the world, need not detain us long. for in spite of this apparently curious longing for a deliverer who shall be weak and vain {192} and forgetful and hot-eared, and foolish, and of the earth earthy, mr. wells shows us that the urgent outcry of his soul is for a being limitless in power and virtue and one's very brother; and though he says that he does not find such a being in christ, it is exactly what christians have in all ages been finding. 'we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in times of need.' iii the instance which we have cited is exceptional among modern doubters, among those who have deliberately set themselves without violent prejudice to study the claims of christianity. be it in poetry or prose, in scientific criticism or in imaginative {193} biography, with remarkable unanimity, while stubbornly refusing to accept the creed of the church, they so depict him that the natural conclusion of their representation is, 'oh, come let us adore him.' there is scarcely any of them who would not sympathise with the admission and aspiration of b. wimmer in his confession, _my struggle for light_: 'i cannot but love this unique child of god with all the fervour of my soul, i cannot but lift up eyes full of reverence and rapture to this personality in whom the highest and most sacred virtues which can move the heart of man shine forth in spotless purity throughout the ages. even if many a trait in his portrait, as the gospels sketch it for us, be more legendary than historical, yet i feel that here a man stands before me, a man who really lived and has a place in history like that of no other man: indeed i feel that even the legends concerning him possess a truth in that they spring from the {194} spirit which passed from him into his church. i know what i have to thank him for. i would in my inmost self be so closely united with him that he may live in my spirit and bear absolute sway in my soul. i will not be ashamed of his cross and i will gladly endure the insults which men have directed, and still often enough direct, against him and his truth.' that is the characteristic and dominant note of the more recent criticism. the almost universal conclusion is that the perfect ideal has been depicted in the christ of the gospels, and has been depicted because the reality had been seen in jesus of nazareth.[8] is it not allowable to declare that the writers, let them say what they will about their rejection of the doctrine of the church concerning the incarnation and the atonement of christ, are practically his disciples, that the ardour of their faith in him not {195} infrequently puts to shame the coldness of us who call him lord?[9] there is scarcely extravagance in the assertion that, as we recognise the part which strauss and renan played, and the unconscious help which they rendered, 'we may well say now "_noster_" strauss and "_noster_" renan. they were, in their measure, and, according to their respective abilities, defenders of the faith.'[10] while it is possible to lament that among christian apologists there are timid surrenders and faithless forebodings, it is yet more possible to reply that 'whereas our critics were at one time infidels and our bitter enemies, they are now proud of the name of christian and ready to be the friends, as far as that is permitted, of every form of orthodoxy in christianity.'[11] the language in which, at any rate, they express their conception of him is sometimes {196} more devout, more exalted, than the language which used to be employed by professed apologists. the hindu theist, protab chandra mozoomdar, who stood outside the fold of christianity, joyfully proclaimed, 'christ reigns. as the law of the spirit of heavenly life, he reigns in the bosom of every believer.... christ reigns as the recogniser of divine humanity in the fallen, the low, and the despicable, as the healer of the unhappy, the unclean, and the sore distressed. reigns he not in the sweet humanity that goes forth to seek and to save its kin in every land and clime, to teach and preach, and raise and reclaim, to weep and watch and give repose? he reigns as sweet patience and sober reason amid the laws and orders of the world; as the spirit of submission and loyalty he reigns in peace in the kingdoms of the world.... christ reigns in the individual who feebly watches his footprints in the tangled mazes of life. {197} he reigns in the community that is bound together in his name. as divine humanity, and the son of god, he reigns gloriously around us in the new dispensation.'[12] or listen to the rhapsody with which mrs. besant, once an atheist, now a theosophist, depicts his influence from age to age: 'his the steady inpouring of truth into every brain ready to receive it, so that hand stretched out to hand across the centuries and passed on the torch of knowledge, which thus was never extinguished. his the form which stood beside the rack and in the flames of the burning pile, cheering his confessors and his martyrs, soothing the anguish of their pains and filling their hearts with his peace. his the impulse which spoke in the thunder of savonarola, which guided the calm wisdom of erasmus, which inspired the deep ethics of the god-intoxicated spinoza.... his the beauty that allured fra {198} angelico and raphael and leonardo da vinci, that inspired the genius of michael angelo, that shone before the eyes of murillo, and that gave the power that raised the marvels of the world, the duomo of milan, the san marco of venice, the cathedral of florence. his the melody that breathed in the masses of mozart, the sonatas of beethoven, the oratorios of handel, the fugues of bach, the austere splendour of brahms. through the long centuries he has striven and laboured, and, with all the mighty burden of the churches to carry, he has never left uncared for and unsolaced one human heart that cried to him for help.'[13] when we read sentences like these by themselves we say, here is unqualified acceptance of the christian faith. and even when we are told that we must not take the sentences in their literal and natural meaning, that they apply not to him whose earthly {199} career is sketched in the gospels, but to an ideal being evolved out of the writer's imagination, we are surely entitled to answer, it is of jesus that the words are spoken, whether their meaning is to be taken literally or figuratively; if they have any meaning at all, they indicate a being without a parallel. that there should be so extraordinary a conflict of opinion regarding him, that the greatest intellects as well as the simplest souls should hail him as divine, that the most critical should still find their explanations insufficient to account for the impression which he made upon his contemporaries and continues to wield to this day, at least renders him absolutely unique. men may disbelieve a great deal; they cannot disbelieve that this amazing personality has a place in the heart of the world which no other has ever occupied. the alleged imaginary ideal has had on earth only one approximate embodiment. nay, we are {200} forced to confess, without the actual character disclosed from nazareth to calvary, the ideal would never have been conceived. iv robert browning has described in his _christmas eve_ a certain german professor lecturing upon the myth of christ and the sources whence it is derivable. but as the listeners wait for the inference that faith in him should henceforth be discarded, 'he bids us,' says the supposed narrator of the story, 'when we least expect it take back our faith': go home and venerate the myth i thus have experimented with. this man, continue to adore him rather than all who went before him, and all who ever followed after. this is a correct though humorous summary of much prevalent scepticism. while critics destroy with the one hand, they build up {201} with the other; while they seem intent on rooting out every remnant of trust in christ, they frequently conclude by passionately beseeching us to make him our model and our king, our pattern and our guide. if there is anything which is calculated at once to arouse us who profess and call ourselves christians and to make us ashamed, it is that the diligence with which his example is followed, the earnestness with which his words are studied, by some whom we hold to have abandoned the catholic faith, throw into the shade the obedience, the love, the earnestness which prevail among ourselves. they who follow not with us are casting out devils in his name. it is with us, they are careful to say, and not with him that they are waging war. they may dispute the incidents of his recorded life: they may insist on reducing him to the level of humanity, but they also insist that in so doing they act according to his own {202} mind, that they refuse, for the very love which they bear him, to surround him with a glory which he would have rejected. devoid of the errors which have led astray his successors, exalted far above the wisest and the best of those who have spoken in his name, it is the function of criticism to show him in his fashion as he lived, to sweep away the falsehoods which have gathered round him in the course of ages.[14] we do not seek to read into the emotional language of such writers a significance which they would repudiate, but we are surely entitled to point out that in spite of themselves they are bringing their tribute of homage to the king of the jews, the king of all mankind. they grant so much that, it seems to us, they must grant yet more. we, at any rate, cannot stop where they deem themselves obliged to stop. we must go further, we hear other voices swell the {203} chorus of adoration, we have the witness not only of those who, in awe and wonderment have exclaimed, 'truly this was a son of god,' but we have the witness of those who from heartfelt conviction are able to say, 'the life which i now live in the flesh i live by the faith of the son of god, who loved me and gave himself for me.' and to them we humbly hope to be able to respond, 'now we believe not because of the language of others, whether honest doubters or devout disciples, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the christ, the saviour of the world.' 'restate our doctrines as we may,' to sum up all in the words of one who began his career as a teacher in the confidence that jesus of nazareth was merely a man, but whom closer study and deepening experience have brought to a fuller faith, 'reconstruct our theologies as we will, this age, like every age, beholds in him the way to god, the {204} truth of god, the life of god lived out among men: this age, like every age, has heard and responds to his call, "come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and i will give you rest": this age, like every age, finds access to the father through the son. these things no criticism can shake, these certainties no philosophy disprove, these facts no science dissolve away. he is the religion which he taught: and while the race of man endures, men will turn to the crucified son of man, not with a grudging, "thou hast conquered, o galilean!" but with the joyful, grateful cry, "my lord and my god."'[15] v he who was lifted up on the cross is drawing all men to himself, wise and unwise, friend and foe, devout and doubting, is ruling even where his authority is disavowed, is {205} causing hearts to adore where intellects rebel. the patriotic english baron, simon de montfort, as he saw the royal forces under prince edward come against him, was filled with admiration of their discipline and bearing. 'by the arm of s. james,' he cried, recalling with soldierly pride that to himself they owed in great measure their skill, 'they come on well: they learned that not of themselves, but of me.' the church of christ, when confronted with the benevolence, the integrity, the zeal of some who are arrayed against her, may naturally say, 'they live well indeed: they learned that not of themselves, but of me.' 'you are probably,' was the homely expostulation of benjamin franklin with thomas paine, 'you are probably indebted to religion for the habits of virtue on which you so justly value yourself. you might easily display your excellent talents of reasoning upon a less hazardous subject, and thereby obtain a rank amongst {206} our most distinguished authors. for among us,' continued franklin satirically, 'it is not necessary, as among the hottentots, that a youth, to be raised into the company of men, should prove his manhood by beating his mother.' the blows inflicted on christianity come from unfilial hands and hearts, from hands and hearts which have been strengthened and nurtured on christianity itself, from hands and hearts which, but for the lingering christianity that still impels them, would soon be paralysed and dead. the ideals which systems intended to supersede christianity set before them are, to all intents and purposes, only christianity under another name. where the ideals go beyond ordinary christian practice, they are only a nearer approximation to the supreme ideal which has never been fulfilled save in jesus christ himself. wherever there is truth in them which is not generally accepted, or which comes as a surprise, investigation {207} will show that it is an aspect of christianity which christians have been neglecting, that it is a manifestation of the mind of christ, a development of his principles. look where we will, the men that are making real moral and spiritual progress are those who are in touch with him. their beliefs about him may not be accurate, their conception of his nature and work may be defective, but it is his name, his spirit, his power, it is himself that is the secret of their life. one part of his teaching has sunk into their hearts, one element of his character has mysteriously impressed them. they have touched the hem of his garment, the shadow of his apostle passing by has glided over them, and they have been roused from weakness and death. 'he that was healed wist not who it was, for jesus had conveyed himself away.' so it happened in the days of his flesh: so is it happening still: they that are set free may not yet know to whom {208} their freedom is to be ascribed. now, as on the way to emmaus, when men are communing together and reasoning, jesus himself may be walking with them, though their eyes are holden that they do not know him. john stuart mill, whose acute intellect, whose spotless rectitude, whose public spirit, whose non-religious training naturally made him the idol of those to whom christianity was a bygone superstition, came in his later days, not indeed to accept the orthodox creed, but yet to stretch out his longing hand to christ, believing that he might have 'unique commission from god to lead mankind to truth and virtue.' george eliot, whose genius was ever labouring to fill up the void which the rejection of her early faith had made, consoled her dying hours, as she had inspired her most ennobling pages, with the _imitation of christ_. matthew arnold, most cultured of critics, joins hands with the most fervid of evangelists in maintaining that {209} 'there is no way to righteousness but the way of jesus.' the name of christ--none other name under heaven given among men will ever prove a substitute for that. renouncing faith in christ, is there life, is there salvation for man to be found in the doctrines, the names, the influences which are so vehemently extolled? is there one of them which so satisfies the cravings of the heart, which enkindles such glorious hopes, which inspires to such holy living, which inculcates so universal a brotherhood, as christianity? is there one of them which, at the best, is more than a keeping of despair at bay, than a resolute acceptance of utter overthrow, than a blindness to the tremendous issues which are involved?[16] will the culture which is devoted, and cannot but be devoted, exclusively to the outward, which imparts a knowledge of science or art or literature, be found sufficient to {210} rescue men from the slavery of sin or from the torment of doubt? will the progress which is altogether occupied with the material and the physical, with providing better houses and better food and better wages, produce happiness without alloy and remove the sting and dread of death?[17] will the reiteration of the dogma that we are but fleeting shadows, that there is nothing to hope for in the future, that we are all the victims of delusion, tend to elevate and benefit our downcast race? will the attempt to worship what has never been made known, what is simply darkness and mystery, be more successful in raising men above themselves than the worship of the righteousness and the love which have been made manifest in christ? will the attempt to supplant the worship of jesus christ, in whom was no sin, by the worship of humanity at large, of humanity stained with guilt and crime as {211} well as illumined here and there with deeds of heroism, of humanity sunk to the level of the brutes as well as exalted to the level of whatever we may suppose to be the highest, seeing that there is really no higher existence with which to compare it--will this worship of itself, with all its baseness and imperfection, this turning of mankind into a mutual adoration society, make humanity divine? will even the assurance that far-distant ages will have new inventions, fairer laws, more abundant wealth be any deliverance to us from our burdens, any salvation from our individual sorrow and guilt and shame? can we to whom the likeness of christ has been shown, can we imagine that any of these efforts to answer the yearning of mankind for deliverance from the body of this death will prove an efficient substitute for him? and if we forsake him, it must be in one or other of these directions that we go. {212} vi but the signs of the times are full of hope. in social work at home, in the progress of missions abroad, in revivals of one kind and another, in growing reverence for holy things, in a renewed interest in religion as the most vital of all topics, even in strange spiritual manifestations not within the church, we have, amid all that is discouraging and depressing, indication of the coming kingdom. the cry, 'back to christ,' with all the truth that is in it, is only half a truth if it does not also mean 'forward to christ.' he is before us as well as behind us, and the hope of the world is the gathering together of all things in him. should there be, as there has been over and over again in days gone by, a widespread unbelief, a rejection of his divine revelation, of this we may be sure--it will be only for a time. when the sceptical physician, in tennyson's poem, murmured: 'the good lord jesus has had his day,' {213} the believing nurse made the comment: 'had? has it come? it has only dawned: it will come by and by.' a thought most sad, though most inspiring. 'only dawned.' why is christianity after all these centuries only beginning to be manifested? it is at least partly because of the apathy, the divisions, the evil lives of us who profess and call ourselves christians, because we have wrangled about the secondary and the comparatively unimportant, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, because we have so left to those beyond the church the duty of proclaiming and enforcing principles which our lord and his apostles put in the forefront of their teaching. we have narrowed the kingdom of christ, we have claimed too little for him, we have forgotten that he has to do with the secular as well as with the spiritual, that he must be king of the nation as well as of the church. but now in the growing {214} prominence of social questions, which so many fear as an evidence of the waning of religion, have we not an incentive to show that the social must be pervaded by the religious, that our duties to one another are no small part of the kingdom of christ? for all sorts and conditions of men, for masters and servants, for rulers and ruled, for employers and employed, there is ever accumulating proof that only as they bear themselves towards each other in the spirit of the new testament can there be true harmony and mutual respect; that only, in short, as the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our lord and of his christ will men in reality bear one another's burdens; that only as the everlasting gospel of the everlasting love prevails will all strife and contention, whether personal or political or ecclesiastical or national, come to an end; that only as men enter into the fellowship of that son of man who came not to be {215} ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many will the glorious vision of old be fulfilled: i saw in the night vision, and behold one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him. and there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages shall serve him. his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. [1] in this lecture are included some paragraphs from a sermon long out of print, _the witness of scepticism to christ_, preached before the synod of lothian and tweeddale. [2] g. lommel, _jesus von nazareth_ (quoted in pfannmã¼ller's _jesus im urteil der jahrhunderte_). [3] appendix xxiii. [4] _jesus in modern criticism_. [5] h. weinel, _jesus im neunzehnten jahrhundert_. [6] quoted in e. naville, _le tã©moignage du christ_. [7] _first and last things: a confession of faith and rule of life_. [8] appendix xxiv. [9] appendix xxv. [10] _lux hominum_, preface. [11] _lux hominum_, p. 84. [12] _the oriental christ_. [13] _esoteric christianity_. [14] appendix xxvi. [15] j. warschauer, _the new evangel_. [16] appendix xxvii. [17] appendix xxviii. {219} appendices appendix i 'i hope no reader imagines me so weak to stand up in defence of real christianity such as used in primitive times (if we may believe the authors of those ages) to have an influence upon men's beliefs and actions. to offer at the restoring of that would indeed be a wild project: it would be to dig up foundations: to destroy at one blow all the wit and half the learning of the kingdom, to break the entire frame and constitution of things, to ruin trade, extinguish arts and sciences, with the professors of them; in short, to turn our courts, exchanges, and shops into deserts; and would be full as absurd as the proposal of horace, where he advises the romans all in a body, to leave their city, and seek a new seat in some remote part of the world, by way of cure for the corruption of their manners.'--dean swift, _an argument to prove that the abolishing of christianity in england may, as things now stand, be attended with some inconveniences_. {220} appendix ii while the state of our race is such as to need all our mutual devotedness, all our aspiration, all our resources of courage, hope, faith, and good cheer, the disciples of the christian creed and morality are called upon, day by day, to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling and so forth. such exhortations are too low for even the wavering mood and quacked morality of a time of theological suspense and uncertainty. in the extinction of that suspense and the discrediting of that selfish quacking i see the prospect for future generations of a purer and loftier virtue, and a truer and sweeter heroism than divines who preach such self-seeking can conceive of.'--harriet martineau, _autobiography_, vol. ii. p. 461. 'noble morality is classic morality, the morality of greece, of rome, of renaissance italy, of ancient india. but christian morality is slave morality _in excelsis_. for the essence of christian morality is the desire of the individual to be saved: his consciousness of power is so small that he lives in hourly peril of damnation and death and yearns thus for the arms of some saving grace.'--_f. nietzsche_, by a. r. orage, p. 53. {221} 'they [christians] have never learnt to love, to think, to trust. they have been nursed and bred and swaddled and fed on fear. they are afraid of death: they are afraid of truth: they are afraid of human nature: they are afraid of god.... they deal in a poor kind of old wives' fables, of lackadaisical dreams, of discredited sorcery, and white magic, and call it religion and the holy of holies. they wander about in a sickly soil of intellectual moonshine, where they mistake the dense and sombre shadows for substances. they want to stop the clocks of time that it may never be day, and to hoodwink the eyes of the nations that they may lead the people as so many blind.'--robert blatchford, _clarion_, march 3, 1905. {222} appendix iii 'in georgia, indeed, as the jesuits had found it in south america, the vicinity of a white settlement would have proved the more formidable obstacle to the conversion of the indian. when tounchichi was urged to listen to the doctrines of christianity, he keenly replied, "why, there are christians at savannah! there are christians at frederica!" nor was it without good apparent reason that the poor savage exclaimed, "christian much drunk! christian beat men! christian tell lies! devil christian! me no christian!"'--southey, _life of john wesley_, vol. i. p. 57. 'i was then carried in spirit to the mines where poor oppressed people were digging rich treasures for those called christians, and heard them blaspheme the name of christ, at which i was grieved, for to me his name was precious. i was then informed that these heathens were told that those who oppressed them were the followers of christ, and they said among themselves, "if christ directed them to use us in this sort, this christ is a cruel tyrant."'--_journal of john woolman_, p. 264. {223} appendix iv 'what many upright and ardent souls have rejected is a misconception, a caricature, a subjective christianity of their own, a traditional delusion, which no more resembles real christianity than the conventional christ of the painted church window resembles jesus christ of nazareth. it is true that at this moment the great majority of the people of this country never go to any place of worship, and this is yet more the case on the continent of europe. does it in the least degree indicate that the masses of the european nations have weighed christianity in the balance and found it wanting? nothing of the sort. the overwhelming majority of them have not the faintest conception of what christianity is. i myself have met a great number of so-called "agnostics" and "atheists" in our universities, among our working-men, and in society, but i have never yet met one who had rejected the christianity of christ.'--hugh price hughes, preface to _ethical christianity_. {224} appendix v 'wheresoever christianity has breathed it has accelerated the movement of humanity. it has quickened the pulses of life, it has stimulated the incentives of thought, it has turned the passions into peace, it has warmed the heart into brotherhood, it has fanned the imagination into genius, it has freshened the soul into purity. the progress of christian europe has been the progress of mind over matter. it has been the progress of intellect over force, of political right over arbitrary power, of human liberty over the chains of slavery, of moral law over social corruption, of order over anarchy, of enlightenment over ignorance, of life over death. as we survey this spectacle of the past, we are impressed that this study of history is the strongest evidence for god. we hear no argument from design but we feel the breath of the designer. we see the universal life moulding the individual lives, the one will dominating many wills, the infinite wisdom utilising the finite folly, the changeless truth permeating the restless error, the boundless beneficence bringing blessing out of all.... and what shall we say of the future? ... ours is a position in some respects analogous to that of the mediaeval world: the landmarks of the past are fading, the lights in the future are but dimly seen. yet it is the study of the landmarks that helps us to wait for the light, and our highest hope is born of memory. in the view {225} of that retrospect, we cannot long despair. we may have moments of heart-sickness when we look exclusively at the present hour: we may have times of despondency when we measure only what the eye can see. but looking on the accumulated results of bygone ages as they lie open to the gaze of history, the scientific conclusion at which we must arrive is this, that the course of christianity shall be, or has been, the path of a shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day.'--g. matheson, _growth of the spirit of christianity_ (chap, xxxviii., 'dawn of a new day'). {226} appendix vi 'shadows and figments as they appear to us to be in themselves, these attempts to provide a substitute for religion are of the highest importance, as showing that men of great powers of mind, who have thoroughly broken loose not only from christianity but from natural religion, and in some cases placed themselves in violent antagonism to both, are still unable to divest themselves of the religious sentiment or to appease its craving for satisfaction. 'that the leaders of the anti-theological movement at the present day are immoral, nobody but the most besotted fanatic would insinuate: no candid antagonist would deny that some of them are in every respect the very best of men.... but what is to prevent the withdrawal of the traditional sanction from producing its natural effect upon the morality of the mass of mankind? ... rate the practical effect of religious beliefs as low and that of social influences as high as you may, there can surely be no doubt that morality has received some support from the authority of an inward monitor regarded as the voice of god.... 'the denial of the existence of god and of a future state, in a word, is the dethronement of conscience: and society will pass, to say the least, through a dangerous interval, before social conscience can fill the vacant throne.'--goldwin smith, 'proposed substitutes for religion,' _macmillan's magazine_, vol. xxxvii. {227} appendix vii 'it no less takes two to deliver the game of duty from trivial pretence and give it an earnest interest. how can i look up to myself as the higher that reproaches me? issue commands to myself which i dare not disobey? ask forgiveness from myself for sins which myself has committed? surrender to myself with a martyr's sacrifice? and so through all the drama of moral conflict and enthusiasm between myself in a mask and myself in _propria persona_? how far are these semblances, these battles in the clouds, to carry their mimicry of reality? are we to _worship_ the self-ideality? to _pray_ to an empty image in the air? to trust in sorrow a creature of thought which is but a phenomenon of sorrow? no, if religious communion is reduced to a monologue, its essence is extinct and its soul is gone. it is a living relation, or it is nothing: a response to the supreme reality. and vainly will you search for your spiritual dynamics without the rock eternal for your [greek] _pou stã´_'--james martineau, essays iv. 282, _ideal substitutes for god_. {228} appendix viii 'it is an awful hour--let him who has passed through it say how awful--when life has lost its meaning and seems shrivelled into a span--when the grave appears to be the end of all, human goodness nothing but a name, and the sky above this universe a dead expanse, black with the void from which god himself has disappeared. in that fearful loneliness of spirit ... i know but one way in which a man may come forth from his agony scathless: it is by holding fast to those things which are certain still--the grand, simple landmarks of morality. 'in the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. if there be no god and no future state yet even then it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be chaste than licentious, better to be true than false, better to be brave than to be a coward. blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is the man who, in the tempestuous darkness of the soul, has dared to hold fast to these venerable landmarks. thrice blessed is he who, when all is drear and cheerless within and without, when his teachers terrify him and his friends shrink from him, has obstinately clung to moral good. thrice blessed, because his night shall pass into clear bright day.'--f. w. robertson, _lectures, addresses, etc._, p. 49. {229} appendix ix 'let me say at once that if after the elimination of all untruths from christianity, we could build a belief in god and immortality on the residue, we should then have a far more powerful incentive to right conduct than anything that i am about to urge.'--philip vivian, _churches and modern thought_, p. 323. {230} appendix x 'without prejudice, what would be the effect upon modern civilisation if the divine ideal should vanish from modern thought? 'it would be presumptuous to attempt a description, rather because it is so hard to picture ourselves and our outlook deprived of what we have held during thousands of generations, our very _raison d'ãªtre_, than because we cannot calculate at least a part of what would have to happen. without pretending to undertake that exercise, it may not be too bold to conclude definitely, what has been suggested argumentatively throughout: namely, that moral goodness, as we trace it in the past, as we enjoy it in the present, as we reckon upon it in the future, would be found undesirable and therefore impracticable. a new "morality" would doubtless take its place and set up a new ideal of goodness; but the former would no more represent the elements we so far call moral than the latter would embody the conceptions we now call good: the more logically the inevitable system were followed up, the more progressively would moral inversion be realised. 'it does not seem credible that the new morality could escape being egoistic and hedonistic, and these principles alone would dictate complete reversal of all our present notions as to what is noble, what is useful, what is good. an egoist hedonism that should not be selfish and sensual is a fond {231} superstition; it would have to be both and frankly. all the prophylactic expedients whereby a reciprocal egoism must safeguard its sensuous rights would certainly be there; and they represent in spirit and in practice whatever we have learned to consider execrable. we do not require professor haeckel[1] to inform us, with the triumphal rhetoric that accompanies a grand new discovery, of the prudential homicide which is to confer a supreme blessing upon humanity, for it has raged throughout antiquity, and still stalks abroad in daylight wherever the kingdom of men is not also the kingdom of christ. ten minutes' thought is sufficient to convince any rational man or woman what must inevitably follow in a world of animal rationalism, where no souls are immortal, where the human will is the supreme will and there is eternal peace in the grave. it could scarcely transpire otherwise than that "euthanasia" should replace care of the chronic sick and indigent aged; that infanticide should be in a large category of circumstances encouraged, and in some compelled; that suicide should offer a rational escape from all serious ills, leaving a door ever hospitably ajar to receive the body bankrupt in its capacity for sensual enjoyment, the only enjoyment henceforth worthy of the name. these are the "virtues" under the new morality; there are other things of which it were not well to speak. imagination turns its back. in a world that has never been without its gods, among human creatures who have never existed without a conscience, deeds have been done and horrors have been practised through centuries, through ages, that make annals read like ogre-tales and books of travels like the works of morbid novelists; and the worst always goes unrecorded. what then ought we to anticipate for a world yielding obedience to nothing loftier {232} than the human intellect, seeking no prize obtainable outside the individual life time, logically incapable of any gratification outside the individual body, convinced of nothing save eternal oblivion in the ever-nearing and inevitable grave, and reposed on the calm assurance that "goodness" and "badness," "virtue" and "vice" (whatever these terms may then correspond to) are recompensed, indifferently, by nothing better and nothing worse than physical animal death?'--jasper b. hunt, b.d., _good without god: is it possible_? p. 51. [1] see _the wonders of life_, chap. v., popular translation, and other works. {233} appendix xi 'when we say that god is personal, we do not mean that he is localised by mutually related organs; that he is hampered by the physical conditions of human personality. we mean that he is conscious of distinctness from all other beings, of moral relation to all living things, and of power to control both from without and from within the action of every atom and of every world. this is what we mean by personality in god. it is not a materialistic idea. it is essentially spiritual. it is a breakwater against the destruction of the very thought of god, or the submersion of it in the mere processes of eternal evolution. there is a pantheism which obliterates every trace of divine personality, which takes from god consciousness, will, affection, emotion, desire, presiding and over-ruling intelligence. but such pantheism is better known as atheism. it destroys the only god who can be a refuge and a strength in time of trouble. it annihilates that mighty conscience which drives the workers of iniquity into darkness and the shadow of death, if possible, to hide themselves. it closes the divine ear against the prayer of faith. it abolishes all sympathy, all communion between the father and the children. it makes god not the world's life, but the world's grave. therefore, against all such pantheism our being revolts.'--peter s. menzies, _sermons_ ('christian pantheism'). {234} appendix xii 'there is an old testament pantheism speaking unmistakably out of the lips of the prophets and the psalmists, ... so interwoven with their deepest thoughts of god, that any hesitation to receive it would have been traced by them most probably to purely heathen conditions of thought, which ascribes to every divinity a limited function, a separate home, and a restricted authority.... but undoubtedly the most unequivocal and outspoken pantheist in the bible is st. paul. he speaks in that character to the athenians, affirming all men to be the offspring of god, and, as if this were not a sufficiently close bond of affinity, adding, "in him we live and move and have our being." his pantheistic eschatology casts a radiance over the valley of the shadow of death, which makes the 15th chapter of 1st corinthians one of the most precious gifts of divine inspiration which the holy volume contains. "and when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that god may be all and all." nor, if he had wished to administer a daring shock to the ultra-calvinism of our own confessional theology, could he have uttered a sentiment more hard to reconcile with any view of the universe that is not pantheistic than that contained in the 32nd verse of the present chapter: "for god hath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all." it {235} is quite clear in the face of all this scripture evidence that there is a form of pantheism which is not only innocent, defensible, justifiable, but which we are bound to teach as of the essence of all true theology. nothing could be more childish than that blind horror of pantheism which shudders back from it as the most poisonous form of rank infidelity.'--peter s. menzies, _sermons_ ('christian pantheism'), {236} appendix xiii 'pantheism gives noble expression to the truth of god's presence in all things, but it cannot satisfy the religious consciousness: it cannot give it escape from the limitations of the world, or guarantee personal immortality or (what is most important) give any adequate interpretation to sin, or supply any adequate remedy for it.... christian theology is the harmony of pantheism and deism. on the one hand christianity believes all that the pantheist believes of god's presence in all things. "in him," we believe, "we live and move and are; in him all things have their coherence." all the beauty of the world, all its truths, all its goodness, are but so many modes under which god is manifested, of whose glory nature is the veil, of whose word it is the expression, whose law and reason it embodies. but god is not exhausted in the world, nor dependent upon it: he exists eternally in his triune being, self-sufficing, self-subsistent.... god is not only in nature as its life, but he transcends it as its creator, its lord--in its moral aspect--its judge. so it is that christianity enjoys the riches of pantheism without its inherent weakness on the moral side, without making god dependent on the world, as the world is on god.'--bishop gore, _the incarnation of the son of god_, p. 136. {237} appendix xiv 'the supreme power on this petty earth can be nothing else but the humanity, which, ever since fifty thousand--it may be one hundred and fifty thousand--years has slowly but inevitably conquered for itself the predominance of all living things on this earth, and the mastery of its material resources. it is the collective stream of civilization, often baffled, constantly misled, grievously sinning against itself from time to time, but in the end victorious; winning certainly no heaven, no millennium of the saints, but gradually over great epochs rising to a better and a better world. this humanity is not all the human beings that are or have been. it is a living, growing, and permanent organism in itself, as spencer and modern philosophy establish. it is the active stream of human civilization, from which many drop out into that oblivion and nullity which is the true and only hell.'--f. harrison, _creed of a lagman_, p. 72. {238} appendix xv mr. frederic harrison's creed 'is open to every objection which he so justly brings against what he regards as mr. spencer's creed. these reasons are broad, common, and familiar. so far as i know they never have been, and i do not believe they ever will be, answered. the first objection is that humanity with a capital h (mr. harrison's god) is neither better nor worse fitted to be a god than his unknowable with a capital u. they are as much alike as six and half-a-dozen. each is a barren abstraction to which any one an attach any meaning he likes. humanity, as used by mr. harrison, is not an abstract name for those matters in which all human beings as such resemble each other, as, for instance, a human form and articulate speech.... humanity is a general name for all human beings who, in various ways, have contributed to the improvement of the human race. the positivist calendar which appropriates every day in the year for the commemoration of one or more of these benefactors of mankind is an attempt to give what a lawyer would call "further and better particulars" of the word. if this, or anything like this, be the meaning of mr. harrison's god, i must say that he, she, or it appears to me quite as ill-fitted for worship as the unknowable. how can a man worship an indefinite number of dead people, most of whom are unknown to him even by name, and many of whose characters {239} were exceedingly faulty, besides which the facts as to their lives are most imperfectly known? how can he in any way combine these people into a single object of thought? an object of worship must surely have such a degree of unity that it is possible to think about it as distinct from other things, as much unity at least as the english nation, the roman catholic church, the great western railway. no doubt these are abstract terms, but they are concrete enough for practical purposes. every one understands what is meant when it is asserted that the english nation is at war or at peace; that the pope is the head of the roman catholic church; that the great western railway has declared a dividend; but what is humanity? what can any one definitely assert or deny about it? how can any one meaning be affixed to the word so that one person can be said to use it properly and another to abuse it? it seems to me that it is as unknowable as the unknowable itself, and just as well, and just as ill, fitted to be an object of worship.'--sir james fitzjames stephen, 'the unknowable and unknown,' _nineteenth century_, june 1884. {240} appendix xvi 'deism and pantheism are both so irrational, so utterly inadequate to explain the simplest facts of our moral and spiritual life that neither of them can long hold mankind together. positivism, which has made a systematic and memorable attempt to fill the gap, itself bears witness to the craving of human nature for some stronger bond than such systems can supply; while its appreciation of the necessity of religion gives it an importance not possessed by mere agnosticism. yet it is impossible to look at an encyclopã¦dic attempt to grasp all knowledge and all history, such as that made by the founder of positivism, without a deep, oppressive sadness.... 'can men heap fact upon fact and connect science with science in a splendid hierarchy and find no better end than this? is such a review to come to this, that we must worship either actual humanity with all its meanness and wickedness, or ideal humanity which does not yet exist, and, if this world is all in all, may never come into being? ... for ideal humanity, however moral and enlightened, if unaided by god, as the posivitist holds, is still earth-bound and sense-bound.... we are told that it is common sense to recognise that much is beyond us. perfectly true. but it is not common sense to worship an ignorant and weak humanity which certainly made nothing, and has in itself no assurance {241} of continuance in the future, nay rather, a very clear probability of destruction, if simply left to itself. 'what positivism surely needs to give it hope and consistency is the doctrine of the logos, of the eternal word and reason, the creator, orderer, and sustainer of all things, who has taken a stainless human nature that he might make men capable of all knowledge. this divine humanity of the logos, drawing mankind into himself, is indeed worthy of all worship. in loving him, we learn really what it is to "live for others." in looking to him we cease from selfishness and pride. such a worship of humanity is not a mere baseless hope, but a reality appearing in the very midst of history, a reality apprehended by faith indeed, but by a faith always proving itself to those, and by those, who hold it fast in love. there is room, then, ample room, and a loud demand for the re-establishment of a christian philosophy based upon the incarnation.'--john wordsworth (bishop of salisbury), _the one religion_, pp. 307-309. {242} appendix xvii the invariable laws under which humanity is placed have received various names at different periods. destiny, fate, necessity, heaven, providence, all are so many names of one and the same conception: the laws which man feels himself under, and that without the power of escaping from them. we claim no exemption from the common lot. we only wish to draw out into consciousness the instinctive acceptance of the race, and to modify the spirit in which we regard them. we accept: so have all men. we obey: so have all men. we venerate: so have some in past ages or in other countries. we add but one other term--we love. we would perfect our submission and so reap the full benefits of submission in the improvement of our hearts and tempers. we take in conception the sum of the conditions of existence, and we give them an ideal being and a definite home in space, the second great creation which completes the central one of humanity. in the bosom of space we place the world, and we conceive of the world and this our mother earth as gladly welcomed to that bosom with the simplest and purest love, and we give our love in return. thou art folded, thou art lying in the light which is undying. 'thus we complete the trinity of our religion, humanity, the world, and space. so completed we recognise power to {243} give unity and definiteness to our thoughts, purity and warmth to our affections, scope and vigour to our activity. we recognise its powers to regulate our whole being, to give us that which it has so long been the aim of all religion to give--internal union. we recognise its power to raise us above ourselves and by intensifying the action of our unselfish instincts to bear down unto their due subordination our selfishness. we see in it yet unworked treasures. we count not ourselves to have apprehended but we press forward to the prize of our high calling. but even now whilst its full capabilities are unknown to us, before we have apprehended, we find enough in it to guide and strengthen us.'--'_the new religion in its attitude towards the old_: a sermon preached at south field, wandsworth, wednesday, 19th moses 71 (19th january 1859), on the anniversary of the birth of auguste comte, 19th january 1798, by richard congreve.' j. chapman: 8 king william street, strand, london. {244} appendix xviii 'we have compared positivism where it is thought to be strongest with christianity where it is thought to be weakest. and if the result of the comparison even then has been unfavourable to positivism, how will the account stand if every element in christianity be taken into consideration? the religion of humanity seems specially fitted to meet the tastes of that comparatively small and prosperous class who are unwilling to leave the dry bones of agnosticism wholly unclothed with any living tissue of religious emotion, and who are at the same time fortunate enough to be able to persuade themselves that they are contributing, or may contribute, by their individual efforts to the attainment of some great ideal for mankind. but what has it to say to the more obscure multitude who are absorbed, and wellnigh overwhelmed, in the constant struggle with daily needs and narrow cares, who have but little leisure or inclination to consider the precise rã´le they are called on to play in the great drama of "humanity," and who might in any case be puzzled to discover its interest or its importance? can it assure them that there is no human being so insignificant as not to be of infinite worth in the eyes of him who created the heavens, or so feeble but that his action may have consequence of infinite moment long after this material system shall have crumbled into nothingness? does it offer consolation to those who are in grief, hope to those who {245} are bereaved, strength to the weak, forgiveness to the sinful, rest to those who are weary and heavy laden? if not, then whatever be its merits, it is no rival to christianity. it cannot penetrate or vivify the inmost life of ordinary humanity. there is in it no nourishment for ordinary human souls, no comfort for ordinary human sorrow, no help for ordinary human weakness. not less than the crudest irreligion does it leave us men divorced from all communion with god, face to face with the unthinking energies of nature which gave us birth, and into which, if supernatural religion be indeed a dream, we must after a few fruitless struggles be again resolved.'--right hon. arthur j. balfour, _the religion of humanity_. {246} appendix xix 'truly if humanity has no higher prospects than those which await it from the service of its modern worshippers its prospects are dark indeed. its "normal state" is a vague and distant future. but better things may yet be hoped for when the true light from heaven shall enlighten every man, and the love of goodness shall everywhere come from the love of god, and nobleness of life from the perfect example of the lord.'--john tulloch, d.d. ll.d., _modern theories in philosophy and religion_, p. 86. {247} appendix xx mr. frederic harrison came under the influence of both the newmans. 'john henry newman led me on to his brother francis, whose beautiful nature and subtle intelligence i now began to value. his _phases of faith, the soul, the hebrew monarchy_ deeply impressed me. i was not prepared either to accept all this heterodoxy nor yet to reject it; and i patiently waited till an answer could be found.'--_the creed of a layman_. {248} appendix xxi even mr. voysey admits the constraining power of the cross: 'that is still the noblest, most sublime picture in the whole bible, where the christ is hanging on the cross, and the tears and blood flow trickling down, and the last words heard from his lips are "father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." that love and pity will for ever endure as the type and symbol of what is most divine in the heart of man. thank god! it has been repeated and repeated in the lives and deaths of millions besides the christ of calvary. but wherever found it still claims the admiration, and wins the homage of every human heart, and is the crowning glory of the human race.--c. voysey, _religion for all mankind_, p. 105. {249} appendix xxii 'not only the syrian superstition must be attacked, but also the belief in a personal god which engenders a slavish and oriental condition of the mind, and the belief in a posthumous reward which engenders a selfish and solitary condition of the heart. these beliefs are, therefore, injurious to human nature. they lower its dignity, they arrest its development, they isolate its affections. we shall not deny that many beautiful sentiments are often mingled with the faith in a personal deity, and with the hopes of happiness in a future state; yet we maintain that, however refined they may appear, they are selfish at the core, and that if removed they will be replaced by sentiments of a nobler and purer kind.'--winwood reade, _martyrdom of man_, p. 543. {250} appendix xxiii 'there is a servile deference paid, even by christians, to incompetent judges of christianity. they abjectly look to men of the world, to scholars, to statesmen, for testimonies to the everlasting and self-evidencing verities of heaven! and if they can gather up, from the writings or speeches of these men, some patronising notices of religion, some incidental compliment to the civilising influence of the bible, or to the aesthetic proprieties of worship, or to the moral sublimity of the character or gospel of christ, they forthwith proclaim these tributes as lending some great confirmation to the truth of god! so we persist in asking, not "is it true? true to our souls?" or, "has the lord said it?" but, "what say the learned men, the influential men, the eloquent men?" shame upon these time-serving concessions, as unmanly as they are fallacious. go back to the hovels, rather, and take the witnessing of the illiterate souls whose hearts, waiting there in poverty or pain, or under the shadow of some great affliction, the lord himself hath opened.'--f. d. huntingdon, _christian believing and living_. {251} appendix xxiv 'it is foreign to our purpose to discuss the various theories which have been advanced to explain the genesis and power of the christian religion from the cynical gibbon to the sentimental renan and the rationalist strauss. one remark may be permitted. it has been our lot to read an immense amount of literature on this subject, and with no bias in the orthodox direction, we are bound to admit that no theory has yet appeared which from purely natural causes explains the remarkable life and marvellous influence of the founder of christianity.'--hector macpherson, _books to read and how to head them_. {252} appendix xxv the song of a heathen sojourning in galilee, a.d. 32. if jesus christ is a man, and only a man, i say that of all mankind i cleave to him, and to him will i cleave alway. if jesus christ is a god, and the only god, i swear i will follow him through heaven and hell, the earth, the sea, and the air! richard watson gilder. {253} appendix xxvi 'i distinguish absolutely between the character of jesus and the character of christianity--in other words between jesus of nazareth and jesus the christ. shorn of all supernatural pretensions, jesus emerges from the great mass of human beings as an almost perfect type of simplicity, veracity, and natural affection. "love one another" was the alpha and omega of his teaching, and he carried out the precept through every hour of his too brief life.... but how blindly, how foolishly my critics have interpreted the inner spirit of my argument, how utterly have they failed to realise that the whole aim of the work is to justify jesus against the folly, the cruelty, the infamy, the ignorance of the creed upbuilt upon his grave. i show in cipher, as it were, that those who crucified him once would crucify him again, were he to return amongst us. i imply that among the first to crucify him would be the members of his own church. but nowhere surely do i imply that his soul, in its purely personal elements, in its tender and sympathising humanity was not the very divinest that ever wore earth about it.'--robert buchanan in letter of january 1892 to _daily chronicle_ regarding his poem _the wandering jew_. _robert buchanan: his life, life's work, and life's friendships_, by harriett jay, pp. 274-5. {254} appendix xxvii 'i do not believe i have any personal immortality. i am part of an immortality perhaps, but that is different. i am not the continuing thing. i personally am experimental, incidental. i feel i have to do something, a number of things no one else could do, and then i am finished, and finished altogether. then my substance returns to the common lot. i am a temporary enclosure for a temporary purpose: that served, and my skull and teeth, my idiosyncrasy and desire will disperse, i believe, like the timbers of the booth after a fair.'--h. g. wells, _first and last things_, p. 80. {255} appendix xxviii 'the estate of man upon this earth of ours may in course of time be vastly improved. so much seems to be promised by the recent achievements of science, whose advance is in geometrical progression, each discovery giving birth to several more. increase of health and extension of life by sanitary, dietetic, and gymnastic improvement; increase of wealth by invention and of leisure by the substitution of machinery for labour: more equal distribution of wealth with its comforts and refinements; diffusion of knowledge; political improvement; elevation of the domestic affections and social sentiments; unification of mankind and elimination of war through ascendency of reason over passion--all these things may be carried to an indefinite extent, and may produce what in comparison with the present estate of man would be a terrestrial paradise. selection and the merciless struggle for existence may be in some measure superseded by selection of a more scientific and merciful kind. death may be deprived at all events of its pangs. on the other hand, the horizon does not appear to be clear of cloud.... let our fancy suppose the most chimerical of utopias realised in a commonwealth of man. mortal life prolonged to any conceivable extent is but a span. still over every festal board in the community of terrestrial bliss will be cast the shadow of approaching death; and the sweeter life becomes the more bitter death will be. {256} the more bitter it will be at least to the ordinary man, and the number of philosophers like john stuart mill is small.'--goldwin smith: _guesses at the riddle of existence_ ('is there another life?'). 'in return for all of which they have deprived us, some prophets of modern science are disposed to show us in the future a city of god _minus_ god, a paradise _minus_ the tree of life, a millennium with education to perfect the intellect, and sanitary improvements to emancipate the body from a long catalogue of evils. sorrow no doubt will not be abolished; immortality will not be bestowed. but we shall have comfortable and perfectly drained houses to be wretched in. the news of our misfortunes, the tidings that turn the hair white, and break the strong man's heart will be conveyed to us from the ends of the earth by the agency of a telegraphic system without a flaw. the closing eye may cease to look to the land beyond the river; but in our last moments we shall be able to make a choice between patent furnaces for the cremation of our remains, and coffins of the most charming description for their preservation when desiccated.'--archbishop alexander: _witness of the psalms to christ and christianity_, p. 48. {257} authorities consulted abbott, e. a., _through nature to christ_. armstrong, e. a., _back to jesus; man's knowledge of god; agnosticism and theism in the nineteenth century_. arthur, w., _god without religion; religion without god_. aveling, f. (edited by), _westminster lectures_. balfour, a. j., _religion of humanity; foundations of belief_. ballard, f., _clarion fallacies; miracles of unbelief_. _barker, joseph, life of_. barry, w., _heralds of revolt_. bartlett, r. e., _the letter and the spirit_. besant, annie, _esoteric christianity_. blatchford, r., _god and my neighbour_. blau, paul, '_wenn ihr mich kennetet_.' bousset, w., _jesus; what is religion?; the faith of a modern protestant_. brace, g. loring, _gesta christi_. bremond, h., 'christus vivit' (epilogue of _l'inquiã©tude religieuse_). broglie, l'abbã© paul de, _problã¨mes et conclusions; la morale sans dieu_. brooks, phillips, bishop, _the influence of jesus_. butler, bishop, _the analogy of religion_. {258} caird, e., _the evolution of religion; the social philosophy and religion of comte_. caird, j., _fundamental ideas of christianity_. cairns, d. s., _christianity in the modern world_. carey, vivian, _parsons and pagans_. caro, e., _l'idã©e de dieu et ses nouveaux critiques; ã�tudes morales; problã¨mes de morale sociale_. chesterton, g. k., _heretics; orthodoxy_. church, k. w., _gifts of civilization; pascal and other sermons_. clarke, j. freeman, _steps to belief_. cobbe, frances power, _a faithless world; broken lights; autobiography_. coit, stanton, _national idealism and a state church_. comte, auguste, _catechism of positive religion_ (translated by richard congreve). _contentio veritatis_. conway, moncure d., _the earthward pilgrimage_. craufurd, a. h., _christian instincts and modern doubt_. crooker, j. h., _the supremacy of jesus_. d'alviella, g., _revolution religieuse contemporaine_. davies, o. maurice, _heterodox london_. davies, llewelyn, _morality according to the lord's supper_. _do we believe_? (correspondence from _daily telegraph_.) drawbridge, c. l., _is religion undermined_? drummond, j., _via, veritas, vita_. du bose, w. p., _the gospel and the gospels_. eaton, j. r. t., _the permanence of christianity_. faber, hans, _das christentum der zukunft_. fairbairn, a. m., _christ in modern theology_. {259} farrar, a. s., _critical history of free thought_. farrar, f. w., _seekers after god; witness of history to christ_. fiske, john, _the idea of god as affected by modern knowledge; through nature to god; man's destiny_. fitchett, w. h., _beliefs of unbelief_. flint, r., _theism; anti-theistic theories_. footman, h., _reasonable apprehensions and reassuring hints_. fordyce, j., _aspects of scepticism_. forrest, d. w., _the christ of history and of experience_. frommel, gaston, _ã�tudes religieuses et sociales; ã�tudes morales et religieuses_. gindraux, j., _le christ et la pensã©e moderne_ (translation from pfennigsdorf). gladden, washington, _how much is left of the old doctrines_? gore, o., bishop, _the incarnation of the son of god; the christian creed_. guyau, m., _l'irrã©ligion de l'avenir; la morale sans sanction_. haeckel, e., _riddle of the universe; the confession of faith of a man of science_. harnack, adolf, _what is christianity?; christianity and history_. harrison, a. j., _problems of christianity and scepticism_. harrison, frederic, _memories and thoughts; the creed of a layman_. haw, george (edited by), _religious doubts of democracy_. henson, h. hensley, _popular rationalism; the value of the bible_. hillis, n. d., _influence of christ in modern life_. {260} hoffmann, f. s., _the sphere of religion_. hunt, jasper b., _good without god_. hunt, john, _christianity and pantheism_. hutton, r. h., _essays theological and literary; contemporary thought and thinkers; aspects of religious and scientific thought_. huxley, t. h., _evolution and ethics_. illingworth, j. r., _personality human and divine; divine immanence_. _is christianity true_? (lectures in central hall, manchester). jastrow, morris, _the study of religion_. jefferies, richard, _the story of my heart: my autobiography_. jones, harry (edited by), _some urgent questions in christian lights_. kutter, herrmann, _sie mã¼ssen_. lecky, w. e. h., _history of european morals_. liddon, h. p., _the divinity of our lord and saviour jesus christ; some elements of religion_. lilly, w. s., _the great enigma; the claims of christianity_. lodge, sir oliver, _the substance of faith_. lucas, bernard, _the faith of a christian_. _lux hominum_. _lux mundi_. maitland, brownlow, _theism or agnosticism; steps to faith_. mallock, w. h., _reconstruction of belief_. {261} marson, o. l., _following of christ_. martin, a. s., 'christ in modern thought' (hastings's _dictionary of christ and the gospels_, appendix). martineau, harriet, _autobiography_. martineau, james, _ideal substitutes for god; a study of religion; hours of thought_. matheson, g., _growth of the spirit of christianity_. matheson, a. scott, _the gospel and modern substitutes_. menzies, allan, _s. paul's view of the divinity of christ_. menzies, p. s., 'christian pantheism' (in _sermons_). momerie, a. w., _belief in god; immortality; origin of evil_. monod, wilfrid, _aux croyants et aux athã©es; peut-on rester chrã©tien_? mories, a. s., _haeckel's contribution to religion_. morison, j. cotter, _the service of man_. mozoomdar, protab chandra, _the oriental christ_. myers, f. w. h., _modern essays_. naville, ernest, _le pã¨re cã©leste; le christ; le temoignage du christ et l'unitã© du monde chrã©tien_. neumann, arno, _jesus_. newman, f. w., _the soul: its sorrows and aspirations; phases of faith_. nolloth, c. f., _the person of our lord and recent thought_. oxenham, h. n., _essays ethical and religious_. _oxford house tracts_. palmer, w. s., _an agnostic's progress; the church and modern men_. peile, j. h. f., _the reproach of the gospel_. pfannmã¼ller, gustav, _jesus im urteil der jahrhunderte_. {262} picard, l'abbã©, _christianity or agnosticism?; la transcendance de jã©sus christ_. picton, j. allanson, _the religion of the universe; pantheism: its story and significance_. plumptre, e. h., _christ and christendom_. _present day tracts_ (r. t. s.). pringle-pattison, a. seth, _man's place in the cosmos_. reade, winwood, _the martyrdom of man; the outcast_. _religion and the modern mind_ (st. ninian's society lectures). renesse, _jesus christ and his apostles and disciples in the twentieth century_. robinson, o. h., _human nature a revelation of the divine; studies in the character of christ_. romanes, g. j., _thoughts on religion_. sabatier, a., _the religions of authority and the religion of the spirit_. sanday, w., _life of christ in recent research_. savage, m. j., _religion for to-day; the life beyond_. schmiedel, p. w., _jesus and modern criticism_. seaver, r. w., _to christ through criticism_. _secularist's manual_. seeley, j. r., _ecce homo; natural religion_. sen, keshub chunder, india asks, _who is christ_? sheldon, h. o., _unbelief in the nineteenth century_. simpson, p. carnegie, _the fact of christ_. smith, goldwin, _guesses at the riddle of existence; lectures on the study of history; the founder of christianity_. smyth, newman, _old faiths in new light_. stanley, a. p., 'theology of the nineteenth century' (in _essays on church and state_); _christian institutions_. {263} stephen, j. fitzjames, 'the unknowable and unknown' (_nineteenth century_, june 1884); _liberty, equality, and fraternity_. stephen, leslie, _an agnostic's apology; english thought in the eighteenth century_. swete, h. b. (edited by), _cambridge theological essays_. swift, dean, _the abolishing of christianity_. _topics for the times_ (s. p. c. k.). tulloch, j., _modern theories in theology and philosophy; movements of religious thought_. van dyke, h., _the gospel for an age of doubt; the gospel for a world of sin_. vivian, philip, _the churches and modern thought_. voysey, c., _religion for all mankind_. wace, h., _christianity and morality_. wallace, alfred russel, _man's place in the universe_. warschauer, j., _the new evangel; jesus: seven questions; anti-nunquam; jesus or christ?_ watkinson, w. l., _influence of scepticism on character_. weinel, h., _jesus im nevmzehnten jahrhundert_. welsh, r. e., _in relief of doubt_. wells, h. g., _first and last things, a confession of faith and rule of life_. wilson, j. m., _problems of religion and science_. wimmer, r., _my struggle for light_. wordsworth, john, bishop, _the one religion_. young, john, _the christ of history_. {265} index abbott, edwin a., 117. alexander, archbishop, 256. amiel, h. f., 55. anthropomorphism, 65, 68, 82. arnold, matthew, 208. 'back to christ,' 212. balfour, a. j., 244. bartlett, r. e., 161. besant, mrs., 197. blatchford, robert, 7, 20, 221. browning, robert, 65, 200. buchanan, robert, 253. butler, bishop, 10, 139. caird, principal, 112. calendar, positivist, 108. _caliban upon setebos_, 65. carey, vivian, 6, 26. chesterton, g. k., 113. christ the only way, 129, 207. ---the substance of christianity, 173. christianity, influence of, 24, 28. ---misrepresentation of, 18, 223. christians, inconsistency of, 16, 19, 213, 222, 253. _christmas eve_, 200. church, dean, 9. clifford, w. k., 103. cobbe, frances power, 144, 149. coit, dr. stanton, 41. comte, auguste, 103. congreve, richard, 115, 242. conway, moncure d., 8. cowper, william, 78. criticism, 173. deism, 139, 143, 164, 236, 240. de vere, aubrey, 101. eliot, george, 56, 208. enemies, witness of, 177. fã©nelon, 78. fiske, john, 100. gilder, r. w., 252. gore, bishop, 136, 236. great being of positivism, 106, 112, 114. haeckel, 71. harrison, frederic, 84, 96, 102, 108, 110, 237, 238. hughes, hugh price, 223. humanity, christ, the ideal of, 118. ---religion of, 93, 103, 105, 237, 238, 242. huntingdon, bishop, 250. immortality, denial of, 54, 60, 254. impeachments of christianity, 12, 249. incarnation, 48, 96. jefferies, richard, 73. law, william, 78. lefã¨vre, a., 188. macpherson, hector, 251. man, 93. martineau, harriet, 220. ---james, 227. material progress, 255, 256. matheson, george, 224. mediation, 157. menzies, p. s., 233, 234. mill, john stuart, 208. montaigne, 23. morality and religion, 33, 39, 146, 229, 230. ---religion without, 34. mozoomdar, p. c., 196. myers, f. w. h., 56. newman, f. w., 144, 247. nietzsche, 220. pantheism, 65, 81, 233, 234, 236. personality of god, 44, 70, 147, 233. picton, j. allanson, 87. pope, alexander, 78. positivism, 93, 103, 211. prayer, 43. reade, winwood, 5, 120, 249. renan, e., 192. roberts, w. page-, dean, 112. robertson, frederick william, 118, 228. sabatier, a., 158. schleiermacher, 77. schmiedel, p. w., 184. shelley, 13, 98. sin, sense of, 86. smith, goldwin, 226, 255. spencer, herbert, 71. spinoza, 76. stanley, dean, 77. stephen, sir j. f., 50, 58, 238. ---sir leslie, 16. strauss, d. f., 195. swift, dean, 10, 219. tennyson, 60, 79, 212. 'theism,' 127, 150, 164. thomson, james, 78. tulloch, john, 246. uniqueness of christ, 199, 252. vivian, philip, 5, 229. voltaire, 139, 168. voysey, rev. charles, 153, 248. wallace, alfred russel, 100. warschauer, j., 159, 203. watts, charles, 7. wells, h. g., 189, 254. wesley, john, 222. wimmer, r., 193. woolman, john, 222. wordsworth, john, bishop, 240. ---william, 79. printed by t. and a. constable, printers to his majesty at the edinburgh university press the expositors library cloth, 2/net each volume. the new evangelism. prof. henry drummond, f.r.s.e. the mind of the master. rev. john watson, d.d. the teaching of jesus concerning himself. rev. prof. james stalker, d.d. fellowship with christ. rev. r. w. dale, d.d., ll.d. studies on the new testament. prof. f. godet, d.d. the life of the master. rev. john watson, d.d. studies of the portrait of christ.- vol. i. rev. george matheson, d.d. studies of the portrait of christ.- vol. ii. rev. george matheson, d.d. the jewish temple and the christian church. rev. r. w. dale, d.d., ll.d. the ten commandments. rev. r. w. dale, d.d., ll.d. the fact of christ. rev. p. carnegie simpson, m.a. the cross in modern life. rev. j. g. greenhough, m.a. heroes and martyrs of faith. prof. a. s. peake, d.d. a guide to preachers. principal a. e. garvie, m.a., d.d. modern substitutes for christianity. rev. p. mcadam muir, d.d. ephesian studies. right rev. h. c. g. moule, d.d. the unchanging christ. rev. alex mclaren, d.d., d.litt. the god of the amen. rev. alex mclaren, d.d., d.litt. the ascent through christ. rev. e. griffith jones, b.a. studies on the old testament. prof. f. godet, d.d. london: hodder and stoughton auguste comte and positivism by john stuart mill 1865. * * * * * part i. the cours de philosophie positive. for some time much has been said, in england and on the continent, concerning "positivism" and "the positive philosophy." those phrases, which during the life of the eminent thinker who introduced them had made their way into no writings or discussions but those of his very few direct disciples, have emerged from the depths and manifested themselves on the surface of the philosophy of the age. it is not very widely known what they represent, but it is understood that they represent something. they are symbols of a recognised mode of thought, and one of sufficient importance to induce almost all who now discuss the great problems of philosophy, or survey from any elevated point of view the opinions of the age, to take what is termed the positivist view of things into serious consideration, and define their own position, more or less friendly or hostile, in regard to it. indeed, though the mode of thought expressed by the terms positive and positivism is widely spread, the words themselves are, as usual, better known through the enemies of that mode of thinking than through its friends; and more than one thinker who never called himself or his opinions by those appellations, and carefully guarded himself against being confounded with those who did, finds himself, sometimes to his displeasure, though generally by a tolerably correct instinct, classed with positivists, and assailed as a positivist. this change in the bearings of philosophic opinion commenced in england earlier than in france, where a philosophy of a contrary kind had been more widely cultivated, and had taken a firmer hold on the speculative minds of a generation formed by royer-collard, cousin, jouffroy, and their compeers. the great treatise of m. comte was scarcely mentioned in french literature or criticism, when it was already working powerfully on the minds of many british students and thinkers. but, agreeably to the usual course of things in france, the new tendency, when it set in, set in more strongly. those who call themselves positivists are indeed not numerous; but all french writers who adhere to the common philosophy, now feel it necessary to begin by fortifying their position against "the positivist school." and the mode of thinking thus designated is already manifesting its importance by one of the most unequivocal signs, the appearance of thinkers who attempt a compromise or _juste milieu_ between it and its opposite. the acute critic and metaphysician m. taine, and the distinguished chemist m. berthelot, are the authors of the two most conspicuous of these attempts. the time, therefore, seems to have come, when every philosophic thinker not only ought to form, but may usefully express, a judgment respecting this intellectual movement; endeavouring to understand what it is, whether it is essentially a wholesome movement, and if so, what is to be accepted and what rejected of the direction given to it by its most important movers. there cannot be a more appropriate mode of discussing these points than in the form of a critical examination of the philosophy of auguste comte; for which the appearance of a new edition of his fundamental treatise, with a preface by the most eminent, in every point of view, of his professed disciples, m. littré, affords a good opportunity. the name of m. comte is more identified than any other with this mode of thought. he is the first who has attempted its complete systematization, and the scientific extension of it to all objects of human knowledge. and in doing this he has displayed a quantity and quality of mental power, and achieved an amount of success, which have not only won but retained the high admiration of thinkers as radically and strenuously opposed as it is possible to be, to nearly the whole of his later tendencies, and to many of his earlier opinions. it would have been a mistake had such thinkers busied themselves in the first instance with drawing attention to what they regarded as errors in his great work. until it had taken the place in the world of thought which belonged to it, the important matter was not to criticise it, but to help in making it known. to have put those who neither knew nor were capable of appreciating the greatness of the book, in possession of its vulnerable points, would have indefinitely retarded its progress to a just estimation, and was not needful for guarding against any serious inconvenience. while a writer has few readers, and no influence except on independent thinkers, the only thing worth considering in him is what he can teach us: if there be anything in which he is less wise than we are already, it may be left unnoticed until the time comes when his errors can do harm. but the high place which m. comte has now assumed among european thinkers, and the increasing influence of his principal work, while they make it a more hopeful task than before to impress and enforce the strong points of his philosophy, have rendered it, for the first time, not inopportune to discuss his mistakes. whatever errors he may have fallen into are now in a position to be injurious, while the free exposure of them can no longer be so. we propose, then, to pass in review the main principles of m. comte's philosophy; commencing with the great treatise by which, in this country, he is chiefly known, and postponing consideration of the writings of the last ten years of his life, except for the occasional illustration of detached points. when we extend our examination to these later productions, we shall have, in the main, to reverse our judgment. instead of recognizing, as in the cours de philosophic positive, an essentially sound view of philosophy, with a few capital errors, it is in their general character that we deem the subsequent speculations false and misleading, while in the midst of this wrong general tendency, we find a crowd of valuable thoughts, and suggestions of thought, in detail. for the present we put out of the question this signal anomaly in m. comte's intellectual career. we shall consider only the principal gift which he has left to the world, his clear, full, and comprehensive exposition, and in part creation, of what he terms the positive philosophy: endeavouring to sever what in our estimation is true, from the much less which is erroneous, in that philosophy as he conceived it, and distinguishing, as we proceed, the part which is specially his, from that which belongs to the philosophy of the age, and is the common inheritance of thinkers. this last discrimination has been partially made in a late pamphlet, by mr herbert spencer, in vindication of his own independence of thought: but this does not diminish the utility of doing it, with a less limited purpose, here; especially as mr spencer rejects nearly all which properly belongs to m. comte, and in his abridged mode of statement does scanty justice to what he rejects. the separation is not difficult, even on the direct evidence given by m. comte himself, who, far from claiming any originality not really belonging to him, was eager to connect his own most original thoughts with every germ of anything similar which he observed in previous thinkers. the fundamental doctrine of a true philosophy, according to m. comte, and the character by which he defines positive philosophy, is the following:--we have no knowledge of anything but phaenomena; and our knowledge of phaenomena is relative, not absolute. we know not the essence, nor the real mode of production, of any fact, but only its relations to other facts in the way of succession or of similitude. these relations are constant; that is, always the same in the same circumstances. the constant resemblances which link phaenomena together, and the constant sequences which unite them as antecedent and consequent, are termed their laws. the laws of phaenomena are all we know respecting them. their essential nature, and their ultimate causes, either efficient or final, are unknown and inscrutable to us. m. comte claims no originality for this conception of human knowledge. he avows that it has been virtually acted on from the earliest period by all who have made any real contribution to science, and became distinctly present to the minds of speculative men from the time of bacon, descartes, and galileo, whom he regards as collectively the founders of the positive philosophy. as he says, the knowledge which mankind, even in the earliest ages, chiefly pursued, being that which they most needed, was _fore_knowledge: "savoir, pour prevoir." when they sought for the cause, it was mainly in order to control the effect or if it was uncontrollable, to foreknow and adapt their conduct to it. now, all foresight of phaenomena, and power over them, depend on knowledge of their sequences, and not upon any notion we may have formed respecting their origin or inmost nature. we foresee a fact or event by means of facts which are signs of it, because experience has shown them to be its antecedents. we bring about any fact, other than our own muscular contractions, by means of some fact which experience has shown to be followed by it. all foresight, therefore, and all intelligent action, have only been possible in proportion as men have successfully attempted to ascertain the successions of phaenomena. neither foreknowledge, nor the knowledge which is practical power, can be acquired by any other means. the conviction, however, that knowledge of the successions and co-existences of phaenomena is the sole knowledge accessible to us, could not be arrived at in a very early stage of the progress of thought. men have not even now left off hoping for other knowledge, nor believing that they have attained it; and that, when attained, it is, in some undefinable manner, greatly more precious than mere knowledge of sequences and co-existences. the true doctrine was not seen in its full clearness even by bacon, though it is the result to which all his speculations tend: still less by descartes. it was, however, correctly apprehended by newton.[1] but it was probably first conceived in its entire generality by hume, who carries it a step further than comte, maintaining not merely that the only causes of phaenomena which can be known to us are other phaenomena, their invariable antecedents, but that there is no other kind of causes: cause, as he interprets it, _means_ the invariable antecedent. this is the only part of hume's doctrine which was contested by his great adversary, kant; who, maintaining as strenuously as comte that we know nothing of things in themselves, of noumena, of real substances and real causes, yet peremptorily asserted their existence. but neither does comte question this: on the contrary, all his language implies it. among the direct successors of hume, the writer who has best stated and defended comte's fundamental doctrine is dr thomas brown. the doctrine and spirit of brown's philosophy are entirely positivist, and no better introduction to positivism than the early part of his lectures has yet been produced. of living thinkers we do not speak; but the same great truth formed the groundwork of all the speculative philosophy of bentham, and pre-eminently of james mill: and sir william hamilton's famous doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge has guided many to it, though we cannot credit sir william hamilton himself with having understood the principle, or been willing to assent to it if he had. the foundation of m. comte's philosophy is thus in no way peculiar to him, but the general property of the age, however far as yet from being universally accepted even by thoughtful minds. the philosophy called positive is not a recent invention of m. comte, but a simple adherence to the traditions of all the great scientific minds whose discoveries have made the human race what it is. m. comte has never presented it in any other light. but he has made the doctrine his own by his manner of treating it. to know rightly what a thing is, we require to know, with equal distinctness, what it is not. to enter into the real character of any mode of thought, we must understand what other modes of thought compete with it. m. comte has taken care that we should do so. the modes of philosophizing which, according to him, dispute ascendancy with the positive, are two in number, both of them anterior to it in date; the theological, and the metaphysical. we use the words theological, metaphysical, and positive, because they are chosen by m. comte as a vehicle for m. comte's ideas. any philosopher whose thoughts another person undertakes to set forth, has a right to require that it should be done by means of his own nomenclature. they are not, however, the terms we should ourselves choose. in all languages, but especially in english, they excite ideas other than those intended. the words positive and positivism, in the meaning assigned to them, are ill fitted to take, root in english soil; while metaphysical suggests, and suggested even to m. comte, much that in no way deserves to be included in his denunciation. the term theological is less wide of the mark, though the use of it as a term of condemnation implies, as we shall see, a greater reach of negation than need be included in the positive creed. instead of the theological we should prefer to speak of the personal, or volitional explanation of nature; instead of metaphysical, the abstractional or ontological: and the meaning of positive would be less ambiguously expressed in the objective aspect by phaenomenal, in the subjective by experiential. but m. comte's opinions are best stated in his own phraseology; several of them, indeed, can scarcely be presented in some of their bearings without it. the theological, which is the original and spontaneous form of thought, regards the facts of the universe as governed not by invariable laws of sequence, but by single and direct volitions of beings, real or imaginary, possessed of life and intelligence. in the infantile state of reason and experience, individual objects are looked upon as animated. the next step is the conception of invisible beings, each of whom superintends and governs an entire class of objects or events. the last merges this multitude of divinities in a single god, who made the whole universe in the beginning, and guides and carries on its phaenomena by his continued action, or, as others think, only modifies them from time to time by special interferences. the mode of thought which m. comte terms metaphysical, accounts for phaenomena by ascribing them, not to volitions either sublunary or celestial, but to realized abstractions. in this stage it is no longer a god that causes and directs each of the various agencies of nature: it is a power, or a force, or an occult quality, considered as real existences, inherent in but distinct from the concrete bodies in which they reside, and which they in a manner animate. instead of dryads presiding over trees, producing and regulating their phaenomena, every plant or animal has now a vegetative soul, the [greek: threptikè phygè] of aristotle. at a later period the vegetative soul has become a plastic force, and still later, a vital principle. objects now do all that they do because it is their essence to do so, or by reason of an inherent virtue. phaenomena are accounted for by supposed tendencies and propensities of the abstraction nature; which, though regarded as impersonal, is figured as acting on a sort of motives, and in a manner more or less analogous to that of conscious beings. aristotle affirms a tendency of nature towards the best, which helps him to a theory of many natural phaenomena. the rise of water in a pump is attributed to nature's horror of a vacuum. the fall of heavy bodies, and the ascent of flame and smoke, are construed as attempts of each to get to its _natural_ place. many important consequences are deduced from the doctrine that nature has no breaks (non habet saltum). in medicine the curative force (vis medicatrix) of nature furnishes the explanation of the reparative processes which modern physiologists refer each to its own particular agencies and laws. examples are not necessary to prove to those who are acquainted with the past phases of human thought, how great a place both the theological and the metaphysical interpretations of phaenomena have historically occupied, as well in the speculations of thinkers as in the familiar conceptions of the multitude. many had perceived before m. comte that neither of these modes of explanation was final: the warfare against both of them could scarcely be carried on more vigorously than it already was, early in the seventeenth century, by hobbes. nor is it unknown to any one who has followed the history of the various physical sciences, that the positive explanation of facts has substituted itself, step by step, for the theological and metaphysical, as the progress of inquiry brought to light an increasing number of the invariable laws of phaenomena. in these respects m. comte has not originated anything, but has taken his place in a fight long since engaged, and on the side already in the main victorious. the generalization which belongs to himself, and in which he had not, to the best of our knowledge, been at all anticipated, is, that every distinct class of human conceptions passes through all these stages, beginning with the theological, and proceeding through the metaphysical to the positive: the metaphysical being a mere state of transition, but an indispensable one, from the theological mode of thought to the positive, which is destined finally to prevail, by the universal recognition that all phaemomena without exception are governed by invariable laws, with which no volitions, either natural or supernatural, interfere. this general theorem is completed by the addition, that the theological mode of thought has three stages, fetichism, polytheism, and monotheism: the successive transitions being prepared, and indeed caused, by the gradual uprising of the two rival modes of thought, the metaphysical and the positive, and in their turn preparing the way for the ascendancy of these; first and temporarily of the metaphysical, finally of the positive. this generalization is the most fundamental of the doctrines which originated with m. comte; and the survey of history, which occupies the two largest volumes of the six composing his work, is a continuous exemplification and verification of the law. how well it accords with the facts, and how vast a number of the greater historical phaenomena it explains, is known only to those who have studied its exposition, where alone it can be found--in these most striking and instructive volumes. as this theory is the key to m. comte's other generalizations, all of which arc more or less dependent on it; as it forms the backbone, if we may so speak, of his philosophy, and, unless it be true, he has accomplished little; we cannot better employ part of our space than in clearing it from misconception, and giving the explanations necessary to remove the obstacles which prevent many competent persons from assenting to it. it is proper to begin by relieving the doctrine from a religious prejudice. the doctrine condemns all theological explanations, and replaces them, or thinks them destined to be replaced, by theories which take no account of anything but an ascertained order of phaenomena. it is inferred that if this change were completely accomplished, mankind would cease to refer the constitution of nature to an intelligent will or to believe at all in a creator and supreme governor of the world. this supposition is the more natural, as m. comte was avowedly of that opinion. he indeed disclaimed, with some acrimony, dogmatic atheism, and even says (in a later work, but the earliest contains nothing at variance with it) that the hypothesis of design has much greater verisimilitude than that of a blind mechanism. but conjecture, founded on analogy, did not seem to him a basis to rest a theory on, in a mature state of human intelligence. he deemed all real knowledge of a commencement inaccessible to us, and the inquiry into it an overpassing of the essential limits of our mental faculties. to this point, however, those who accept his theory of the progressive stages of opinion are not obliged to follow him. the positive mode of thought is not necessarily a denial of the supernatural; it merely throws back that question to the origin of all things. if the universe had a beginning, its beginning, by the very conditions of the case, was supernatural; the laws of nature cannot account for their own origin. the positive philosopher is free to form his opinion on the subject, according to the weight he attaches to the analogies which are called marks of design, and to the general traditions of the human race. the value of these evidences is indeed a question for positive philosophy, but it is not one upon which positive philosophers must necessarily be agreed. it is one of m. comte's mistakes that he never allows of open questions. positive philosophy maintains that within the existing order of the universe, or rather of the part of it known to us, the direct determining cause of every phaenomenon is not supernatural but natural. it is compatible with this to believe, that the universe was created, and even that it is continuously governed, by an intelligence, provided we admit that the intelligent governor adheres to fixed laws, which are only modified or counteracted by other laws of the same dispensation, and are never either capriciously or providentially departed from. whoever regards all events as parts of a constant order, each one being the invariable consequent of some antecedent condition, or combination of conditions, accepts fully the positive mode of thought: whether he acknowledges or not an universal antecedent on which the whole system of nature was originally consequent, and whether that universal antecedent is conceived as an intelligence or not. there is a corresponding misconception to be corrected respecting the metaphysical mode of thought. in repudiating metaphysics, m. comte did not interdict himself from analysing or criticising any of the abstract conceptions of the mind. he was not ignorant (though he sometimes seemed to forget) that such analysis and criticism are a necessary part of the scientific process, and accompany the scientific mind in all its operations. what he condemned was the habit of conceiving these mental abstractions as real entities, which could exert power, produce phaenomena, and the enunciation of which could be regarded as a theory or explanation of facts. men of the present day with difficulty believe that so absurd a notion was ever really entertained, so repugnant is it to the mental habits formed by long and assiduous cultivation of the positive sciences. but those sciences, however widely cultivated, have never formed the basis of intellectual education in any society. it is with philosophy as with religion: men marvel at the absurdity of other people's tenets, while exactly parallel absurdities remain in their own, and the same man is unaffectedly astonished that words can be mistaken for things, who is treating other words as if they were things every time he opens his mouth to discuss. no one, unless entirely ignorant of the history of thought, will deny that the mistaking of abstractions for realities pervaded speculation all through antiquity and the middle ages. the mistake was generalized and systematized in the famous ideas of plato. the aristotelians carried it on. essences, quiddities, virtues residing in things, were accepted as a _bonâ fide_ explanation of phaenomena. not only abstract qualities, but the concrete names of genera and species, were mistaken for objective existences. it was believed that there were general substances corresponding to all the familiar classes of concrete things: a substance man, a substance tree, a substance animal, which, and not the individual objects so called, were directly denoted by those names. the real existence of universal substances was the question at issue in the famous controversy of the later middle ages between nominalism and realism, which is one of the turning points in the history of thought, being its first struggle to emancipate itself from the dominion of verbal abstractions. the realists were the stronger party, but though the nominalists for a time succumbed, the doctrine they rebelled against fell, after a short interval, with the rest of the scholastic philosophy. but while universal substances and substantial forms, being the grossest kind of realized abstractions, were the soonest discarded, essences, virtues, and occult qualities long survived them, and were first completely extruded from real existence by the cartesians. in descartes' conception of science, all physical phaenomena were to be explained by matter and motion, that is, not by abstractions but by invariable physical laws: though his own explanations were many of them hypothetical, and turned out to be erroneous. long after him, however, fictitious entities (as they are happily termed by bentham) continued to be imagined as means of accounting for the more mysterious phaenomena; above all in physiology, where, under great varieties of phrase, mysterious _forces_ and _principles_ were the explanation, or substitute for explanation, of the phaenomena of organized beings. to modern philosophers these fictions are merely the abstract names of the classes of phaenomena which correspond to them; and it is one of the puzzles of philosophy, how mankind, after inventing a set of mere names to keep together certain combinations of ideas or images, could have so far forgotten their own act as to invest these creations of their will with objective reality, and mistake the name of a phaenomenon for its efficient cause. what was a mystery from the purely dogmatic point of view, is cleared up by the historical. these abstract words are indeed now mere names of phaenomena, but were not so in their origin. to us they denote only the phaenomena, because we have ceased to believe in what else they once designated; and the employment of them in explanation is to us evidently, as m. comte says, the naïf reproduction of the phaenomenon as the reason for itself: but it was not so in the beginning. the metaphysical point of view was not a perversion of the positive, but a transformation of the theological. the human mind, in framing a class of objects, did not set out from the notion of a name, but from that of a divinity. the realization of abstractions was not the embodiment of a word, but the gradual disembodiment of a fetish. the primitive tendency or instinct of mankind is to assimilate all the agencies which they perceive in nature, to the only one of which they are directly conscious, their own voluntary activity. every object which seems to originate power, that is, to act without being first visibly acted upon, to communicate motion without having first received it, they suppose to possess life, consciousness, will. this first rude conception of nature can scarcely, however, have been at any time extended to all phaenomena. the simplest observation, without which the preservation of life would have been impossible, must have pointed out many uniformities in nature, many objects which, under given circumstances, acted exactly like one another: and whenever this was observed, men's natural and untutored faculties led them to form the similar objects into a class, and to think of them together: of which it was a natural consequence to refer effects, which were exactly alike, to a single will, rather than to a number of wills precisely accordant. but this single will could not be the will of the objects themselves, since they were many: it must be the will of an invisible being, apart from the objects, and ruling them from an unknown distance. this is polytheism. we are not aware that in any tribe of savages or negroes who have been observed, fetichism has been found totally unmixed with polytheism, and it is probable that the two coexisted from the earliest period at which the human mind was capable of forming objects into classes. fetichism proper gradually becomes limited to objects possessing a marked individuality. a particular mountain or river is worshipped bodily (as it is even now by the hindoos and the south sea islanders) as a divinity in itself, not the mere residence of one, long after invisible gods have been imagined as rulers of all the great classes of phaenomena, even intellectual and moral, as war, love, wisdom, beauty, &c. the worship of the earth (tellus or pales) and of the various heavenly bodies, was prolonged into the heart of polytheism. every scholar knows, though _littérateurs_ and men of the world do not, that in the full vigour of the greek religion, the sun and moon, not a god and goddess thereof, were sacrificed to as deities--older deities than zeus and his descendants, belonging to the earlier dynasty of the titans (which was the mythical version of the fact that their worship was older), and these deities had a distinct set of fables or legends connected with them. the father of phaëthon and the lover of endymion were not apollo and diana, whose identification with the sungod and the moongoddess was a late invention. astrolatry, which, as m. comte observes, is the last form of fetichism, survived the other forms, partly because its objects, being inaccessible, were not so soon discovered to be in themselves inanimate, and partly because of the persistent spontaneousness of their apparent motions. as far as fetichism reached, and as long as it lasted, there was no abstraction, or classification of objects, and no room consequently for the metaphysical mode of thought. but as soon as the voluntary agent, whose will governed the phaenomenon, ceased to be the physical object itself, and was removed to an invisible position, from which he or she superintended an entire class of natural agencies, it began to seem impossible that this being should exert his powerful activity from a distance, unless through the medium of something present on the spot. through the same natural prejudice which made newton unable to conceive the possibility of his own law of gravitation without a subtle ether filling up the intervening space, and through which the attraction could be communicated--from this same natural infirmity of the human mind, it seemed indispensable that the god, at a distance from the object, must act through something residing in it, which was the immediate agent, the god having imparted to the intermediate something the power whereby it influenced and directed the object. when mankind felt a need for naming these imaginary entities, they called them the _nature_ of the object, or its _essence_, or _virtues_ residing in it, or by many other different names. these metaphysical conceptions were regarded as intensely real, and at first as mere instruments in the hands of the appropriate deities. but the habit being acquired of ascribing not only substantive existence, but real and efficacious agency, to the abstract entities, the consequence was that when belief in the deities declined and faded away, the entities were left standing, and a semblance of explanation of phaenomena, equal to what existed before, was furnished by the entities alone, without referring them to any volitions. when things had reached this point, the metaphysical mode of thought, had completely substituted itself for the theological. thus did the different successive states of the human intellect, even at an early stage of its progress, overlap one another, the fetichistic, the polytheistic, and the metaphysical modes of thought coexisting even in the same minds, while the belief in invariable laws, which constitutes the positive mode of thought, was slowly winning its way beneath them all, as observation and experience disclosed in one class of phaenomena after another the laws to which they are really subject. it was this growth of positive knowledge which principally determined the next transition in the theological conception of the universe, from polytheism to monotheism. it cannot be doubted that this transition took place very tardily. the conception of a unity in nature, which would admit of attributing it to a single will, is far from being natural to man, and only finds admittance after a long period of discipline and preparation, the obvious appearances all pointing to the idea of a government by many conflicting principles. we know how high a degree both of material civilization and of moral and intellectual development preceded the conversion of the leading populations of the world to the belief in one god. the superficial observations by which christian travellers have persuaded themselves that they found their own monotheistic belief in some tribes of savages, have always been contradicted by more accurate knowledge: those who have read, for instance, mr kohl's kitchigami, know what to think of the great spirit of the american indians, who belongs to a well-defined system of polytheism, interspersed with large remains of an original fetichism. we have no wish to dispute the matter with those who believe that monotheism was the primitive religion, transmitted to our race from its first parents in uninterrupted tradition. by their own acknowledgment, the tradition was lost by all the nations of the world except a small and peculiar people, in whom it was miraculously kept alive, but who were themselves continually lapsing from it, and in all the earlier parts of their history did not hold it at all in its full meaning, but admitted the real existence of other gods, though believing their own to be the most powerful, and to be the creator of the world. a greater proof of the unnaturalness of monotheism to the human mind before a certain period in its development, could not well be required. the highest form of monotheism, christianity, has persisted to the present time in giving partial satisfaction to the mental dispositions that lead to polytheism, by admitting into its theology the thoroughly polytheistic conception of a devil. when monotheism, after many centuries, made its way to the greeks and romans from the small corner of the world where it existed, we know how the notion of daemons facilitated its reception, by making it unnecessary for christians to deny the existence of the gods previously believed in, it being sufficient to place them under the absolute power of the new god, as the gods of olympus were already under that of zeus, and as the local deities of all the subjugated nations had been subordinated by conquest to the divine patrons of the roman state. in whatever mode, natural or supernatural, we choose to account for the early monotheism of the hebrews, there can be no question that its reception by the gentiles was only rendered possible by the slow preparation which the human mind had undergone from the philosophers. in the age of the caesars nearly the whole educated and cultivated class had outgrown the polytheistic creed, and though individually liable to returns of the superstition of their childhood, were predisposed (such of them as did not reject all religion whatever) to the acknowledgment of one supreme providence. it is vain to object that christianity did not find the majority of its early proselytes among the educated class: since, except in palestine, its teachers and propagators were mainly of that class--many of them, like st paul, well versed in the mental culture of their time; and they had evidently found no intellectual obstacle to the new doctrine in their own minds. we must not be deceived by the recrudescence, at a much later date, of a metaphysical paganism in the alexandrian and other philosophical schools, provoked not by attachment to polytheism, but by distaste for the political and social ascendancy of the christian teachers. the fact was, that monotheism had become congenial to the cultivated mind: and a belief which has gained the cultivated minds of any society, unless put down by force, is certain, sooner or later, to reach the multitude. indeed the multitude itself had been prepared for it, as already hinted, by the more and more complete subordination of all other deities to the supremacy of zeus; from which the step to a single deity, surrounded by a host of angels, and keeping in recalcitrant subjection an army of devils, was by no means difficult. by what means, then, had the cultivated minds of the roman empire been educated for monotheism? by the growth of a practical feeling of the invariability of natural laws. monotheism had a natural adaptation to this belief, while polytheism naturally and necessarily conflicted with it. as men could not easily, and in fact never did, suppose that beings so powerful had their power absolutely restricted, each to its special department, the will of any divinity might always be frustrated by another: and unless all their wills were in complete harmony (which would itself be the most difficult to credit of all cases of invariability, and would require beyond anything else the ascendancy of a supreme deity) it was impossible that the course of any of the phaenomena under their government could be invariable. but if, on the contrary, all the phaenomena of the universe were under the exclusive and uncontrollable influence of a single will, it was an admissible supposition that this will might be always consistent with itself, and might choose to conduct each class of its operations in an invariable manner. in proportion, therefore, as the invariable laws of phaenomena revealed themselves to observers, the theory which ascribed them all to one will began to grow plausible; but must still have appeared improbable until it had come to seem likely that invariability was the common rule of all nature. the greeks and romans at the christian era had reached a point of advancement at which this supposition had become probable. the admirable height to which geometry had already been carried, had familiarized the educated mind with the conception of laws absolutely invariable. the logical analysis of the intellectual processes by aristotle had shown a similar uniformity of law in the realm of mind. in the concrete external world, the most imposing phaenomena, those of the heavenly bodies, which by their power over the imagination had done most to keep up the whole system of ideas connected with supernatural agency, had been ascertained to take place in so regular an order as to admit of being predicted with a precision which to the notions of those days must have appeared perfect. and though an equal degree of regularity had not been discerned in natural phaenomena generally, even the most empirical observation had ascertained so many cases of an uniformity _almost_ complete, that inquiring minds were eagerly on the look-out for further indications pointing in the same direction; and vied with one another in the formation of theories which, though hypothetical and essentially premature, it was hoped would turn out to be correct representations of invariable laws governing large classes of phaenomena. when this hope and expectation became general, they were already a great encroachment on the original domain of the theological principle. instead of the old conception, of events regulated from day to day by the unforeseen and changeable volitions of a legion of deities, it seemed more and more probable that all the phaenomena of the universe took place according to rules which must have been planned from the beginning; by which conception the function of the gods seemed to be limited to forming the plans, and setting the machinery in motion: their subsequent office appeared to be reduced to a sinecure, or if they continued to reign, it was in the manner of constitutional kings, bound by the laws to which they had previously given their assent. accordingly, the pretension of philosophers to explain physical phaenomena by physical causes, or to predict their occurrence, was, up to a very late period of polytheism, regarded as a sacrilegious insult to the gods. anaxagoras was banished for it, aristotle had to fly for his life, and the mere unfounded suspicion of it contributed greatly to the condemnation of socrates. we are too well acquainted with this form of the religious sentiment even now, to have any difficulty in comprehending what must have been its violence then. it was inevitable that philosophers should be anxious to get rid of at least _these_ gods, and so escape from the particular fables which stood immediately in their way; accepting a notion of divine government which harmonized better with the lessons they learnt from the study of nature, and a god concerning whom no mythos, as far as they knew, had yet been invented. again, when the idea became prevalent that the constitution of every part of nature had been planned from the beginning, and continued to take place as it had been planned, this was itself a striking feature of resemblance extending through all nature, and affording a presumption that the whole was the work, not of many, but of the same hand. it must have appeared vastly more probable that there should be one indefinitely foreseeing intelligence and immovable will, than hundreds and thousands of such. the philosophers had not at that time the arguments which might have been grounded on universal laws not yet suspected, such as the law of gravitation and the laws of heat; but there was a multitude, obvious even to them, of analogies and homologies in natural phaenomena, which suggested unity of plan; and a still greater number were raised up by their active fancy, aided by their premature scientific theories, all of which aimed at interpreting some phaenomenon by the analogy of others supposed to be better known; assuming, indeed, a much greater similarity among the various processes of nature, than ampler experience has since shown to exist. the theological mode of thought thus advanced from polytheism to monotheism through the direct influence of the positive mode of thought, not yet aspiring to complete speculative ascendancy. but, inasmuch as the belief in the invariability of natural laws was still imperfect even in highly cultivated minds, and in the merest infancy in the uncultivated, it gave rise to the belief in one god, but not in an immovable one. for many centuries the god believed in was flexible by entreaty, was incessantly ordering the affairs of mankind by direct volitions, and continually reversing the course of nature by miraculous interpositions; and this is believed still, wherever the invariability of law has established itself in men's convictions as a general, but not as an universal truth. in the change from polytheism to monotheism, the metaphysical mode of thought contributed its part, affording great aid to the up-hill struggle which the positive spirit had to maintain against the prevailing form, of the theological. m. comte, indeed, has considerably exaggerated the share of the metaphysical spirit in this mental revolution, since by a lax use of terms he credits the metaphysical mode of thought with all that is due to dialectics and negative criticism--to the exposure of inconsistencies and absurdities in the received religions. but this operation is quite independent of the metaphysical mode of thought, and was no otherwise connected with it than in being very generally carried on by the same minds (plato is a brilliant example), since the most eminent efficiency in it does not necessarily depend on the possession of positive scientific knowledge. but the metaphysical spirit, strictly so called, did contribute largely to the advent of monotheism. the conception of impersonal entities, interposed between the governing deity and the phaenomena, and forming the machinery through which these are immediately produced, is not repugnant, as the theory of direct supernatural volitions is, to the belief in invariable laws. the entities not being, like the gods, framed after the exemplar of men--being neither, like them, invested with human passions, nor supposed, like them, to have power beyond the phaenomena which are the special department of each, there was no fear of offending them by the attempt to foresee and define their action, or by the supposition that it took place according to fixed laws. the popular tribunal which condemned anaxagoras had evidently not risen to the metaphysical point of view. hippocrates, who was concerned only with a select and instructed class, could say with impunity, speaking of what were called the god-inflicted diseases, that to his mind they were neither more nor less god-inflicted than all others. the doctrine of abstract entities was a kind of instinctive conciliation between the observed uniformity of the facts of nature, and their dependence on arbitrary volition; since it was easier to conceive a single volition as setting a machinery to work, which afterwards went on of itself, than to suppose an inflexible constancy in so capricious and changeable a thing as volition must then have appeared. but though the régime of abstractions was in strictness compatible with polytheism, it demanded monotheism as the condition of its free development. the received polytheism being only the first remove from fetichism, its gods were too closely mixed up in the daily details of phaenomena, and the habit of propitiating them and ascertaining their will before any important action of life was too inveterate, to admit, without the strongest shock to the received system, the notion that they did not habitually rule by special interpositions, but left phaenomena in all ordinary cases to the operation of the essences or peculiar natures which they had first implanted in them. any modification of polytheism which would have made it fully compatible with the metaphysical conception of the world, would have been more difficult to effect than the transition to monotheism, as monotheism was at first conceived. we have given, in our own way, and at some length, this important portion of m. comte's view of the evolution of human thought, as a sample of the manner in which his theory corresponds with and interprets historical facts, and also to obviate some objections to it, grounded on an imperfect comprehension, or rather on a mere first glance. some, for example, think the doctrine of the three successive stages of speculation and belief, inconsistent with the fact that they all three existed contemporaneously; much as if the natural succession of the hunting, the nomad, and the agricultural state could be refuted by the fact that there are still hunters and nomads. that the three states were contemporaneous, that they all began before authentic history, and still coexist, is m. comte's express statement: as well as that the advent of the two later modes of thought was the very cause which disorganized and is gradually destroying the primitive one. the theological mode of explaining phaenomena was once universal, with the exception, doubtless, of the familiar facts which, being even then seen to be controllable by human will, belonged already to the positive mode of thought. the first and easiest generalizations of common observation, anterior to the first traces of the scientific spirit, determined the birth of the metaphysical mode of thought; and every further advance in the observation of nature, gradually bringing to light its invariable laws, determined a further development of the metaphysical spirit at the expense of the theological, this being the only medium through which the conclusions of the positive mode of thought and the premises of the theological could be temporarily made compatible. at a later period, when the real character of the positive laws of nature had come to be in a certain degree understood, and the theological idea had assumed, in scientific minds, its final character, that of a god governing by general laws, the positive spirit, having now no longer need of the fictitious medium of imaginary entities, set itself to the easy task of demolishing the instrument by which it had risen. but though it destroyed the actual belief in the objective reality of these abstractions, that belief has left behind it vicious tendencies of the human mind, which are still far enough from being extinguished, and which we shall presently have occasion to characterize. the next point on which we have to touch is one of greater importance than it seems. if all human speculation had to pass through the three stages, we may presume that its different branches, having always been very unequally advanced, could not pass from one stage to another at the same time. there must have been a certain order of succession in which the different sciences would enter, first into the metaphysical, and afterwards into the purely positive stage; and this order m. comte proceeds to investigate. the result is his remarkable conception of a scale of subordination of the sciences, being the order of the logical dependence of those which follow on those which precede. it is not at first obvious how a mere classification of the sciences can be not merely a help to their study, but itself an important part of a body of doctrine; the classification, however, is a very important part of m. comte's philosophy. he first distinguishes between the abstract and the concrete sciences. the abstract sciences have to do with the laws which govern the elementary facts of nature; laws on which all phaenomena actually realized must of course depend, but which would have been equally compatible with many other combinations than those which actually come to pass. the concrete sciences, on the contrary, concern themselves only with the particular combinations of phaenomena which are found in existence. for example; the minerals which compose our planet, or are found in it, have been produced and are held together by the laws of mechanical aggregation and by those of chemical union. it is the business of the abstract sciences, physics and chemistry, to ascertain these laws: to discover how and under what conditions bodies may become aggregated, and what are the possible modes and results of chemical combination. the great majority of these aggregations and combinations take place, so far as we are aware, only in our laboratories; with these the concrete science, mineralogy, has nothing to do. its business is with those aggregates, and those chemical compounds, which form themselves, or have at some period been formed, in the natural world. again, physiology, the abstract science, investigates, by such means as are available to it, the general laws of organization and life. those laws determine what living beings are possible, and maintain the existence and determine the phaenomena of those which actually exist: but they would be equally capable of maintaining in existence plants and animals very different from these. the concrete sciences, zoology and botany, confine themselves to species which really exist, or can be shown to have really existed: and do not concern themselves with the mode in which even these would comport themselves under all circumstances, but only under those which really take place. they set forth the actual mode of existence of plants and animals, the phaenomena which they in fact present: but they set forth all of these, and take into simultaneous consideration the whole real existence of each species, however various the ultimate laws on which it depends, and to whatever number of different abstract sciences these laws may belong. the existence of a date tree, or of a lion, is a joint result of many natural laws, physical, chemical, biological, and even astronomical. abstract science deals with these laws separately, but considers each of them in all its aspects, all its possibilities of operation: concrete science considers them only in combination, and so far as they exist and manifest themselves in the animals or plants of which we have experience. the distinctive attributes of the two are summed up by m. comte in the expression, that concrete science relates to beings, or objects, abstract science to events.[2] the concrete sciences are inevitably later in their development than the abstract sciences on which they depend. not that they begin later to be studied; on the contrary, they are the earliest cultivated, since in our abstract investigations we necessarily set out from spontaneous facts. but though we may make empirical generalizations, we can form no scientific theory of concrete phaenomena until the laws which govern and explain them are first known; and those laws are the subject of the abstract sciences. in consequence, there is not one of the concrete studies (unless we count astronomy among them) which has received, up to the present time, its final scientific constitution, or can be accounted a science, except in a very loose sense, but only materials for science: partly from insufficiency of facts, but more, because the abstract sciences, except those at the very beginning of the scale, have not attained the degree of perfection necessary to render real concrete sciences possible. postponing, therefore, the concrete sciences, as not yet formed, but only tending towards formation, the abstract sciences remain to be classed. these, as marked out by m. comte, are six in number; and the principle which he proposes for their classification is admirably in accordance with the conditions of our study of nature. it might have happened that the different classes of phaenomena had depended on laws altogether distinct; that in changing from one to another subject of scientific study, the student left behind all the laws he previously knew, and passed under the dominion of a totally new set of uniformities. the sciences would then have been wholly independent of one another; each would have rested entirely on its own inductions, and if deductive at all, would have drawn its deductions from premises exclusively furnished by itself. the fact, however, is otherwise. the relation which really subsists between different kinds of phaenomena, enables the sciences to be arranged in such an order, that in travelling through them we do not pass out of the sphere of any laws, but merely take up additional ones at each step. in this order m. comte proposes to arrange them. he classes the sciences in an ascending series, according to the degree of complexity of their phaenomena; so that each science depends on the truths of all those which precede it, with the addition of peculiar truths of its own. thus, the truths of number are true of all things, and depend only on their own laws; the science, therefore, of number, consisting of arithmetic and algebra, may be studied without reference to any other science. the truths of geometry presuppose the laws of number, and a more special class of laws peculiar to extended bodies, but require no others: geometry, therefore, can be studied independently of all sciences except that of number. rational mechanics presupposes, and depends on, the laws of number and those of extension, and along with them another set of laws, those of equilibrium and motion. the truths of algebra and geometry nowise depend on these last, and would have been true if these had happened to be the reverse of what we find them: but the phaenomena of equilibrium and motion cannot be understood, nor even stated, without assuming the laws of number and extension, such as they actually are. the phaenomena of astronomy depend on these three classes of laws, and on the law of gravitation besides; which last has no influence on the truths of number, geometry, or mechanics. physics (badly named in common english parlance natural philosophy) presupposes the three mathematical sciences, and also astronomy; since all terrestrial phaenomena are affected by influences derived from the motions of the earth and of the heavenly bodies. chemical phaenomena depend (besides their own laws) on all the preceding, those of physics among the rest, especially on the laws of heat and electricity; physiological phaenomena, on the laws of physics and chemistry, and their own laws in addition. the phaenomena of human society obey laws of their own, but do not depend solely upon these: they depend upon all the laws of organic and animal life, together with those of inorganic nature, these last influencing society not only through their influence on life, but by determining the physical conditions under which society has to be carried on. "chacun de ces degré's successifs exige des inductions qui lui sont propres; mais elles ne peuvent jamais devenir systématiques que sous l'impulsion déductive resultée de tous les ordres moins compliqués."[3] thus arranged by m. comte in a series, of which each term represents an advance in speciality beyond the term preceding it, and (what necessarily accompanies increased speciality) an increase of complexity--a set of phaenomena determined by a more numerous combination of laws; the sciences stand in the following order: 1st, mathematics; its three branches following one another on the same principle, number, geometry, mechanics. 2nd, astronomy. 3rd, physics. 4th, chemistry. 5th, biology. 6th, sociology, or the social science, the phaemomena, of which depend on, and cannot be understood without, the principal truths of all the other sciences. the subject matter and contents of these various sciences are obvious of themselves, with the exception of physics, which is a group of sciences rather than a single science, and is again divided by m. comte into five departments: barology, or the science of weight; thermology, or that of heat; acoustics, optics, and electrology. these he attempts to arrange on the same principle of increasing speciality and complexity, but they hardly admit of such a scale, and m. comte's mode of placing them varied at different periods. all the five being essentially independent of one another, he attached little importance to their order, except that barology ought to come first, as the connecting link with astronomy, and electrology last, as the transition to chemistry. if the best classification is that which is grounded on the properties most important for our purposes, this classification will stand the test. by placing the sciences in the order of the complexity of their subject matter, it presents them in the order of their difficulty. each science proposes to itself a more arduous inquiry than those which precede it in the series; it is therefore likely to be susceptible, even finally, of a less degree of perfection, and will certainly arrive later at the degree attainable by it. in addition to this, each science, to establish its own truths, needs those of all the sciences anterior to it. the only means, for example, by which the physiological laws of life could have been ascertained, was by distinguishing, among the multifarious and complicated facts of life, the portion which physical and chemical laws cannot account for. only by thus isolating the effects of the peculiar organic laws, did it become possible to discover what these are. it follows that the order in which the sciences succeed one another in the series, cannot but be, in the main, the historical order of their development; and is the only order in which they can rationally be studied. for this last there is an additional reason: since the more special and complete sciences require not only the truths of the simpler and more general ones, but still more their methods. the scientific intellect, both in the individual and in the race, must learn in the move elementary studies that art of investigation and those canons of proof which are to be put in practice in the more elevated. no intellect is properly qualified for the higher part of the scale, without due practice in the lower. mr herbert spencer, in his essay entitled "the genesis of science," and more recently in a pamphlet on "the classification of the sciences," has criticised and condemned m. comte's classification, and proposed a more elaborate one of his own: and m. littré, in his valuable biographical and philosophical work on m. comte ("auguste comte et la philosophie positive"), has at some length criticised the criticism. mr spencer is one of the small number of persons who by the solidity and encyclopedical character of their knowledge, and their power of co-ordination and concatenation, may claim to be the peers of m. comte, and entitled to a vote in the estimation of him. but after giving to his animadversions the respectful attention due to all that comes from mr spencer, we cannot find that he has made out any case. it is always easy to find fault with a classification. there are a hundred possible ways of arranging any set of objects, and something may almost always be said against the best, and in favour of the worst of them. but the merits of a classification depend on the purposes to which it is instrumental. we have shown the purposes for which m. comte's classification is intended. mr spencer has not shown that it is ill adapted to those purposes: and we cannot perceive that his own answers any ends equally important. his chief objection is that if the more special sciences need the truths of the more general ones, the latter also need some of those of the former, and have at times been stopped in their progress by the imperfect state of sciences which follow long after them in m. comte's scale; so that, the dependence being mutual, there is a _consensus_, but not an ascending scale or hierarchy of the sciences. that the earlier sciences derive help from the later is undoubtedly true; it is part of m. comte's theory, and amply exemplified in the details of his work. when he affirms that one science historically precedes another, he does not mean that the perfection of the first precedes the humblest commencement of those which follow. mr spencer does not distinguish between the empirical stage of the cultivation of a branch of knowledge, and the scientific stage. the commencement of every study consists in gathering together unanalyzed facts, and treasuring up such spontaneous generalizations as present themselves to natural sagacity. in this stage any branch of inquiry can be carried on independently of every other; and it is one of m. comte's own remarks that the most complex, in a scientific point of view, of all studies, the latest in his series, the study of man as a moral and social being, since from its absorbing interest it is cultivated more or less by every one, and pre-eminently by the great practical minds, acquired at an early period a greater stock of just though unscientific observations than the more elementary sciences. it is these empirical truths that the later and more special sciences lend to the earlier; or, at most, some extremely elementary scientific truth, which happening to be easily ascertainable by direct experiment, could be made available for carrying a previous science already founded, to a higher stage of development; a re-action of the later sciences on the earlier which m. comte not only fully recognized, but attached great importance to systematizing.[4] but though detached truths relating to the more complex order of phaenomena may be empirically observed, and a few of them even scientifically established, contemporaneously with an early stage of some of the sciences anterior in the scale, such detached truths, as m. littré justly remarks, do not constitute a science. what is known of a subject, only becomes a science when it is made a connected body of truth; in which the relation between the general principles and the details is definitely made out, and each particular truth can be recognized as a case of the operation of wider laws. this point of progress, at which the study passes from the preliminary state of mere preparation, into a science, cannot be reached by the more complex studies until it has been attained by the simpler ones. a certain regularity of recurrence in the celestial appearances was ascertained empirically before much progress had been made in geometry; but astronomy could no more be a science until geometry was a highly advanced one, than the rule of three could have been practised before addition and subtraction. the truths of the simpler sciences are a part of the laws to which the phaenomena of the more complex sciences conform: and are not only a necessary element in their explanation, but must be so well understood as to be traceable through complex combinations, before the special laws which co-exist and co-operate with them can be brought to light. this is all that m. comte affirms, and enough for his purpose.[5] he no doubt occasionally indulges in more unqualified expressions than can be completely justified, regarding the logical perfection of the construction of his series, and its exact correspondence with the historical evolution of the sciences; exaggerations confined to language, and which the details of his exposition often correct. but he is sufficiently near the truth, in both respects, for every practical purpose.[6] minor inaccuracies must often be forgiven even to great thinkers. mr spencer, in the very-writings in which he criticises m. comte, affords signal instances of them.[7] combining the doctrines, that every science is in a less advanced state as it occupies a higher place in the ascending scale, and that all the sciences pass through the three stages, theological, metaphysical, and positive, it follows that the more special a science is, the tardier is it in effecting each transition, so that a completely positive state of an earlier science has often coincided with the metaphysical state of the one next to it, and a purely theological state of those further on. this statement correctly represents the general course of the facts, though requiring allowances in the detail. mathematics, for example, from the very beginning of its cultivation, can hardly at any time have been in the theological state, though exhibiting many traces of the metaphysical. no one, probably, ever believed that the will of a god kept parallel lines from meeting, or made two and two equal to four; or ever prayed to the gods to make the square of the hypothenuse equal to more or less than the sum of the squares of the sides. the most devout believers have recognized in propositions of this description a class of truths independent of the devine omnipotence. even among the truths which popular philosophy calls by the misleading name of contingent the few which are at once exact and obvious were probably, from the very first, excepted from the theological explanation. m. comte observes, after adam smith, that we are not told in any age or country of a god of weight. it was otherwise with astronomy: the heavenly bodies were believed not merely to be moved by gods, but to be gods themselves: and when this theory was exploded, there movements were explained by metaphysical conceptions; such as a tendency of nature to perfection, in virtue of which these sublime bodies, being left to themselves, move in the most perfect orbit, the circle. even kepler was full of fancies of this description, which only terminated when newton, by unveiling the real physical laws of the celestial motions, closed the metaphysical period of astronomical science. as m. comte remarks, our power of foreseeing phaenomena, and our power of controlling them, are the two things which destroy the belief of their being governed by changeable wills. in the case of phaenomena which science has not yet taught us either to foresee or to control, the theological mode of thought has not ceased to operate: men still pray for rain, or for success in war, or to avert a shipwreck or a pestilence, but not to put back the stars in their courses, to abridge the time necessary for a journey, or to arrest the tides. such vestiges of the primitive mode of thought linger in the more intricate departments of sciences which have attained a high degree of positive development. the metaphysical mode of explanation, being less antagonistic than the theological to the idea of invariable laws, is still slower in being entirely discarded. m. comte finds remains of it in the sciences which are the most completely positive, with the single exception of astronomy, mathematics itself not being, he thinks, altogether free from them: which is not wonderful, when we see at how very recent a date mathematicians have been able to give the really positive interpretation of their own symbols.[8] we have already however had occasion to notice m. comte's propensity to use the term metaphysical in cases containing nothing that truly answers to his definition of the word. for instance, he considers chemistry as tainted with the metaphysical mode of thought by the notion of chemical affinity. he thinks that the chemists who said that bodies combine because they have an affinity for each other, believed in a mysterious entity residing in bodies and inducing them to combine. on any other supposition, he thinks the statement could only mean that bodies combine because they combine. but it really meant more. it was the abstract expression of the doctrine, that bodies have an invariable tendency to combine with one thing in preference to another: that the tendencies of different substances to combine are fixed quantities, of which the greater always prevails over the less, so that if a detaches b from c in one case it will do so in every other; which was called having a greater attraction, or, more technically, a greater affinity for it. this was not a metaphysical theory, but a positive generalization, which accounted for a great number of facts, and would have kept its place as a law of nature, had it not been disproved by the discovery of cases in which though a detached b from c in some circumstances, c detached it from a in others, showing the law of elective chemical combination to be a less simple one than had at first been supposed. in this case, therefore, m. comte made a mistake: and he will be found to have made many similar ones. but in the science next after chemistry, biology, the empty mode of explanation by scholastic entities, such as a plastic force, a vital principle, and the like, has been kept up even to the present day. the german physiology of the school of oken, notwithstanding his acknowledged genius, is almost as metaphysical as hegel, and there is in france a quite recent revival of the animism of stahl. these metaphysical explanations, besides their inanity, did serious harm, by directing the course of positive scientific inquiry into wrong channels. there was indeed nothing to prevent investigating the mode of action of the supposed plastic or vital force by observation and experiment; but the phrases gave currency and coherence to a false abstraction and generalization, setting inquirers to look out for one cause of complex phaenomena which undoubtedly depended on many. according to m. comte, chemistry entered into the positive stage with lavoisier, in the latter half of the last century (in a subsequent treatise he places the date a generation earlier); and biology at the beginning of the present, when bichat drew the fundamental distinction between nutritive or vegetative and properly animal life, and referred the properties of organs to the general laws of the component tissues. the most complex of all sciences, the social, had not, he maintained, become positive at all, but was the subject of an ever-renewed and barren contest between the theological and the metaphysical modes of thought. to make this highest of the sciences positive, and thereby complete the positive character of all human speculations, was the principal aim of his labours, and he believed himself to have accomplished it in the last three volumes of his treatise. but the term positive is not, any more than metaphysical, always used by m. comte in the same meaning. there never can have been a period in any science when it was not in some degree positive, since it always professed to draw conclusions from experience and observation. m. comte would have been the last to deny that previous to his own speculations, the world possessed a multitude of truths, of greater or less certainty, on social subjects, the evidence of which was obtained by inductive or deductive processes from observed sequences of phaenomena. nor could it be denied that the best writers on subjects upon which so many men of the highest mental capacity had employed their powers, had accepted as thoroughly the positive point of view, and rejected the theological and metaphysical as decidedly, as m. comte himself. montesquieu; even macchiavelli; adam smith and the political economists universally, both in france and in england; bentham, and all thinkers initiated by him,--had a full conviction that social phaenomena conform to invariable laws, the discovery and illustration of which was their great object as speculative thinkers. all that can be said is, that those philosophers did not get so far as m. comte in discovering the methods best adapted to bring these laws to light. it was not, therefore, reserved for m. comte to make sociological inquiries positive. but what he really meant by making a science positive, is what we will call, with m. littré, giving it its final scientific constitution; in other words, discovering or proving, and pursuing to their consequences, those of its truths which are fit to form the connecting links among the rest: truths which are to it what the law of gravitation is to astronomy, what the elementary properties of the tissues are to physiology, and we will add (though m. comte did not) what the laws of association are to psychology. this is an operation which, when accomplished, puts an end to the empirical period, and enables the science to be conceived as a co-ordinated and coherent body of doctrine. this is what had not yet been done for sociology; and the hope of effecting it was, from his early years, the prompter and incentive of all m. comte's philosophic labours. it was with a view to this that he undertook that wonderful systematization of the philosophy of all the antecedent sciences, from mathematics to physiology, which, if he had done nothing else, would have stamped him, in all minds competent to appreciate it, as one of the principal thinkers of the age. to make its nature intelligible to those who are not acquainted with it, we must explain what we mean by the philosophy of a science, as distinguished from the science itself. the proper meaning of philosophy we take to be, what the ancients understood by it--the scientific knowledge of man, as an intellectual, moral, and social being. since his intellectual faculties include his knowing faculty, the science of man includes everything that man can know, so far as regards his mode of knowing it: in other words, the whole doctrine of the conditions of human knowledge. the philosophy of a science thus comes to mean the science itself, considered not as to its results, the truths which it ascertains, but as to the processes by which the mind attains them, the marks by which it recognises them, and the co-ordinating and methodizing of them with a view to the greatest clearness of conception and the fullest and readiest availibility for use: in one word, the logic of the science. m. comte has accomplished this for the first five of the fundamental sciences, with a success which can hardly be too much admired. we never reopen even the least admirable part of this survey, the volume on chemistry and biology (which was behind the actual state of those sciences when first written, and is far in the rear of them now), without a renewed sense of the great reach of its speculations, and a conviction that the way to a complete rationalizing of those sciences, still very imperfectly conceived by most who cultivate them, has been shown nowhere so successfully as there. yet, for a correct appreciation of this great philosophical achievement, we ought to take account of what has not been accomplished, as well as of what has. some of the chief deficiencies and infirmities of m. comte's system of thought will be found, as is usually the case, in close connexion with its greatest successes. the philosophy of science consists of two principal parts; the methods of investigation, and the requisites of proof. the one points out the roads by which the human intellect arrives at conclusions, the other the mode of testing their evidence. the former if complete would be an organon of discovery, the latter of proof. it is to the first of these that m. comte principally confines himself, and he treats it with a degree of perfection hitherto unrivalled. nowhere is there anything comparable, in its kind, to his survey of the resources which the mind has at its disposal for investigating the laws of phaenomena; the circumstances which render each of the fundamental modes of exploration suitable or unsuitable to each class of phaenomena; the extensions and transformations which the process of investigation has to undergo in adapting itself to each new province of the field of study; and the especial gifts with which every one of the fundamental sciences enriches the method of positive inquiry, each science in its turn being the best fitted to bring to perfection one process or another. these, and many cognate subjects, such as the theory of classification, and the proper use of scientific hypotheses, m. comte has treated with a completeness of insight which leaves little to be desired. not less admirable is his survey of the most comprehensive truths that had been arrived at by each science, considered as to their relation to the general sum of human knowledge, and their logical value as aids to its further progress. but after all this, there remains a further and distinct question. we are taught the right way of searching for results, but when a result has been reached, how shall we know that it is true? how assure ourselves that the process has been performed correctly, and that our premises, whether consisting of generalities or of particular facts, really prove the conclusion we have grounded on them? on this question m. comte throws no light. he supplies no test of proof. as regards deduction, he neither recognises the syllogistic system of aristotle and his successors (the insufficiency of which is as evident as its utility is real) nor proposes any other in lieu of it: and of induction he has no canons whatever. he does not seem to admit the possibility of any general criterion by which to decide whether a given inductive inference is correct or not. yet he does not, with dr whewell, regard an inductive theory as proved if it accounts for the facts: on the contrary, he sets himself in the strongest opposition to those scientific hypotheses which, like the luminiferous ether, are not susceptible of direct proof, and are accepted on the sole evidence of their aptitude for explaining phenomena. he maintains that no hypothesis is legitimate unless it is susceptible of verification, and that none ought to be accepted as true unless it can be shown not only that it accords with the facts, but that its falsehood would be inconsistent with them. he therefore needs a test of inductive proof; and in assigning none, he seems to give up as impracticable the main problem of logic properly so called. at the beginning of his treatise he speaks of a doctrine of method, apart from particular applications, as conceivable, but not needful: method, according to him, is learnt only by seeing it in operation, and the logic of a science can only usefully be taught through the science itself. towards the end of the work, he assumes a more decidedly negative tone, and treats the very conception of studying logic otherwise than in its applications as chimerical. he got on, in his subsequent writings, to considering it as wrong. this indispensable part of positive philosophy he not only left to be supplied by others, but did all that depended on him to discourage them from attempting it. this hiatus in m. comte's system is not unconnected with a defect in his original conception of the subject matter of scientific investigation, which has been generally noticed, for it lies on the surface, and is more apt to be exaggerated than overlooked. it is often said of him that he rejects the study of causes. this is not, in the correct acceptation, true, for it is only questions of ultimate origin, and of efficient as distinguished from what are called physical causes, that he rejects. the causes that he regards as inaccessible are causes which are not themselves phaenomena. like other people he admits the study of causes, in every sense in which one physical fact can be the cause of another. but he has an objection to the _word_ cause; he will only consent to speak of laws of succession: and depriving himself of the use of a word which has a positive meaning, he misses the meaning it expresses. he sees no difference between such generalizations as kepler's laws, and such as the theory of gravitation. he fails to perceive the real distinction between the laws of succession and coexistence which thinkers of a different school call laws of phaenomena, and those of what they call the action of causes: the former exemplified by the succession of day and night, the latter by the earth's rotation which causes it. the succession of day and night is as much an invariable sequence, as the alternate exposure of opposite sides of the earth to the sun. yet day and night are not the causes of one another; why? because their sequence, though invariable in our experience, is not unconditionally so: those facts only succeed each other, provided that the presence and absence of the sun succeed each other, and if this alternation were to cease, we might have either day or night unfollowed by one another. there are thus two kinds of uniformities of succession, the one unconditional, the other conditional on the first: laws of causation, and other successions dependent on those laws. all ultimate laws are laws of causation, and the only universal law beyond the pale of mathematics is the law of universal causation, namely, that every phaenomenon has a phaenomenal cause; has some phaenomenon other than itself, or some combination of phaenomena, on which it is invariably and unconditionally consequent. it is on the universality of this law that the possibility rests of establishing a canon of induction. a general proposition inductively obtained is only then proved to be true, when the instances on which it rests are such that if they have been correctly observed, the falsity of the generalization would be inconsistent with the constancy of causation; with the universality of the fact that the phaenomena of nature take place according to invariable laws of succession.[9] it is probable, therefore, that m. comte's determined abstinence from the word and the idea of cause, had much to do with his inability to conceive an inductive logic, by diverting his attention from the only basis upon which it could be founded. we are afraid it must also be said, though shown only by slight indications in his fundamental work, and coming out in full evidence only in his later writings--that m. comte, at bottom, was not so solicitous about completeness of proof as becomes a positive philosopher, and that the unimpeachable objectivity, as he would have called it, of a conception--its exact correspondence to the realities of outward fact--was not, with him, an indispensable condition of adopting it, if it was subjectively useful, by affording facilities to the mind for grouping phaenomena. this appears very curiously in his chapters on the philosophy of chemistry. he recommends, as a judicious use of "the degree of liberty left to our intelligence by the end and purpose of positive science," that we should accept as a convenient generalization the doctrine that all chemical composition is between two elements only; that every substance which our analysis decomposes, let us say into four elements, has for its immediate constituents two hypothetical substances, each compounded of two simpler ones. there would have been nothing to object to in this as a scientific hypothesis, assumed tentatively as a means of suggesting experiments by which its truth may be tested. with this for its destination, the conception, would have been legitimate and philosophical; the more so, as, if confirmed, it would have afforded an explanation of the fact that some substances which analysis shows to be composed of the same elementary substances in the same proportions, differ in their general properties, as for instance, sugar and gum.[10] and if, besides affording a reason for difference between things which differ, the hypothesis had afforded a reason for agreement between things which agree; if the intermediate link by which the quaternary compound was resolved into two binary ones, could have been so chosen as to bring each of them within the analogies of some known class of binary compounds (which it is easy to suppose possible, and which in some particular instances actually happens);[11] the universality of binary composition would have been a successful example of an hypothesis in anticipation of a positive theory, to give a direction to inquiry which might end in its being either proved or abandoned. but m. comte evidently thought that even though it should never be proved--however many cases of chemical composition might always remain in which the theory was still as hypothetical as at first--so long as it was not actually disproved (which it is scarcely in the nature of the case that it should ever be) it would deserve to be retained, for its mere convenience in bringing a large body of phaenomena under a general conception. in a _résumé_ of the general principles of the positive method at the end of the work, he claims, in express terms, an unlimited license of adopting "without any vain scruple" hypothetical conceptions of this sort; "in order to satisfy, within proper limits, our just mental inclinations, which always turn, with an instinctive predilection, towards simplicity, continuity, and generality of conceptions, while always respecting the reality of external laws in so far as accessible to us" (vi. 639). "the most philosophic point of view leads us to conceive the study of natural laws as destined to represent the external world so as to give as much satisfaction to the essential inclinations of our intelligence, as is consistent with the degree of exactitude commanded by the aggregate of our practical wants" (vi. 642). among these "essential inclinations" he includes not only our "instinctive predilection for order and harmony," which makes us relish any conception, even fictitious, that helps to reduce phaenomena to system; but even our feelings of taste, "les convenances purement esthétiques," which, he says, have a legitimate part in the employment of the "genre de liberté" resté facultatif pour notre intelligence." after the due satisfaction of our "most eminent mental inclinations," there will still remain "a considerable margin of indeterminateness, which should be made use of to give a direct gratification to our _besoin_ of ideality, by embellishing our scientific thoughts, without injury to their essential reality" (vi. 647). in consistency with all this, m. comte warns thinkers against too severe a scrutiny of the exact truth of scientific laws, and stamps with "severe reprobation" those who break down "by too minute an investigation" generalizations already made, without being able to substitute others (vi. 639): as in the case of lavoisier's general theory of chemistry, which would have made that science more satisfactory than at present to "the instinctive inclinations of our intelligence" if it had turned out true, but unhappily it did not. these mental dispositions in m. comte account for his not having found or sought a logical criterion of proof; but they are scarcely consistent with his inveterate hostility to the hypothesis of the luminiferous ether, which certainly gratifies our "predilection for order and harmony," not to say our "besoin d'idéalite", in no ordinary degree. this notion of the "destination" of the study of natural laws is to our minds a complete dereliction of the essential principles which form the positive conception of science; and contained the germ of the perversion of his own philosophy which marked his later years. it might be interesting, but scarcely worth while, to attempt to penetrate to the just thought which misled m. comte, for there is almost always a grain of truth in the errors of an original and powerful mind. there is another grave aberration in m. comte's view of the method of positive science, which though not more unphilosophical than the last mentioned, is of greater practical importance. he rejects totally, as an invalid process, psychological observation properly so called, or in other words, internal consciousness, at least as regards our intellectual operations. he gives no place in his series of the science of psychology, and always speaks of it with contempt. the study of mental phaenomena, or, as he expresses it, of moral and intellectual functions, has a place in his scheme, under the head of biology, but only as a branch of physiology. our knowledge of the human mind must, he thinks, be acquired by observing other people. how we are to observe other people's mental operations, or how interpret the signs of them without having learnt what the signs mean by knowledge of ourselves, he does not state. but it is clear to him that we can learn very little about the feelings, and nothing at all about the intellect, by self-observation. our intelligence can observe all other things, but not itself: we cannot observe ourselves observing, or observe ourselves reasoning: and if we could, attention to this reflex operation would annihilate its object, by stopping the process observed. there is little need for an elaborate refutation of a fallacy respecting which the only wonder is that it should impose on any one. two answers may be given to it. in the first place, m. comte might be referred to experience, and to the writings of his countryman m. cardaillac and our own sir william hamilton, for proof that the mind can not only be conscious of, but attend to, more than one, and even a considerable number, of impressions at once.[12] it is true that attention is weakened by being divided; and this forms a special difficulty in psychological observation, as psychologists (sir william hamilton in particular) have fully recognised; but a difficulty is not an impossibility. secondly, it might have occurred to m. comte that a fact may be studied through the medium of memory, not at the very moment of our perceiving it, but the moment after: and this is really the mode in which our best knowledge of our intellectual acts is generally acquired. we reflect on what we have been doing, when the act is past, but when its impression in the memory is still fresh. unless in one of these ways, we could not have acquired the knowledge, which nobody denies us to have, of what passes in our minds. m. comte would scarcely have affirmed that we are not aware of our own intellectual operations. we know of our observings and our reasonings, either at the very time, or by memory the moment after; in either case, by direct knowledge, and not (like things done by us in a state of somnambulism) merely by their results. this simple fact destroys the whole of m. comte's argument. whatever we are directly aware of, we can directly observe. and what organon for the study of "the moral and intellectual functions" does m. comte offer, in lieu of the direct mental observation which he repudiates? we are almost ashamed to say, that it is phrenology! not, indeed, he says, as a science formed, but as one still to be created; for he rejects almost all the special organs imagined by phrenologists, and accepts only their general division of the brain into the three regions of the propensities, the sentiments, and the intellect,[13] and the subdivision of the latter region between the organs of meditation and those of observation. yet this mere first outline of an apportionment of the mental functions among different organs, he regards as extricating the mental study of man from the metaphysical stage, and elevating it to the positive. the condition of mental science would be sad indeed if this were its best chance of being positive; for the later course of physiological observation and speculation has not tended to confirm, but to discredit, the phrenological hypothesis. and even if that hypothesis were true, psychological observation would still be necessary; for how is it possible to ascertain the correspondence between two things, by observation of only one of them? to establish a relation between mental functions and cerebral conformations, requires not only a parallel system of observations applied to each, but (as m. comte himself, with some inconsistency, acknowledges) an analysis of the mental faculties, "des diverses facultés élémentaires," (iii. 573), conducted without any reference to the physical conditions, since the proof of the theory would lie in the correspondence between the division of the brain into organs and that of the mind into faculties, each shown by separate evidence. to accomplish this analysis requires direct psychological study carried to a high pitch of perfection; it being necessary, among other things, to investigate the degree in which mental character is created by circumstances, since no one supposes that cerebral conformation does all, and circumstances nothing. the phrenological study of mind thus supposes as its necessary preparation the whole of the association psychology. without, then, rejecting any aid which study of the brain and nerves can afford to psychology (and it has afforded, and will yet afford, much), we may affirm that m. comte has done nothing for the constitution of the positive method of mental science. he refused to profit by the very valuable commencements made by his predecessors, especially by hartley, brown, and james mill (if indeed any of those philosophers were known to him), and left the psychological branch of the positive method, as well as psychology itself, to be put in their true position as a part of positive philosophy by successors who duly placed themselves at the twofold point of view of physiology and psychology, mr bain and mr herbert spencer. this great mistake is not a mere hiatus in m. comte's system, but the parent of serious errors in his attempt to create a social science. he is indeed very skilful in estimating the effect of circumstances in moulding the general character of the human race; were he not, his historical theory could be of little worth: but in appreciating the influence which circumstances exercise, through psychological laws, in producing diversities of character, collective or individual, he is sadly at fault. after this summary view of m. comte's conception of positive philosophy, it remains to give some account of his more special and equally ambitious attempt to create the science of sociology, or, as he expresses it, to elevate the study of social phaenomena to the positive state. he regarded all who profess any political opinions as hitherto divided between the adherents of the theological and those of the metaphysical mode of thought: the former deducing all their doctrines from divine ordinances, the latter from abstractions. this assertion, however, cannot be intended in the same sense as when the terms are applied to the sciences of inorganic nature; for it is impossible that acts evidently proceeding from the human will could be ascribed to the agency (at least immediate) of either divinities or abstractions. no one ever regarded himself or his fellow-man as a mere piece of machinery worked by a god, or as the abode of an entity which was the true author of what the man himself appeared to do. true, it was believed that the gods, or god, could move or change human wills, as well as control their consequences, and prayers were offered to them accordingly, rather as able to overrule the spontaneous course of things, than as at each instant carrying it on. on the whole, however, the theological and metaphysical conceptions, in their application to sociology, had reference not to the production of phaenomena, but to the rule of duty, and conduct in life. it is this which was based, either on a divine will, or on abstract mental conceptions, which, by an illusion of the rational faculty, were invested with objective validity. on the one hand, the established rules of morality were everywhere referred to a divine origin. in the majority of countries the entire civil and criminal law was looked upon as revealed from above; and it is to the petty military communities which escaped this delusion, that man is indebted for being now a progressive being. the fundamental institutions of the state were almost everywhere believed to have been divinely established, and to be still, in a greater or less degree, of divine authority. the divine right of certain lines of kings to rule, and even to rule absolutely, was but lately the creed of the dominant party in most countries of europe; while the divine right of popes and bishops to dictate men's beliefs (and not respecting the invisible world alone) is still striving, though under considerable difficulties, to rule mankind. when these opinions began to be out of date, a rival theory presented itself to take their place. there were, in truth, many such theories, and to some of them the term metaphysical, in m. comte's sense, cannot justly be applied. all theories in which the ultimate standard of institutions and rules of action was the happiness of mankind, and observation and experience the guides (and some such there have been in all periods of free speculation), are entitled to the name positive, whatever, in other respects, their imperfections may be. but these were a small minority. m. comte was right in affirming that the prevailing schools of moral and political speculation, when not theological, have been metaphysical. they affirmed that moral rules, and even political institutions, were not means to an end, the general good, but corollaries evolved from the conception of natural rights. this was especially the case in all the countries in which the ideas of publicists were the offspring of the roman law. the legislators of opinion on these subjects, when not theologians, were lawyers: and the continental lawyers followed the roman jurists, who followed the greek metaphysicians, in acknowledging as the ultimate source of right and wrong in morals, and consequently in institutions, the imaginary law of the imaginary being nature. the first systematizers of morals in christian europe, on any other than a purely theological basis, the writers on international law, reasoned wholly from these premises, and transmitted them to a long line of successors. this mode of thought reached its culmination in rousseau, in whose hands it became as powerful an instrument for destroying the past, as it was impotent for directing the future. the complete victory which this philosophy gained, in speculation, over the old doctrines, was temporarily followed by an equally complete practical triumph, the french revolution: when, having had, for the first time, a full opportunity of developing its tendencies, and showing what it could not do, it failed so conspicuously as to determine a partial reaction to the doctrines of feudalism and catholicism. between these and the political metaphysics (meta-politics as coleridge called it) of the revolution, society has since oscillated; raising up in the process a hybrid intermediate party, termed conservative, or the party of order, which has no doctrines of its own, but attempts to hold the scales even between the two others, borrowing alternately the arguments of each, to use as weapons against whichever of the two seems at the moment most likely to prevail. such, reduced to a very condensed form, is m. comte's version of the state of european opinion on politics and society. an englishman's criticism would be, that it describes well enough the general division of political opinion in france and the countries which follow her lead, but not in england, or the communities of english origin: in all of which, divine right died out with the jacobites, and the law of nature and natural rights have never been favourites even with the extreme popular party, who preferred to rest their claims on the historical traditions of their own country, and on maxims drawn from its law books, and since they outgrew this standard, almost always base them on general expediency. in england, the preference of one form of government to another seldom turns on anything but the practical consequences which it produces, or which are expected from it. m. comte can point to little of the nature of metaphysics in english politics, except "la métaphysique constitutionnelle," a name he chooses to give to the conventional fiction by which the occupant of the throne is supposed to be the source from whence all power emanates, while nothing can be further from the belief or intention of anybody than that such should really be the case. apart from this, which is a matter of forms and words, and has no connexion with any belief except belief in the proprieties, the severest criticism can find nothing either worse or better, in the modes of thinking either of our conservative or of our liberal party, than a particularly shallow and flimsy kind of positivism. the working classes indeed, or some portion of them, perhaps still rest their claim to universal suffrage on abstract right, in addition to more substantial reasons, and thus far and no farther does metaphysics prevail in the region of english politics. but politics is not the entire art of social existence: ethics is a still deeper and more vital part of it: and in that, as much in england as elsewhere, the current opinions are still divided between the theological mode of thought and the metaphysical. what is the whole doctrine of intuitive morality, which reigns supreme wherever the idolatry of scripture texts has abated and the influence of bentham's philosophy has not reached, but the metaphysical state of ethical science? what else, indeed, is the whole _a priori_ philosophy, in morals, jurisprudence, psychology, logic, even physical science, for it does not always keep its hands off that, the oldest domain of observation and experiment? it has the universal diagnostic of the metaphysical mode of thought, in the comtean sense of the word; that of erecting a mere creation of the mind into a test or _norma_ of external truth, and presenting the abstract expression of the beliefs already entertained, as the reason and evidence which justifies them. of those who still adhere to the old opinions we need not speak; but when one of the most vigorous as well as boldest thinkers that english speculation has yet produced, full of the true scientific spirit, mr herbert spencer, places in the front of his philosophy the doctrine that the ultimate test of the truth of a proposition is the inconceivableness of its negative; when, following in the steps of mr spencer, an able expounder of positive philosophy like mr lewes, in his meritorious and by no means superficial work on aristotle, after laying, very justly, the blame of almost every error of the ancient thinkers on their neglecting to _verify_ their opinions, announces that there are two kinds of verification, the real and the ideal, the ideal test of truth being that its negative is unthinkable, and by the application of that test judges that gravitation must be universal even in the stellar regions, because in the absence of proof to the contrary, "the idea of matter without gravity is unthinkable;"--when those from whom it was least to be expected thus set up acquired necessities of thought in the minds of one or two generations as evidence of real necessities in the universe, we must admit that the metaphysical mode of thought still rules the higher philosophy, even in the department of inorganic nature, and far more in all that relates to man as a moral, intellectual, and social being. but, while m. comte is so far in the right, we often, as already intimated, find him using the name metaphysical to denote certain practical conclusions, instead of a particular kind of theoretical premises. whatever goes by the different names of the revolutionary, the radical, the democratic, the liberal, the free-thinking, the sceptical, or the negative and critical school or party in religion, politics, or philosophy, all passes with him under the designation of metaphysical, and whatever he has to say about it forms part of his description of the metaphysical school of social science. he passes in review, one after another, what he deems the leading doctrines of the revolutionary school of politics, and dismisses them all as mere instruments of attack upon the old social system, with no permanent validity as social truth. he assigns only this humble rank to the first of all the articles of the liberal creed, "the absolute right of free examination, or the dogma of unlimited liberty of conscience." as far as this doctrine only means that opinions, and their expression, should be exempt from _legal_ restraint, either in the form of prevention or of penalty, m. comte is a firm adherent of it: but the _moral_ right of every human being, however ill-prepared by the necessary instruction and discipline, to erect himself into a judge of the most intricate as well as the most important questions that can occupy the human intellect, he resolutely denies. "there is no liberty of conscience," he said in an early work, "in astronomy, in physics, in chemistry, even in physiology, in the sense that every one would think it absurd not to accept in confidence the principles established in those sciences by the competent persons. if it is otherwise in politics, the reason is merely because, the old doctrines having gone by and the new ones not being yet formed, there are not properly, during the interval, any established opinions." when first mankind outgrew the old doctrines, an appeal from doctors and teachers to the outside public was inevitable and indispensable, since without the toleration and encouragement of discussion and criticism from all quarters, it would have been impossible for any new doctrines to grow up. but in itself, the practice of carrying the questions which more than all others require special knowledge and preparation, before the incompetent tribunal of common opinion, is, he contends, radically irrational, and will and ought to cease when once mankind have again made up their minds to a system of doctrine. the prolongation of this provisional state, producing an ever-increasing divergence of opinions, is already, according to him, extremely dangerous, since it is only when there is a tolerable unanimity respecting the rule of life, that a real moral control can be established over the self-interest and passions of individuals. besides which, when every man is encouraged to believe himself a competent judge of the most difficult social questions, he cannot be prevented from thinking himself competent also to the most important public duties, and the baneful competition for power and official functions spreads constantly downwards to a lower and lower grade of intelligence. in m. comte's opinion, the peculiarly complicated nature of sociological studies, and the great amount of previous knowledge and intellectual discipline requisite for them, together with the serious consequences that may be produced by even, temporary errors on such subjects, render it necessary in the case of ethics and politics, still more than of mathematics and physics, that whatever legal liberty may exist of questioning and discussing, the opinions of mankind should really be formed for them by an exceedingly small number of minds of the highest class, trained to the task by the most thorough and laborious mental preparation: and that the questioning of their conclusions by any one, not of an equivalent grade of intellect and instruction, should be accounted equally presumptuous, and more blamable, than the attempts occasionally made by sciolists to refute the newtonian astronomy. all this is, in a sense, true: but we confess our sympathy with those who feel towards it like the man in the story, who being asked whether he admitted that six and five make eleven, refused to give an answer until he knew what use was to be made of it. the doctrine is one of a class of truths which, unless completed by other truths, are so liable to perversion, that we may fairly decline to take notice of them except in connexion with some definite application. in justice to m. comte it should be said that he does not wish this intellectual dominion to be exercised over an ignorant people. par from him is the thought of promoting the allegiance of the mass to scientific authority by withholding from them scientific knowledge. he holds it the duty of society to bestow on every one who grows up to manhood or womanhood as complete a course of instruction in every department of science, from mathematics to sociology, as can possibly be made general: and his ideas of what is possible in that respect are carried to a length to which few are prepared to follow him. there is something startling, though, when closely looked into, not utopian or chimerical, in the amount of positive knowledge of the most varied kind which he believes may, by good methods of teaching, be made the common inheritance of all persons with ordinary faculties who are born into the world: not the mere knowledge of results, to which, except for the practical arts, he attaches only secondary value, but knowledge also of the mode in which those results were attained, and the evidence on which they rest, so far as it can be known and understood by those who do not devote their lives to its study. we have stated thus fully m. comte's opinion on the most fundamental doctrine of liberalism, because it is the clue to much of his general conception of politics. if his object had only been to exemplify by that doctrine the purely negative character of the principal liberal and revolutionary schools of thought, he need not have gone so far: it would have been enough to say, that the mere liberty to hold and express any creed, cannot itself _be_ that creed. every one is free to believe and publish that two and two make ten, but the important thing is to know that they make four. m. comte has no difficulty in making out an equally strong case against the other principal tenets of what he calls the revolutionary school; since all that they generally amount to is, that something ought not to be: which cannot possibly be the whole truth, and which m. comte, in general, will not admit to be even part of it. take for instance the doctrine which denies to governments any initiative in social progress, restricting them to the function of preserving order, or in other words keeping the peace: an opinion which, so far as grounded on so-called rights of the individual, he justly regards as purely metaphysical; but does not recognise that it is also widely held as an inference from the laws of human nature and human affairs, and therefore, whether true or false, as a positive doctrine. believing with m. comte that there are no absolute truths in the political art, nor indeed in any art whatever, we agree with him that the _laisser faire_ doctrine, stated without large qualifications, is both unpractical and unscientific; but it does not follow that those who assert it are not, nineteen times out of twenty, practically nearer the truth than those who deny it. the doctrine of equality meets no better fate at m. comte's hands. he regards it as the erection into an absolute dogma of a mere protest against the inequalities which came down from the middle ages, and answer no legitimate end in modern society. he observes, that mankind in a normal state, having to act together, are necessarily, in practice, organized and classed with some reference to their unequal aptitudes, natural or acquired, which demand that some should be under the direction of others: scrupulous regard being at the same time had to the fulfilment towards all, of "the claims rightfully inherent in the dignity of a human being; the aggregate of which, still very insufficiently appreciated, will constitute more and more the principle of universal morality as applied to daily use... a grand moral obligation, which has never been directly denied since the abolition of slavery" (iv. 51). there is not a word to be said against these doctrines: but the practical question is one which m. comte never even entertains--viz., when, after being properly educated, people are left to find their places for themselves, do they not spontaneously class themselves in a manner much more conformable to their unequal or dissimilar aptitudes, than governments or social institutions are likely to do it for them? the sovereignty of the people, again,--that metaphysical axiom which in france and the rest of the continent has so long been the theoretic basis of radical and democratic politics,--he regards as of a purely negative character, signifying the right of the people to rid themselves by insurrection of a social order that has become oppressive; but, when erected into a positive principle of government, which condemns indefinitely all superiors to "an arbitrary dependence upon the multitude of their inferiors," he considers it as a sort of "transportation to peoples of the divine right so much reproached to kings" (iv. 55, 56). on the doctrine as a metaphysical dogma or an absolute principle, this criticism is just; but there is also a positive doctrine, without any pretension to being absolute, which claims the direct participation of the governed in their own government, not as a natural right, but as a means to important ends, under the conditions and with the limitations which those ends impose. the general result of m. comte's criticism on the revolutionary philosophy, is that he deems it not only incapable of aiding the necessary reorganization of society, but a serious impediment thereto, by setting up, on all the great interests of mankind, the mere negation of authority, direction, or organization, as the most perfect state, and the solution of all problems: the extreme point of this aberration being reached by rousseau and his followers, when they extolled the savage state, as an ideal from which civilization was only a degeneracy, more or less marked and complete. the state of sociological speculation being such as has been described--divided between a feudal and theological school, now effete, and a democratic and metaphysical one, of no value except for the destruction of the former; the problem, how to render the social science positive, must naturally have presented itself, more or less distinctly, to superior minds. m. comte examines and criticises, for the most part justly, some of the principal efforts which have been made by individual thinkers for this purpose. but the weak side of his philosophy comes out prominently in his strictures on the only systematic attempt yet made by any body of thinkers, to constitute a science, not indeed of social phenomena generally, but of one great class or division of them. we mean, of course, political economy, which (with a reservation in favour of the speculations of adam smith as valuable preparatory studies for science) he deems unscientific, unpositive, and a mere branch of metaphysics, that comprehensive category of condemnation in which he places all attempts at positive science which are not in his opinion directed by a right scientific method. any one acquainted with the writings of political economists need only read his few pages of animadversions on them (iv. 193 to 205), to learn how extremely superficial m. comte can sometimes be. he affirms that they have added nothing really new to the original _aperçus_ of adam smith; when every one who has read them knows that they have added so much as to have changed the whole aspect of the science, besides rectifying and clearing up in the most essential points the _aperçus_ themselves. he lays an almost puerile stress, for the purpose of disparagement, on the discussions about the meaning of words which are found in the best books on political economy, as if such discussions were not an indispensable accompaniment of the progress of thought, and abundant in the history of every physical science. on the whole question he has but one remark of any value, and that he misapplies; namely, that the study of the conditions of national wealth as a detached subject is unphilosophical, because, all the different aspects of social phaenomena acting and reacting on one another, they cannot be rightly understood apart: which by no means proves that the material and industrial phaenomena of society are not, even by themselves, susceptible of useful generalizations, but only that these generalizations must necessarily be relative to a given form of civilization and a given stage of social advancement. this, we apprehend, is what no political economist would deny. none of them pretend that the laws of wages, profits, values, prices, and the like, set down in their treatises, would be strictly true, or many of them true at all, in the savage state (for example), or in a community composed of masters and slaves. but they do think, with good reason, that whoever understands the political economy of a country with the complicated and manifold civilization of the nations of europe, can deduce without difficulty the political economy of any other state of society, with the particular circumstances of which he is equally well acquainted.[14] we do not pretend that political economy has never been prosecuted or taught in a contracted spirit. as often as a study is cultivated by narrow minds, they will draw from it narrow conclusions. if a political economist is deficient in general knowledge, he will exaggerate the importance and universality of the limited class of truths which he knows. all kinds of scientific men are liable to this imputation, and m. comte is never weary of urging it against them; reproaching them with their narrowness of mind, the petty scale of their thoughts, their incapacity for large views, and the stupidity of those they occasionally attempt beyond the bounds of their own subjects. political economists do not deserve these reproaches more than other classes of positive inquirers, but less than most. the principal error of narrowness with which they are frequently chargeable, is that of regarding, not any economical doctrine, but their present experience of mankind, as of universal validity; mistaking temporary or local phases of human character for human nature itself; having no faith in the wonderful pliability of the human mind; deeming it impossible, in spite of the strongest evidence, that the earth can produce human beings of a different type from that which is familiar to them in their own age, or even, perhaps, in their own country. the only security against this narrowness is a liberal mental cultivation, and all it proves is that a person is not likely to be a good political economist who is nothing else. thus far, we have had to do with m. comte, as a sociologist, only in his critical capacity. we have now to deal with him as a constructor--the author of a sociological system. the first question is that of the method proper to the study. his view of this is highly instructive. the method proper to the science of society must be, in substance, the same as in all other sciences; the interrogation and interpretation of experience, by the twofold process of induction and deduction. but its mode of practising these operations has features of peculiarity. in general, induction furnishes to science the laws of the elementary facts, from which, when known, those of the complex combinations are thought out deductively: specific observation of complex phaenomena yields no general laws, or only empirical ones; its scientific function is to verify the laws obtained by deduction. this mode of philosophizing is not adequate to the exigencies of sociological investigation. in social phaemomena the elementary facts are feelings and actions, and the laws of these are the laws of human nature, social facts being the results of human acts and situations. since, then, the phaenomena of man in society result from his nature as an individual being, it might be thought that the proper mode of constructing a positive social science must be by deducing it from the general laws of human nature, using the facts of history merely for verification. such, accordingly, has been the conception of social science by many of those who have endeavoured to render it positive, particularly by the school of bentham. m. comte considers this as an error. we may, he says, draw from the universal laws of human nature some conclusions (though even these, we think, rather precarious) concerning the very earliest stages of human progress, of which there are either no, or very imperfect, historical records. but as society proceeds in its development, its phaenomena are determined, more and more, not by the simple tendencies of universal human nature, but by the accumulated influence of past generations over the present. the human beings themselves, on the laws of whose nature the facts of history depend, are not abstract or universal but historical human beings, already shaped, and made what they are, by human society. this being the case, no powers of deduction could enable any one, starting from the mere conception of the being man, placed in a world such as the earth may have been before the commencement of human agency, to predict and calculate the phaenomena of his development such as they have in fact proved. if the facts of history, empirically considered, had not given rise to any generalizations, a deductive study of history could never have reached higher than more or less plausible conjecture. by good fortune (for the case might easily have been otherwise) the history of our species, looked at as a comprehensive whole, does exhibit a determinate course, a certain order of development: though history alone cannot prove this to be a necessary law, as distinguished from a temporary accident. here, therefore, begins the office of biology (or, as we should say, of psychology) in the social science. the universal laws of human nature are part of the data of sociology, but in using them we must reverse the method of the deductive physical sciences: for while, in these, specific experience commonly serves to verify laws arrived at by deduction, in sociology it is specific experience which suggests the laws, and deduction which verifies them. if a sociological theory, collected from historical evidence, contradicts the established general laws of human nature; if (to use m. comte's instances) it implies, in the mass of mankind, any very decided natural bent, either in a good or in a bad direction; if it supposes that the reason, in average human beings, predominates over the desires, or the disinterested desires over the personal; we may know that history has been misinterpreted, and that the theory is false. on the other hand, if laws of social phaenomena, empirically generalized from history, can when once suggested be affiliated to the known laws of human nature; if the direction actually taken by the developments and changes of human society, can be seen to be such as the properties of man and of his dwelling-place made antecedently probable, the empirical generalizations are raised into positive laws, and sociology becomes a science. much has been said and written for centuries past, by the practical or empirical school of politicians, in condemnation of theories founded on principles of human nature, without an historical basis; and the theorists, in their turn, have successfully retaliated on the practicalists. but we know not any thinker who, before m. comte, had penetrated to the philosophy of the matter, and placed the necessity of historical studies as the foundation of sociological speculation on the true footing. from this time any political thinker who fancies himself able to dispense with a connected view of the great facts of history, as a chain of causes and effects, must be regarded as below the level of the age; while the vulgar mode of using history, by looking in it for parallel cases, as if any cases were parallel, or as if a single instance, or even many instances not compared and analysed, could reveal a law, will be more than ever, and irrevocably, discredited. the inversion of the ordinary relation between deduction and induction is not the only point in which, according to m. comte, the method proper to sociology differs from that of the sciences of inorganic nature. the common order of science proceeds from the details to the whole. the method of sociology should proceed from the whole to the details. there is no universal principle for the order of study, but that of proceeding from the known to the unknown; finding our way to the facts at whatever point is most open to our observation. in the phaenomena of the social state, the collective phaenomenon is more accessible to us than the parts of which it is composed. this is already, in a great degree, true of the mere animal body. it is essential to the idea of an organism, and it is even more true of the social organism than of the individual. the state of every part of the social whole at any time, is intimately connected with the contemporaneous state of all the others. religious belief, philosophy, science, the fine arts, the industrial arts, commerce, navigation, government, all are in close mutual dependence on one another, insomuch that when any considerable change takes place in one, we may know that a parallel change in all the others has preceded or will follow it. the progress of society from one general state to another is not an aggregate of partial changes, but the product of a single impulse, acting through all the partial agencies, and can therefore be most easily traced by studying them together. could it even be detected in them separately, its true nature could not be understood except by examining them in the _ensemble_. in constructing, therefore, a theory of society, all the different aspects of the social organization must be taken into consideration at once. our space is not consistent with inquiring into all the limitations of this doctrine. it requires many of which m. comte's theory takes no account. there is one, in particular, dependent on a scientific artifice familiar to students of science, especially of the applications of mathematics to the study of nature. when an effect depends on several variable conditions, some of which change less, or more slowly, than others, we are often able to determine, either by reasoning or by experiment, what would be the law of variation of the effect if its changes depended only on some of the conditions, the remainder being supposed constant. the law so found will be sufficiently near the truth for all times and places in which the latter set of conditions do not vary greatly, and will be a basis to set out from when it becomes necessary to allow for the variations of those conditions also. most of the conclusions of social science applicable to practical use are of this description. m. comte's system makes no room for them. we have seen how he deals with the part of them which are the most scientific in character, the generalizations of political economy. there is one more point in the general philosophy of sociology requiring notice. social phaenomena, like all others, present two aspects, the statical, and the dynamical; the phaenomena of equilibrium, and those of motion. the statical aspect is that of the laws of social existence, considered abstractedly from progress, and confined to what is common to the progressive and the stationary state. the dynamical aspect is that of social progress. the statics of society is the study of the conditions of existence and permanence of the social state. the dynamics studies the laws of its evolution. the first is the theory of the _consensus,_ or interdependence of social phaenomena. the second is the theory of their filiation. the first division m. comte, in his great work, treats in a much more summary manner than the second; and it forms, to our thinking, the weakest part of the treatise. he can hardly have seemed even to himself to have originated, in the statics of society, anything new,[15] unless his revival of the catholic idea of a spiritual power may be so considered. the remainder, with the exception of detached thoughts, in which even his feeblest productions are always rich, is trite, while in our judgment far from being always true. he begins by a statement of the general properties of human nature which make social existence possible. man has a spontaneous propensity to the society of his fellow-beings, and seeks it instinctively, for its own sake, and not out of regard to the advantages it procures for him, which, in many conditions of humanity, must appear to him very problematical. man has also a certain, though moderate, amount of natural benevolence. on the other hand, these social propensities are by nature weaker than his selfish ones; and the social state, being mainly kept in existence through the former, involves an habitual antagonism between the two. further, our wants of all kinds, from the purely organic upwards, can only be satisfied by means of labour, nor does bodily labour suffice, without the guidance of intelligence. but labour, especially when prolonged and monotonous, is naturally hateful, and mental labour the most irksome of all; and hence a second antagonism, which must exist in all societies whatever. the character of the society is principally determined by the degree in which the better incentive, in each of these cases, makes head against the worse. in both the points, human nature is capable of great amelioration. the social instincts may approximate much nearer to the strength of the personal ones, though never entirely coming up to it; the aversion to labour in general, and to intellectual labour in particular, may be much weakened, and the predominance of the inclinations over the reason greatly diminished, though never completely destroyed. the spirit of improvement results from the increasing strength of the social instincts, combined with the growth of an intellectual activity, which guiding the personal propensities, inspires each individual with a deliberate desire to improve his condition. the personal instincts left to their own guidance, and the indolence and apathy natural to mankind, are the sources which mainly feed the spirit of conservation. the struggle between the two spirits is an universal incident of the social state. the next of the universal elements in human society is family life; which m. comte regards as originally the sole, and always the principal, source of the social feelings, and the only school open to mankind in general, in which unselfishness can be learnt, and the feelings and conduct demanded by social relations be made habitual. m. comte takes this opportunity of declaring his opinions on the proper constitution of the family, and in particular of the marriage institution. they are of the most orthodox and conservative sort. m. comte adheres not only to the popular christian, but to the catholic view of marriage in its utmost strictness, and rebukes protestant nations for having tampered with the indissolubility of the engagement, by permitting divorce. he admits that the marriage institution has been, in various respects, beneficially modified with the advance of society, and that we may not yet have reached the last of these modifications; but strenuously maintains that such changes cannot possibly affect what he regards as the essential principles of the institution--the irrevocability of the engagement, and the complete subordination of the wife to the husband, and of women generally to men; which are precisely the great vulnerable points of the existing constitution of society on this important subject. it is unpleasant to have to say it of a philosopher, but the incidents of his life which have been made public by his biographers afford an explanation of one of these two opinions: he had quarrelled with his wife.[16] at a later period, under the influence of circumstances equally personal, his opinions and feelings respecting women were very much modified, without becoming more rational: in his final scheme of society, instead of being treated as grown children, they were exalted into goddesses: honours, privileges, and immunities, were lavished on them, only not simple justice. on the other question, the irrevocability of marriage, m. comte must receive credit for impartiality, since the opposite doctrine would have better suited his personal convenience: but we can give him no other credit, for his argument is not only futile but refutes itself. he says that with liberty of divorce, life would be spent in a constant succession of experiments and failures; and in the same breath congratulates himself on the fact, that modern manners and sentiments have in the main prevented the baneful effects which the toleration of divorce in protestant countries might have been expected to produce. he did not perceive that if modern habits and feelings have successfully resisted what he deems the tendency of a less rigorous marriage law, it must be because modern habits and feelings are inconsistent with the perpetual series of new trials which he dreaded. if there are tendencies in human nature which seek change and variety, there are others which demand fixity, in matters which touch the daily sources of happiness; and one who had studied history as much as m. comte, ought to have known that ever since the nomad mode of life was exchanged for the agricultural, the latter tendencies have been always gaining ground on the former. all experience testifies that regularity in domestic relations is almost in direct proportion to industrial civilization. idle life, and military life with its long intervals of idleness, are the conditions to which, either sexual profligacy, or prolonged vagaries of imagination on that subject, are congenial. busy men have no time for them, and have too much other occupation for their thoughts: they require that home should be a place of rest, not of incessantly renewed excitement and disturbance. in the condition, therefore, into which modern society has passed, there is no probability that marriages would often be contracted without a sincere desire on both sides that they should be permanent. that this has been the case hitherto in countries where divorce was permitted, we have on m. comte's own showing: and everything leads us to believe that the power, if granted elsewhere, would in general be used only for its legitimate purpose--for enabling those who, by a blameless or excusable mistake, have lost their first throw for domestic happiness, to free themselves (with due regard for all interests concerned) from the burthensome yoke, and try, under more favourable auspices, another chance. any further discussion of these great social questions would evidently be incompatible with the nature and limits of the present paper. lastly, a phaenomenon universal in all societies, and constantly assuming a wider extension as they advance in their progress, is the co-operation of mankind one with another, by the division of employments and interchange of commodities and services; a communion which extends to nations as well as individuals. the economic importance of this spontaneous organization of mankind as joint workers with and for one another, has often been illustrated. its moral effects, in connecting them by their interests, and as a more remote consequence, by their sympathies, are equally salutary. but there are some things to be said on the other side. the increasing specialisation of all employments; the division of mankind into innumerable small fractions, each engrossed by an extremely minute fragment of the business of society, is not without inconveniences, as well moral as intellectual, which, if they could not be remedied, would be a serious abatement from the benefits of advanced civilization. the interests of the whole--the bearings of things on the ends of the social union--are less and less present to the minds of men who have so contracted a sphere of activity. the insignificant detail which forms their whole occupation--the infinitely minute wheel they help to turn in the machinery of society--does not arouse or gratify any feeling of public spirit, or unity with their fellow-men. their work is a mere tribute to physical necessity, not the glad performance of a social office. this lowering effect of the extreme division of labour tells most of all on those who are set up as the lights and teachers of the rest. a man's mind is as fatally narrowed, and his feelings towards the great ends of humanity as miserably stunted, by giving all his thoughts to the classification of a few insects or the resolution of a few equations, as to sharpening the points or putting on the heads of pins. the "dispersive speciality" of the present race of scientific men, who, unlike their predecessors, have a positive aversion to enlarged views, and seldom either know or care for any of the interests of mankind beyond the narrow limits of their pursuit, is dwelt on by m. comte as one of the great and growing evils of the time, and the one which most retards moral and intellectual regeneration. to contend against it is one of the main purposes towards which he thinks the forces of society should be directed. the obvious remedy is a large and liberal general education, preparatory to all special pursuits: and this is m. comte's opinion: but the education of youth is not in his estimation enough: he requires an agency set apart for obtruding upon all classes of persons through the whole of life, the paramount claims of the general interest, and the comprehensive ideas that demonstrate the mode in which human actions promote or impair it. in other words, he demands a moral and intellectual authority, charged with the duty of guiding men's opinions and enlightening and warning their consciences; a spiritual power, whose judgments on all matters of high moment should deserve, and receive, the same universal respect and deference which is paid to the united judgment of astronomers in matters astronomical. the very idea of such an authority implies that an unanimity has been attained, at least in essentials, among moral and political thinkers, corresponding or approaching to that which already exists in the other sciences. there cannot be this unanimity, until the true methods of positive science have been applied to all subjects, as completely as they have been applied to the study of physical science: to this, however, there is no real obstacle; and when once it is accomplished, the same degree of accordance will naturally follow. the undisputed authority which astronomers possess in astronomy, will be possessed on the great social questions by positive philosophers; to whom will belong the spiritual government of society, subject to two conditions: that they be entirely independent, within their own sphere, of the temporal government, and that they be peremptorily excluded from all share in it, receiving instead the entire conduct of education. this is the leading feature in m. comte's conception of a regenerated society; and however much this ideal differs from that which is implied more or less confusedly in the negative philosophy of the last three centuries, we hold the amount of truth in the two to be about the same. m. comte has got hold of half the truth, and the so-called liberal or revolutionary school possesses the other half; each sees what the other does not see, and seeing it exclusively, draws consequences from it which to the other appear mischievously absurd. it is, without doubt, the necessary condition of mankind to receive most of their opinions on the authority of those who have specially studied the matters to which they relate. the wisest can act on no other rule, on subjects with which they are not themselves thoroughly conversant; and the mass of mankind have always done the like on all the great subjects of thought and conduct, acting with implicit confidence on opinions of which they did not know, and were often incapable of understanding, the grounds, but on which as long as their natural guides were unanimous they fully relied, growing uncertain and sceptical only when these became divided, and teachers who as far as they could judge were equally competent, professed contradictory opinions. any doctrines which come recommended by the nearly universal verdict of instructed minds will no doubt continue to be, as they have hitherto been, accepted without misgiving by the rest. the difference is, that with the wide diffusion of scientific education among the whole people, demanded by m. comte, their faith, however implicit, would not be that of ignorance: it would not be the blind submission of dunces to men of knowledge, but the intelligent deference of those who know much, to those who know still more. it is those who have some knowledge of astronomy, not those who have none at all, who best appreciate how prodigiously more lagrange or laplace knew than themselves. this is what can be said in favour of m. comte. on the contrary side it is to be said, that in order that this salutary ascendancy over opinion should be exercised by the most eminent thinkers, it is not necessary that they should be associated and organized. the ascendancy will come of itself when the unanimity is attained, without which it is neither desirable nor possible. it is because astronomers agree in their teaching that astronomy is trusted, and not because there is an academy of sciences or a royal society issuing decrees or passing resolutions. a constituted moral authority can only be required when the object is not merely to promulgate and diffuse principles of conduct, but to direct the detail of their application; to declare and inculcate, not duties, but each person's duty, as was attempted by the spiritual authority of the middle ages. from this extreme application of his principle m. comte does not shrink. a function of this sort, no doubt, may often be very usefully discharged by individual members of the speculative class; but if entrusted to any organized body, would involve nothing less than a spiritual despotism. this however is what m. comte really contemplated, though it would practically nullify that peremptory separation of the spiritual from the temporal power, which he justly deemed essential to a wholesome state of society. those whom an irresistible public opinion invested with the right to dictate or control the acts of rulers, though without the means of backing their advice by force, would have all the real power of the temporal authorities, without their labours or their responsibilities. m. comte would probably have answered that the temporal rulers, having the whole legal power in their hands, would certainly not pay to the spiritual authority more than a very limited obedience: which amounts to saying that the ideal form of society which he sets up, is only fit to be an ideal because it cannot possibly be realized. that education should be practically directed by the philosophic class, when there is a philosophic class who have made good their claim to the place in opinion hitherto filled by the clergy, would be natural and indispensable. but that all education should be in the hands of a centralized authority, whether composed of clergy or of philosophers, and be consequently all framed on the same model, and directed to the perpetuation of the same type, is a state of things which instead of becoming more acceptable, will assuredly be more repugnant to mankind, with every step of their progress in the unfettered exercise of their highest faculties. we shall see, in the second part, the evils with which the conception of the new spiritual power is pregnant, coming out into full bloom in the more complete development which m. comte gave to the idea in his later years. after this unsatisfactory attempt to trace the outline of social statics, m. comte passes to a topic on which he is much more at home--the subject of his most eminent speculations; social dynamics, or the laws of the evolution of human society. two questions meet us at the outset: is there a natural evolution in human affairs? and is that evolution an improvement? m. comte resolves them both in the affirmative by the same answer. the natural progress of society consists in the growth of our human attributes, comparatively to our animal and our purely organic ones: the progress of our humanity towards an ascendancy over our animality, ever more nearly approached though incapable of being completely realized. this is the character and tendency of human development, or of what is called civilization; and the obligation of seconding this movement--of working in the direction of it--is the nearest approach which m. comte makes in this treatise to a general principle or standard of morality. but as our more eminent, and peculiarly human, faculties are of various orders, moral, intellectual, and aesthetic, the question presents itself, is there any one of these whose development is the predominant agency in the evolution of our species? according to m. comte, the main agent in the progress of mankind is their intellectual development. not because the intellectual is the most powerful part of our nature, for, limited to its inherent strength, it is one of the weakest: but because it is the guiding part, and acts not with its own strength alone, but with the united force of all parts of our nature which it can draw after it. in a social state the feelings and propensities cannot act with their full power, in a determinate direction, unless the speculative intellect places itself at their head. the passions are, in the individual man, a more energetic power than a mere intellectual conviction; but the passions tend to divide, not to unite, mankind: it is only by a common belief that passions are brought to work together, and become a collective force instead of forces neutralizing one another. our intelligence is first awakened by the stimulus of our animal wants and of our stronger and coarser desires; and these for a long time almost exclusively determine the direction in which our intelligence shall work: but once roused to activity, it assumes more and more the management of the operations of which stronger impulses are the prompters, and constrains them to follow its lead, not by its own strength, but because in the play of antagonistic forces, the path it points out is (in scientific phraseology) the direction of least resistance. personal interests and feelings, in the social state, can only obtain the maximum of satisfaction by means of co-operation, and the necessary condition of co-operation is a common belief. all human society, consequently, is grounded on a system of fundamental opinions, which only the speculative faculty can provide, and which when provided, directs our other impulses in their mode of seeking their gratification. and hence the history of opinions, and of the speculative faculty, has always been the leading element in the history of mankind. this doctrine has been combated by mr herbert spencer, in the pamphlet already referred to; and we will quote, in his own words, the theory he propounds in opposition to it:-/# "ideas do not govern and overthrow the world; the world is governed or overthrown by feelings, to which ideas serve only as guides. the social mechanism does not rest finally upon opinions, but almost wholly upon character. not intellectual anarchy, but moral antagonism, is the cause of political crises. all social phaenomena are produced by the totality of human emotions and beliefs, of which the emotions are mainly predetermined, while the beliefs are mainly post-determined. men's desires are chiefly inherited; but their beliefs are chiefly acquired, and depend on surrounding conditions; and the most important surrounding conditions depend on the social state which the prevalent desires have produced. the social state at any time existing, is the resultant of all the ambitions, self-interests, fears, reverences, indignations, sympathies, &c., of ancestral citizens and existing citizens. the ideas current in this social state must, on the average, lie congruous with the feelings of citizens, and therefore, on the average, with the social state these feelings have produced. ideas wholly foreign to this social state cannot be evolved, and if introduced from without, cannot get accepted--or, if accepted, die out when the temporary phase of feeling which caused their acceptance ends. hence, though advanced ideas, when once established, act upon society and aid its further advance, yet the establishment of such ideas depends on the fitness of society for receiving them. practically, the popular character and the social state determine what ideas shall be current; instead of the current ideas determining the social state and the character. the modification of men's moral natures, caused by the continuous discipline of social life, which adapts them more and more to social relations, is therefore the chief proximate cause of social progress."[17] #/ a great part of these statements would have been acknowledged as true by m. comte, and belong as much to his theory as to mr spencer's. the re-action of all other mental and social elements upon the intellectual not only is fully recognized by him, but his philosophy of history makes great use of it, pointing out that the principal intellectual changes could not have taken place unless changes in other elements of society had preceded; but also showing that these were themselves consequences of prior intellectual changes. it will not be found, on a fair examination of what m. comte has written, that he has overlooked any of the truth that there is in mr spencer's theory. he would not indeed have said (what mr spencer apparently wishes us to say) that the effects which can be historically traced, for example to religion, were not produced by the belief in god, but by reverence and fear of him. he would have said that the reverence and fear presuppose the belief: that a god must be believed in before he can be feared or reverenced. the whole influence of the belief in a god upon society and civilization, depends on the powerful human sentiments which are ready to attach themselves to the belief; and yet the sentiments are only a social force at all, through the definite direction given to them by that or some other intellectual conviction; nor did the sentiments spontaneously throw up the belief in a god, since in themselves they were equally capable of gathering round some other object. though it is true that men's passions and interests often dictate their opinions, or rather decide their choice among the two or three forms of opinion, which the existing condition of human intelligence renders possible, this disturbing cause is confined to morals, politics, and religion; and it is the intellectual movement in other regions than these, which is at the root of all the great changes in human affairs. it was not human emotions and passions which discovered the motion of the earth, or detected the evidence of its antiquity; which exploded scholasticism, and inaugurated the exploration of nature; which invented printing, paper, and the mariner's compass. yet the reformation, the english and french revolutions, and still greater moral and social changes yet to come, are direct consequences of these and similar discoveries. even alchemy and astrology were not believed because people thirsted for gold and were anxious to pry into the future, for these desires are as strong now as they were then: but because alchemy and astrology were conceptions natural to a particular stage in the growth of human knowledge, and consequently determined during that stage the particular means whereby the passions which always exist, sought their gratification. to say that men's intellectual beliefs do not determine their conduct, is like saying that the ship is moved by the steam and not by the steersman. the steam indeed is the motive power; the steersman, left to himself, could not advance the vessel a single inch; yet it is the steersman's will and the steersman's knowledge which decide in what direction it shall move and whither it shall go. examining next what is the natural order of intellectual progress among mankind, m. comte observes, that as their general mode of conceiving the universe must give its character to all their conceptions of detail, the determining fact in their intellectual history must be the natural succession of theories of the universe; which, it has been seen, consists of three stages, the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive. the passage of mankind through these stages, including the successive modifications of the theological conception by the rising influence of the other two, is, to m. comte's mind, the most decisive fact in the evolution of humanity. simultaneously, however, there has been going on throughout history a parallel movement in the purely temporal department of things, consisting of the gradual decline of the military mode of life (originally the chief occupation of all freemen) and its replacement by the industrial. m. comte maintains that there is a necessary connexion and interdependence between this historical sequence and the other: and he easily shows that the progress of industry and that of positive science are correlative; man's power to modify the facts of nature evidently depending on the knowledge he has acquired of their laws. we do not think him equally successful in showing a natural connexion between the theological mode of thought and the military system of society: but since they both belong to the same age of the world--since each is, in itself, natural and inevitable, and they are together modified and together undermined by the same cause, the progress of science and industry, m. comte is justified in considering them as linked together, and the movement by which mankind emerge from them as a single evolution. these propositions having been laid down as the first principles of social dynamics, m. comte proceeds to verify and apply them by a connected view of universal history. this survey nearly fills two large volumes, above a third of the work, in all of which there is scarcely a sentence that does not add an idea. we regard it as by far his greatest achievement, except his review of the sciences, and in some respects more striking even than that. we wish it were practicable in the compass of an essay like the present, to give even a faint conception of the extraordinary merits of this historical analysis. it must be read to be appreciated. whoever disbelieves that the philosophy of history can be made a science, should suspend his judgment until he has read these volumes of m. comte. we do not affirm that they would certainly change his opinion; but we would strongly advise him to give them a chance. we shall not attempt the vain task of abridgment, a few words are all we can give to the subject. m. comte confines himself to the main stream of human progress, looking only at the races and nations that led the van, and regarding as the successors of a people not their actual descendants, but those who took up the thread of progress after them. his object is to characterize truly, though generally, the successive states of society through which the advanced guard of our species has passed, and the filiation of these states on one another--how each grew out of the preceding and was the parent of the following state. a more detailed explanation, taking into account minute differences and more special and local phaenomena, m. comte does not aim at, though he does not avoid it when it falls in his path. here, as in all his other speculations, we meet occasional misjudgments, and his historical correctness in minor matters is now and then at fault; but we may well wonder that it is not oftener so, considering the vastness of the field, and a passage in one of his prefaces in which he says of himself that he _rapidly_ amassed the materials for his great enterprise (vi. 34). this expression in his mouth does not imply what it would in that of the majority of men, regard being had to his rare capacity of prolonged and concentrated mental labour: and it is wonderful that he so seldom gives cause to wish that his collection of materials had been less "rapid." but (as he himself remarks) in an inquiry of this sort the vulgarest facts are the most important. a movement common to all mankind--to all of them at least who do move--must depend on causes affecting them all; and these, from the scale on which they operate, cannot require abstruse research to bring them to light: they are not only seen, but best seen, in the most obvious, most universal, and most undisputed phaenomena. accordingly m. comte lays no claim to new views respecting the mere facts of history; he takes them as he finds them, builds almost exclusively on those concerning which there is no dispute, and only tries what positive results can be obtained by combining them. among the vast mass of historical observations which he has grouped and co-ordinated, if we have found any errors they are in things which do not affect his main conclusions. the chain of causation by which he connects the spiritual and temporal life of each era with one another and with the entire series, will be found, we think, in all essentials, irrefragable. when local or temporary disturbing causes have to be taken into the account as modifying the general movement, criticism has more to say. but this will only become important when the attempt is made to write the history or delineate the character of some given society on m. comte's principles. such doubtful statements, or misappreciations of states of society, as we have remarked, are confined to cases which stand more or less apart from the principal line of development of the progressive societies. for instance, he makes greatly too much of what, with many other continental thinkers, he calls the theocratic state. he regards this as a natural, and at one time almost an universal, stage of social progress, though admitting that it either never existed or speedily ceased in the two ancient nations to which mankind are chiefly indebted for being permanently progressive. we hold it doubtful if there ever existed what m. comte means by a theocracy. there was indeed no lack of societies in which, the civil and penal law being supposed to have been divinely revealed, the priests were its authorized interpreters. but this is the case even in mussulman countries, the extreme opposite of theocracy. by a theocracy we understand to be meant, and we understand m. comte to mean, a society founded on caste, and in which the speculative, necessarily identical with the priestly caste, has the temporal government in its hands or under its control. we believe that no such state of things ever existed in the societies commonly cited as theocratic. there is no reason to think that in any of them, the king, or chief of the government, was ever, unless by occasional usurpation, a member of the priestly caste.[18] it was not so in israel, even in the time of the judges; jephtha, for example, was a gileadite, of the tribe of manasseh, and a military captain, as all governors in such an age and country needed to be. priestly rulers only present themselves in two anomalous cases, of which next to nothing is known: the mikados of japan and the grand lamas of thibet: in neither of which instances was the general constitution of society one of caste, and in the latter of them the priestly sovereignty is as nominal as it has become in the former. india is the typical specimen of the institution of caste--the only case in which we are certain that it ever really existed, for its existence anywhere else is a matter of more or less probable inference in the remote past. but in india, where the importance of the sacerdotal order was greater than in any other recorded state of society, the king not only was not a priest, but, consistently with the religious law, could not be one: he belonged to a different caste. the brahmins were invested with an exalted character of sanctity, and an enormous amount of civil privileges; the king was enjoined to have a council of brahmin advisers; but practically he took their advice or disregarded it exactly as he pleased. as is observed by the historian who first threw the light of reason on hindoo society,[19] the king, though in dignity, to judge by the written code, he seemed vastly inferior to the brahmins, had always the full power of a despotic monarch: the reason being that he had the command of the army, and the control of the public revenue. there is no case known to authentic history in which either of these belonged to the sacerdotal caste. even in the cases most favourable to them, the priesthood had no voice in temporal affairs, except the "consultative" voice which m. comte's theory allows to every spiritual power. his collection of materials must have been unusually "rapid" in this instance, for he regards almost all the societies of antiquity, except the greek and roman, as theocratic, even gaul under the druids, and persia under darius; admitting, however, that in these two countries, when they emerge into the light of history, the theocracy had already been much broken down by military usurpation. by what evidence he could have proved that it ever existed, we confess ourselves unable to divine. the only other imperfection worth noticing here, which we find in m. comte's view of history, is that he has a very insufficient understanding of the peculiar phaenomena of english development; though he recognizes, and on the whole correctly estimates, its exceptional character in relation to the general european movement. his failure consists chiefly in want of appreciation of protestantism; which, like almost all thinkers, even unbelievers, who have lived and thought exclusively in a catholic atmosphere, he sees and knows only on its negative side, regarding the reformation as a mere destructive movement, stopped short in too early a stage. he does not seem to be aware that protestantism has any positive influences, other than the general ones of christianity; and misses one of the most important facts connected with it, its remarkable efficacy, as contrasted with catholicism, in cultivating the intelligence and conscience of the individual believer. protestantism, when not merely professed but actually taken into the mind, makes a demand on the intelligence; the mind is expected to be active, not passive, in the reception of it. the feeling of a direct responsibility of the individual immediately to god, is almost wholly a creation of protestantism. even when protestants were nearly as persecuting as catholics (quite as much so they never were); even when they held as firmly as catholics that salvation depended on having the true belief, they still maintained that the belief was not to be accepted from a priest, but to be sought and found by the believer, at his eternal peril if he failed; and that no one could answer to god for him, but that he had to answer for himself. the avoidance of fatal error thus became in a great measure a question of culture; and there was the strongest inducement to every believer, however humble, to seek culture and to profit by it. in those protestant countries, accordingly, whose churches were not, as the church of england always was, principally political institutions--in scotland, for instance, and the new england states--an amount of education was carried down to the poorest of the people, of which there is no other example; every peasant expounded the bible to his family (many to their neighbours), and had a mind practised in meditation and discussion on all the points of his religious creed. the food may not have been the most nourishing, but we cannot be blind to the sharpening and strengthening exercise which such great topics gave to the understanding--the discipline in abstraction and reasoning which such mental occupation brought down to the humblest layman, and one of the consequences of which was the privilege long enjoyed by scotland of supplying the greater part of europe with professors for its universities, and educated and skilled workmen for its practical arts. this, however, notwithstanding its importance, is, in a comprehensive view of universal history, only a matter of detail. we find no fundamental errors in m. comte's general conception of history. he is singularly exempt from most of the twists and exaggerations which we are used to find in almost all thinkers who meddle with speculations of this character. scarcely any of them is so free (for example) from the opposite errors of ascribing too much or too little influence to accident, and to the qualities of individuals. the vulgar mistake of supposing that the course of history has no tendencies of its own, and that great events usually proceed from small causes, or that kings, or conquerors, or the founders of philosophies and religions, can do with society what they please, no one has more completely avoided or more tellingly exposed. but he is equally free from the error of those who ascribe all to general causes, and imagine that neither casual circumstances, nor governments by their acts, nor individuals of genius by their thoughts, materially accelerate or retard human progress. this is the mistake which pervades the instructive writings of the thinker who in england and in our own times bore the nearest, though a very remote, resemblance to m. comte--the lamented mr buckle; who, had he not been unhappily cut off in an early stage of his labours, and before the complete maturity of his powers, would probably have thrown off an error, the more to be regretted as it gives a colour to the prejudice which regards the doctrine of the invariability of natural laws as identical with fatalism. mr buckle also fell into another mistake which m. comte avoided, that of regarding the intellectual as the only progressive element in man, and the moral as too much the same at all times to affect even the annual average of crime. m. comte shows, on the contrary, a most acute sense of the causes which elevate or lower the general level of moral excellence; and deems intellectual progress in no other way so beneficial as by creating a standard to guide the moral sentiments of mankind, and a mode of bringing those sentiments effectively to bear on conduct. m. comte is equally free from the error of considering any practical rule or doctrine that can be laid down in politics as universal and absolute. all political truth he deems strictly relative, implying as its correlative a given state or situation of society. this conviction is now common to him with all thinkers who are on a level with the age, and comes so naturally to any intelligent reader of history, that the only wonder is how men could have been prevented from reaching it sooner. it marks one of the principal differences between the political philosophy of the present time and that of the past; but m. comte adopted it when the opposite mode of thinking was still general, and there are few thinkers to whom the principle owes more in the way of comment and illustration. again, while he sets forth the historical succession of systems of belief and forms of political society, and places in the strongest light those imperfections in each which make it impossible that any of them should be final, this does not make him for a moment unjust to the men or the opinions of the past. he accords with generous recognition the gratitude due to all who, with whatever imperfections of doctrine or even of conduct, contributed materially to the work of human improvement. in all past modes of thought and forms of society he acknowledged a useful, in many a necessary, office, in carrying mankind through one stage of improvement into a higher. the theological spirit in its successive forms, the metaphysical in its principal varieties, are honoured by him for the services they rendered in bringing mankind out of pristine savagery into a state in which more advanced modes of belief became possible. his list of heroes and benefactors of mankind includes, not only every important name in the scientific movement, from thales of miletus to fourier the mathematician and blainville the biologist, and in the aesthetic from homer to manzoni, but the most illustrious names in the annals of the various religions and philosophies, and the really great politicians in all states of society.[20] above all, he has the most profound admiration for the services rendered by christianity, and by the church of the middle ages. his estimate of the catholic period is such as the majority of englishmen (from whom we take the liberty to differ) would deem exaggerated, if not absurd. the great men of christianity, from st paul to st francis of assisi, receive his warmest homage: nor does he forget the greatness even of those who lived and thought in the centuries in which the catholic church, having stopt short while the world had gone on, had become a hindrance to progress instead of a promoter of it; such men as fénélon and st vincent de paul, bossuet and joseph de maistre. a more comprehensive, and, in the primitive sense of the term, more catholic, sympathy and reverence towards real worth, and every kind of service to humanity, we have not met with in any thinker. men who would have torn each other in pieces, who even tried to do so, if each usefully served in his own way the interests of mankind, are all hallowed to him. neither is his a cramped and contracted notion of human excellence, which cares only for certain forms of development. he not only personally appreciates, but rates high in moral value, the creations of poets and artists in all departments, deeming them, by their mixed appeal to the sentiments and the understanding, admirably fitted to educate the feelings of abstract thinkers, and enlarge the intellectual horizon of people of the world.[21] he regards the law of progress as applicable, in spite of appearances, to poetry and art as much as to science and politics. the common impression to the contrary he ascribes solely to the fact, that the perfection of aesthetic creation requires as its condition a consentaneousness in the feelings of mankind, which depends for its existence on a fixed and settled state of opinions: while the last five centuries have been a period not of settling, but of unsettling and decomposing, the most general beliefs and sentiments of mankind. the numerous monuments of poetic and artistic genius which the modern mind has produced even under this great disadvantage, are (he maintains) sufficient proof what great productions it will be capable of, when one harmonious vein of sentiment shall once more thrill through the whole of society, as in the days of homer, of aeschylus, of phidias, and even of dante. after so profound and comprehensive a view of the progress of human society in the past, of which the future can only be a prolongation, it is natural to ask, to what use does he put this survey as a basis of practical recommendations? such recommendations he certainly makes, though, in the present treatise, they are of a much less definite character than in his later writings. but we miss a necessary link; there is a break in the otherwise close concatenation of his speculations. we fail to see any scientific connexion between his theoretical explanation of the past progress of society, and his proposals for future improvement. the proposals are not, as we might expect, recommended as that towards which human society has been tending and working through the whole of history. it is thus that thinkers have usually proceeded, who formed theories for the future, grounded on historical analysis of the past. tocqueville, for example, and others, finding, as they thought, through all history, a steady progress in the direction of social and political equality, argued that to smooth this transition, and make the best of what is certainly coming, is the proper employment of political foresight. we do not find m. comte supporting his recommendations by a similar line of argument. they rest as completely, each on its separate reasons of supposed utility, as with philosophers who, like bentham, theorize on politics without any historical basis at all. the only bridge of connexion which leads from his historical speculations to his practical conclusions, is the inference, that since the old powers of society, both in the region of thought and of action, are declining and destined to disappear, leaving only the two rising powers, positive thinkers on the one hand, leaders of industry on the other, the future necessarily belongs to these: spiritual power to the former, temporal to the latter. as a specimen of historical forecast this is very deficient; for are there not the masses as well as the leaders of industry? and is not theirs also a growing power? be this as it may, m. comte's conceptions of the mode in which these growing powers should be organized and used, are grounded on anything rather than on history. and we cannot but remark a singular anomaly in a thinker of m. comte's calibre. after the ample evidence he has brought forward of the slow growth of the sciences, all of which except the mathematico-astronomical couple are still, as he justly thinks, in a very early stage, it yet appears as if, to his mind, the mere institution of a positive science of sociology were tantamount to its completion; as if all the diversities of opinion on the subject, which set mankind at variance, were solely owing to its having been studied in the theological or the metaphysical manner, and as if when the positive method which has raised up real sciences on other subjects of knowledge, is similarly employed on this, divergence would at once cease, and the entire body of positive social inquirers would exhibit as much agreement in their doctrines as those who cultivate any of the sciences of inorganic life. happy would be the prospects of mankind if this were so. a time such as m. comte reckoned upon may come; unless something stops the progress of human improvement, it is sure to come: but after an unknown duration of hard thought and violent controversy. the period of decomposition, which has lasted, on his own computation, from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the present, is not yet terminated: the shell of the old edifice will remain standing until there is another ready to replace it; and the new synthesis is barely begun, nor is even the preparatory analysis completely finished. on other occasions m. comte is very well aware that the method of a science is not the science itself, and that when the difficulty of discovering the right processes has been overcome, there remains a still greater difficulty, that of applying them. this, which is true of all sciences, is truest of all in sociology. the facts being more complicated, and depending on a greater concurrence of forces, than in any other science, the difficulty of treating them deductively is proportionally increased, while the wide difference between any one case and every other in some of the circumstances which affect the result, makes the pretence of direct induction usually no better than empiricism. it is therefore, out of all proportion, more uncertain than in any other science, whether two inquirers equally competent and equally disinterested will take the same view of the evidence, or arrive at the same conclusion. when to this intrinsic difficulty is added the infinitely greater extent to which personal or class interests and predilections interfere with impartial judgment, the hope of such accordance of opinion among sociological inquirers as would obtain, in mere deference to their authority, the universal assent which m. comte's scheme of society requires, must be adjourned to an indefinite distance. m. comte's own theory is an apt illustration of these difficulties, since, though prepared for these speculations as no one had ever been prepared before, his views of social regeneration even in the rudimentary form in which they appear above-ground in this treatise (not to speak of the singular system into which he afterwards enlarged them) are such as perhaps no other person of equal knowledge and capacity would agree in. were those views as true as they are questionable, they could not take effect until the unanimity among positive thinkers, to which he looked forward, shall have been attained; since the mainspring of his system is a spiritual power composed of positive philosophers, which only the previous attainment of the unanimity in question could call into existence. a few words will sufficiently express the outline of his scheme. a corporation of philosophers, receiving a modest support from the state, surrounded by reverence, but peremptorily excluded not only from all political power or employment, but from all riches, and all occupations except their own, are to have the entire direction of education: together with, not only the right and duty of advising and reproving all persons respecting both their public and their private life, but also a control (whether authoritative or only moral is not defined) over the speculative class itself, to prevent them from wasting time and ingenuity on inquiries and speculations of no value to mankind (among which he includes many now in high estimation), and compel them to employ all their powers on the investigations which may be judged, at the time, to be the most urgently important to the general welfare. the temporal government which is to coexist with this spiritual authority, consists of an aristocracy of capitalists, whose dignity and authority are to be in the ratio of the degree of generality of their conceptions and operations--bankers at the summit, merchants next, then manufacturers, and agriculturists at the bottom of the scale. no representative system, or other popular organization, by way of counterpoise to this governing power, is ever contemplated. the checks relied upon for preventing its abuse, are the counsels and remonstrances of the spiritual power, and unlimited liberty of discussion and comment by all classes of inferiors. of the mode in which either set of authorities should fulfil the office assigned to it, little is said in this treatise: but the general idea is, while regulating as little as possible by law, to make the pressure of opinion, directed by the spiritual power, so heavy on every individual, from the humblest to the most powerful, as to render legal obligation, in as many cases as possible, needless. liberty and spontaneity on the part of individuals form no part of the scheme. m. comte looks on them with as great jealousy as any scholastic pedagogue, or ecclesiastical director of consciences. every particular of conduct, public or private, is to be open to the public eye, and to be kept, by the power of opinion, in the course which the spiritual corporation shall judge to be the most right. this is not a sufficiently tempting picture to have much chance of making converts rapidly, and the objections to the scheme are too obvious to need stating. indeed, it is only thoughtful persons to whom it will be credible, that speculations leading to this result can deserve the attention necessary for understanding them. we propose in the next essay to examine them as part of the elaborate and coherent system of doctrine, which m. comte afterwards put together for the reconstruction of society. meanwhile the reader will gather, from what has been said, that m. comte has not, in our opinion, created sociology. except his analysis of history, to which there is much to be added, but which we do not think likely to be ever, in its general features, superseded, he has done nothing in sociology which does not require to be done over again, and better. nevertheless, he has greatly advanced the study. besides the great stores of thought, of various and often of eminent merit, with which he has enriched the subject, his conception of its method is so much truer and more profound than that of any one who preceded him, as to constitute an era in its cultivation. if it cannot be said of him that he has created a science, it may be said truly that he has, for the first time, made the creation possible. this is a great achievement, and, with the extraordinary merit of his historical analysis, and of his philosophy of the physical sciences, is enough to immortalize his name. but his renown with posterity would probably have been greater than it is now likely to be, if after showing the way in which the social science should be formed, he had not flattered himself that he had formed it, and that it was already sufficiently solid for attempting to build upon its foundation the entire fabric of the political art. * * * * * part ii. the later speculations of m. comte.[22] the appended list of publications contain the materials for knowing and estimating what m. comte termed his second career, in which the _savant_, historian, and philosopher of his fundamental treatise, came forth transfigured as the high priest of the religion of humanity. they include all his writings except the cours de philosophic positive: for his early productions, and the occasional publications of his later life, are reprinted as preludes or appendices to the treatises here enumerated, or in dr robinet's volume, which, as well as that of m. littré, also contains copious extracts from his correspondence. in the concluding pages of his great systematic work, m. comte had announced four other treatises as in contemplation: on politics; on the philosophy of mathematics; on education, a project subsequently enlarged to include the systematization of morals; and on industry, or the action of man upon external nature. our list comprises the only two of these which he lived to execute. it further contains a brief exposition of his final doctrines, in the form of a dialogue, or, as he terms it, a catechism, of which a translation has been published by his principal english adherent, mr congreve. there has also appeared very recently, under the title of "a general view of positivism," a translation by dr bridges, of the preliminary discourse in six chapters, prefixed to the système de politique positive. the remaining three books on our list are the productions of disciples in different degrees. m. littré, the only thinker of established reputation who accepts that character, is a disciple only of the cours de philosophie positive, and can see the weak points even in that. some of them he has discriminated and discussed with great judgment: and the merits of his volume, both as a sketch of m. comte's life and an appreciation of his doctrines, would well deserve a fuller notice than we are able to give it here. m. de blignières is a far more thorough adherent; so much so, that the reader of his singularly well and attractively written condensation and popularization of his master's doctrines, does not easily discover in what it falls short of that unqualified acceptance which alone, it would seem, could find favour with m. comte. for he ended by casting off m. de blignières, as he had previously cast off m. littré, and every other person who, having gone with him a certain length, refused to follow him to the end. the author of the last work in our enumeration, dr robinet, is a disciple after m. comte's own heart; one whom no difficulty stops, and no absurdity startles. but it is far from our disposition to speak otherwise than respectfully of dr robinet and the other earnest men, who maintain round the tomb of their master an organized co-operation for the diffusion of doctrines which they believe destined to regenerate the human race. their enthusiastic veneration for him, and devotion to the ends he pursued, do honour alike to them and to their teacher, and are an evidence of the personal ascendancy he exercised over those who approached him; an ascendancy which for a time carried away even m. littré, as he confesses, to a length which his calmer judgment does not now approve. these various writings raise many points of interest regarding m. comte's personal history, and some, not without philosophic bearings, respecting his mental habits: from all which matters we shall abstain, with the exception of two, which he himself proclaimed with great emphasis, and a knowledge of which is almost indispensable to an apprehension of the characteristic difference between his second career and his first. it should be known that during his later life, and even before completing his first great treatise, m. comte adopted a rule, to which he very rarely made any exception: to abstain systematically, not only from newspapers or periodical publications, even scientific, but from all reading whatever, except a few favourite poets in the ancient and modern european languages. this abstinence he practised for the sake of mental health; by way, as he said, of "_hygiène cérébrale_." we are far from thinking that the practice has nothing whatever to recommend it. for most thinkers, doubtless, it would be a very unwise one; but we will not affirm that it may not sometimes be advantageous to a mind of the peculiar quality of m. comte's--one that can usefully devote itself to following out to the remotest developments a particular line of meditations, of so arduous a kind that the complete concentration of the intellect upon its own thoughts is almost a necessary condition of success. when a mind of this character has laboriously and conscientiously laid in beforehand, as m. comte had done, an ample stock of materials, he may be justified in thinking that he will contribute most to the mental wealth of mankind by occupying himself solely in working upon these, without distracting his attention by continually taking in more matter, or keeping a communication open with other independent intellects. the practice, therefore, may be legitimate; but no one should adopt it without being aware of what he loses by it. he must resign the pretension of arriving at the whole truth on the subject, whatever it be, of his meditations. that he should effect this, even on a narrow subject, by the mere force of his own mind, building on the foundations of his predecessors, without aid or correction from his contemporaries, is simply impossible. he may do eminent service by elaborating certain sides of the truth, but he must expect to find that there are other sides which have wholly escaped his attention. however great his powers, everything that he can do without the aid of incessant remindings from other thinkers, is merely provisional, and will require a thorough revision. he ought to be aware of this, and accept it with his eyes open, regarding himself as a pioneer, not a constructor. if he thinks that he can contribute most towards the elements of the final synthesis by following out his own original thoughts as far as they will go, leaving to other thinkers, or to himself at a subsequent time, the business of adjusting them to the thoughts by which they ought to be accompanied, he is right in doing so. but he deludes himself if he imagines that any conclusions he can arrive at, while he practises m. comte's rule of _hygiène cérébrale_, can possibly be definitive. neither is such a practice, in a hygienic point of view, free from the gravest dangers to the philosopher's own mind. when once he has persuaded himself that he can work out the final truth on any subject, exclusively from his own sources, he is apt to lose all measure or standard by which to be apprized when he is departing from common sense. living only with his own thoughts, he gradually forgets the aspect they present to minds of a different mould from his own; he looks at his conclusions only from the point of view which suggested them, and from which they naturally appear perfect; and every consideration which from other points of view might present itself, either as an objection or as a necessary modification, is to him as if it did not exist. when his merits come to be recognised and appreciated, and especially if he obtains disciples, the intellectual infirmity soon becomes complicated with a moral one. the natural result of the position is a gigantic self-confidence, not to say self-conceit. that of m. comte is colossal. except here and there in an entirely self-taught thinker, who has no high standard with which to compare himself, we have met with nothing approaching to it. as his thoughts grew more extravagant, his self-confidence grew more outrageous. the height it ultimately attained must be seen, in his writings, to be believed. the other circumstance of a personal nature which it is impossible not to notice, because m. comte is perpetually referring to it as the origin of the great superiority which he ascribes to his later as compared with his earlier speculations, is the "moral regeneration" which he underwent from "une angélique influence" and "une incomparable passion privée." he formed a passionate attachment to a lady whom he describes as uniting everything which is morally with much that is intellectually admirable, and his relation to whom, besides the direct influence of her character upon his own, gave him an insight into the true sources of human happiness, which changed his whole conception of life. this attachment, which always remained pure, gave him but one year of passionate enjoyment, the lady having been cut off by death at the end of that short period; but the adoration of her memory survived, and became, as we shall see, the type of his conception of the sympathetic culture proper for all human beings. the change thus effected in his personal character and sentiments, manifested itself at once in his speculations; which, from having been only a philosophy, now aspired to become a religion; and from having been as purely, and almost rudely, scientific and intellectual, as was compatible with a character always enthusiastic in its admirations and in its ardour for improvement, became from this time what, for want of a better name, may be called sentimental; but sentimental in a way of its own, very curious to contemplate. in considering the system of religion, politics, and morals, which in his later writings m. comte constructed, it is not unimportant to bear in mind the nature of the personal experience and inspiration to which he himself constantly attributed this phasis of his philosophy. but as we shall have much more to say against, than in favour of, the conclusions to which he was in this manner conducted, it is right to declare that, from the evidence of his writings, we really believe the moral influence of madame clotilde de vaux upon his character to have been of the ennobling as well as softening character which he ascribes to it. making allowance for the effects of his exuberant growth in self-conceit, we perceive almost as much improvement in his feelings, as deterioration in his speculations, compared with those of the philosophie positive. even the speculations are, in some secondary aspects, improved through the beneficial effect of the improved feelings; and might have been more so, if, by a rare good fortune, the object of his attachment had been qualified to exercise as improving an influence over him intellectually as morally, and if he could have been contented with something less ambitious than being the supreme moral legislator and religious pontiff of the human race. when we say that m. comte has erected his philosophy into a religion, the word religion must not be understood in its ordinary sense. he made no change in the purely negative attitude which he maintained towards theology: his religion is without a god. in saying this, we have done enough to induce nine-tenths of all readers, at least in our own country, to avert their faces and close their ears. to have no religion, though scandalous enough, is an idea they are partly used to: but to have no god, and to talk of religion, is to their feelings at once an absurdity and an impiety. of the remaining tenth, a great proportion, perhaps, will turn away from anything which calls itself by the name of religion at all. between the two, it is difficult to find an audience who can be induced to listen to m. comte without an insurmountable prejudice. but, to be just to any opinion, it ought to be considered, not exclusively from an opponent's point of view, but from that of the mind which propounds it. though conscious of being in an extremely small minority, we venture to think that a religion may exist without belief in a god, and that a religion without a god may be, even to christians, an instructive and profitable object of contemplation. what, in truth, are the conditions necessary to constitute a religion? there must be a creed, or conviction, claiming authority over the whole of human life; a belief, or set of beliefs, deliberately adopted, respecting human destiny and duty, to which the believer inwardly acknowledges that all his actions ought to be subordinate. moreover, there must be a sentiment connected with this creed, or capable of being invoked by it, sufficiently powerful to give it in fact, the authority over human conduct to which it lays claim in theory. it is a great advantage (though not absolutely indispensable) that this sentiment should crystallize, as it were, round a concrete object; if possible a really existing one, though, in all the more important cases, only ideally present. such an object theism and christianity offer to the believer: but the condition may be fulfilled, if not in a manner strictly equivalent, by another object. it has been said that whoever believes in "the infinite nature of duty," even if he believe in nothing else, is religious. m. comte believes in what is meant by the infinite nature of duty, but ho refers the obligations of duty, as well as all sentiments of devotion, to a concrete object, at once ideal and real; the human race, conceived as a continuous whole, including the past, the present, and the future. this great collective existence, this "grand etre," as he terms it, though the feelings it can excite are necessarily very different from those which direct themselves towards an ideally perfect being, has, as he forcibly urges, this advantage in respect to us, that it really needs our services, which omnipotence cannot, in any genuine sense of the term, be supposed to do: and m. comte says, that assuming the existence of a supreme providence (which he is as far from denying as from affirming), the best, and even the only, way in which we can rightly worship or serve him, is by doing our utmost to love and serve that other great being, whose inferior providence has bestowed on us all the benefits that we owe to the labours and virtues of former generations. it may not be consonant to usage to call this a religion; but the term so applied has a meaning, and one which is not adequately expressed by any other word. candid persons of all creeds may be willing to admit, that if a person has an ideal object, his attachment and sense of duty towards which are able to control and discipline all his other sentiments and propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life, that person has a religion: and though everyone naturally prefers his own religion to any other, all must admit that if the object of this attachment, and of this feeling of duty, is the aggregate of our fellow-creatures, this religion of the infidel cannot, in honesty and conscience, be called an intrinsically bad one. many, indeed, may be unable to believe that this object is capable of gathering round it feelings sufficiently strong: but this is exactly the point on which a doubt can hardly remain in an intelligent reader of m. comte: and we join with him in contemning, as equally irrational and mean, the conception of human nature as incapable of giving its love and devoting its existence to any object which cannot afford in exchange an eternity of personal enjoyment. the power which may be acquired over the mind by the idea of the general interest of the human race, both as a source of emotion and as a motive to conduct, many have perceived; but we know not if any one, before m. comte, realized so fully as he has done, all the majesty of which that idea is susceptible. it ascends into the unknown recesses of the past, embraces the manifold present, and descends into the indefinite and unforeseeable future, forming a collective existence without assignable beginning or end, it appeals to that feeling of the infinite, which is deeply rooted in human nature, and which seems necessary to the imposingness of all our highest conceptions. of the vast unrolling web of human life, the part best known to us is irrevocably past; this we can no longer serve, but can still love: it comprises for most of us the far greater number of those who have loved us, or from whom we have received benefits, as well as the long series of those who, by their labours and sacrifices for mankind, have deserved to be held in everlasting and grateful remembrance. as m. comte truly says, the highest minds, even now, live in thought with the great dead, far more than with the living; and, next to the dead, with those ideal human beings yet to come, whom they are never destined to see. if we honour as we ought those who have served mankind in the past, we shall feel that we are also working for those benefactors by serving that to which their lives were devoted. and when reflection, guided by history, has taught us the intimacy of the connexion of every age of humanity with every other, making us see in the earthly destiny of mankind the playing out of a great drama, or the action of a prolonged epic, all the generations of mankind become indissolubly united into a single image, combining all the power over the mind of the idea of posterity, with our best feelings towards the living world which surrounds us, and towards the predecessors who have made us what we are. that the ennobling power of this grand conception may have its full efficacy, we should, with m. comte, regard the grand etre, humanity, or mankind, as composed, in the past, solely of those who, in every age and variety of position, have played their part worthily in life. it is only as thus restricted that the aggregate of our species becomes an object deserving our veneration. the unworthy members of it are best dismissed from our habitual thoughts; and the imperfections which adhered through life, even to those of the dead who deserve honourable remembrance, should be no further borne in mind than is necessary not to falsify our conception of facts. on the other hand, the grand etre in its completeness ought to include not only all whom we venerate, but all sentient beings to which we owe duties, and which have a claim on our attachment. m. comte, therefore, incorporates into the ideal object whose service is to be the law of our life, not our own species exclusively, but, in a subordinate degree, our humble auxiliaries, those animal races which enter into real society with man, which attach themselves to him, and voluntarily co-operate with him, like the noble dog who gives his life for his human friend and benefactor. for this m. comte has been subjected to unworthy ridicule, but there is nothing truer or more honourable to him in the whole body of his doctrines. the strong sense he always shows of the worth of the inferior animals, and of the duties of mankind towards them, is one of the very finest traits of his character. we, therefore, not only hold that m. comte was justified in the attempt to develope his philosophy into a religion, and had realized the essential conditions of one, but that all other religions are made better in proportion as, in their practical result, they are brought to coincide with that which he aimed at constructing. but, unhappily, the next thing we are obliged to do, is to charge him with making a complete mistake at the very outset of his operations--with fundamentally misconceiving the proper office of a rule of life. he committed the error which is often, but falsely, charged against the whole class of utilitarian moralists; he required that the test of conduct should also be the exclusive motive to it. because the good of the human race is the ultimate standard of right and wrong, and because moral discipline consists in cultivating the utmost possible repugnance to all conduct injurious to the general good, m. comte infers that the good of others is the only inducement on which we should allow ourselves to act; and that we should endeavour to starve the whole of the desires which point to our personal satisfaction, by denying them all gratification not strictly required by physical necessities. the golden rule of morality, in m. comte's religion, is to live for others, "vivre pour autrui." to do as we would be done by, and to love our neighbour as ourself, are not sufficient for him: they partake, he thinks, of the nature of personal calculations. we should endeavour not to love ourselves at all. we shall not succeed in it, but we should make the nearest approach to it possible. nothing less will satisfy him, as towards humanity, than the sentiment which one of his favourite writers, thomas à kempis, addresses to god: amem te plus quam me, nec me nisi propter te. all education and all moral discipline should have but one object, to make altruism (a word of his own coming) predominate over egoism. if by this were only meant that egoism is bound, and should be taught, always to give way to the well-understood interests of enlarged altruism, no one who acknowledges any morality at all would object to the proposition. but m. comte, taking his stand on the biological fact that organs are strengthened by exercise and atrophied by disuse, and firmly convinced that each of our elementary inclinations has its distinct cerebral organ, thinks it the grand duty of life not only to strengthen the social affections by constant habit and by referring all our actions to them, but, as far as possible, to deaden the personal passions and propensities by desuetude. even the exercise of the intellect is required to obey as an authoritative rule the dominion of the social feelings over the intelligence (du coeur sur l'esprit). the physical and other personal instincts are to be mortified far beyond the demands of bodily health, which indeed the morality of the future is not to insist much upon, for fear of encouraging "les calculs personnels." m. comte condemns only such austerities as, by diminishing the vigour of the constitution, make us less capable of being useful to others. any indulgence, even in food, not necessary to health and strength, he condemns as immoral. all gratifications except those of the affections, are to be tolerated only as "inevitable infirmities." novalis said of spinoza that he was a god-intoxicated man: m. comte is a morality-intoxicated man. every question with him is one of morality, and no motive but that of morality is permitted. the explanation of this we find in an original mental twist, very common in french thinkers, and by which m. comte was distinguished beyond them all. he could not dispense with what he called "unity." it was for the sake of unity that a religion was, in his eyes, desirable. not in the mere sense of unanimity, but in a far wider one. a religion must be something by which to "systematize" human life. his definition of it, in the "catéchisme," is "the state of complete unity which distinguishes our existence, at once personal and social, when all its parts, both moral and physical, converge habitually to a common destination.... such a harmony, individual and collective, being incapable of complete realization in an existence so complicated as ours, this definition of religion characterizes the immovable type towards which tends more and more the aggregate of human efforts. our happiness and our merit consist especially in approaching as near as possible to this unity, of which the gradual increase constitutes the best measure of real improvement, personal or social." to this theme he continually returns, and argues that this unity or harmony among all the elements of our life is not consistent with the predominance of the personal propensities, since these drag us in different directions; it can only result from the subordination of them all to the social icelings, which may be made to act in a uniform direction by a common system of convictions, and which differ from the personal inclinations in this, that we all naturally encourage them in one another, while, on the contrary, social life is a perpetual restraint upon the selfish propensities. the _fons errorum_ in m. comte's later speculations is this inordinate demand for "unity" and "systematization." this is the reason why it does not suffice to him that all should be ready, in case of need, to postpone their personal interests and inclinations to the requirements of the general good: he demands that each should regard as vicious any care at all for his personal interests, except as a means to the good of others--should be ashamed of it, should strive to cure himself of it, because his existence is not "systematized," is not in "complete unity," as long as he cares for more than one thing. the strangest part of the matter is, that this doctrine seems to m. comte to be axiomatic. that all perfection consists in unity, he apparently considers to be a maxim which no sane man thinks of questioning. it never seems to enter into his conceptions that any one could object _ab initio_, and ask, why this universal systematizing, systematizing, systematizing? why is it necessary that all human life should point but to one object, and be cultivated into a system of means to a single end? may it not be the fact that mankind, who after all are made up of single human beings, obtain a greater sum of happiness when each pursues his own, under the rules and conditions required by the good of the rest, than when each makes the good of the rest his only subject, and allows himself no personal pleasures not indispensable to the preservation of his faculties? the regimen of a blockaded town should be cheerfully submitted to when high purposes require it, but is it the ideal perfection of human existence? m. comte sees none of these difficulties. the only true happiness, he affirms, is in the exercise of the affections. he had found it so for a whole year, which was enough to enable him to get to the bottom of the question, and to judge whether he could do without everything else. of course the supposition was not to be heard of that any other person could require, or be the better for, what m. comte did not value. "unity" and "systematization" absolutely demanded that all other people should model themselves after m. comte. it would never do to suppose that there could be more than one road to human happiness, or more than one ingredient in it. the most prejudiced must admit that this religion without theology is not chargeable with relaxation of moral restraints. on the contrary, it prodigiously exaggerates them. it makes the same ethical mistake as the theory of calvinism, that every act in life should be done for the glory of god, and that whatever is not a duty is a sin. it does not perceive that between the region of duty and that of sin there is an intermediate space, the region of positive worthiness. it is not good that persons should be bound, by other people's opinion, to do everything that they would deserve praise for doing. there is a standard of altruism to which all should be required to come up, and a degree beyond it which is not obligatory, but meritorious. it is incumbent on every one to restrain the pursuit of his personal objects within the limits consistent with the essential interests of others. what those limits are, it is the province of ethical science to determine; and to keep all individuals and aggregations of individuals within them, is the proper office of punishment and of moral blame. if in addition to fulfilling this obligation, persons make the good of others a direct object of disinterested exertions, postponing or sacrificing to it even innocent personal indulgences, they deserve gratitude and honour, and are fit objects of moral praise. so long as they are in no way compelled to this conduct by any external pressure, there cannot be too much of it; but a necessary condition is its spontaneity; since the notion of a happiness for all, procured by the self-sacrifice of each, if the abnegation is really felt to be a sacrifice, is a contradiction. such spontaneity by no means excludes sympathetic encouragement; but the encouragement should take the form of making self-devotion pleasant, not that of making everything else painful. the object should be to stimulate services to humanity by their natural rewards; not to render the pursuit of our own good in any other manner impossible, by visiting it with the reproaches of other and of our own conscience. the proper office of those sanctions is to enforce upon every one, the conduct necessary to give all other persons their fair chance: conduct which chiefly consists in not doing them harm, and not impeding them in anything which without harming others does good to themselves. to this must of course be added, that when we either expressly or tacitly undertake to do more, we are bound to keep our promise. and inasmuch as every one, who avails himself of the advantages of society, leads others to expect from him all such positive good offices and disinterested services as the moral improvement attained by mankind has rendered customary, he deserves moral blame if, without just cause, he disappoints that expectation. through this principle the domain of moral duty is always widening. when what once was uncommon virtue becomes common virtue, it comes to be numbered among obligations, while a degree exceeding what has grown common, remains simply meritorious. m. comte is accustomed to draw most of his ideas of moral cultivation from the discipline of the catholic church. had he followed that guidance in the present case, he would have been less wide of the mark. for the distinction which we have drawn was fully recognized by the sagacious and far-sighted men who created the catholic ethics. it is even one of the stock reproaches against catholicism, that it has two standards of morality, and does not make obligatory on all christians the highest rule of christian perfection. it has one standard which, faithfully acted up to, suffices for salvation, another and a higher which when realized constitutes a saint. m. comte, perhaps unconsciously, for there is nothing that he would have been more unlikely to do if he had been aware of it, has taken a leaf out of the book of the despised protestantism. like the extreme calvinists, he requires that all believers shall be saints, and damns then (after his own fashion) if they are not. our conception of human life is different. we do not conceive life to be so rich in enjoyments, that it can afford to forego the cultivation of all those which address themselves to what m. comte terms the egoistic propensities. on the contrary, we believe that a sufficient gratification of these, short of excess, but up to the measure which renders the enjoyment greatest, is almost always favourable to the benevolent affections. the moralization of the personal enjoyments we deem to consist, not in reducing them to the smallest possible amount, but in cultivating the habitual wish to share them with others, and with all others, and scorning to desire anything for oneself which is incapable of being so shared. there is only one passion or inclination which is permanently incompatible with this condition--the love of domination, or superiority, for its own sake; which implies, and is grounded on, the equivalent depression of other people. as a rule of conduct, to be enforced by moral sanctions, we think no more should be attempted than to prevent people from doing harm to others, or omitting to do such good as they have undertaken. demanding no more than this, society, in any tolerable circumstances, obtains much more; for the natural activity of human nature, shut out from all noxious directions, will expand itself in useful ones. this is our conception of the moral rule prescribed by the religion of humanity. but above this standard there is an unlimited range of moral worth, up to the most exalted heroism, which should be fostered by every positive encouragement, though not converted into an obligation. it is as much a part of our scheme as of m. comte's, that the direct cultivation of altruism, and the subordination of egoism to it, far beyond the point of absolute moral duty, should be one of the chief aims of education, both individual and collective. we even recognize the value, for this end, of ascetic discipline, in the original greek sense of the word. we think with dr johnson, that he who has never denied himself anything which is not wrong, cannot be fully trusted for denying himself everything which is so. we do not doubt that children and young persons will one day be again systematically disciplined in self-mortification; that they will be taught, as in antiquity, to control their appetites, to brave dangers, and submit voluntarily to pain, as simple exercises in education. something has been lost as well as gained by no longer giving to every citizen the training necessary for a soldier. nor can any pains taken be too great, to form the habit, and develop the desire, of being useful to others and to the world, by the practice, independently of reward and of every personal consideration, of positive virtue beyond the bounds of prescribed duty. no efforts should be spared to associate the pupil's self-respect, and his desire of the respect of others, with service rendered to humanity; when possible, collectively, but at all events, what is always possible, in the persons of its individual members. there are many remarks and precepts in m. comte's volumes, which, as no less pertinent to our conception of morality than to his, we fully accept. for example; without admitting that to make "calculs personnels" is contrary to morality, we agree with him in the opinion, that the principal hygienic precepts should be inculcated, not solely or principally as maxims of prudence, but as a matter of duty to others, since by squandering our health we disable ourselves from rendering to our fellow-creatures the services to which they are entitled. as m. comte truly says, the prudential motive is by no means fully sufficient for the purpose, even physicians often disregarding their own precepts. the personal penalties of neglect of health are commonly distant, as well as more or less uncertain, and require the additional and more immediate sanction of moral responsibility. m. comte, therefore, in this instance, is, we conceive, right in principle; though we have not the smallest doubt that he would have gone into extreme exaggeration in practice, and would have wholly ignored the legitimate liberty of the individual to judge for himself respecting his own bodily conditions, with due relation to the sufficiency of his means of knowledge, and taking the responsibility of the result. connected with the same considerations is another idea of m. comte, which has great beauty and grandeur in it, and the realization of which, within the bounds of possibility, would be a cultivation of the social feelings on a most essential point. it is, that every person who lives by any useful work, should be habituated to regard himself not as an individual working for his private benefit, but as a public functionary; and his wages, of whatever sort, as not the remuneration or purchase-money of his labour, which should be given freely, but as the provision made by society to enable him to carry it on, and to replace the materials and products which have been consumed in the process. m. comte observes, that in modern industry every one in fact works much more for others than for himself, since his productions are to be consumed by others, and it is only necessary that his thoughts and imagination should adapt themselves to the real state of the fact. the practical problem, however, is not quite so simple, for a strong sense that he is working for others may lead to nothing better than feeling himself necessary to them, and instead of freely giving his commodity, may only encourage him to put a high price upon it. what m. comte really means is that we should regard working for the benefit of others as a good in itself; that we should desire it for its own sake, and not for the sake of remuneration, which cannot justly be claimed for doing what we like: that the proper return for a service to society is the gratitude of society: and that the moral claim of any one in regard to the provision for his personal wants, is not a question of _quid pro quo_ in respect to his co-operation, but of how much the circumstances of society permit to be assigned to him, consistently with the just claims of others. to this opinion we entirely subscribe. the rough method of settling the labourer's share of the produce, the competition of the market, may represent a practical necessity, but certainly not a moral ideal. its defence is, that civilization has not hitherto been equal to organizing anything better than this first rude approach to an equitable distribution. rude as it is, we for the present go less wrong by leaving the thing to settle itself, than by settling it artificially in any mode which has yet been tried. but in whatever manner that question may ultimately be decided, the true moral and social idea of labour is in no way affected by it. until labourers and employers perform the work of industry in the spirit in which soldiers perform that of an army, industry will never be moralized, and military life will remain, what, in spite of the anti-social character of its direct object, it has hitherto been--the chief school of moral co-operation. thus far of the general idea of m. comte's ethics and religion. we must now say something of the details. here we approach the ludicrous side of the subject: but we shall unfortunately have to relate other things far more really ridiculous. there cannot be a religion without a _cultus._ we use this term for want of any other, for its nearest equivalent, worship, suggests a different order of ideas. we mean by it, a set of systematic observances, intended to cultivate and maintain the religious sentiment. though m. comte justly appreciates the superior efficacy of acts, in keeping up and strengthening the feeling which prompts them, over any mode whatever of mere expression, he takes pains to organize the latter also with great minuteness. he provides an equivalent both for the private devotions, and for the public ceremonies, of other faiths. the reader will be surprised to learn, that the former consists of prayer. but prayer, as understood by m. comte, does not mean asking; it is a mere outpouring of feeling; and for this view of it he claims the authority of the christian mystics. it is not to be addressed to the grand etre, to collective humanity; though he occasionally carries metaphor so far as to style this a goddess. the honours to collective humanity are reserved for the public celebrations. private adoration is to be addressed to it in the persons of worthy individual representatives, who may be either living or dead, but must in all cases be women; for women, being the _sexe aimant_, represent the best attribute of humanity, that which ought to regulate all human life, nor can humanity possibly be symbolized in any form but that of a woman. the objects of private adoration are the mother, the wife, and the daughter, representing severally the past, the present, and the future, and calling into active exercise the three social sentiments, veneration, attachment, and kindness. we are to regard them, whether dead or alive, as our guardian angels, "les vrais anges gardiens." if the last two have never existed, or if, in the particular case, any of the three types is too faulty for the office assigned to it, their place may be supplied by some other type of womanly excellence, even by one merely historical. be the object living or dead, the adoration (as we understand it) is to be addressed only to the idea. the prayer consists of two parts; a commemoration, followed by an effusion. by a commemoration m. comte means an effort of memory and imagination, summoning up with the utmost possible vividness the image of the object: and every artifice is exhausted to render the image as life-like, as close to the reality, as near an approach to actual hallucination, as is consistent with sanity. this degree of intensity having been, as far as practicable, attained, the effusion follows. every person should compose his own form of prayer, which should be repeated not mentally only, but orally, and may be added to or varied for sufficient cause, but never arbitrarily. it may be interspersed with passages from the best poets, when they present themselves spontaneously, as giving a felicitous expression to the adorer's own feeling. these observances m. comte practised to the memory of his clotilde, and he enjoins them on all true believers. they are to occupy two hours of every day, divided into three parts; at rising, in the middle of the working hours, and in bed at night. the first, which should be in a kneeling attitude, will commonly be the longest, and the second the shortest. the third is to be extended as nearly as possible to the moment of falling asleep, that its effect may be felt in disciplining even the dreams. the public _cultus_ consists of a series of celebrations or festivals, eighty-four in the year, so arranged that at least one occurs in every week. they are devoted to the successive glorification of humanity itself; of the various ties, political and domestic, among mankind; of the successive stages in the past evolution of our species; and of the several classes into which m. comte's polity divides mankind. m. comte's religion has, moreover, nine sacraments; consisting in the solemn consecration, by the priests of humanity, with appropriate exhortations, of all the great transitions in life; the entry into life itself, and into each of its successive stages: education, marriage, the choice of a profession, and so forth. among these is death, which receives the name of transformation, and is considered as a passage from objective existence to subjective--to living in the memory of our fellow-creatures. having no eternity of objective existence to offer, m. comte's religion gives it all he can, by holding out the hope of subjective immortality--of existing in the remembrance and in the posthumous adoration of mankind at large, if we have done anything to deserve remembrance from them; at all events, of those whom we loved during life; and when they too are gone, of being included in the collective adoration paid to the grand etre. people are to be taught to look forward to this as a sufficient recompense for the devotion of a whole life to the service of humanity. seven years after death, comes the last sacrament: a public judgment, by the priesthood, on the memory of the defunct. this is not designed for purposes of reprobation, but of honour, and any one may, by declaration during life, exempt himself from it. if judged, and found worthy, he is solemnly incorporated with the grand etre, and his remains are transferred from the civil to the religious place of sepulture: "le bois sacré" qui doit entourer chaque temple de l'humanité." this brief abstract gives no idea of the minuteness of m. comte's prescriptions, and the extraordinary height to which he carries the mania for regulation by which frenchmen are distinguished among europeans, and m. comte among frenchmen. it is this which throws an irresistible air of ridicule over the whole subject. there is nothing really ridiculous in the devotional practices which m. comte recommends towards a cherished memory or an ennobling ideal, when they come unprompted from the depths of the individual feeling; but there is something ineffably ludicrous in enjoining that everybody shall practise them three times daily for a period of two hours, not because his feelings require them, but for the premeditated, purpose of getting his feelings up. the ludicrous, however, in any of its shapes, is a phaenomenon with which m. comte seems to have been totally unacquainted. there is nothing in his writings from which it could be inferred that he knew of the existence of such things as wit and humour. the only writer distinguished for either, of whom he shows any admiration, is molière, and him he admires not for his wit but for his wisdom. we notice this without intending any reflection on m. comte; for a profound conviction raises a person above the feeling of ridicule. but there are passages in his writings which, it really seems to us, could have been written by no man who had ever laughed. we will give one of these instances. besides the regular prayers, m. comte's religion, like the catholic, has need of forms which can be applied to casual and unforeseen occasions. these, he says, must in general be left to the believer's own choice; but he suggests as a very suitable one the repetition of "the fundamental formula of positivism," viz., "l'amour pour principe, l'ordre pour base, et le progrès pour but." not content, however, with an equivalent for the paters and aves of catholicism, he must have one for the sign of the cross also; and he thus delivers himself:[23] "cette expansion peut être perfectionnée par des signes universels.... afin de mieux développer l'aptitude nécessaire de la formule positiviste à représenter toujours la condition humaine, il convient ordinairement de l'énoncer en touchant successivement les principaux organes que la théorie cérébrale assigne à ses trois éléments." this _may_ be a very appropriate mode of expressing one's devotion to the grand etre: but any one who had appreciated its effect on the profane reader, would have thought it judicious to keep it back till a considerably more advanced stage in the propagation of the positive religion. as m. comte's religion has a _cultus_, so also it has a clergy, who are the pivot of his entire social and political system. their nature and office will be best shown by describing his ideal of political society in its normal state, with the various classes of which it is composed. the necessity of a spiritual power, distinct and separate from the temporal government, is the essential principle of m. comte's political scheme; as it may well be, since the spiritual power is the only counterpoise he provides or tolerates, to the absolute dominion of the civil rulers. nothing can exceed his combined detestation and contempt for government by assemblies, and for parliamentary or representative institutions in any form. they are an expedient, in his opinion, only suited to a state of transition, and even that nowhere but in england. the attempt to naturalize them in france, or any continental nation, he regards as mischievous quackery. louis napoleon's usurpation is absolved, is made laudable to him, because it overthrew a representative government. election of superiors by inferiors, except as a revolutionary expedient, is an abomination in his sight. public functionaries of all kinds should name their successors, subject to the approbation of their own superiors, and giving public notice of the nomination so long beforehand as to admit of discussion, and the timely revocation of a wrong choice. but, by the side of the temporal rulers, he places another authority, with no power to command, but only to advise and remonstrate. the family being, in his mind as in that of frenchmen generally, the foundation and essential type of all society, the separation of the two powers commences there. the spiritual, or moral and religious power, in a family, is the women of it. the positivist family is composed of the "fundamental couple," their children, and the parents of the man, if alive. the whole government of the household, except as regards the education of the children, resides in the man; and even over that he has complete power, but should forbear to exert it. the part assigned to the women is to improve the man through his affections, and to bring up the children, who, until the age of fourteen, at which scientific instruction begins, are to be educated wholly by their mother. that women may be better fitted for these functions, they are peremptorily excluded from all others. no woman is to work for her living. every woman is to be supported by her husband or her male relations, and if she has none of these, by the state. she is to have no powers of government, even domestic, and no property. her legal rights of inheritance are preserved to her, that her feelings of duty may make her voluntarily forego them. there are to be no marriage portions, that women may no longer be sought in marriage from interested motives. marriages are to be rigidly indissoluble, except for a single cause. it is remarkable that the bitterest enemy of divorce among all philosophers, nevertheless allows it, in a case which the laws of england, and of other countries reproached by him with tolerating divorce, do not admit: namely, when one of the parties has been sentenced to an infamizing punishment, involving loss of civil rights. it is monstrous that condemnation, even for life, to a felon's punishment, should leave an unhappy victim bound to, and in the wife's case under the legal authority of, the culprit. m. comte could feel for the injustice in this special case, because it chanced to be the unfortunate situation of his clotilde. minor degrees of unworthiness may entitle the innocent party to a legal separation, but without the power of re-marriage. second marriages, indeed, are not permitted by the positive religion. there is to be no impediment to them by law, but morality is to condemn them, and every couple who are married religiously as well as civilly are to make a vow of eternal widowhood, "le veuvage éternel." this absolute monogamy is, in m. comte's opinion, essential to the complete fusion between two beings, which is the essence of marriage; and moreover, eternal constancy is required by the posthumous adoration, which is to be continuously paid by the survivor to one who, though objectively dead, still lives "subjectively." the domestic spiritual power, which resides in the women of the family, is chiefly concentrated in the most venerable of them, the husband's mother, while alive. it has an auxiliary in the influence of age, represented by the husband's father, who is supposed to have passed the period of retirement from active life, fixed by m. comte (for he fixes everything) at sixty-three; at which age the head of the family gives up the reins of authority to his son, retaining only a consultative voice. this domestic spiritual power, being principally moral, and confined to a private life, requires the support and guidance of an intellectual power exterior to it, the sphere of which will naturally be wider, extending also to public life. this consists of the clergy, or priesthood, for m. comte is fond of borrowing the consecrated expressions of catholicism to denote the nearest equivalents which his own system affords. the clergy are the theoretic or philosophical class, and are supported by an endowment from the state, voted periodically, but administered by themselves. like women, they are to be excluded from all riches, and from all participation in power (except the absolute power of each over his own household). they are neither to inherit, nor to receive emolument from any of their functions, or from their writings or teachings of any description, but are to live solely on their small salaries. this m. comte deems necessary to the complete disinterestedness of their counsel. to have the confidence of the masses, they must, like the masses, be poor. their exclusion from political and from all other practical occupations is indispensable for the same reason, and for others equally peremptory. those occupations are, he contends, incompatible with the habits of mind necessary to philosophers. a practical position, either private or public, chains the mind to specialities and details, while a philosopher's business is with general truths and connected views (vues d'ensemble). these, again, require an habitual abstraction from details, which unfits the mind for judging well and rapidly of individual cases. the same person cannot be both a good theorist and a good practitioner or ruler, though practitioners and rulers ought to have a solid theoretic education. the two kinds of function must be absolutely exclusive of one another: to attempt them both, is inconsistent with fitness for either. but as men may mistake their vocation, up to the age of thirty-five they are allowed to change their career. to the clergy is entrusted the theoretic or scientific instruction of youth. the medical art also is to be in their hands, since no one is fit to be a physician who does not study and understand the whole man, moral as well as physical. m. comte has a contemptuous opinion of the existing race of physicians, who, he says, deserve no higher name than that of veterinaires, since they concern themselves with man only in his animal, and not in his human character. in his last years, m. comte (as we learn from dr robinet's volume) indulged in the wildest speculations on medical science, declaring all maladies to be one and the same disease, the disturbance or destruction of "l'unité cérébrale." the other functions of the clergy are moral, much more than intellectual. they are the spiritual directors, and venerated advisers, of the active or practical classes, including the political. they are the mediators in all social differences; between the labourers, for instance, and their employers. they are to advise and admonish on all important violations of the moral law. especially, it devolves on them to keep the rich and powerful to the performance of their moral duties towards their inferiors. if private remonstrance fails, public denunciation is to follow: in extreme cases they may proceed to the length of excommunication, which, though it only operates through opinion, yet if it carries opinion with it, may, as m. comte complacently observes, be of such powerful efficacy, that the richest man may be driven to produce his subsistence by his own manual labour, through the impossibility of inducing any other person to work for him. in this as in all other cases, the priesthood depends for its authority on carrying with it the mass of the people--those who, possessing no accumulations, live on the wages of daily labour; popularly but incorrectly termed the working classes, and by french writers, in their roman law phraseology, proletaires. these, therefore, who are not allowed the smallest political rights, are incorporated into the spiritual power, of which they form, after women and the clergy, the third element. it remains to give an account of the temporal power, composed of the rich and the employers of labour, two classes who in m. comte's system are reduced to one, for he allows of no idle rich. a life made up of mere amusement and self-indulgence, though not interdicted by law, is to be deemed so disgraceful, that nobody with the smallest sense of shame would choose to be guilty of it. here, we think, m. comte has lighted on a true principle, towards which the tone of opinion in modern europe is more and more tending, and which is destined to be one of the constitutive principles of regenerated society. we believe, for example, with him, that in the future there will be no class of landlords living at ease on their rents, but every landlord will be a capitalist trained to agriculture, himself superintending and directing the cultivation of his estate. no one but he who guides the work, should have the control of the tools. in m. comte's system, the rich, as a rule, consist of the "captains of industry:" but the rule is not entirely without exception, for m. comte recognizes other useful modes of employing riches. in particular, one of his favourite ideas is that of an order of chivalry, composed of the most generous and self-devoted of the rich, voluntarily dedicating themselves, like knights-errant of old, to the redressing of wrongs, and the protection of the weak and oppressed. he remarks, that oppression, in modern life, can seldom reach, or even venture to attack, the life or liberty of its victims (he forgets the case of domestic tyranny), but only their pecuniary means, and it is therefore by the purse chiefly that individuals can usefully interpose, as they formerly did by the sword. the occupation, however, of nearly all the rich, will be the direction of labour, and for this work they will be educated. reciprocally, it is in m. comte's opinion essential, that all directors of labour should be rich. capital (in which he includes land) should be concentrated in a few holders, so that every capitalist may conduct the most extensive operations which one mind is capable of superintending. this is not only demanded by good economy, in order to take the utmost advantage of a rare kind of practical ability, but it necessarily follows from the principle of m. comte's scheme, which regards a capitalist as a public functionary. m. comte's conception of the relation of capital to society is essentially that of socialists, but he would bring about by education and opinion, what they aim at effecting by positive institution. the owner of capital is by no means to consider himself its absolute proprietor. legally he is not to be controlled in his dealings with it, for power should be in proportion to responsibility: but it does not belong to him for his own use; he is merely entrusted by society with a portion of the accumulations made by the past providence of mankind, to be administered for the benefit of the present generation and of posterity, under the obligation of preserving them unimpaired, and handing them down, more or less augmented, to our successors. he is not entitled to dissipate them, or divert them from the service of humanity to his own pleasures. nor has he a moral right to consume on himself the whole even of his profits. he is bound in conscience, if they exceed his reasonable wants, to employ the surplus in improving either the efficiency of his operations, or the physical and mental condition of his labourers. the portion of his gains which he may appropriate to his own use, must be decided by himself, under accountability to opinion; and opinion ought not to look very narrowly into the matter, nor hold him to a rigid reckoning for any moderate indulgence of luxury or ostentation; since under the great responsibilities that will be imposed on him, the position of an employer of labour will be so much less desirable, to any one in whom the instincts of pride and vanity are not strong, than the "heureuse insouciance" of a labourer, that those instincts must be to a certain degree indulged, or no one would undertake the office. with this limitation, every employer is a mere administrator of his possessions, for his work-people and for society at large. if he indulges himself lavishly, without reserving an ample remuneration for all who are employed under him, he is morally culpable, and will incur sacerdotal admonition. this state of things necessarily implies that capital should be in few hands, because, as m. comte observes, without great riches, the obligations which society ought to impose, could not be fulfilled without an amount of personal abnegation that it would be hopeless to expect. if a person is conspicuously qualified for the conduct of an industrial enterprise, but destitute of the fortune necessary for undertaking it, m. comte recommends that he should be enriched by subscription, or, in cases of sufficient importance, by the state. small landed proprietors and capitalists, and the middle classes altogether, he regards as a parasitic growth, destined to disappear, the best of the body becoming large capitalists, and the remainder proletaires. society will consist only of rich and poor, and it will be the business of the rich to make the best possible lot for the poor. the remuneration of the labourers will continue, as at present, to be a matter of voluntary arrangement between them and their employers, the last resort on either side being refusal of co-operation, "refus de concours," in other words, a strike or a lock-out; with the sacerdotal order for mediators in case of need. but though wages are to be an affair of free contract, their standard is not to be the competition of the market, but the application of the products in equitable proportion between the wants of the labourers and the wants and dignity of the employer. as it is one of m. comte's principles that a question cannot be usefully proposed without an attempt at a solution, he gives his ideas from the beginning as to what the normal income of a labouring family should be. they are on such a scale, that until some great extension shall have taken place in the scientific resources of mankind, it is no wonder he thinks it necessary to limit as much as possible the number of those who are to be supported by what is left of the produce. in the first place the labourer's dwelling, which is to consist of seven rooms, is, with all that it contains, to be his own property: it is the only landed property he is allowed to possess, but every family should be the absolute owner of all things which are destined for its exclusive use. lodging being thus independently provided for, and education and medical attendance being secured gratuitously by the general arrangements of society, the pay of the labourer is to consist of two portions, the one monthly, and of fixed amount, the other weekly, and proportioned to the produce of his labour. the former m. comte fixes at 100 francs (£4) for a month of 28 days; being £52 a year: and the rate of piece-work should be such as to make the other part amount to an average of seven francs (5_s_. _6d_.) per working day. agreeably to m. comte's rule, that every public functionary should appoint his successor, the capitalist has unlimited power of transmitting his capital by gift or bequest, after his own death or retirement. in general it will be best bestowed entire upon one person, unless the business will advantageously admit of subdivision. he will naturally leave it to one or more of his sons, if sufficiently qualified; and rightly so, hereditary being, in m. comte's opinion, preferable to acquired wealth, as being usually more generously administered. but, merely as his sons, they have no moral right to it. m. comte here recognizes another of the principles, on which we believe that the constitution of regenerated society will rest. he maintains (as others in the present generation have done) that the father owes nothing to his son, except a good education, and pecuniary aid sufficient for an advantageous start in life: that he is entitled, and may be morally bound, to leave the bulk of his fortune to some other properly selected person or persons, whom he judges likely to make a more beneficial use of it. this is the first of three important points, in which m. comte's theory of the family, wrong as we deem it in its foundations, is in advance of prevailing theories and existing institutions. the second is the re-introduction of adoption, not only in default of children, but to fulfil the purposes, and satisfy the sympathetic wants, to which such children as there are may happen to be inadequate. the third is a most important point--the incorporation of domestics as substantive members of the family. there is hardly any part of the present constitution of society more essentially vicious, and morally injurious to both parties, than the relation between masters and servants. to make this a really human and a moral relation, is one of the principal desiderata in social improvement. the feeling of the vulgar of all classes, that domestic service has anything in it peculiarly mean, is a feeling than which there is none meaner. in the feudal ages, youthful nobles of the highest rank thought themselves honoured by officiating in what is now called a menial capacity, about the persons of superiors of both sexes, for whom they felt respect: and, as m. comte observes, there are many families who can in no other way so usefully serve humanity, as by ministering to the bodily wants of other families, called to functions which require the devotion of all their thoughts. "we will add, by way of supplement to m. comte's doctrine, that much of the daily physical work of a household, even in opulent families, if silly notions of degradation, common to all ranks, did not interfere, might very advantageously be performed by the family itself, at least by its younger members; to whom it would give healthful exercise of the bodily powers, which has now to be sought in modes far less useful, and also a familiar acquaintance with the real work of the world, and a moral willingness to take their share of its burthens, which, in the great majority of the better-off classes, do not now get cultivated at all. we have still to speak of the directly political functions of the rich, or, as m. comte terms them, the patriciate. the entire political government is to be in their hands. first, however, the existing nations are to be broken up into small republics, the largest not exceeding the size of belgium, portugal, or tuscany; any larger nationalities being incompatible with the unity of wants and feelings, which is required, not only to give due strength to the sentiment of patriotism (always strongest in small states), but to prevent undue compression; for no territory, m. comte thinks, can without oppression be governed from a distant centre. algeria, therefore, is to be given up to the arabs, corsica to its inhabitants, and france proper is to be, before the end of the century, divided into seventeen republics, corresponding to the number of considerable towns: paris, however, (need it be said?) succeeding to rome as the religious metropolis of the world. ireland, scotland, and wales, are to be separated from england, which is of course to detach itself from all its transmarine dependencies. in each state thus constituted, the powers of government are to be vested in a triumvirate of the three principal bankers, who are to take the foreign, home, and financial departments respectively. how they are to conduct the government and remain bankers, does not clearly appear; but it must be intended that they should combine both offices, for they are to receive no pecuniary remuneration for the political one. their power is to amount to a dictatorship (m. comte's own word): and he is hardly justified in saying that he gives political power to the rich, since he gives it over the rich and every one else, to three individuals of the number, not even chosen by the rest, but named by their predecessors. as a check on the dictators, there is to be complete freedom of speech, writing, printing, and voluntary association; and all important acts of the government, except in cases of emergency, are to be announced sufficiently long beforehand to ensure ample discussion. this, and the influences of the spiritual power, are the only guarantees provided against misgovernment. when we consider that the complete dominion of every nation of mankind is thus handed over to only four men--for the spiritual power is to be under the absolute and undivided control of a single pontiff for the whole human race--one is appalled at the picture of entire subjugation and slavery, which is recommended to us as the last and highest result of the evolution of humanity. but the conception rises to the terrific, when we are told the mode in which the single high priest of humanity is intended to use his authority. it is the most warning example we know, into what frightful aberrations a powerful and comprehensive mind may be led by the exclusive following out of a single idea. the single idea of m. comte, on this subject, is that the intellect should be wholly subordinated to the feelings; or, to translate the meaning out of sentimental into logical language, that the exercise of the intellect, as of all our other faculties, should have for its sole object the general good. every other employment of it should be accounted not only idle and frivolous, but morally culpable. being indebted wholly to humanity for the cultivation to which we owe our mental powers, we are bound in return to consecrate them wholly to her service. having made up his mind that this ought to be, there is with m. comte but one step to concluding that the grand pontiff of humanity must take care that it shall be; and on this foundation he organizes an elaborate system for the total suppression of all independent thought. he does not, indeed, invoke the arm of the law, or call for any prohibitions. the clergy are to have no monopoly. any one else may cultivate science if he can, may write and publish if he can find readers, may give private instruction if anybody consents to receive it. but since the sacerdotal body will absorb into itself all but those whom it deems either intellectually or morally unequal to the vocation, all rival teachers will, as he calculates, be so discredited beforehand, that their competition will not be formidable. within the body itself, the high priest has it in his power to make sure that there shall be no opinions, and no exercise of mind, but such as he approves; for he alone decides the duties and local residence of all its members, and can even eject them from the body. before electing to be under this rule, we feel a natural curiosity to know in what manner it is to be exercised. humanity has only yet had one pontiff, whose mental qualifications for the post are not likely to be often surpassed, m. comte himself. it is of some importance to know what are the ideas of this high priest, concerning the moral and religious government of the human intellect. one of the doctrines which m. comte most strenuously enforces in his later writings is, that during the preliminary evolution of humanity, terminated by the foundation of positivism, the free development of our forces of all kinds was the important matter, but that from this time forward the principal need is to regulate them. formerly the danger was of their being insufficient, but henceforth, of their being abused. let us express, in passing, our entire dissent from this doctrine. whoever thinks that the wretched education which mankind as yet receive, calls forth their mental powers (except those of a select few) in a sufficient or even tolerable degree, must be very easily satisfied: and the abuse of them, far from becoming proportionally greater as knowledge and mental capacity increase, becomes rapidly less, provided always that the diffusion of those qualities keeps pace with their growth. the abuse of intellectual power is only to be dreaded, when society is divided between a few highly cultivated intellects and an ignorant and stupid multitude. but mental power is a thing which m. comte does not want--or wants infinitely less than he wants submission and obedience. of all the ingredients of human nature, he continually says, the intellect most needs to be disciplined and reined-in. it is the most turbulent "le plus perturbateur," of all the mental elements; more so than even the selfish instincts. throughout the whole modern transition, beginning with ancient greece (for m. comte tells us that we have always been in a state of revolutionary transition since then), the intellect has been in a state of systematic insurrection against "le coeur." the metaphysicians and literati (lettrés), after helping to pull down the old religion and social order, are rootedly hostile to the construction of the new, and desiring only to prolong the existing scepticism and intellectual anarchy, which secure to them a cheap social ascendancy, without the labour of earning it by solid scientific preparation. the scientific class, from whom better might have been expected, are, if possible, worse. void of enlarged views, despising all that is too large for their comprehension, devoted exclusively each to his special science, contemptuously indifferent to moral and political interests, their sole aim is to acquire an easy reputation, and in france (through paid academies and professorships) personal lucre, by pushing their sciences into idle and useless inquiries (speculations oiseuses), of no value to the real interests of mankind, and tending to divert the thoughts from them. one of the duties most incumbent on opinion and on the spiritual power, is to stigmatize as immoral, and effectually suppress, these useless employments of the speculative faculties. all exercise of thought should be abstained from, which has not some beneficial tendency, some actual utility to mankind. m. comte, of course, is not the man to say that it must be a merely material utility. if a speculation, though it has no doctrinal, has a logical value--if it throws any light on universal method--it is still more deserving of cultivation than if its usefulness was merely practical: but, either as method or as doctrine, it must bring forth fruits to humanity, otherwise it is not only contemptible, but criminal. that there is a portion of truth at the bottom of all this, we should be the last to deny. no respect is due to any employment of the intellect which does not tend to the good of mankind. it is precisely on a level with any idle amusement, and should be condemned as waste of time, if carried beyond the limit within which amusement is permissible. and whoever devotes powers of thought which could render to humanity services it urgently needs, to speculations and studies which it could dispense with, is liable to the discredit attaching to a well-grounded suspicion of caring little for humanity. but who can affirm positively of any speculations, guided by right scientific methods, on subjects really accessible to the human faculties, that they are incapable of being of any use? nobody knows what knowledge will prove to be of use, and what is destined to be useless. the most that can be said is that some kinds are of more certain, and above all, of more present utility than others. how often the most important practical results have been the remote consequence of studies which no one would have expected to lead to them! could the mathematicians, who, in the schools of alexandria, investigated the properties of the ellipse, have foreseen that nearly two thousand years afterwards their speculations would explain the solar system, and a little later would enable ships safely to circumnavigate the earth? even in m. comte's opinion, it is well for mankind that, in those early days, knowledge was thought worth pursuing for its own sake. nor has the "foundation of positivism," we imagine, so far changed the conditions of human existence, that it should now be criminal to acquire, by observation and reasoning, a knowledge of the facts of the universe, leaving to posterity to find a use for it. even in the last two or three years, has not the discovery of new metals, which may prove important even in the practical arts, arisen from one of the investigations which m. comte most unequivocally condemns as idle, the research into the internal constitution of the sun? how few, moreover, of the discoveries which have changed the face of the world, either were or could have been arrived at by investigations aiming directly at the object! would the mariner's compass ever have been found by direct efforts for the improvement of navigation? should we have reached the electric telegraph by any amount of striving for a means of instantaneous communication, if franklin had not identified electricity with lightning, and ampère with magnetism? the most apparently insignificant archaeological or geological fact, is often found to throw a light on human history, which m. comte, the basis of whose social philosophy is history, should be the last person to disparage. the direction of the entrance to the three great pyramids of ghizeh, by showing the position of the circumpolar stars at the time when they were built, is the best evidence we even now have of the immense antiquity of egyptian civilization.[24] the one point on which m. comte's doctrine has some colour of reason, is the case of sidereal astronomy: so little knowledge of it being really accessible to us, and the connexion of that little with any terrestrial interests being, according to all our means of judgment, infinitesimal. it is certainly difficult to imagine how any considerable benefit to humanity can be derived from a knowledge of the motions of the double stars: should these ever become important to us it will be in so prodigiously remote an age, that we can afford to remain ignorant of them until, at least, all our moral, political, and social difficulties have been settled. yet the discovery that gravitation extends even to those remote regions, gives some additional strength to the conviction of the universality of natural laws; and the habitual meditation on such vast objects and distances is not without an aesthetic usefulness, by kindling and exalting the imagination, the worth of which in itself, and even its re-action on the intellect, m. comte is quite capable of appreciating. he would reply, however, that there are better means of accomplishing these purposes. in the same spirit he condemns the study even of the solar system, when extended to any planets but those which are visible to the naked eye, and which alone exert an appreciable gravitative influence on the earth. even the perturbations he thinks it idle to study, beyond a mere general conception of them, and thinks that astronomy may well limit its domain to the motions and mutual action of the earth, sun, and moon. he looks for a similar expurgation of all the other sciences. in one passage he expressly says that the greater part of the researches which are really accessible to us are idle and useless. he would pare down the dimensions of all the sciences as narrowly as possible. he is continually repeating that no science, as an abstract study, should be carried further than is necessary to lay the foundation for the science next above it, and so ultimately for moral science, the principal purpose of them all. any further extension of the mathematical and physical sciences should be merely "episodic;" limited to what may from time to time be demanded by the requirements of industry and the arts; and should be left to the industrial classes, except when they find it necessary to apply to the sacerdotal order for some additional development of scientific theory. this, he evidently thinks, would be a rare contingency, most physical truths sufficiently concrete and real for practice being empirical. accordingly in estimating the number of clergy necessary for france, europe, and our entire planet (for his forethought extends thus far), he proportions it solely to their moral and religious attributions (overlooking, by the way, even their medical); and leaves nobody with any time to cultivate the sciences, except abortive candidates for the priestly office, who having been refused admittance into it for insufficiency in moral excellence or in strength of character, may be thought worth retaining as "pensioners" of the sacerdotal order, on account of their theoretic abilities. it is no exaggeration to say, that m. comte gradually acquired a real hatred for scientific and all purely intellectual pursuits, and was bent on retaining no more of them than was strictly indispensable. the greatest of his anxieties is lest people should reason, and seek to know, more than enough. he regards all abstraction and all reasoning as morally dangerous, by developing an inordinate pride (orgueil), and still more, by producing dryness (scheresse). abstract thought, he says, is not a wholesome occupation for more than a small number of human beings, nor of them for more than a small part of their time. art, which calls the emotions into play along with and more than the reason, is the only intellectual exercise really adapted to human nature. it is nevertheless indispensable that the chief theories of the various abstract sciences, together with the modes in which those theories were historically and logically arrived at, should form a part of universal education: for, first, it is only thus that the methods can be learnt, by which to attain the results sought by the moral and social sciences: though we cannot perceive that m. comte got at his own moral and social results by those processes. secondly, the principal truths of the subordinate sciences are necessary to the systematization (still systematization!) of our conceptions, by binding together our notions of the world in a set of propositions, which are coherent, and are a sufficiently correct representation of fact for our practical wants. thirdly, a familiar knowledge of the invariable laws of natural phaenomena is a great elementary lesson of submission, which, he is never weary of saying, is the first condition both of morality and of happiness. for these reasons, he would cause to be taught, from the age of fourteen to that of twenty-one, to all persons, rich and poor, girls or youths, a knowledge of the whole series of abstract sciences, such as none but the most highly instructed persons now possess, and of a far more systematic and philosophical character than is usually possessed even by them. (n.b.--they are to learn, during the same years, greek and latin, having previously, between the ages of seven and fourteen, learnt the five principal modern languages, to the degree necessary for reading, with due appreciation, the chief poetical compositions in each.) but they are to be taught all this, not only without encouraging, but stifling as much as possible, the examining and questioning spirit. the disposition which should be encouraged is that of receiving all on the authority of the teacher. the positivist faith, even in its scientific part, is _la foi démontrable_, but ought by no means to be _la foi toujours démontrée_. the pupils have no business to be over-solicitous about proof. the teacher should not even present the proofs to them in a complete form, or as proofs. the object of instruction is to make them understand the doctrines themselves, perceive their mutual connexion, and form by means of them a consistent and _systematized_ conception of nature. as for the demonstrations, it is rather desirable than otherwise that even theorists should forget them, retaining only the results. among all the aberrations of scientific men, m. comte thinks none greater than the pedantic anxiety they show for complete proof, and perfect rationalization of scientific processes. it ought to be enough that the doctrines afford an explanation of phaenomena, consistent with itself and with known facts, and that the processes are justified by their fruits. this over-anxiety for proof, he complains, is breaking down, by vain scruples, the knowledge which seemed to have been attained; witness the present state of chemistry. the demand of proof for what has been accepted by humanity, is itself a mark of "distrust, if not hostility, to the sacerdotal order" (the naïveté of this would be charming, if it were not deplorable), and is a revolt against the traditions of the human race. so early had the new high priest adopted the feelings and taken up the inheritance of the old. one of his favourite aphorisms is the strange one, that the living are more and more governed by the dead. as is not uncommon with him, he introduces the dictum in one sense, and uses it in another. what he at first means by it, is that as civilization advances, the sum of our possessions, physical and intellectual, is due in a decreasing proportion to ourselves, and in an increasing one to our progenitors. the use he makes of it is, that we should submit ourselves more and more implicitly to the authority of previous generations, and suffer ourselves less and less to doubt their judgment, or test by our own reason the grounds of their opinions. the unwillingness of the human intellect and conscience, in their present state of "anarchy," to sign their own abdication, lie calls "the insurrection of the living against the dead." to this complexion has positive philosophy come at last! worse, however, remains to be told. m. comte selects a hundred volumes of science, philosophy, poetry, history, and general knowledge, which he deems a sufficient library for every positivist, even of the theoretic order, and actually proposes a systematic holocaust of books in general--it would almost seem of all books except these. even that to which he shows most indulgence, poetry, except the very best, is to undergo a similar fate, with the reservation of select passages, on the ground that, poetry being intended to cultivate our instinct of ideal perfection, any kind of it that is less than the best is worse than none. this imitation of the error, we will call it the crime, of the early christians--and in an exaggerated form, for even they destroyed only those writings of pagans or heretics which were directed against themselves--is the one thing in m. comte's projects which merits real indignation. when once m. comte has decided, all evidence on the other side, nay, the very historical evidence on which he grounded his decision, had better perish. when mankind have enlisted under his banner, they must burn their ships. there is, though in a less offensive form, the same overweening presumption in a suggestion he makes, that all species of animals and plants which are useless to man should be systematically rooted out. as if any one could presume to assert that the smallest weed may not, as knowledge advances, be found to have some property serviceable to man. when we consider that the united power of the whole human race cannot reproduce a species once eradicated--that what is once done, in the extirpation of races, can never be repaired; one can only be thankful that amidst all which the past rulers of mankind have to answer for, they have never come up to the measure of the great regenerator of humanity; mankind have not yet been under the rule of one who assumes that he knows all there is to be known, and that when he has put himself at the head of humanity, the book of human knowledge may be closed. of course m. comte does not make this assumption consistently. he does not imagine that he actually possesses all knowledge, but only that he is an infallible judge what knowledge is worth possessing. he does not believe that mankind have reached in all directions the extreme limits of useful and laudable scientific inquiry. he thinks there is a large scope for it still, in adding to our power over the external world, but chiefly in perfecting our own physical, intellectual, and moral nature. he holds that all our mental strength should be economized, for the pursuit of this object in the mode leading most directly to the end. with this view, some one problem should always be selected, the solution of which would be more important than any other to the interests of humanity, and upon this the entire intellectual resources of the theoretic mind should be concentrated, until it is either resolved, or has to be given up as insoluble: after which mankind should go on to another, to be pursued with similar exclusiveness. the selection of this problem of course rests with the sacerdotal order, or in other words, with the high priest. we should then see the whole speculative intellect of the human race simultaneously at work on one question, by orders from above, as a french minister of public instruction once boasted that a million of boys were saying the same lesson during the same half-hour in every town and village of france. the reader will be anxious to know, how much better and more wisely the human intellect will be applied under this absolute monarchy, and to what degree this system of government will be preferable to the present anarchy, in which every theorist does what is intellectually right in his own eyes. m. comte has not left us in ignorance on this point. he gives us ample means of judging. the pontiff of positivism informs us what problem, in his opinion, should be selected before all others for this united pursuit. what this problem is, we must leave those who are curious on the subject to learn from the treatise itself. when they have done so, they will be qualified to form their own opinion of the amount of advantage which the general good of mankind would be likely to derive, from exchanging the present "dispersive speciality" and "intellectual anarchy" for the subordination of the intellect to the _coeur_, personified in a high priest, prescribing a single problem for the undivided study of the theoretic mind. we have given a sufficient general idea of m. comte's plan for the regeneration of human society, by putting an end to anarchy, and "systematizing" human thought and conduct under the direction of feeling. but an adequate conception will not have been formed of the height of his self-confidence, until something more has been told. be it known, then, that m. comte by no means proposes this new constitution of society for realization in the remote future. a complete plan of measures of transition is ready prepared, and he determines the year, before the end of the present century, in which the new spiritual and temporal powers will be installed, and the regime of our maturity will begin. he did not indeed calculate on converting to positivism, within that time, more than a thousandth part of all the heads of families in western europe and its offshoots beyond the atlantic. but he fixes the time necessary for the complete political establishment of positivism at thirty-three years, divided into three periods, of seven, five, and twenty-one years respectively. at the expiration of seven, the direction of public education in france would be placed in m. comte's hands. in five years more, the emperor napoleon, or his successor, will resign his power to a provisional triumvirate, composed of three eminent proletaires of the positivist faith; for proletaires, though not fit for permanent rule, are the best agents of the transition, being the most free from the prejudices which are the chief obstacle to it. these rulers will employ the remaining twenty-one years in preparing society for its final constitution; and after duly installing the spiritual power, and effecting the decomposition of france into the seventeen republics before mentioned, will give over the temporal government of each to the normal dictatorship of the three bankers. a man may be deemed happy, but scarcely modest, who had such boundless confidence in his own powers of foresight, and expected so complete a triumph of his own ideas on the reconstitution of society within the possible limits of his lifetime. if he could live (he said) to the age of pontenelle, or of hobbes, or even of voltaire, he should see all this realized, or as good as realized. he died, however, at sixty, without leaving any disciple sufficiently advanced to be appointed his successor. there is now a college, and a director, of positivism; but humanity no longer possesses a high priest. what more remains to be said may be despatched more summarily. its interest is philosophic rather than practical. in his four volumes of "politique positive," m. comte revises and reelaborates the scientific and historical expositions of his first treatise. his object is to systematize (again to systematize) knowledge from the human or subjective point of view, the only one, he contends, from which a real synthesis is possible. for (he says) the knowledge attainable by us of the laws of the universe is at best fragmentary, and incapable of reduction to a real unity. an objective synthesis, the dream of descartes and the best thinkers of old, is impossible. the laws of the real world are too numerous, and the manner of their working into one another too intricate, to be, as a general rule, correctly traced and represented by our reason. the only connecting principle in our knowledge is its relation to our wants, and it is upon that we must found our systematization. the answer to this is, first, that there is no necessity for an universal synthesis; and secondly, that the same arguments may be used against the possibility of a complete subjective, as of a complete objective systematization. a subjective synthesis must consist in the arrangement and co-ordination of all useful knowledge, on the basis of its relation to human wants and interests. but those wants and interests are, like the laws of the universe, extremely multifarious, and the order of preference among them in all their different gradations (for it varies according to the degree of each) cannot be cast into precise general propositions. m. comte's subjective synthesis consists only in eliminating from the sciences everything that he deems useless, and presenting as far as possible every theoretical investigation as the solution of a practical problem. to this, however, he cannot consistently adhere; for, in every science, the theoretic truths are much more closely connected with one another than with the human purposes which they eventually serve, and can only be made to cohere in the intellect by being, to a great degree, presented as if they were truths of pure reason, irrespective of any practical application. there are many things eminently characteristic of m. comte's second career, in this revision of the results of his first. under the head of biology, and for the better combination of that science with sociology and ethics, he found that he required a new system of phrenology, being justly dissatisfied with that of gall and his successors. accordingly he set about constructing one _è priori_, grounded on the best enumeration and classification he could make of the elementary faculties of our intellectual, moral, and animal nature; to each of which he assigned an hypothetical place in the skull, the most conformable that he could to the few positive facts on the subject which he considered as established, and to the general presumption that functions which react strongly on one another must have their organs adjacent: leaving the localities avowedly to be hereafter verified, by anatomical and inductive investigation. there is considerable merit in this attempt, though it is liable to obvious criticisms, of the same nature as his own upon gall. but the characteristic thing is, that while presenting all this as hypothesis waiting for verification, he could not have taken its truth more completely for granted if the verification had been made. in all that he afterwards wrote, every detail of his theory of the brain is as unhesitatingly asserted, and as confidently built upon, as any other doctrine of science. this is his first great attempt in the "subjective method," which, originally meaning only the subordination of the pursuit of truth to human uses, had already come to mean drawing truth itself from the fountain of his own mind. he had become, on the one hand, almost indifferent to proof, provided he attained theoretic coherency, and on the other, serenely confident that even the guesses which originated with himself could not but come out true. there is one point in his later view of the sciences, which appears to us a decided improvement on his earlier. he adds to the six fundamental sciences of his original scale, a seventh under the name of morals, forming the highest step of the ladder, immediately after sociology: remarking that it might, with still greater propriety, be termed anthropology, being the science of individual human nature, a study, when rightly understood, more special and complicated than even that of society. for it is obliged to take into consideration the diversities of constitution and temperament (la réaction cérébrale des viscères végétatifs) the effects of which, still very imperfectly understood, are highly important in the individual, but in the theory of society may be neglected, because, differing in different persons, they neutralize one another on the large scale. this is a remark worthy of m. comte in his best days; and the science thus conceived is, as he says, the true scientific foundation of the art of morals (and indeed of the art of human life), which, therefore, may, both philosophically and didactically, be properly combined with it. his philosophy of general history is recast, and in many respects changed; we cannot but say, greatly for the worse. he gives much greater development than before to the fetishistic, and to what he terms the theocratic, periods. to the fetishistic view of nature he evinces a partiality, which appears strange in a positive philosopher. but the reason is that fetish-worship is a religion of the feelings, and not at all of the intelligence. he regards it as cultivating universal love: as a practical fact it cultivates much rather universal fear. he looks upon fetishism as much more akin to positivism than any of the forms of theology, inasmuch as these consider matter as inert, and moved only by forces, natural and supernatural, exterior to itself: while fetishism resembles positivism in conceiving matter as spontaneously active, and errs only by not distinguishing activity from life. as if the superstition of the fetishist consisted only in believing that the objects which produce the phaenomena of nature involuntarily, produce them voluntarily. the fetishist thinks not merely that his fetish is alive, but that it can help him in war, can cure him of diseases, can grant him prosperity, or afflict him with all the contrary evils. therein consists the lamentable effect of fetishism--its degrading and prostrating influence on the feelings and conduct, its conflict with all genuine experience, and antagonism to all real knowledge of nature. m. comte had also no small sympathy with the oriental theocracies, as he calls the sacerdotal castes, who indeed often deserved it by their early services to intellect and civilization; by the aid they gave to the establishment of regular government, the valuable though empirical knowledge they accumulated, and the height to which they helped to carry some of the useful arts. m. comte admits that they became oppressive, and that the prolongation of their ascendancy came to be incompatible with further improvement. but he ascribes this to their having arrogated to themselves the temporal government, which, so far as we have any authentic information, they never did. the reason why the sacerdotal corporations became oppressive, was because they were organized: because they attempted the "unity" and "systematization" so dear to m. comte, and allowed no science and no speculation, except with their leave and under their direction. m. comte's sacerdotal order, which, in his system, has all the power that ever they had, would be oppressive in the same manner; with no variation but that which arises from the altered state of society and of the human mind. m. comte's partiality to the theocracies is strikingly contrasted with his dislike of the greeks, whom as a people he thoroughly detests, for their undue addiction to intellectual speculation, and considers to have been, by an inevitable fatality, morally sacrificed to the formation of a few great scientific intellects,--principally aristotle, archimedes, apollonius, and hipparchus. any one who knows grecian history as it can now be known, will be amazed at m. comte's travestie of it, in which the vulgarest historical prejudices are accepted and exaggerated, to illustrate the mischiefs of intellectual culture left to its own guidance. there is no need to analyze further m. comte's second view of universal history. the best chapter is that on the romans, to whom, because they were greater in practice than in theory, and for centuries worked together in obedience to a social sentiment (though only that of their country's aggrandizement), m. comte is as favourably affected, as he is inimical to all but a small selection of eminent thinkers among the greeks. the greatest blemish in this chapter is the idolatry of julius caesar, whom m. comte regards as one of the most illustrious characters in history, and of the greatest practical benefactors of mankind. caesar had many eminent qualities, but what he did to deserve such praise we are at a loss to discover, except subverting a free government: that merit, however, with m. comte, goes a great way. it did not, in his former days, suffice to rehabilitate napoleon, whose name and memory he regarded with a bitterness highly honourable to himself, and whose career he deemed one of the greatest calamities in modern history. but in his later writings these sentiments are considerably mitigated: he regards napoleon as a more estimable "dictator" than louis philippe, and thinks that his greatest error was re-establishing the academy of sciences! that this should be said by m. comte, and said of napoleon, measures the depth to which his moral standard had fallen. the last volume which he published, that on the philosophy of mathematics, is in some respects a still sadder picture of intellectual degeneracy than those which preceded it. after the admirable résumé of the subject in the first volume of his first great work, we expected something of the very highest order when he returned to the subject for a more thorough treatment of it. but, being the commencement of a synthèse subjective, it contains, as might be expected, a great deal that is much more subjective than mathematical. nor of this do we complain: but we little imagined of what nature this subjective matter was to be. m. comte here joins together the two ideas, which, of all that he has put forth, are the most repugnant to the fundamental principles of positive philosophy. one of them is that on which we have just commented, the assimilation between positivism and fetishism. the other, of which we took notice in a former article, was the "liberté facultative" of shaping our scientific conceptions to gratify the demands not solely of objective truth, but of intellectual and aesthetic suitability. it would be an excellent thing, m. comte thinks, if science could be deprived of its _sécheresse_, and directly associated with sentiment. now it is impossible to prove that the external world, and the bodies composing it, are not endowed with feeling, and voluntary agency. it is therefore highly desirable that we should educate ourselves into imagining that they are. intelligence it will not do to invest them with, for some distinction must be maintained between simple activity and life. but we may suppose that they feel what is done to them, and desire and will what they themselves do. even intelligence, which we must deny to them in the present, may be attributed to them in the past. before man existed, the earth, at that time an intelligent being, may have exerted "its physico-chemical activity so as to improve the astronomical order by changing its principal coefficients. our planet may be supposed to have rendered its orbit less excentric, and thereby more habitable, by planning a long series of explosions, analogous to those from which, according to the best hypotheses, comets proceed. judiciously reproduced, similar shocks may have rendered the inclination of the earth's axis better adapted to the future wants of the grand etre. _a fortiori_ the earth may have modified its own figure, which is only beyond our intervention because our spiritual ascendancy has not at its disposal a sufficient material force." the like may be conceived as having been done by each of the other planets, in concert, possibly, with the earth and with one another. "in proportion as each planet improved its own condition, its life exhausted itself by excess of innervation; but with the consolation of rendering its self-devotion more efficacious, when the extinction of its special functions, first animal, and finally vegetative, reduced it to the universal attributes of feeling and activity."[25] this stuff, though he calls it fiction, he soon after speaks of as belief (croyance), to be greatly recommended, as at once satisfying our natural curiosity, and "perfecting our unity" (again unity!) "by supplying the gaps in our scientific notions with poetic fictions, and developing sympathetic emotions and aesthetic inspirations: the world being conceived as aspiring to second mankind in ameliorating the universal order under the impulse of the grand etre." and he obviously intends that we should be trained to make these fantastical inventions permeate all our associations, until we are incapable of conceiving the world and nature apart from them, and they become equivalent to, and are in fact transformed into, real beliefs. wretched as this is, it is singularly characteristic of m. comte's later mode of thought. a writer might be excused for introducing into an avowed work of fancy this dance of the planets, and conception of an animated earth. if finely executed, he might even be admired for it. no one blames a poet for ascribing feelings, purposes, and human propensities to flowers. because a conception might be interesting, and perhaps edifying, in a poem, m. comte would have it imprinted on the inmost texture of every human mind in ordinary prose. if the imagination were not taught its prescribed lesson equally with the reason, where would be unity? "it is important that the domain of fiction should become as _systematic_ as that of demonstration, in order that their mutual harmony may be conformable to their respective destinations, both equally directed towards the continual increase of _unity_, personal and social."[26] nor is it enough to have created the grand fétiche (so he actually proposes to call the earth), and to be able to include it and all concrete existence in our adoration along with the grand etre. it is necessary also to extend positivist fetishism to purely abstract existence; to "animate" the laws as well as the facts of nature. it is not sufficient to have made physics sentimental, mathematics must be made so too. this does not at first seem easy; but m. comte finds the means of accomplishing it. his plan is, to make space also an object of adoration, under the name of the grand milieu, and consider it as the representative of fatality in general. "the final _unity_ disposes us to cultivate sympathy by developing our gratitude to whatever serves the grand etre. it must dispose us to venerate the fatality on which reposes the whole aggregate of our existence." we should conceive this fatality as having a fixed seat, and that seat must be considered to be space, which should be conceived as possessing feeling, but not activity or intelligence. and in our abstract speculations we should imagine all our conceptions as located in free space. our images of all sorts, down to our geometrical diagrams, and even our ciphers and algebraic symbols, should always be figured to ourselves as written in space, and not on paper or any other material substance. m. comte adds that they should be conceived as green on a white ground. we cannot go on any longer with this. in spite of it all, the volume on mathematics is full of profound thoughts, and will be very suggestive to those who take up the subject after m. comte. what deep meaning there is, for example, in the idea that the infinitesimal calculus is a conception analogous to the corpuscular hypothesis in physics; which last m. comte has always considered as a logical artifice; not an opinion respecting matters of fact. the assimilation, as it seems to us, throws a flood of light on both conceptions; on the physical one still more than the mathematical. we might extract many ideas of similar, though none perhaps of equal, suggestiveness. but mixed with these, what pitiable _niaiseries_! one of his great points is the importance of the "moral and intellectual properties of numbers." he cultivates a superstitious reverence for some of them. the first three are sacred, _les nombres sacrés_: one being the type of all synthesis, two of all combination, which he now says _is_ always binary (in his first treatise he only said that we may usefully represent it to ourselves as being so), and three of all progression, which not only requires three terms, but as he now maintains, never ought to have any more. to these sacred numbers all our mental operations must be made, as far as possible, to adjust themselves. next to them, he has a great partiality for the number seven; for these whimsical reasons: "composed of two progressions followed by a synthesis, or of one progression between two couples, the number seven, coming next after the sum of the three sacred numbers, determines the largest group which we can distinctly imagine. reciprocally, it marks the limit of the divisions which we can directly conceive in a magnitude of any kind." the number seven, therefore, must be foisted in wherever possible, and among other things, is to be made the basis of numeration, which is hereafter to be septimal instead of decimal: producing all the inconvenience of a change of system, not only without getting rid of, but greatly aggravating, the disadvantages of the existing one. but then, he says, it is absolutely necessary that the basis of numeration should be a prime number. all other people think it absolutely necessary that it should not, and regard the present basis as only objectionable in not being divisible enough. but m. comte's puerile predilection for prime numbers almost passes belief. his reason is that they are the type of irreductibility: each of them is a kind of ultimate arithmetical fact. this, to any one who knows m. comte in his later aspects, is amply sufficient. nothing can exceed his delight in anything which says to the human mind, thus far shalt thou go and no farther. if prime numbers are precious, doubly prime numbers are doubly so; meaning those which are not only themselves prime numbers, but the number which marks their place in the series of prime numbers is a prime number. still greater is the dignity of trebly prime numbers; when the number marking the place of this second number is also prime. the number thirteen fulfils these conditions: it is a prime number, it is the seventh prime number, and seven is the fifth prime number. accordingly he has an outrageous partiality to the number thirteen. though one of the most inconvenient of all small numbers, he insists on introducing it everywhere. these strange conceits are connected with a highly characteristic example of m. comte's frenzy for regulation. he cannot bear that anything should be left unregulated: there ought to be no such thing as hesitation; nothing should remain arbitrary, for _l'arbitraire_ is always favourable to egoism. submission to artificial prescriptions is as indispensable as to natural laws, and he boasts that under the reign of sentiment, human life may be made equally, and even more, regular than the courses of the stars. but the great instrument of exact regulation for the details of life is numbers: fixed numbers, therefore, should be introduced into all our conduct. m. comte's first application of this system was to the correction of his own literary style. complaint had been made, not undeservedly, that in his first great work, especially in the latter part of it, the sentences and paragraphs were long, clumsy, and involved. to correct this fault, of which he was aware, he imposed on himself the following rules. no sentence was to exceed two lines of his manuscript, equivalent to five of print. no paragraph was to consist of more than seven sentences. he further applied to his prose writing the rule of french versification which forbids a _hiatus_(the concourse of two vowels), not allowing it to himself even at the break between two sentences or two paragraphs; nor did he permit himself ever to use the same word twice, either in the same sentence or in two consecutive sentences, though belonging to different paragraphs: with the exception of the monosyllabic auxiliaries.[27] all this is well enough, especially the first two precepts, and a good way of breaking through a bad habit. but m. comte persuaded himself that any arbitrary restriction, though in no way emanating from, and therefore necessarily disturbing, the natural order and proportion of the thoughts, is a benefit in itself, and tends to improve style. if it renders composition vastly more difficult, he rejoices at it, as tending to confine writing to superior minds. accordingly, in the synthèse subjective, he institutes the following "plan for all compositions of importance." "every volume really capable of forming a distinct treatise" should consist of "seven chapters, besides the introduction and the conclusion; and each of these should be composed of three parts." each third part of a chapter should be divided into "seven sections, each composed of seven groups of sentences, separated by the usual break of line. normally formed, the section offers a central group of seven sentences, preceded and followed by three groups of five: the first section of each part reduces to three sentences three of its groups, symmetrically placed; the last section gives seven sentences to each of its extreme groups. these rules of composition make prose approach to the regularity of poetry, when combined with my previous reduction of the maximum length of a sentence to two manuscript or five printed lines, that is, 250 letters." "normally constructed, great poems consist of thirteen cantos, decomposed into parts, sections, and groups like my chapters, saving the complete equality of the groups and of the sections." "this difference of structure between volumes of poetry and of philosophy is more apparent than real, for the introduction and the conclusion of a poem should comprehend six of its thirteen cantos," leaving, therefore, the cabalistic numeber seven for the body of the poem. and all this regulation not being sufficiently meaningless, fantastic, and oppressive, he invents an elaborate system for compelling each of his sections and groups to begin with a letter of the alphabet, determined beforehand, the letters being selected so as to compose words having "a synthetic or sympathetic signification," and as close a relation as possible to the section or part to which they are appropriated. others may laugh, but we could far rather weep at this melancholy decadence of a great intellect. m. comte used to reproach his early english admirers with maintaining the "conspiracy of silence" concerning his later performances. the reader can now judge whether such reticence is not more than sufficiently explained by tenderness for his fame, and a conscientious fear of bringing undeserved discredit on the noble speculations of his early career. m. comte was accustomed to consider descartes and leibnitz as his principal precursors, and the only great philosophers (among many thinkers of high philosophic capacity) in modern times. it was to their minds that he considered his own to bear the nearest resemblance. though we have not so lofty an opinion of any of the three as m. comte had, we think the assimilation just: thes were, of all recorded thinkers, the two who bore most resemblance to m. comte. they were like him in earnestness, like him, though scarcely equal to him, in confidence in themselves; they had the same extraordinary power of concatenation and co-ordination; they enriched human knowledge with great truths and great conceptions of method; they were, of all great scientific thinkers, the most consistent, and for that reason often the most absurd, because they shrank from no consequences, however contrary to common sense, to which their premises appeared to lead. accordingly their names have come down to us associated with grand thoughts, with most important discoveries, and also with some of the most extravagantly wild and ludicrously absurd conceptions and theories which ever were solemnly propounded by thoughtful men. "we think m. comte as great as either of these philosophers, and hardly more extravagant. were we to speak our whole mind, we should call him superior to them: though not intrinsically, yet by the exertion of equal intellectual power in a more advanced state of human preparation; but also in an age less tolerant of palpable absurdities, and to which those he has committed, if not in themselves greater, at least appear more ridiculous. the end. footnotes: [1] see the chapter on efficient causes in reid's "essays on the active powers," which is avowedly grounded on newton's ideas. [2] mr herbert spencer, who also distinguishes between abstract and concrete sciences, employs the terms in a different sense from that explained above. he calls a science abstract when its truths are merely ideal; when, like the truths of geometry, they are not exactly true of real things--or, like the so-called law of inertia (the persistence in direction and velocity of a motion once impressed) are "involved" in experience but never actually seen in it, being always more or less completely frustrated. chemistry and biology he includes, on the contrary, among concrete sciences, because chemical combinations and decompositions, and the physiological action of tissues, do actually take place (as our senses testify) in the manner in which the scientific propositions state them to take place. we will not discuss the logical or philological propriety of either use of the terms abstract and concrete, in which twofold point of view very few of the numerous acceptations of these words are entirely defensible: but of the two distinctions m. comte's answers to by far the deepest and most vital difference. mr spencer's is open to the radical objection, that it classifies truths not according to their subject-matter or their mutual relations, but according to an unimportant difference in the manner in which we come to know them. of what consequence is it that the law of inertia (considered as an exact truth) is not generalized from our direct perceptions, but inferred by combining with the movements which we see, those which we should see if it were not for the disturbing causes? in either case we are equally certain that it _is_ an exact truth: for every dynamical law is perfectly fulfilled even when it seems to be counteracted. there must, we should think, be many truths in physiology (for example) which are only known by a similar indirect process; and mr spencer would hardly detach these from the body of the science, and call them abstract and the remainder concrete. [3] système de politique positive, ii. 36. [4] the strongest case which mr spencer produces of a scientifically ascertained law, which, though belonging to a later science, was necessary to the scientific formation of one occupying an earlier place in m. comte's series, is the law of the accelerating force of gravity; which m. comte places in physics, but without which the newtonian theory of the celestial motions could not have been discovered, nor could even now be proved. this fact, as is judiciously remarked by m. littré, is not valid against the plan of m. comte's classification, but discloses a slight error in the detail. m. comte should not have placed the laws of terrestrial gravity under physics. they are part of the general theory of gravitation, and belong to astronomy. mr spencer has hit one of the weak points in m. comte's scientific scale; weak however only because left unguarded. astronomy, the second of m. comte's abstract sciences, answers to his own definition of a concrete science. m. comte however was only wrong in overlooking a distinction. there _is_ an abstract science of astronomy, namely, the theory of gravitation, which would equally agree with and explain the facts of a totally different solar system from the one of which our earth forms a part. the actual facts of our own system, the dimensions, distances, velocities, temperatures, physical constitution, &c., of the sun, earth, and planets, are properly the subject of a concrete science, similar to natural history; but the concrete is more inseparably united to the abstract science than in any other case, since the few celestial facts really accessible to us are nearly all required for discovering and proving the law of gravitation as an universal property of bodies, and have therefore an indispensable place in the abstract science as its fundamental data. [5] the only point at which the general principle of the series fails in its application, is the subdivision of physics; and there, as the subordination of the different branches scarcely exists, their order is of little consequence. thermology, indeed, is altogether an exception to the principle of decreasing generality, heat, as mr spencer truly says being as universal as gravitation. but the place of thermology is marked out, within certain narrow limits, by the ends of the classification, though not by its principle. the desideratum is, that every science should precede those which cannot be scientifically constitute or rationally studied until it is known. it is as a means to this end, that the arrangement of the phaenomena in the order of their dependence on one another is important. now, though heat is as universal a phaenomenon as any which external nature presents, its laws do not affect, in any manner important to us, the phaenomena of astronomy, and operate in the other branches of physics only as slight modifying agencies, the consideration of which may be postponed to a rather advanced stage. but the phaenomena of chemistry and biology depend on them often for their very existence. the ends of the classification require therefore that thermology should precede chemistry and biology, but do not demand that it should be thrown farther back. on the other hand, those same ends, in another point of view, require that it should be subsequent to astronomy, for reasons not of doctrine but of method: astronomy being the best school of the true art of interpreting nature, by which thermology profits like other sciences, but which it was ill adapted to originate. [6] the philosophy of the subject is perhaps nowhere so well expressed as in the "système de politique positive" (iii. 41). "conçu logiquement, l'ordre suivant lequel nos principales théories accomplissent l'évolution fondamentale résulte nécessairement de leur dépendence mutuelle. toutes les sciences peuvent, sans doute, être ébauchées à la fois: leur usage pratique exige même cette culture simultanée. mais elle ne peut concerner que les inductions propres à chaque classe de spéculations. or cet essor inductif ne saurait fournir des principes suffisants qu'envers les plus simples études. partout ailleurs, ils ne peuvent être établis qu'en subordonnant chaque genre d'inductions scientifiques à l'ensemble des déductions emanées des domaines moins compliqués, et dès-lors moins dépendants. ainsi nos diverses théories reposent dogmatiquement les unes sur les autres, suivant un ordre invariable, qui doit régler historiquement leur avénement décisif, les plus indépendantes ayant toujours dû se développer plus tôt." [7] "science," says mr spencer in his "genesis," "while purely inductive is purely qualitative.... all quantitative prevision is reached deductively; induction can achieve only qualitative prevision." now, if we remember that the very first accurate quantitative law of physical phaenomena ever established, the law of the accelerating force of gravity, was discovered and proved by galileo partly at least by experiment; that the quantitative laws on which the whole theory of the celestial motions is grounded, were generalized by kepler from direct comparison of observations; that the quantitative law of the condensation of gases by pressure, the law of boyle and mariotte, was arrived at by direct experiment; that the proportional quantities in which every known substance combines chemically with every other, were ascertained by innumerable experiments, from which the general law of chemical equivalents, now the ground of the most exact quantitative previsions, was an inductive generalization; we must conclude that mr spencer has committed himself to a general proposition, which a very slight consideration of truths perfectly known to him would have shown to be unsustainable. again, in the very pamphlet in which mr spencer defends himself against the supposition of being a disciple of m. comte ("the classification of the sciences," p. 37), he speaks of "m. comte's adherent, mr buckle." now, except in the opinion common to both, that history may be made a subject of science, the speculations of these two thinkers are not only different, but run in different channels, m. comte applying himself principally to the laws of evolution common to all mankind, mr buckle almost exclusively to the diversities: and it may be affirmed without presumption, that they neither saw the same truths, nor fell into the same errors, nor defended their opinions, either true or erroneous, by the same arguments. indeed, it is one of the surprising things in the case of mr buckle as of mr spencer, that being a man of kindred genius, of the same wide range of knowledge, and devoting himself to speculations of the same kind, he profited so little by m. comte. these oversights prove nothing against the general accuracy of mr spencer's acquirements. they are mere lapses of inattention, such as thinkers who attempt speculations requiring that vast multitudes of facts should be kept in recollection at once, can scarcely hope always to avoid. [8] we refer particularly to the mystical metaphysics connected with the negative sign, imaginary quantities, infinity and infinitesimals, &c, all cleared up and put on a rational footing in the highly philosophical treatises of professor de morgan. [9] those who wish to see this idea followed out, are referred to "a system of logic, ratiocinative and inductive." it is not irrelevant to state that m. comte, soon after the publication of that work, expressed, both in a letter (published in m. littré's volume) and in print, his high approval of it (especially of the inductive part) as a real contribution to the construction of the positive method. but we cannot discover that he was indebted to it for a single idea, or that it influenced, in the smallest particular, the course of his subsequent speculations. [10] the force, however, of this last consideration has been much weakened by the progress of discovery since m. comte left off studying chemistry; it being now probable that most if not all substances, even elementary, are susceptible of _allotropic_ forms; as in the case of oxygen and ozone, the two forms of phosphorus, &c. [11] thus; by considering prussic acid as a compound of hydrogen and cyanogen rather than of hydrogen and the elements of cyanogen (carbon and nitrogen), it is assimilated to a whole class of acid compounds between hydrogen and other substances, and a reason is thus found for its agreeing in their acid properties. [12] according to sir william hamilton, as many as six; but numerical precision in such matters is out of the question, and it is probable that different minds have the power in different degrees. [13] or, as afterwards corrected by him, the appetites and emotions, the active capacities, and the intellectual faculties; "le coeur," "le caractère," and "l'esprit." [14] m. littré, who, though a warm admirer, and accepting the position of a disciple of m. comte, is singularly free from his errors, makes the equally ingenious and just remark, that political economy corresponds in social science to the theory of the nutritive functions in biology, which m. comte, with all good physiologists, thinks it not only permissible but a great and fundamental improvement to treat, in the first place, separately, as the necessary basis of the higher branches of the science: although the nutritive functions can no more be withdrawn _in fact_ from the influence of the animal and human attributes, than the economical phaenomena of society from that of the political and moral. [15] indeed his claim to be the creator of sociology does not extend to this branch of the science; on the contrary, he, in a subsequent work, expressly declares that the real founder of it was aristotle, by whom the theory of the conditions of social existence was carried as far towards perfection as was possible in the absence of any theory of progress. without going quite this length, we think it hardly possible to appreciate too highly the merit of those early efforts, beyond which little progress had been made, until a very recent period, either in ethical or in political science. [16] it is due to them both to say, that he continued to express, in letters which have been published, a high opinion of her, both morally and intellectually; and her persistent and strong concern for his interests and his fame is attested both by m. littré and by his own correspondence. [17] "of the classification of the sciences," pp. 37, 38. [18] in the case of egypt we admit that there may be cited against us the authority of plato, in whose politicus it is said that the king of egypt must be a member of the priestly caste, or if by usurpation a member of any other caste acquired the sovereignty he must be initiated with the sacerdotal order. but plato was writing of a state of things which already belonged to the past; nor have we any assurance that his information on egyptian institutions was authentic and accurate. had the king been necessarily or commonly a member of the priestly order, it is most improbable that the careful herodotus, of whose comprehensive work an entire book was devoted to a minute account of egypt and its institutions, and who collected his information from egyptian priests in the country itself, would have been ignorant of a part so important, and tending so much to exalt the dignity of the priesthood, who were much more likely to affirm it falsely to plato than to withhold the knowledge of it if true from heredotus. not only is herodotus silent respecting any such law or custom, but he thinks it needful to mention that in one particular instance the king (by name sethôs) was a priest, which he would scarcely have done if this had been other than an exceptional case. it is likely enough that a king of egypt would learn the hieratic character, and would not suffer any of the mysteries of law or religion which were in the keeping of the priests to be withheld from him; and this was very probably all the foundation which existed for the assertion of the eleatic stranger in plato's dialogue. [19] mill, history of british india, book ii. chap. iii. [20] at a somewhat later period m. comte drew up what he termed a positivist calendar, in which every day was dedicated to some benefactor of humanity (generally with the addition of a similar but minor luminary, to be celebrated in the room of his principal each bissextile year). in this no kind of human eminence, really useful, is omitted, except that which is merely negative and destructive. on this principle (which is avowed) the french _philosophes_ as such are excluded, those only among them being admitted who, like voltaire and diderot, had claims to admission on other grounds: and the protestant religious reformers are left out entirely, with the curious exception of george fox--who is included, we presume, in consideration of his peace principles. [21] he goes still further and deeper in a subsequent work. "l'art ramène doucement à la réalite les contemplations trop abstraites du théoricien, tandis qu'il pousse noblement le praticien aux speculations désinteressées." système de politique positive, i. 287. [22] 1. _système de politique positive, ou traité de sociologie, instituant la religion de l'humanité_. 4 vols. 8vo. paris: 1851--1854. 2. _catéchisme positiviste, ou sommaire exposition de la religion universelle, en onze entretiens systématiques entre une femme et un prêtre de l'humanité_. 1 vol. 12mo. paris: 1852. 3. _appel aux conservateurs_. paris: 1855 (brochure). 4. _synthèse subjective, ou système universel des conceptions propres à l'etat normal de l'humanité_. tome premier, contenant le système de logique positive, ou traité de philosophie mathématique. 8vo. paris: 1856. 5. _auguste comte et la philosophie positive_. par e. littre. 1 vol. 8vo. paris: 1863. 6. _exposition abrégée et populaire de la philosophie et de la religion positives_. par célestin de blignières, ancien élève de l'ecole polytechnique. 1 vol. 12mo. paris: 1857. 7. _notice sur l'oeuvre et sur la vie d'auguste comte_. par le docteur robinet, son médecin, et l'un de ses treize exécuteurs testamentaires. 1 vol. 8vo. paris: 1860. [23] système de politique positive, iv. 100. [24] see sir john herschel's outlines of astronomy, § 319. [25] synthèse subjective, pp. 10, 11. [26] synthèse subjective, pp. 11, 12. 