RELIGION OF HUMANITY.
COMMEMORATION OF AUGUSTE COMTE.
AN ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE POSITIVIST SCHOOL
ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH,
24 GUTENBERG, 90 (5TH SEPTEMBER, 1878),
BY
RICHARD CONGREVE,
LOVE, OUR PRINCIPLE. ORDER, THE BASIS.
PROGRESS, THE END.
LIVE FOR OTHERS. —LIVE OPENLY.
Quoique les positivistes aient dû d'abord monter de la foi vers l'amour, ils doivent désormais préférer la marche, plus rapide et plus efficace, qui descend de l'amour à la foi.
AUGUSTE COMTE.
(Sixième circulaire annuelle, douzième
alinéa).
LONDON:
C. KEGAN PAUL AND CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
| THE SACRED FORMULA: | LOVE, OUR PRINCIPLE; ORDER, THE BASIS. PROGRESS, THE END. |
| LIVE FOR OTHERS. | LIVE OPENLY. |
Reading from the Imitation of Christ, by Thomas àKempis.
Book III., c. 4.
We read the Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, so strongly recommended by our Founder, as the most universally received manual of devotion and of a holy life; but it may be wise here, in order to avoid ambiguity or any doubt as to our use of it, to say that in using it we substitute Humanity for God; the social type for the personal type of Jesus; our own inward growth in goodness for outward reward; the innate benevolent instincts for grace; our selfish instincts for nature. So used, its lessons of devotion and humility, of intimate communion with the type we adore, of unceasing moral culture, of self-denying service, of the service not of ourselves but of others, are not the less available because they are clothed in the language of an older faith, and sanctioned by the experience of many generations of faithful and devout men.
A PRAYER.
Great Power, whom we here (so taught by thy servant Auguste Comte, whom we on this day commemorate) acknowledge as the Highest, Humanity, whose children and servants we are; from whom we derive everything, and to whom we axe bound to render everything, may we all seek to know thee better that we may love and serve thee better; and to this end may our affections become more pure, true, and deep, our thought larger and more vigorous, our action firmer and more energetic, that so, according to our measure, in our generation, we may hasten the time when thou shalt, visibly to all, take to thee thy great power and reign; when all kindreds and nations, all the members of the human family now so torn by discord, shall, by the power of the unity of thy past, place themselves under thy guidance, the living under the government of the dead, and bound together by mutual understanding and affection, each take their due part in the work of human advancement, in peaceful union moving forwards through the coming ages to a more and more perfect state, to thy glory and the common welfare of the countless generations of men and man's dependants who shall in succession possess this thy beautiful Planet, the Earth which is thy home.
In communion with thee, in communion with thy Past and with thy Future, may we keep this great aim ever in our sight, to strengthen and ennoble our whole life and work. —AMEN.
THE SERMON.
A passage from some poet, most frequently from one of the poets in the Positivist Library. On this occasion "Oh, may I join the choir invisible." George Eliot, "Legend of Jubal, and other Poems."
CONCLUDING PRAYER.
Praising thee, Holy Humanity, as is most meet, for all the blessings which thy past has accumulated for us; for the rich treasures of knowledge, beauty, and wisdom which it has handed down; for its long roll of great exemplars, our cloud of witnesses, which ministers comfort, support, and guidance in our need; and as on this day is more particularly fitting praising thee for him who has interpreted and justified thy past, taught us to use aright its treasures, to rightly honour its examples; lastly, as we are here more especially bound to do, for the full liberty to speak and act which we enjoy; we pray that we may not be found unworthy of such benefits, but that, day by day, in all humility and singleness of purpose, with all boldness, and yet tenderness for others, we may magnify thee, and attain for ourselves, and help others to attain, the great blessings which only communion with thee can give: Union, Unity, Continuity. —AMEN.
The Faith of Humanity, the Hope of Humanity, the Love of Humanity, bring you comfort and teach you sympathy, give you peace in yourselves, and peace with others, now and forever. —AMEN.
FOR the third time we meet here to celebrate the anniversary of our Master's death. Previously it had been a matter mainly of central observance; but wherever His disciples exist in sufficient numbers, such a tribute to His memory may be looked for, and the opportunity of paying it welcomed by them. The local, and therefore ultimately universal, discharge of this natural obligation should become a permanent institution; and has, I hope, taken its place as such in your minds as English Positivists. With the persistence which should be our characteristic, three repetitions ought to be sufficient to ensure such permanence, especially as the meeting need not depend on this or that person. As a social act, unconnected with any sacramental conception, of a purely commemorative character, it might always be held, under the presidency of any sincere disciple who would give some simple expression to the general feeling.
Iwould remark that the date should be clear in our minds as the 24th Gutenberg, the day of September varying in Leap years. If we habitually think or speak of the 5th of September we are liable to confusion, and to the neglect of our own religious calendar on an occasion when it is peculiarly appropriate. With the growing habit amongst us of using that calendar, all difficulty will cease; all our associations, personal, family, and ecclesiastical, will rapidly adapt themselves to it as it becomes familiar, and the adaptation will increase our familiarity.
Subjection to the sway of the Dead, reverence for them, their cultus by ever-recurring commemoration, —such ideas are inherent in our religious system. They apply properly to the noble Dead, though we yearly direct our remembrance and our sympathy on all the dead without exception. But it is memory and sympathy, not honour, that we then offer; we recognize an involuntary service and their community of nature; we owe them no gratitude for noble work; we receive from them no great impulse. And whilst in our personal and domestic worship we have the opportunity of cherishing our personal and family memories, our own peculiar household divinities with whom our lives have been bound up, our public cultus must always be addressed to the greater Dead; for towards such only can reverence be widely shared, from such only can a large measure of direct influence go forth. In this, as in so much else, we do but ratify and enlarge previous practice, so that we may spare any labour in vindicating that practice; least of all need we vindicate it in the case with which we are immediately concerned. The founders of religious systems have ever been, in a special degree, the objects of commemoration, and we, who honour all the founders of the antecedent and tributary religions, be they Eastern or Western, Fetishist, Polytheist, or Monotheist, as the authors, in their degree, of signal benefits to this or that portion of mankind, have ample warrant for concentrating in some particular act the reverence we naturally feel for the founder of the religion which will, in the end, absorb all those its predecessors, and be in act, as it is in theory, universal to mankind. Assuming that we are justified in this language, it may be well to remember that the founder is not the religion, not its central idea, that is; that with Moses, St. Paul, and Mohammed, Auguste Comte is not the object of worship, but the revealer, the preacher of a higher power. In so far they stand on the same footing, the diversity of the power not altering their character. Those who accept their teaching and follow them are their disciples, but are believers in that which they have proclaimed, their fellow worshippers and their fellow servants. In other and more direct words, we are believers in Humanity, disciples of Auguste Comte. Hence our rejection of the term Comtists, so far as it is analogous to the old term Christian, so far as it makes a person the object of our faith. From the more scientific and intellectual aspect we are Positivists; under the more moral and religious we are, in the strictest sense, Catholics, the only justified claimants of that noble title, which in spirit we were wise always to appropriate.
Not over-careful to avoid repetition, I may yet touch but slightly on points which I have treated on former occasions. The subject is many-sided, and will always allow for a certain variety of handling. It is so with any of the very greatest lives, to the level of which the race, as it advances, is constantly rising, and which, with each advance, receives a new significance, as is seen in regard to Aristotle and St. Paul, for instance. It is but reasonable that it should be so in a higher degree with Comte from his more complete identification with Humanity. He shares the universality of the Being he reveals. Humanity is everything to man, and as her reign extends retrospectively and prospectively when once it has been announced, takes possession, by full right, at once of the Past which has acknowledged other powers as supreme, and of the Future, in which Humanity will stand supreme without rival, so it is, in his degree, with him who revealed her; his memory must be intimately blended with all the associations of his race, with all its aspirations. It is a peculiar, pre-eminent position, which none can share with him directly, if a certain indirect participation be accorded to some who were able to forward his work, or prepare the ground for it.
I have given above the names of the great philosopher and apostle whose work he continued and perfected. I might perhaps make my meaning clearer by another illustration, taking for it some complete and chief poet, some mighty orb of song in the fullest force of the term—Dante or Milton—with whom our continuous intellectual training brings us into constant intercourse. (I may assume so much of the members of our body.) As we traverse with the former the three realms of human existence, or with the latter see man as the central point of all spiritual influences, and with both alike are taken over the vast field of their knowledge and imagination, ranging through past, present, and such future as in poetic vision was open to them, we cannot but acknowledge the richness of the prospect opened to us, the comprehensiveness of these master-creators. Yet their possession of the domain of human interest is but partial when compared with Comte's, —they deal, that is, with but a portion of Humanity; in her full perfection of existence she waited for a later revelation. No simplest form, no most complex development of that existence, but we are enabled by his aid to scrutinize and judge. Throughout our study of her, as throughout our service of her, his image is an inseparable part of our conception and action.
This variety, however, attaching to the subject, need not prevent our recalling briefly certain points with which we are more or less familiar, —such as the continuous intellectual labour consecrated to the service of his kind, and consequently to the special work then required; the reconstruction of its philosophical, political, social, and religious conceptions, a burden under which he never grew weary in the face of the heaviest discouragements and trials. The work done is open to us, both in an expanded and condensed form, in the volumes with which the thought of the Western World is gradually becoming impregnated; their titles I need not here recite. But in his own judgement it is incomplete, he died prematurely, leaving unachieved the final portion of the task he had set himself; the portion, that is, which he had allotted to himself in working out the whole system of the conceptions adapted to mankind in its normal state. So that his results are, in a sense, much as was accomplished, still fragmentary. The guidance he would have given we are left without, and that in the most difficult division of the whole, where knowledge issues in practice. All the accumulations of mental and moral force, which were the natural outgrowth of his previous labours, and which would have carried him with comparative ease through the work which he had planned, are thus lost to the world; and the complete harmony which its elaboration by a single mind would have given to his creation is also lost. His own language is: —"Without this complementary work the priesthood of Humanity would find it difficult to guide the West towards the Future deduced from the Past, with the object of closing a revolution, which, as being intellectual rather than social, requires a renewal, an entire renovation of our intelligence. By putting into shape the leading thoughts of our regenerated descendants, there is given us a type which can alone overcome the prejudices and sophisms of our anarchical and retrograde contemporaries. Such an operation, then, it is for me to accomplish as the decisive issue of the mission assigned to my career by my earliest works, in which I placed before myself, as my aim, the reconstruction of the spiritual power." We are left to realize, what he well knew would be the case, the great obstruction to the growth of the new religion constituted by this interception of his labours, by this incompleteness in the presentation of the new synthesis —incompleteness, that is, in reference to the amount of completeness he had thought attainable by himself. Had morals and industry, the education of man and the action of man, received their due systematic expression, it is evident that the intermediate subjects, under the logical and practical influences of such expression, would have, almost of themselves, fallen into their right shape—been disciplined as logic is disciplined in the volume which we have.
And as his work remains finally a fragment, so also is it with his life. It ended prematurely, in his own judgement, which here again our experience fully confirms. His disciples, all of them incomplete, though at divers stages of incompleteness, were thrown upon their own guidance, and deprived of his powerful support and control; losing, that is, again, the large accumulation of mental and moral influence which, by the laws of our human constitution, accrete round the higher individual organs of Humanity, and when such an organ disappears, are not for a long period fully replaced, or perhaps replaceable. In this direction less had been done, comparatively speaking, than in the other. For his personal influence naturally depended, in great measure, on the construction which his works embody for us, and that had been of relatively recent achievement, most particularly so far as concerned its higher part, the religion, the one most difficult of acceptance by the general world, most alien, as he saw, to the particular world with which he was in immediate contact. In the full current of a social and religious revolution of unparalleled and increasing difficulty, it was an incalculable loss that such influence was withdrawn at so critical a point. The formation of a great social force was but just begun, was but just gathering that impetus which would have acted with a continuous increase of pressure upon all who swelled it, when the individual organ in whom it was condensed disappeared, and, together with it, the wholesome formative power directed upon its various constituent members no less than the general action which the force would have exercised by virtue of its constitution. We, his immediate disciples, who might have felt this power in most direct action, mourn, and shall ever mourn, not merely the teacher and founder, but the master around whom we had so hesitatingly, so grudgingly rallied, but whom with added knowledge and experience we should have learnt to obey and to second.
We can afford, now that we are in the habit of meeting, to use these occasions for their direct purpose of reverence and commemoration. Still I do not feel disposed to dwell at any length on the facts of Comte's life. It may be useful to remind you that it extended from 1798 to 1857; that he died, therefore, at the age of fifty-nine. Born at Montpellier, and receiving his earliest education and instruction there, his subsequent life as a pupil and teacher was passed, with occasional official interruptions, at Paris. For the greater part of it he maintained himself partly by private tuition, partly by the income derived from appointments in connection with the Polytechnic School. When deprived of these, in consequence of his opinions, he threw himself on the voluntary contributions of his disciples, confronting a precarious existence not without real danger. Under these conditions his works were written. His great discovery dates from the year 1822. His philosophy was completed in 1842. His politics in 1855. His last volume was in 1856. His principal effort coincided therefore with the time of his distress in point of money. If I add that he made a most unhappy marriage which tortured him till his wife left him in 1842; that for one year he was supremely happy in his intimacy with Madame Clotilde de Vaux; that on her death he lived in daily communion with her, being watched over with the most devoted attention and affection by the servant whom he adopted as his daughter; I have given that outline of fact which may render subsequent statements intelligible. It is, you will see, in one sense, an uneventful life. Those who appreciate its work, its spirit, its conditions, and the character of him who lived it, will judge it otherwise. In the absence of any adequate biography—another loss we have sustained by his death, for he contemplated an autobiography—we have many unquestioned sources from which we may draw a satisfactory representation. His letters, of which we have now two volumes published, his prefaces, and his annual circulars, are of themselves a very considerable contribution, checking all other statements, and leaving us in possession of a very definite outline of his course. For this, and for their value in other respects, particularly as so often introducing the reader easily to difficult subjects, enabling him to watch the growth of conceptions which he has seen previously in their mature form, I recommend you to them. And if the process is thus made, in some measure, harder, as being longer, and you are thrown on your own efforts instead of referred to an easy and well-written life, yet there will be a compensation, as regards your proper object, in the firmer hold you will find you thus get of the subject, and there will be indirect compensations in the knowledge you will gain of the system itself, of the way in which its author viewed it, of the course which he anticipated for his religion, and of the methods by which he judged it would be best propagated. The circulars, I may mention, are all to be found in Dr. Robinet's notice of his life and work, in their order. But with all this, it is true, there will remain facts of his existence on which fuller light can only come when a complete publication takes place of such documents as he wished to be published, which cannot be at present; but most of the larger and more important facts relating to it are accessible in the way I have indicated. Nay, had we not such aids, had we been left to the works themselves, we should have before us, in those very works, the most prominent features of that existence. For they form the stages of the successive construction which occupied his life, and to which all else is in a way subsidiary. Had they reached us without note or comment, they would have necessitated the inference, which is the true one, —the one which agrees with the facts, I mean, —that whilst they were being written they constituted the great characteristic of the writer's existence. He must have been a great abstract thinker with his energies concentrated on his works, a theorician, not a practician, a philosopher passing into the priest, but preserving the contemplative attitude, not mixing in action. If the principal works, the writings to which we especially refer when we speak of his works, were studied and compared as other analogous works are studied and compared, —and as when we have the leisure and the obligation to do so we should be wise to study and compare them, —we should find but little difficulty in picturing to ourselves our Master's history; but few, if any, essential gaps would be left. Add to the principal the accessory works spoken of above, and the task is made easier, the details of the picture more full, and therefore the satisfaction greater. I am speaking for, and in the main to, reverent disciples, and such will not think the time bestowed on such study thrown away, or the subject disproportionately estimated. For the needs of the present we want a solid, well-grounded appreciation of our Master's greatness to meet all the various contingencies to which, in its progress, our religion renders us liable.
The study recommended would have another use for us. It would place us, or help to place us, in the true current of the development of our religion, —which was, we are already aware very gradual, as to the particular form it has assumed. The unity of aim pervading the whole of Comte's work has been shown, and has gained a growing recognition; but such unity is in no sense inconsistent with an expansion of the conceptions originally entertained, —their expansion under fresh influences; not inconsistent, again, with the infusion into a philosophical re-organisation of the higher, warmer spirit of a religious regeneration; and it is precisely this spirit that we should aim at thoroughly imbibing, so mastering, so informing ourselves with it, as to make it throw its light back on all the previous course of the construction, so that we listen, as it were, to the most mature teaching at once, not lingering over the comparatively immature. The far higher value he attached to his later conceptions would thus become apparent, as would also the reasonings on which he grounded his preference. We should pass in effect out of the domain of mere abstract reasoning into that of the more impassioned reasoning of his last years, when his logical method was evolved into its full perfection, when all the fervour of his being was thrown into the creations of his genius; and in the free play of an affection sanctified by the death of its object, he found the source of his highest inspirations. There was no breach of unity, but there was the growth and outburst of a nature hitherto compressed, but which had at last found its right direction. The closest scrutiny of his utterances will be rewarded by a beneficial result upon our moral being, by an increase of our sympathy with the religious frame of mind which prompted them, as well as by a larger and more profitable comprehension of the philosophical and social system which found its culminating point in the religion for which it had throughout been the unconscious preparation, into which, in the fullness of time, it was consciously and legitimately developed.
Whilst we keep clear of any notion of belief in Auguste Comte in the ordinary sense, of any notion, in other words, of his being an object of worship in a sense different from that in which we honour other great benefactors of mankind, of any notion that is of Divine honours, it were yet well if we sought to quicken our personal feelings towards him, as the greatest of those benefactors. We need not seek, with this object, to exaggerate his greatness or to ascribe an ideal superhuman perfection to him. With him, as with others, we may subtract such imperfections as will inhere in any human type; or we may, after the most sober estimate has been formed, let the pre-eminent services he has rendered, in addition to the essential greatness of his character and of his heart, efface any counteracting impressions, and form a whole on which we love to dwell, so that with him, as the highest individual organ of Humanity, we may delight in bringing ourselves into communion. There is a truth in the observation that the disciples of a religion are bound more closely together, have their zeal kindled and their action harmonised, by a common relation to some one great teacher, by a personal tie, that is, over and above their community of conviction. The examples of Moses and Mohammed may be appealed to on this head, and the daily practice of the Roman Catholic Church, in strict accordance with its long experience of the mediaeval period, lends the position additional strength. For us individually, the institution of guardian angels acknowledges that Humanity is wisely brought home to our daily thoughts by more concrete impersonations. For the universal body of her worshippers their common acknowledgement, their common reverence for the founder of her worship, may be a source of strength in the present, as it will, I believe, be found to be, and that with a constant increase of momentum throughout the future. It is but a just honour that we should be paying.
Whatever our conclusion as to this personal point, on which I have naturally touched, as it is my wish to give today's ceremony as personal a character as possible, to make it speak directly and fully of Auguste Comte, it is clear, to go back to the study of his works, that we want it in the form above recommended for our own immediate action. We have to build on his foundations, in the absence of the fuller directions he meant to have left us in his writings, or given us in person, had his life been prolonged. In such default, it is our first duty to examine well what he has done, where he left off, what hints may be gathered in one quarter or another which may enable us to work in accordance with his ideas. We have no foolish disposition to begin a new work of our own; our aim is to carry out the original conception to its legitimate completion. Where his teaching fails us we must proceed of ourselves, but what he has done is done on so coherent, matured a plan that we may be sure that any intimation, well pondered, will be susceptible of adaptation. This is true of the intellectual construction which he left unfinished, but it is also true as regards our political or social conduct. And perhaps it is in the highest degree true of our own personal conduct as his disciples. We wish to be co-agents with him, perfecters of his work in our generation. If so we have to place ourselves under his influence, take up the formation of ourselves as his competent disciples on the principles he has indicated, incorporate him into ourselves subjectively, so as to make our thought and action as little discontinuous with his as it is possible that it should be, thus most certainly ensuring that our co-operation with him be effective, thus best perpetuating his life and influence.
There is one consideration to which he often recurs, which may at once illustrate and confirm what I have been saying. He often speaks of the social impulsion under which he worked, by which he was urged to this undertaking, —an impulsion not felt as a powerful stimulant anywhere but in France, and by its existence there evidencing that the initiative in the renovation of the human order is attached to France, as the result of all past Western history. The impulse in question being due to the convulsions of the close of the preceding century, to the agony of the crisis and its futile compression, would be in its full power at the opening of the first generation that succeeded those convulsions, coincided therefore with Comte's earliest labours. There had been a great movement, with much of hope; a corresponding check, with its discouragement, but without the depressing influence of the various subsequent oscillations which have weakened the following generations. Herein lay the stimulus which rendered possible the creation in one generation of the positive philosophy and the positive politics, by the strong excitement of one powerful genius to the necessary inquiry, resulting in the discovery of a basis previously wanting. The tradition of this impulse we should make our own, we who have not been directly subjected to it, who in most cases have grown up under weakening individualist influences, and are only by an effort, whatever the origin of such effort, become amenable to social impressions of any real power. We have lost greatly in point of energy by our deficiency in this respect, and there must be a corresponding exertion to compensate for it. Such exertion may be most facilitated by our conscious and voluntary contact with the mind which translated into their full results the favourable conditions under which it had been developed. It was not possible for any mind to avail itself more successfully of those conditions, to turn them to more glorious gain. This we all allow; and we allow it, I presume, both for the intellectual grasp and moral vigour of our Master. In no point do we, as a rule, we who adopt his conclusions, more need to drink inspiration from his example. The weight of pressure is against our being influenced by such a tradition, if there is something for it. But without a strong social impulsion we are not likely to effect much. Nothing else, as we may see by everyday experience, will make men useful converts, valuable believers in the new religion. More may be required than this social sentiment, this sense of an urgent demand for the new principle which shall be strong to save mankind from its anarchy and all the attendant evils; but it remains the primary requisite, the fundamental condition, the social analogue of the personal sense of sin demanded for the older dispensation. Intellectual convictions will, as a rule remain intellectual convictions, calm and self-contemplating, and patient of evils which are not keenly felt. Other parts of our nature must be stirred for action.
Nor need we confine ourselves to the benefits derivable from his example. It is manifest that true social action must proceed from a due activity of the social instincts. He has often pointed out the decay of veneration, the central and in some respects most important of those instincts; and, simultaneously with the decay, he has pointed out the urgency of its revival for the due reorganization of society. In direct veneration for him personally, as well as respect for His teaching, we might—we should—find a powerful incitement to that social attitude of mind of which I have been speaking; a most useful, if not indispensable, support to our convictions of the truth of his conclusions; a right object for a faculty for which our times, —it must be allowed, times of prevalent weakness, —afford but too little scope: and veneration, it has been rightly said, must have proper objects, cannot be promiscuously given.
There are not wanting, outside of the small body of avowed believers in our religion, those who welcome its central truth, and are ready to allow that in its proclamation there lies a fairer prospect for the race, as well as a real gain for their own selves as individuals. By a different course from ourselves they have been brought so far as to be in a sense on the same path with us, or, at any rate, to intersect our path, free to diverge from it or to consider it as only for a time coinciding with their real road; open also, in many cases, if circumstances favour, to pursue it to its natural termination. Their participation in our faith is more superficial, and they often feel as little need as desire to accept it more deeply. Such cannot be expected to set the value on it that we do; such, therefore, are free from the obligations which rest on us. Such may look with interest on the formation of a new religion or system, but have little of the same feeling with regard to its founder. Yet, even when there is only this partial approach to us, this imperfect appreciation of the service done, it is somewhat surprising, when we watch the present distribution of men's honour (observe, I mean the degree and the subjects of it, and the grounds on which it is paid), to see how grudging, limited a recognition there is of the person who has conferred the benefit in this particular case; how slow some are to admit any claims, how entirely others concentrate their attention on what they have received, without reserving any for him through whom they received it. It is an incidental proof, I conceive, of the entire diversity in kind of his particular service, of its transcendent importance.
We, as disciples of the religion of Humanity, believe that its foundation is of inestimable value, that in it we have the crown of all the past efforts of our race, the sure guidance and shelter of all its successive generations in the future. We look upon it as being, in the most real sense, the light and salvation of a disordered and suffering world. We are ready to apply to it all the language which the devout and reverent faith of our fathers, of whatever creed, has accumulated to glorify the respective objects of their belief and worship, allowing, I need hardly say, for the necessary modifications, but in no way falling short in spirit of their fervent adoration. We are sensible that a great change is wrought for us, that a great regeneration is offered us, and we wish and seek to profit by it. It is our prayer that the new truth may spread, the new Church rise, so that the blessings of which they are the pledge may rapidly be imparted to the divided families of mankind. All this, and more than this, we are ready to accept. What I would wish to call your attention to is the obligation which flows from all this, the personal obligation to the special instrument of this new order. We are not of those who hold that such special organs are superfluous, that Humanity advances collectively, and that her individual servants have no claim on our gratitude. Our whole doctrine protests against any such view; the ordering of the room in which we are confutes it visibly. The opposite judgement enters into and modifies all our thought, and gives new interest and freshness to all our feelings. In all our exertions we evoke the memory of those servants, we would live through their life, and give them life through ours. The greatest service yet done to Humanity must be the discovery of her to all her children, the initiating of the ultimate revelation which can be made to man. Nor in the future is it possible to conceive of any greater. He who rendered it must be her greatest servant; as such we live most through him, and should seek to make him live through us.
Let us—it is a practice with which, as Positivists, we should familiarise ourselves—project ourselves in thought into the future, —call up, by a judicious exercise of our imagination, the centuries that are to be. We need not be very definite as to the time we overleap, but may suppose ourselves in a state of society in which the Religion of Humanity is triumphant, in exclusive possession, and in which, therefore, all things are ordered in accordance with its precepts. We are fully convinced here that such will be the state of things some day, we cannot tell when. Were we not convinced of it, I presume we should not believe as we do. We may be more or less sanguine, but, to avoid the charge of any excess, we may suppose that the restoration of an order analogous to, if more sound than, that of the theocracy, will take an equal period for its accomplishment to that which has been occupied by the destruction or gradual demolition of its prototype; that the thirty centuries of revolution are to be followed by thirty centuries of reconstruction. The time required in no way affects our conception. We suppose then, in such approximate degree as the imperfection of our constitution allows, which may still be relatively a very high degree, our worship in practice, our faith believed, our régime in operation, men's lives in unison with the service they recognise, a permanent and beautiful order with no oppressive exclusion of constant further progress, the golden age of prophecy and poetry come as a real human possession, the earth become the holy mountain in which they shall not hurt nor destroy. There will still be evils to overcome, but what has been already achieved will render it certain that within limits assignable by a wise and moderate estimate they will be gradually removed, and the result of experience will have been to implant in all minds, as the basis of their existence, a loving submission to their aggregate destinies. Humanity will have interposed between the World and Man, tempering his whole environment to a more satisfactory correspondence with his wants. Under the sway of affection man's intelligence will not be inactive; it will find both in art and science an ample sphere for healthy and pleasurable, as well as useful, exercise. The generations which shall exist under such conditions will not, any more than we who are involved in a far different state, neglect the past—recoil from the government of the Dead. It is inconsistent with the idea of their peculiar service to suppose it. They will look back with reverence on the effort which has placed them where they are. The various epochs of their race's history will be before them, the contribution of each duly recognised. The knowledge we possess of those epochs they will share, if their comparative estimate vary on some points, and if they place them in a somewhat different connection with one another. But with respect to our own period, —that, I mean, in which we are actually living, —it will obviously take its rank in the series; the generation which is now about halfway through its course, as we count generations for historical purposes, will have its share of attention. With its immediate predecessor, it can never fail to secure a large share; for if in that the religion of Humanity was definitely constituted, the actual generation is the first of the new era. And what must be the judgement of the two? All minor movements, all that seems so important and so absorbing, will pass into its true relative insignificance; and the master construction, which was being worked out in silence and obscurity in the one, and was launched on its difficult and still obscure course in the other, the construction to which all will then be conformed, will pass into its due pre-eminence. The names now prominent will all, in all probability, have disappeared from the memory of men, leaving, as the sole surviving, the name of the author of that construction around which the gratitude of the nations will have gathered imperishably. This certain result we may anticipate in our measure, and place ourselves by so doing in harmony with our successors, at the same time contributing to its attainment. All the honour we can give is as justly due from us to Auguste Comte, as it will be from the remotest of those successors.
Again, to see this more fully, we may vary our supposition, and imagine ourselves at a comparatively early stage of the transition which I have taken so long—from a certain point of view, I doubt not, much too long. We may consider two or three generations as elapsed, and the believers in the new faith more numerous, more organized, and more advanced in their effort to secure its acceptance by the world. We see and feel in varying measure its power to clear the path before us, and to direct our action, so that as little of our strength be wasted as possible, and that we proceed without the delay due to uncertainty. Yet so poor as yet are its results, so faint the impression it makes, that it requires a considerable effort on our part to realise to ourselves its inherent efficacy. Reasoning with ourselves, we arrive at a conviction of that efficacy, I believe, when we are really and in heart disciples; but it is by reasoning, and by the aid of our heart's assent. Many whose intellect it satisfies are unable to arrive at this conviction, and stand aloof in consequence. Still, I think I may say that, in spite of all obstacles, of whatever nature, the conviction of which I have spoken gains ground with most of us; for as fresh problems arise, its power to deal with them is time after time made manifest, and confidence naturally increases as to its universal adaptability. It is a process of rapid growth; each successive advance involves a disproportionate increase of power. We of the present, the first generation, can hardly estimate the rate of that increase when once the impulse has been fairly communicated. Those who succeed us at the distance I have supposed, whatever the difficulties they have to encounter—and they will unquestionably be great—will yet be in a better position, both as a consequence of past achievements and from the light thrown on the conditions they have to deal with, to estimate the wonderful capacities of the instrument which they wield. They will have no reluctance to invest the memory of its maker with the glory it so justly claims. His name will be foremost among the great names of the past, the watchword and the symbol of the new era of which the race will be conscious, —an era of wise and well-grounded hope.
To whichever we turn, to the more complete or the less complete, —but in both cases ever advancing—renovation of our race, the lesson we draw from it on this day is the same for ourselves, —the lesson of confidence, of gratitude, of veneration for the great Master whom on this day we commemorate. It will be seen that if Ireject the name of Comtist, it is from no halting in my allegiance and affection, but as a precaution against misconstructions, and I am confident that I might say the same of our body in general. The largest, most grateful recognition of our obligations to Auguste Comte is not merely an obligation on all who worship Humanity, but a necessity for their moral nature which would suffer from any grudging expression. We owe to him, and not we alone, a new and nobler life, clearer conceptions of duty, higher principles of action. Such are not the benefits which we would acknowledge with faltering lips and stammering tongues.
But there is something more to be said. He has associated others with himself, claimed for them from his disciples a share in his glory. His guardian angels enter into the inscription on his tomb; in death as in life, in the subjective existence as in the objective, they must not be dissociated, least of all on occasions like the present. The mother from whom he derived the deep tenderness of his nature; the noble lady whom he venerated as his principal patroness, and to whom he attributed the first impulse that enabled him to become the St. Paul of the new religion; the adopted daughter who watched over and soothed the solitude and lightened the anxieties of his later years, —each of the three should receive her tribute from us, if only for that the sum of their combined influences was so powerful a factor in the work he accomplished. The study which I dwelt on some time back will bring each before us in turn with an unequal degree of vividness, —in fact, with an inevitable faintness in the case of his mother, as far as our present means are concerned (the picture will finally become more distinct), but still with a sufficient degree to enable us to estimate them severally and their different contributions. And it is in strict keeping with the religion of Humanity that we should in the case of its Founder think of him in what I may call this human setting, this atmosphere of deepest natural affections. The mediaeval saints, even the author of the Imitation, have a different environment; their simple, natural, earthly ties fall off them, their relatives may become monks or saints, but the bond becomes a purely religious one, not one of common affection. And the remark holds good of others than saints, as in the instance of Pascal. The reality of our religion is by nothing better evidenced than by this characteristic difference. Its Founder gave free course to the warmest earthly love, and found in it no hindrance to his highest objects.
Some few words of his own may aptly find a place here, as supporting what I have been saying. They form the conclusion of the Dedication of the Positive Politics: —" Farewell, changeless friend! farewell, my saint Clotilda, thou who wast to me in the stead of wife, of sister, and of child! farewell, loved pupil! true fellow-worker! Thy angel influence will govern what remains to me of life, whether public or private, ever urging me onwards towards perfection, purifying feeling, enlarging thought, ennobling conduct. May this solemn incorporation into my whole life reveal at last to the world thy hidden worth! Thus only can thy benefits now be recognized, by rendering my own performance of the mighty task before me more complete. As the highest personal reward for the noble work that yet remains to be done under thy lofty inspiration, it will be granted perhaps that thy name shall remain ever joined with mine in the most distant memories of grateful Humanity."
In his later writings, and as was natural after the foundation of the universal religion, Comte insists constantly on discipline and moral training. The expression " Souls hungering for moral culture," or its equivalents, occurs not infrequently—the thought is constantly recurring. Neglect of this want is the sign of the revolutionary state, its satisfaction the pledge of the cessation of that state. He satisfied it himself by prayer, adoring communion with his chosen representatives of Humanity, by confession, by unceasing watchfulness over himself. It is his injunction on his disciples that they satisfy it, each in his own way, but in some way or other. Step by step this side of his life will become better known; it is to be regretted that it is not better known; perhaps some of the slowness of our advance may be due to its not being known. As our hold on the religion becomes stronger, its dominion over us more all pervading, we shall see the demand rising for the fuller revelation of our Master's inner life, as a source of light for our own. We have been too lukewarm, too hesitating, too much impressed with the obstacles in our way, too unenquiring after the means of overcoming them, latent in what we possess. Here again, by contact with that saintly life, I use the word advisedly, and with justification both by documents and the avowed judgement of others, but with especial reference to the last nine years of it: it had been civic, noble, great throughout, —dormant capabilities might be brought into action, a power of which we had been unaware found within our reach, an impulse of rich promise communicated. Our religious continuity with our Founder has been weak in all of us, if not wholly broken, and it is surely not too much to say that our influence has been essentially weakened as a consequence. We have not passed into the inner heart of our doctrine, —we have failed therefore to gain its full invigoration, and we have failed therefore to make others feel and bend beneath its power. To regain or to establish our full continuity, to revive as immediately as possible the powerful shock of his religious impact, and having revived it to propagate it, this would be our wisdom, our strength, and would also be the best return we could make for all that we have received, the one most in accordance with our Master's deepest wish.
Nor need we be alarmed lest we thus risk some impairment of our vigour, and by an undue stimulation of the religious element lapse into a sentimental exaggeration unfavourable to that of which we are in constant need, viz., our intellectual and active, growth, The example we today have before our eyes is sufficient on this point. The work done by Comte those last nine years of which I have been more particularly speaking, the conditions of anxiety and exposure under which it was done, prove beyond all question—I will not limit myself to the more negative statement—that for the highest exertion of the mental powers, for the noblest display of the moral qualities, a strong paramount religious impulse, a life of prayer is the indispensable condition. We may with pleasure adhere so far to the unbroken tradition of the Christian Church, to an experience older even than the Christian Church, and founded on the most thoroughly reasoned estimate of on moral constitution. Fearlessly then, in relation to our though and action, we may rouse ourselves to the practice of the religion life, to the habits of worship. I1 believe that it is our general conviction that such is the case, that we are aware that an excessive preponderance of the religious sentiment is not a danger to which our system is practically liable, that it is the contrary extreme from which we have to keep clear, and that by great effort. It has been my endeavour to show one mean sby which that effort may be made easier, —by our free use o fan example which should be constantly before us, mingling with all our religious aspirations, such aspirations being due essentially to his instigation, when all our earlier impressions in the same direction had lost their power. The depth of on obligations in this respect Ileave to your growing appreciation
Enough will have been said if I have, under more than on aspect, justified our present commemoration and strengthened our sense of connection with him whom we commemorate. Only one real danger do Isee. It would be an evil if without conviction we fell into the use of exaggerated language in respect to our Master. Nothing that I have said will, Ihope, tend that way. It has been my object to encourage study of his work, in all its parts, his life no less than his teaching, meditation of it, not mere intellectual study, thought rather than reading—and to encourage it with a direct bearing on our own practice. An allusion to this risk of an unpractical attention must be sufficient. My own language may appear overstrained to some. I must leave it to their ulterior judgement on the fullest information.
If in Humanity each of her individual organs finds its completion, the filling up of that in which it is defective as an exemplar, it yet remains true that each in its measure conveys a portion of her influence, and works directly for her perfecting. We are all, the servants of a power to whose advance we can contribute. Whilst time lasts the number of her elect will be increasing, their contribution will be a service at once required and valued. The thought is more ennobling than the corresponding one in the older religion, the belief of our childhood, where the choice was arbitrary, and the benefit personal. With us there can be no exclusive absorbing claim set up, but there will still be degrees of honour as of usefulness. As in the past so in the future, men will regard some eminent type with a predilection determined by their own peculiar constitution. Yet we cannot be wrong in thinking that Humanity will surround with surpassing glory the memory of him who first set forth her being and attributes, —that through the most distant future the generations of men will assign to Auguste Comte a preeminent place among the great spirits, by gazing upon whom they feel that they grow greater, that in their gratitude and their blessing his high endeavour will find its just reward.
I end with his own words: "Without ceasing to live with our noblest ancestors, I live for the future with our descendants, till the time come when I live again in them and by them, after having lived worthily for them."