ReligionFor centuries, scripture and theology were the focus of prodigious amounts of scholarship and publishing, dominated in the English-speaking world by the work of Protestant Christians. Enlightenment philosophy and science, anthropology, ethnology and the colonial experience all brought new perspectives, lively debates and heated controversies to the study of religion and its role in the world, many of which continue to this day. This series explores the editing and interpretation of religious texts, the history of religious ideas and institutions, and not least the encounter between religion and science.

The Catechism of Positive ReligionThis English edition of The Catechism of Positive Religion was published in 1891, thirty-four years after the death of Comte, the French philosopher of science and politics and founder of positivism, whose work was widely read in the later nineteenth century. Comte’s self-published French original of 1852, translated here, outlines his progressive ideal of ‘sociocracy’, which would provide a systematic basis, free of metaphysics, for intellectual and moral transactions among humans. Congreve’s edition, in common with other, divides the book into five parts. The introduction contains two dialogues, entitled General Theory of Religion and Theory of Humanity. Parts 1-3 respectively consider the Positivist’s private and public ‘worship’; ‘doctrine’, including the external world and human society and ethics; and ‘regime’ or way of life, private and public. The final two dialogues cover polytheism, monotheism and theocracy. This book remains of interest as an early precursor of secular humanist ethics.

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The Catechism of Positive Religion

Or Summary Exposition of the Universal Religion in Thirteen Systematic Conversations Between a Woman and a Priest of Humanity

Auguste Comte

C AmbR iD GE Univ ER sit y PRE ss

Cambridge new york melbourne madrid Cape town singapore são Paolo Delhi

Published in the United states of America by Cambridge University Press, new york

www.cambridge.orginformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108000871

© in this compilation Cambridge University Press 2009

This edition first published 1891This digitally printed version 2009

isbn 978-1-108-00087-1

This book reproduces the text of the original edition. The content and language reflect the beliefs, practices and terminology of their time, and have not been updated.

THE

CATECHISM OF POSITIVE RELIGION

THE CATECHISM

POSITIVE RELIGION

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 01

AUGUSTE COMTE

RICHARD CONUREVE

REVISED AND CORRECTED

LONDON

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER, & CO. LTD-PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHABJNO CEOSS ROAD

189I

REPUBLIC OF THE WEST

ORDER AND PROGRESS—LIVE FOR OTHERS

THE

CATECHISM OF POSITIVISMOR

SUMMARY EXPOSITION

OF

THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION

IN THIRTEEN SYSTEMATIC CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN A

WOMAN AND A PRIEST OF HUMANITY;

BY AUGUSTE COMTEAUTHOR OF "THE SYSTEM OF POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY," AND OF

"THE SYSTEM OF POSITIVE POLITICS"

LOVE FOR PRINCIPLE

AND ORDER FOR BASIS ;

PROGRESS FOR END.

PREFATORY NOTE TO THIRD EDITION.

IN the preface to the fourth volume of his System ofPositive Politics (Treatise of Sociology instituting theReligion of Humanity), Auguste Comte says :—

" Taking the volume as a whole, the general constitu-tion of the religion has become at once more systematic,more moral, and more practical, by definitively placingthe worship before the doctrine. I regret that thiscorrection is subsequent to the composition of thePositivist Catechism, the purpose of which it wouldhave aided. Without waiting, however, for a secondedition of that short work, the improvement may beeffected by dividing into two the long conversation onthe doctrine as a whole. The first half, bearing directlyon the theory of the Great Being (Humanity), shouldfor the future form a separate chapter and follow onthe Introduction. Then we may pass at once to thestudy of the worship and after it to that of the doctrine,the general conversation on which will thus be limitedto its second half, the half which alone relates to theencyclopedic constitution.

" This division of a long chapter allows the adoption ofthe definitive arrangement, the transposition being easy,

vi ADVERTISEMENT TO THIRD EDITION.

and involving no change in the exposition as it stands. Itake the opportunity to urge the readers of my Catechismalso to divide the last chapter, studying first the Fetichistand Theocratic part common to all nations, then the three-fold transition peculiar to the West. By these twochanges, the small work which is the organ of propaga-tion should for the future be considered as consisting ofthirteen chapters instead of eleven."

In obedience to this formal injunction, the changerecommended was introduced into the English transla-tion in 1858. It has been adopted by the later Frencheditions of the work, by the Italian and Portuguesetranslations, and will doubtless be adopted by any othertranslations.

The only change I have made in this new issue, renderednecessary by the accidental destruction by fire at theprinters of the unsold copies of the second edition, isthe suppression of the Appendix; I think it better thatall such additional matter should appear in a separateform as a supplement to the Catechism. I have addedfrom the Positivist Tables the sketch of the treatises ontheoretical and practical morals, and I have added alsoan index of the proper names—any other index shouldbe the work of each diligent student for himself. Thetext has been revised throughout.

RICHARD CONCRETE.

55 PALACE GARDENS TERRACE,

LONDON, W.

24 GUTENBERG 103 (5 /1 September 1891).

CONTENT S.

'1

PREFATORY NOTE '1'0 THIRV EDI'l'IO:\ PREFACE

POSITIVIS'f LIBRARY .

HINT TO THE READER

INTRODUOTION.

CONVERSATION I.-General Theory of Religion

" n.-Theory of Humanity

jfit$t �art. EXPLANATION OF THE WORSHIP.

CONVERSATION lH.-The Worship as a Whol€' .

" lV.-Private Worship

" V.-Public'Vorship

j¢££onb Jart. EXPLANATION OF THE DOCTRINE.

CONVERSATION VI.-The Doctrine as a Whole .

" VII. -The External Order, first T norganic.

V

I

27 31

S8 83

97

113

then Vital • 140

" VHI.-The Human Order, first Social, then

Moral. 159

viii CONTENTS.

Part.EXPLANATION OF THE REGIME, OR SYSTEM

OF LIFE.PAGE

CONVERSATION IX.—The Kegime as a whole . . . 1 8 8X.—Private Life 212

X I . - P u b l i c life 229

CONCLUSION.

GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.

CONVERSATION XII.—The Fetichist and Theocratic periodcommon to all Peoples . . 255

XIIL—The Transition of the West . . 269

TABLES.

A.—System of Sociolatry, or Social Worship . . . 296B.—Theoretical Hierarchy of Human Conceptions . 297C.—Positive Classification of the Eighteen Internal

Functions of the Brain 298D.—Positivist Calendar . . . To face page 300E.—The First Philosophy 301

I.—Plans of Treatises on Theoretical and Practical Morals 305II.—Index of Proper Names 306

PEEFACE.

" IN the name of the Past and of the Future, the servantsof Humanity—theoricians and practicians—come for-ward to claim as their due the general direction of thisworld, in order to construct at length the true Providence,moral, intellectual, and material; excluding once for allfrom political supremacy all the different servants ofGod—Catholic, Protestant, or Deist—as at once belatedand a source of trouble.7' With this uncompromisingannouncement, on Sunday, 19th October 1851, in thePalais Cardinal, after a summary of five hours, I endedmy third Course of Philosophical Lectures on the GeneralHistory of Humanity. Since that memorable conclusion,the publication of the second volume of my System ofPositive Politics has lately manifested directly how appro-priate is such a social destination to the philosophywhich is able to suggest the most systematic theory ofthe human order.

"We come forward then, avowedly, to deliver the Westfrom an anarchical democracy and from a retrogradearistocracy, so to constitute, as far as practicable, a trueSociocracy, one combining wisely, in furtherance of thecommon regeneration, all the powers of man, each inevery case brought to bear according to its nature. Infact, we Sociocrats are no more democrats than aristo-crats. In our eyes the respectable mass of these twoopposite parties represents, though on no system, on

A

2 PREFACE.

the one hand solidarity, and on the other continuity,between which Positivism establishes on a deep founda-tion a necessary subordination, the substitute at last fortheir deplorable antagonism. But whilst our policy risesequally above these two incomplete and incoherent ten-dencies,, we are far from equally condemning in the pre-sent the two parties which represent them. During thethirty years of my philosophical and social career, I haveever felt a profound contempt for that which, under ourdifferent governments, bore the name of the Opposition,and a secret affinity for all constructive statesmen. Eventhose who would build with materials evidently worn outseemed to me constantly preferable to the mere destruc-tives, in a century in which general reconstruction iseverywhere the chief want. Our official conservativesare behindhand, it is true, but our mere revolutionistsseem to me still more alien to the true spirit of our time.They continue blindly, in the middle of the nineteenthcentury, the negative direction which could only suit theeighteenth, without redeeming this stagnation by thosegenerous aspirations after a universal renovation whichdistinguished their predecessors.

Hence it is that, though the popular sympathies areinstinctively with them, power constantly passes to theiropponents, who at least have recognised the impotencefor organising of the metaphysical doctrines, and seekelsewhere for principles of reconstruction. With themajority of these last, their retrograde attitude is, atbottom, but a provisional choice of the least evil asagainst an impending anarchy, without any real theolo-gical convictions. Though all statesmen seem for themoment to belong to this school, we may assert confi-dently that it only supplies the formulas indispensablefor the co-ordination of their empirical views, whilstwaiting for the more real and stable connection to springfrom a new doctrine of universal applicability.

Such is certainly the only temporal governor of real

PREFACE. 3

eminence of whom up to the present time our centurycan boast, the noble Czar who, whilst he gives hisimmense empire all the progress compatible with itsactual condition, preserves it by his energy and prudencefrom useless ferment. His sagacity, however empirical,leads him to see that the West alone is charged with theglorious and difficult mission of laying the foundations ofhuman regeneration, which the East has subsequentlyand peaceably to appropriate as it shall rise. He seemsto me to be even conscious that this immense elabo-ration was reserved specially for the great Westerncentre, the spontaneous action of which, though of neces-sity disorderly, is the only one which should always berespected, as absolutely indispensable to the commonsolution. The habitual agitation of all the remainder ofthe West, though more difficult to restrain than that ofthe East, is in reality almost equally prejudicial to thenatural course of the final regeneration, for it tendswithout ground to displace its principal centre, whichthe whole of the past fixes in France.

Our situation in the West so excludes the simply re-volutionary point of view that it reserves for the oppositecamp the production of the maxims which best expressit. Not forgetting the memorable practical formula/*"the author of which was a democrat fortunately withoutliterary training, it is among pure conservatives that themost profound political sentence of the nineteenth cen-tury had its birth—To destroy you must replace. Theauthor of this admirable sentence, equally excellent inexpression and thought, presents, however, nothing re-markable in point of intellect. His only real recom-mendation is a rare combination of the three practicalqualities—energy, prudence, and perseverance. But theconstructive point of view so tends at present to enlarge

* II faut faire de Vordre avec du desordre—Your materials aredisorder, with them you must organise order.—M. Caussidiere.

4 PREFACE.

conceptions, that, given a favourable situation, it canby itself suggest to an intellect of small depth a reallyprofound principle, which is adopted and systematicallydeveloped by Positivism.

Be this as it may, the retrograde nature of the worn-out doctrines which our conservatives provisionally em-ploy, must disqualify them absolutely for directingpolitical action in the midst of an anarchy which had itsorigin in the irremediable weakness of the old beliefs.The West can no longer submit its reason to the guidanceof opinions which evidently admit of no demonstration ;nay, which are radically chimerical, as are all opinionsderived from theology, even if reduced to its fundamentaldogma. All now recognise that our practical activitymust cease to waste itself on mutual hostilities, in orderpeaceably to develop our drawing out in common theresources of man's planet. But still less can we persistin the state of intellectual and moral childhood in whichour conduct rests only on motives which are absurd anddegrading. Without ever repeating the eighteenth cen-tury, the nineteenth must always continue its work,realising at length the noble aspiration of a demonstratedreligion directing pacific activity.

Now that our circumstances set aside every simplynegative tendency, the only ones of the philosophicalschools of the last century really discredited are theillogical sects whose predominance was necessarily veryshort. The incomplete destructives, such as Voltaire andRousseau, who thought that they could overthrow thealtar and preserve the throne, or the converse, are fallenwithout possibility of rising, after ruling, such was thedestiny allotted them, the two generations which pre-pared and achieved the revolutionary explosion. But,ever since reconstruction has been the order of the day,the attention of men reverts more and more to the greatand immortal school of Diderot and Hume, which willreally give its stamp to the eighteenth century, connecting

PREFACE. 5

it with the seventeenth through Fontenelle, and with thenineteenth through Condorcet. Equally emancipated inreligion and politics, these powerful thinkers necessarilytended towards a total and direct reorganisation, con-fused though its conception must then be. All of themwould now rally in support of the only doctrine which,basing the future on the past, at length lays a perfectlyfirm foundation for the regeneration of the West. I t isfrom this school that I shall always consider it an honourto be descended in a direct line through my leadingprecursor, the eminent Condorcet. On the other hand,I never expected anything but hindrances, intentionalor not, from the belated relics of the superficial andimmoral sects sprung from Voltaire and Rousseau.

But with this great historical stock I have always con-nected whatever of real eminence came from our latestadversaries, whether theological or metaphysical. WhilstHume is my principal precursor in philosophy, Kantcomes in as an accessory; his fundamental conceptionwas never really systematised and developed but byPositivism. So, under the political aspect, Condorcetrequired, for me, to be completed by De Maistre, fromwhom, at the commencement of my career, I appropriatedall his leading principles, which now find no adequateappreciation except in the Positive school. These, withBichat and Gall as my precursors in science, are the siximmediate predecessors who will ever connect me withthe three fathers of the true modern philosophy—Bacon,Descartes, and Leibnitz. Carrying on this noble gene-alogy, the Middle Ages, intellectually condensed in St.Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and Dante, place me indirect subordination to the eternal prince of true thinkers,the incomparable Aristotle.

Retracing our steps as far as this true fountain-head,we feel deeply that, since the adequate extension ofRome's dominion, the more advanced populations arevainly seeking for an universal religion. Experience

6 PREFACE.

has made it quite clear that no supernatural belief cansatisfy this ultimate longing. Two incompatible Mono-theisms equally aimed at this necessary universality,without which Humanity could not follow her naturaldestiny. But their opposed efforts only resulted in theirmutually neutralising each other, so as to reserve thisattribute for doctrines susceptible of demonstration andadmitting discussion. For more than five centuries, Islamrenounces the conquest of the West, and Catholicismabandons to its eternal rival even the tomb of its pre-tended founder. These vain spiritual aspirations havenot even been able to extend over the whole terri-tory of the old temporal rule, divided with an almostequal division between the two irreconcilable Mono-theisms.

The East and the West, then, must seek, apart fromall theology or metaphysics, the systematic bases of theirintellectual and moral communion. This long-expectedfusion, which must afterwards gradually embrace thewhole of mankind, can evidently only come from Posi-tivism, that is, from a doctrine whose invariable charac-teristic is the combination of the real with the useful.Long limited to the simplest phenomena, its theories havethere produced the only really universal convictionswhich as yet exist. But this natural privilege of thePositive methods and doctrines cannot for ever be con-fined to the domain of mathematics and physics. Firstdeveloped in the sphere of natural order, it thencepassed naturally to the vital order, whence it has latelyextended finally to the human order, collective or in-dividual. This decisive completeness of the Positivespirit now does away with every pretext for preserving,by artificial means, the theological spirit, which has cometo be, in modern Europe, as disturbing as the meta-physical, of which it is both historically and dogmaticallythe source. Besides, the moral and political degrada-tion of the theological priesthood had long precluded any

PREFACE. 7

hope of restraining, as in the Middle Ages, the vices ofthe doctrine by the instinctive sagacity of its best in-terpreters.

Instinctively abandoned henceforward to its naturaldecay, the monotheistic belief, Christian or Musulman,deserves more and more the unfavourable judgmentwhich, during the three centuries of its rise to power,it elicited from the noblest statesmen and philosophersof the Roman world. Not able at that time to judgethe system but by the doctrine, they hesitated not toreject, as the enemy of the human race, a provisionalreligion which placed perfection in detachment fromearth. Modern instinct reprobates still more stronglya morality which proclaims that the benevolent senti-ments are foreign to our nature, which so misunderstandsthe dignity of labour as to refer its origin to a divinecurse, and which makes woman the source of all evil.Tacitus and Trajan could not foresee that, for some cen-turies, the wisdom of the priesthood, aided by favour-able circumstances, would so far check the natural defectsof such doctrines, as to draw from them, provisionally,admirable results for society. But now that the Westernpriesthood has become hopelessly retrograde, its belief,left to itself, tends to give free scope to the immoralcharacter which is inherent in its anti-social nature.It deserved the respectful treatment of prudent con-servatives only so far as it was impossible to substitutefor it a better conception of the world and of man—aconception entirely dependent on the slow rise of thePositive spirit. But this laborious initiation being nowcomplete, Positivism definitively eliminates Catholicism,as every other form of theologism, by virtue even of theadmirable social maxim above quoted.

After fully satisfying the intelligence and the activity,the Positive religion, ever impelled by the reality whichcharacterises it, has extended in due form even to feeling,which is henceforth its principal domain and becomes the

S PREFACE,

basis of its unity. We see no reason to fear then thatany true thinkers, theoretical or practical, can at thepresent day, as in the early days of Catholicism, fail tosee the superiority of a real and complete faith, which,far from being social by accident, shows itself such byits inherent nature. For the rest, it is for the nascentpriesthood of Positivism and for all its true disciples, bytheir conduct as men and citizens, to secure on groundsof experience a due appreciation of its excellence, evenfrom those who cannot directly judge its principles. Adoctrine which shall always develop all the humanvirtues, personal, domestic, and civic, will soon be re-spected by all its honest opponents, whatever may betheir ungrounded predilection for an absolute and egoisticsynthesis, as opposed to a relative and altruistic one.

But, to establish this crucial competition, it wasnecessary first to so condense Positivism that it maybecome really popular. This is the particular object ofthis small exceptional work, for which I interrupt, forsome weeks, my great religious construction, of whichthe first half only is as yet accomplished. I hadthought at first that this valuable episode should bepostponed until the entire completion of that immensework. But after writing, in January 1851, the Positivetheory of human unity, I felt sufficiently forward toallow me to introduce such an interlude after the volumein which that theory forms the first and most importantchapter. Growing, as I worked out that capital volume,this hope became mature when I wrote its final preface.I realise it to-day, before I begin the construction ofDynamical Sociology, which will be the special subject ofthe third volume of my System of Positive Politic*, to bepublished next year.

Due to the unexpected ripeness of my principal con-ceptions, this resolution was greatly strengthened by thefortunate crisis which has just abolished the parlia-mentary regime and instituted a dictatorial republic, the

PREFACE. 9

two preliminary conditions of any true regeneration. Itis quite true that this dictatorship by no means wears asyet the character set forth as essential in my PositivistLectures of 1847. What it most wants is to be com-patible with full freedom of exposition and even of dis-cussion—a freedom absolutely indispensable for spiritualreorganisation, not to say that it alone can reassure usagainst all retrograde tyranny. But under one form orother, this necessary complement will before long beattained, which seems to me to involve, as the precedingphases, one last violent crisis. Once attained, its adventon empirical grounds will soon determine the peace-ful creation of the systematic triumvirate which givesits form and expression to the temporal dictatorshipput forward, in the Lectures above mentioned, as thegovernment adapted to the organic transition. Without,however, waiting for these two new phases of our re-volutionary experiment, the actual dictatorship alreadypermits the direct propagation of renovating thought.The freedom of exposition which as a natural conse-quence it brings to all really constructive thinkers bybreaking at length the sterile sway of the talkers, natur-ally acted as a special invitation to me to direct thethoughts of women and proletaries towards the basisof thorough renovation.

This work, then—an episode—by furnishing a syste-matic basis for the active propagation of Positivism,necessarily forwards my principal construction, for itbrings the new religion to its true social audience. How-ever solid the logical and scientific bases of the intel-lectual discipline instituted by Positive Philosophy, itssevere regime is too antipathetic to our present mentalstate for it ever to prevail without the irresistible sup-port of women and the proletaries. The urgent needof it can only be soundly appreciated by these two socialmasses, which, alien to all pretension to teaching, canalone enforce on their systematic chiefs the encyclopedic

io PREFACE.

conditions demanded by their social office. This is whyI was bound not to shrink from introducing into thepopular language philosophical terms which are abso-lutely indispensable, terms not created by Positivism, butof which it has systematised the meaning and fosteredthe use. Such are, in particular, two pairs of essentialvalue as characteristic formulas, first Static and Dynamic,then Object ice and Subjective, without which my exposi-tion would remain inadequate. Once properly defined,especially by their uniform use, their judicious employ-ment greatly facilitates instead of obscuring philoso-phical explanations. I do not scruple in this work toconsecrate expressions which the Positive religion mustat once pass into universal circulation, considering thehigh importance of their use from the intellectual andeven the moral point of view.

Thus led to compose a true Catechism for the Religionof Humanity, I had first to examine, on rational prin-ciples, the form always adopted for such expositions, thedialogue. I soon found in it a fresh instance of thehappy instinct by which practical wisdom often antici-pates the conclusions of sound theory. Fresh from thespecial work of constructing the Positive theory ofhuman language, I felt at once that since expressionshould always issue in communication, its natural formis the dialogue. Further, as all combinations, evenphysical, and still more logical, are binary, the dialogueadmits, under pain of confusion, only one interlocutor.The monologue is in reality adapted only to conception,limiting itself to the formal expression of its process,as if one were thinking aloud, without reference to anyhearer. When language is used not merely to assist theinvestigations of the reason, but to direct the communi-cation of its results, then it requires a fresh shape,specially adapted to this transfer of ideas. Then wemust take into account the peculiar state of the listener,and foresee the modifications which the natural course

PREFACE. ii

of such exposition will call for. In a word, the simplestatement must thus become a real conversation. Norcan its essential conditions be satisfactorily met exceptby assuming one single and clearly determined inter-locutor. But if this type is judiciously chosen, it may,for ordinary use, adequately represent every reader;since indeed it were not possible to vary the mode ofexposition to meet the exigencies of each individual, asmay be done in actual conversation.

A discourse, then, which is in the full sense didactic,ought to differ essentially from one simply logical, inwhich the thinker freely follows his own course, payingno attention to the natural conditions of all communica-tion. Still, to avoid the great labour of recasting one'sthoughts, in general we limit ourselves to laying thembefore others as we originally thought them ; though thisrough method of exposition largely contributes to thescanty efficacy of most of our reading. The dialogue, theproper form for all real communication, is reserved forthe setting forth of such conceptions as are at once im-portant enough and ripe enough to demand it. This iswhy, in all times, religious instruction is given in theform of conversation and not of simple statement. Farfrom betraying a negligence excusable only in cases ofsecondary importance, this form, rightly managed, is, onthe contrary, the only mode of exposition which is reallydidactic : it suits equally every intelligence. But thedifficulties attendant on the new elaboration which itrequires justify our not adopting it for ordinary com-munications. I t would be childish to aim at such per-fection for any instruction not of fundamental interest.On the other hand, this transformation for the purposesof teaching is only practicable where the doctrines aresufficiently worked out for us to be able to distinctlycompare the different methods of expounding them as awhole, and to easily foresee the objections which theywill naturally elicit.

12 PREFACE.

Were I bound here to point out all the general prin-ciples applicable to the art of communication, I shoulddwell on the improvements admissible in regard to style.Especially devoted to the expression of feelings, poetshave always felt how superior is verse to prose for thatexpression, to render artificial language more esthetic, bybringing it nearer to natural language. Now, the samereasons would equally apply to the communication ofthoughts, if we had to attach as much importance to it.Conciseness of language and the aid of imagery, the twoessential characteristics of true versification, would be asappropriate for perfecting the exposition of thought asthe expansion of feeling. So, perfect communicationwould require not merely the substitution of dialoguefor monologue, but also that of verse for prose. Thissecond improvement in teaching, however, must be stillmore of an exception than the first, because of the addi-tional labour it requires. It presupposes even a greatermaturity in the conceptions to be expressed, not only intheir interpreter but also in the audience, which has, byan effort of its own, to fill up at once the gaps left bypoetical concision. This is why several admirable poemsare still only in prose, the imperfection of the form beingat the time excusable, where the subject was not gene-rally familiar. An analogous motive acted more stronglyagainst putting into verse any religious catechism. Butthe reality and spontaneity which distinguish the Posi-tive belief will enable it in time to introduce this lastimprovement into its popular exposition, when thatbelief shall begin to spread sufficiently to admit of con-ciseness and imagery. Only provisionally, then, need wefeel limited in it to the substitution of the dialogue forthe monologue.

In accordance with this special theory as to the di-dactic form, I was led not only to justify previous prac-tice, but even to improve upon it, so far as concerns theinterlocutor. By leaving the hearer completely unde-

PREFACE. I 3

termined, the dialogue became extremely vague, and assuch even almost illusory. Having placed on rationalgrounds the empirical adoption of the dialogue, I soonfelt that it would remain incomplete, and if incomplete,inadequate, so long as it was not clear who the secondperson was, at least to the author. Unless you setbefore you a real, although in the immediate instance,an ideal communication, you cannot draw out to the fallall the inherent advantages of such a form. Then youinstitute a real conversation, as distinct from a state-ment thrown into dialogue.

Applying at once this clear principle, I naturally chosethe angelic interlocutress who, after only one year ofdirect living influence, has been now for more than sixyears subjectively associated with all my thoughts aswith all my feelings. I t is through her that I have atlength become for Humanity an organ in the strictestsense twofold, as may any one who has worthily sub-mitted to woman's influence. Without her I shouldnever have been able practically to make the career ofSt. Paul follow on that of Aristotle, by founding theuniversal religion on true philosophy, after I had extractedthe latter from real science. The constant purity of ourexceptional connection, and even the admirable superi-ority of the angel who never received due recognition,are moreover already fully appreciated l>y nobler minds.When, four years ago, I revealed this incomparable in-spiration by the publication of my Discourse on the Systemof Positivism, she could at first only be judged by its in-tellectual and moral results, thenceforward appreciableby the sympathetic heart as by the synthetic mind. Butlast year the three introductory pieces, which will everbe the distinctive feature of the first volume of my Sf/stentof Positive Politics, enabled all to directly appreciatethis eminent nature. Hence, when I recently publishedthe second volume of the same treatise, I was alreadyable to openly congratulate myself on the touching

i 4 PREFACE.

unanimity of marked sympathy which both sexes feeltowards the new Beatrice. These three public antece-dents dispel at once all doubt as to my sainted hearer,with whom the duly prepared reader is sufficientlyacquainted for our conversations to possess their ownpeculiar and immediate interest.

Such a catechumen meets perfectly all the essentialconditions of the best form of teaching. Superior thoughshe was, Madame Clotilde de Yaux was yet so earlysnatched from me that it was impossible sufficiently toinitiate her in Positivism, the point to which her ownwishes and efforts tended. Before death broke offfinally this affectionate instruction, pain and grief hadseriously impeded it. When I now accomplish subject-ively the systematic preparation which I could hardlyenter upon during her life, my angelic disciple bringswith her nothing beyond the primary dispositions to befound in most women, and even in many proletaries. Inall those souls which Positivism has not yet reached, Ipresuppose solely, as in my eternal companion, a pro-found desire to know the religion which can overcomethe modern anarchy, and a sincere veneration for itspriest. I should even prefer for readers those in whomno scholastic training interferes with the spontaneousfulfilment in fair degree of these two previous con-ditions.

All who know my general institution of the trueguardian angels, already sufficiently explained in myPositive Politics, are aware, moreover, that the principalfemale type becomes in it habitually inseparable fromthe two others. This sweet connection holds good, even inthe exceptional case which presents to me in combination,in my pure and immortal companion, thesubjective mothermy second life presupposes, and the objective daughterwho should have added grace to my transient existence.From the time that her invariable reserve had so purifiedmy affection as to raise it to the level of her own, all I

PREFACE. I 5

aspired to was the openly avowed union which shouldfollow on a legal adoption, suitable to our disparity inage. When I shall publish our noble correspondence,my last letter will give direct evidence of this holy pro-ject, the only one which, under our respective destinies,was compatible with repose and happiness.

It is then without effort that I proceed to use in thiscatechism the personal designations habitually used inreligious instruction. More even than the priesthoodof theology does the priesthood of Positivism require inits priests complete maturity, most particularly by virtueof its immense encyclopedic preparation. This is why Ihave fixed the ordination of the priests of Humanity atforty-two, the age at which the development of the bodyand the brain is completely ended, as is also the firstsocial life. The names of father and daughter becomethen peculiarly appropriate as between the teacher andthe catechumen, in conformity with the old etymologyof the word priest. By using them here, I naturallyapproximate to the personal relations amid which Ishould have lived had it not been for our fatal catas-trophe.

But this concentration of the holy conversation on thepresiding angel ought not to conceal from the reader,any more than from myself, that my two other patron-esses take constantly an appropriate though silent partin it. The venerable mother and the noble adopteddaughter, whose subjective influence and objective serviceI have elsewhere explained, will always here be presentto my heart when my intellect shall be duly feeling thedominant impulse. For the future become inseparable,these three angels are so my own that their constant co-operation has lately suggested to the eminent artist,whom Positivism now claims with pride, an admirableesthetic inspiration, which converts a mere portrait intoa picture of profound meaning.

A didactic conversation on this plan renders my own

16 PREFACE.

labour easier as well as that of my reader. For such apublic exposition comes very near the private explana-tions for which my sainted companion would have natur-ally asked me had our objective union lasted longer, as isalready clear from my philosophical letter on Marriage.The very period of the year at which I accomplish thispleasant task recalls with peculiar force her own un-suggested wishes, during our incomparable year, for amethodical initiation. I have only then to carry myselfback seven years to conceive, as actually spoken, thatwhich I must now develop subjectively, by placing my-self, in 1852, in the situation of 1845. But *^ s eff°rfc

of transposition brings with it the precious compensationthat I am able to give a better idea of the angelic as-cendency which I can only adequately characterise bycombining two admirable verses, respectively meant forBeatrice and Laura—

Quella che imparadisa la rnia mente *Ogni basso pensier dal cor m'avulse. f

She who doth imparadise my soul (Cary)Tore from my heart every low thought.

This tardy accomplishment of an initiation prompted byaffection brings it moreover into fuller agreement withthe paternal feelings which finally prevailed towards herwho will always be associated with me as at once discipleand colleague. Her age having become fixed, in obedi-ence to the general law of the subjective life, mine ex-ceeds it more and more, so as even now to allow onlyiilial images. This more perfect continuity of our twolives perfects also the whole harmony of my own nature.In thus explaining the Positive constitution of humanunity, I am developing and consolidating the funda-mental connection between my private and my publiclife. The philosophical influence of the angel who in-

* Dante, Par. xxviii. 3. t Petrarch, Sonnet lxxxvi. 8.

PREFACE. 17

spires me becomes then as complete and as direct as itever can be, and consequently beyond dispute in the eyesof all. I venture then to hope that, to enable me totestify my just gratitude, the nobler minds will soon bytheir due aid supply the deficiency of which I am pro-foundly conscious in the midst of my best daily prayers,as was Dante in regard to his sweet patroness—

Non e r affezion nria tanto profondaChe basti a render voi grazia per grazia.

—Par. iv. 121.

Affection fails me to requite thy graceWith equal sum of gratitude.—CABY'S Translation.

But this gratitude of the public must, equally with myown, embrace the two other guardian angels who com-plete the presiding female influence over me. Howeverdistant, alas ! the imposing memory of the perfect Catho-licism which swayed my noble and tender mother, itwill always be an incitement to me to give precedence,more than in my youth, to the constant cultivation offeeling over that of intellect and even of activity. Onthe other hand, were a too exclusive sense of the neces-sity of basing all real public virtue on private goodnessto lead me to undervalue the importance of civic morality,an importance inherent in it and directly its own, Ishould soon correct myself by the admirable sociabilityof my third patroness. I undertake this episodic work,then, under the especial assistance of all my angels,although two of them can only co-operate silently, with-out prejudice to their personal claims to the venerationof all.

Looked at from a more general point of view, this formof teaching tends directly to convey a strong impressionof the character of the religion to be taught. For, ofitself, it brings out the fundamental nature of the Positivesystem which, aiming above all at the systematic dis-

B

18 PREFACE.

cipline of all the powers of man, rests principally on theconstant concurrence of feeling with reason to regulateactivity. Now, this series of conversations always repre-sents the heart and the intellect as combining in religiousunion to moralise the material power to which the worldof action is necessarily subjected. In that world thewoman and the priest are, in fact, the two indispensableelements of the true moderating power, which is at oncedomestic and civic. In organising this holy coalitionin the interests of society, each constituent proceedshere in conformity with its true nature: the heartstates the questions, the intellect answers them. Thusthe very form of this Catechism points at once to thegreat central idea of Positivism : man thinking underthe inspiration of woman, to bring synthesis into con-stant harmony with sympathy in order to regularisesynergy.

The adoption of this method for the new religious in-struction shows that it addresses by preference the sex inwhich affection predominates. This preference, quite inaccordance with the true spirit of the final regime, is inan especial manner adapted to the last transition, in whichevery influence recognised by the normal state mustalways work with greater strength, if with less regularity.The better proletaries are likely, it seems to me, ere longto welcome heartily this short but decisive work; yet itis more suited to women, especially to women withoutinstruction. They alone can fully understand the pre-ponderance that ought to be given to the habitual culti-vation of the heart, so borne down by the coarse activity,both in speculation and action, which prevails in themodern Western world. It is solely in this sanctuarythat, at the present day, we can find the noble submis-siveness of spirit required for a systematic regeneration.During the last four years, the reason of the people hassuffered profoundly from the unfortunate exercise of uni-versal suffrage; it had previously been preserved from

PREFACE. 19

the constitutional sophisms and Parliamentary intriguesof which the rich and the literary class had had themonopoly. Developing a blind pride, our proletarieshave thought themselves able to settle the highest socialquestions without submitting to any serious study.Though this deterioration is much less in the southernpopulations of the West, the resistance of Catholicismsheltering them against the metaphysics of Protestantismor Deism, the reading negative books is beginning tospread it too much even there. I see none anywherebut women, who, as a consequence of their wholesomeexclusion from political action, can give me the supportrequired to secure the free ascendency of the principleswhich shall in the end qualify the proletaries to placetheir confidence aright on points of theory as well as onpoints of practice.

Besides, the deep-seated mental anarchy justifies thisspecial appeal of the Positive religion to the affective sex,as it renders more necessary than ever the predominanceof feeling, the sole existing preservative of Westernsociety from a complete and irreparable dissolution.Since the close of the Middle Ages, the influence ofwomen has been the sole though unacknowledged checkon the moral evils attaching to the mental alienation to-wards which the West more and more tended, especiallyits centre—France. This chronic unreason being hence-forth at its height, since there is no social maxim butsuccumbs to a corrosive discussion, feeling alone main-tains order in the West. But feeling even is seriouslyweakened already by the reaction of the sophisms of theintellect, these being always favourable to the personalinstincts which are, moreover, the more energetic.

Of the three sympathetic instincts which belong toour true cerebral constitution, the first and last aremuch weakened, and the intermediate nearly extinct, inthe majority of the men who take an active part at pre-sent in Western agitation. Penetrate to the interior

20 PREFACE.

of existing families, and you find how little strengthattachment has left, in the intercourse which shouldfoster it most. As for the general kindness, so muchvaunted at present, it is more an indication of hatred ofthe rich than of love of the poor. For modern philan-thropy too often expresses its pretended benevolence informs appropriate to anger or envy. But the social in-stinct of most constant use, as affording the only im-mediate basis of all true discipline of man, has sufferedeven more than the two others. The deterioration inthis respect, most traceable in the rich and educated,spreads even among proletaries, unless a wise indifferencedivert them from the political movement.

Still, veneration can continue to exist in the midst ofthe wildest revolutionary aberrations; it is indeed theirbest natural corrective. I learnt this formerly by per-sonal experience during the profoundly negative phasewhich necessarily preceded my systematic development.At that time enthusiasm alone preserved me from asophistical demoralisation, though it laid me peculiarlyopen for a time to the seductions of a shallow anddepraved juggler. Veneration, at the present day, isthe decisive mark which distinguishes the revolutionistssusceptible of a real regeneration, however behind theymay be in point of intelligence, especially among theCommunists who are without instruction.

But, though in the immense majority of those who arenegative we may still discern this valuable symptom, inthe majority of their chiefs it is certainly not found, theexisting anarchy giving everywhere a temporary pre-dominance to bad natui;es. These men, absolutely in-susceptible of discipline, despite their small numberwield a vast influence, which infects with the ferment ofsubversive ideas the heads of all who are without firmly-rooted convictions. There is no general remedy at pre-sent for this plague of the West except the contempt ofthe people or the severity of the governments. But the

PREFACE. 2i

doctrine which alone will secure the regular action ofthese two safeguards can at the outset find no command-ing support but in the feeling of women, soon to be aidedby the reason of the proletariate.

Without the due intervention of women, the disciplineof Positivism would not succeed in driving back to thelast ranks these pretended thinkers who speak withdecision on sociological questions though ignorant ofarithmetic. For the people, still sharing in many re-spects their worst faults, is incapable as yet of support-ing the new priesthood against these dangerous talkers.At least, I can, for the moment, hope for no collectiveassistance except from the proletaiies who, standing aloofhitherto from our political discussions, are not the lessinstinctively attached, as women are, to the social aim ofthe great revolution. These two classes form the milieuprepared for this Catechism.

Over and above the general reasons which should inthis place direct my attention chiefly to women, I waslong ago led to look principally to them for the trium-phant advent of the solution of the Western problemindicated by the whole Past.

In the first place, it would be absurd to propose toend without them the most thorough of all human revolu-tions, whilst in all previous revolutions they took a verylarge share. Were their instinctive repugnance to themodern movement really invincible, that would be enoughto ensure its failure. It is the true source of the strangeand fatal anomaly which forces retrograde chiefs onprogressive populations, as though idiocy and hypocrisywere to supply the official securities for Western order.Till Positive religion has sufficiently overcome this resist-ance of women it will not be able, in its treatment ofthe leading partisans of the different belated systems, togive free scope to its decided and just reprobation oftheir mental and moral inferiority.

Those who at the present day deny the innate existence

22 PREFACE.

of the disinterested affections lay themselves open to thejust suspicion of rejecting on this point the demonstra-tions of modern science only because of the radical im-perfection of their own feelings. As they pursue nogood, however trifling, but from the lure of an infinitereward or from the fear of an eternal punishment, theyprove their heart to be as degraded as their intellectevidently is, considering the absurdity of their beliefs.And yet, by the tacit adhesion of women, the directionof the West is still intrusted to those whom such char-acteristics will exclude, and wisely, from all the higherfunctions, when Positivism shall have duly systematisedthe reason of mankind.

But the Religion of Humanity will soon strip theretrograde party of this august support, which it retainssolely from a just horror of anarchy. For in spite ofadverse conceptions resting on previous associations,women are well disposed to value aright the only doctrinewhich in the present day can thoroughly combine orderwith progress. Above all, they will recognise the factthat this final synthesis, while it comprehends everyphase of our existence, better secures the supremacy offeeling than did the provisional synthesis which sacri-ficed to it the intellect and the activity. Our philosophycomes into perfect agreement with the tendencies ofwomen by ending the encyclopedic scale with morals,which, as science and as art, are necessarily the mostimportant and the most difficult study, condensing andcontrolling all the others. Giving at length full scopeto the feelings of chivalry, which in earlier times werecompressed by the conflicts with theology, Positive wor-ship makes the affective sex the moral providence of ourspecies. In that worship every true woman suppliesus in daily life with the best representative of the trueGreat Being. The Positive regime constituting, onsystematic principles, the family as the normal basis of •society, ensures the due prevalence therein of the influence

PREFACE. 23

of women, at length become the supreme private authorityon the common education. On all these grounds, thetrue religion will be fully appreciated by women, as soonas they grasp adequately its leading characteristics.Even those who at first should regret the loss of chimeri-cal hopes will not be slow to feel the moral superiorityof our subjective immortality, so thoroughly altruisticin its nature, as compared with the old objective immor-tality, which could never be other than radically egoistic.The law of eternal widowhood, the distinctive featureof Positivist marriage, would be enough to form, on thispoint, a decisive contrast.

The better to incorporate women into the Westernrevolution, its last phase must be looked on as havingnaturally for them a deep and special interest, in directrelation with their own peculiar destiny.

The four great classes which substantially constitutemodern society, were destined to experience in successionthe radical convulsion required at first for its final re-generation. I t began, in the last century, with theintellectual element, which rose in successful insurrec-tion against the whole system based on theology andwar. The political explosion which was its naturalresult took its rise soon after in the middle classes, whohad long been growing more eager to take the place ofthe nobility. But the resistance of the nobility through-out Europe could only be overcome by calling in theFrench proletariate to the aid of its new temporal chiefs.Thus introduced into the great political struggle, theproletariate of the West put forward irresistible claimsto its just incorporation into the modern order, as soonas peace allowed it to make its own wishes sufficientlyclear. Still this revolutionary chain does not yetinclude the most fundamental element of the truehuman order. The revolution in regard to women mustnow complete the revolution which concerned the prole-tariate, just as this last consolidated the revolution of the

24 PREFACE.

middle classes, sprung originally from the philosophicalrevolution.

Then only will the modern convulsion have really pre-pared all the essential bases of the final regeneration.Till it takes in women, it can only result in prolongingour lamentable oscillations between retrogression andanarchy. But this final complement is a more naturaloutcome of the whole of the antecedent phases than anyone of them is of its predecessor. It connects most closelywith the popular phase, as the social incorporation of theproletariate is evidently bound up with and dependenton, the due enfranchisement of woman from all labouraway from home. Without this universal emancipation,the indispensable complement of the abolition of serfage,the proletary family cannot be in a true sense con-stituted, since in it women remain habitually exposedto the horrible alternative of want or prostitution.

The best practical summary of the whole modern pro-gramme will soon be this indisputable principle—Manought to maintain woman, in order that she may be ableto discharge properly her holy function. This Catechismwill, I hope, make sensible the intimate connection ofsuch a condition with the whole of the great renovation,not merely moral, but also mental, and even material.Influenced by the holy reaction of this revolution in theposition of women, the revolution of the proletariate willby itself clear itself of the subversive tendencies whichas yet neutralise it. Woman's object being everywhereto secure the legitimate supremacy of moral force, shevisits with especial reprobation all collective violence :she is less tolerant of the yoke of numbers than of thatof wealth. But her latent social influence will soonintroduce into the Western revolution, under its twoother aspects, modifications less directly traceable to it,but not less valuable. It will facilitate the advent topolitical power of the industrial patriciate and of thePositive priesthood, by leading both to dissociate them-

PREFACE. 25

selves once for all from the heterogeneous and ephem-eral classes which directed the transition in its negativephase. So completed, and so purified, the revolution ofthe West will proceed firmly and systematically towardsits peaceful termination, under the general direction of thetrue servants of Humanity. Their organic and progress-ive guidance will completely set aside the retrogradeand anarchical parties, all persistence in the theologicalor metaphysical state being treated as a weakness ofbrain incapacitating for government.

Such are the essential conditions which represent thecomposition of this Catechism as fully adapted to itsmost important office, in the present or for the future.When the Positive religion shall have gained sufficientacceptance, it will be the best summary for constantuse. For the present it must serve, as a general view,to prepare the way for its free acceptance, by a suc-cessful propagation, for which hitherto there was nosystematic guidance available.

Taken as a whole, this episodic construction expresses,even by its form and conduct, all the great intellectualand moral attributes of the new faith. There will befelt in it throughout a worthy subordination of the reasonof man to the feeling of woman, in order that the heartmay bring all the powers of the intellect to the mostdifficult and important teaching. Its ultimate reactionshould then secure respect for, and even the extensionto others of. my own private worship of the incompar-able angel from whom I derive at once the chief inspira-tions and their best exposition. Such services will soonrender my sainted interlocutress dear to all truly regene-rated spirits. Henceforward inseparable from mine,her glorification will constitute my most precious reward.Irrevocably incorporated into the true Supreme Being,her tender image supplies me, in the eyes of all, with itsbest impersonation. In each of my three daily prayers,the adoration of the two condenses all my wishes for

26 PREFACE.

inward perfection in the admirable form in which thesublimest of Mystics foreshadowed in his own way themoral motto of Positivism—(Live for others):—

May I love Thee more than myself, nor love myself save forThee.

Amem te plus quam me, nee me nisi propter te !—Imitatio Christi, iii. 5, 82, 83—(ed. Hirsche.)

ATJGUSTE COMTE,Founder of the Religion of Humanity.

PARIS, 25^ CHARLEMAGNE 64

(SUNDAY, nth July 1852).

P.S.—To increase the usefulness of this Catechism,I add to its preface an improved edition of the shortcatalogue which I published, 8th October 1851, withthe view of guiding the more thoughtful minds amongthe people in their choice of books for constant use. Itis a service which at the present time could only origin-ate with the Positive priesthood, by virtue of its ency-clopedic character, thus brought into distinct light. Thedamage both to intellect and morals ever}7where result-ing from irregular reading, should sufficiently indicateat the present time the increasing importance of thisshort synthetical work. Though the collection has notyet been formed, each can without difficulty even nowcollect in one shape or other its separate parts.

THE POSITIVIST LIBRARY

FOR THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY.

150 VOLUMES.

I.—POETRY. (30 VOLUMES.)

The Iliad and the Odyssey, without any notes.yEschylus, the King (Edipus of Sophocles, Aristophanes, do.Pindar, Theocritus, Daphnis and Chloe, do.Plautus and Terence, do.Virgil, Horace (Selections), Lucan, do.Ovid, Tibullus, Juvenal, do.Fabliaux du Moyen Age, par Legrand d'Aussy.Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Pet.rarca (Selections).Opere Scelte di Metastasio e d'Aliieri.I Promessi Sposi di Manzoni.Cervantes, Don Quijote y Las Novelas.Teatro Espaiiol Escojido (Edn. J. S. Florez).El Romancero Espanol Selecto y el Cid.Theatre choisi de Pierre Corneille.Moliere.Theatre choisi de Racine et de Voltaire.Fables de la Fontaine, suivies de quelques Fables de Lamotte et

de Florian.Gil Bias, par Le Sage.La Princesse de Cloves, Paul et Virginie, le Dernier AbencerrageLes Martyrs, par Chateaubriand.Shakespeare (select plays).Milton, Paradise Lost and Lyrical Poems.Robinson Crusoe, the Vicar of Wakefield.Tom Jones (if French translation, that by Charon).

28 THE POSITIVIST LIBRARY.

The Seven Masterpieces of Walter Scott :—Waverier, Ivanhoe,The Fair Maid of Perth, The Legend of Montrose, OldMortality, The Heart of Midlothian, The Antiquary.

Byron (without Don Juan).Goethe (Selections).The Arabian Nights.

II.—SCIENCE. (30 VOLUMES.)

I/Arithmetique cle Condorcet, l'Algfebre et la Gdometrie deClairaut, la Trigonoinetrie de Lacroix ou de Legend re.

La Geometrie Analytique d'Auguste Cornte, precedee de laGeometric de Descartes.

La Statique de Poinsot, suivie de tous ses Memoires sur laMecanique.

Le Cours d'Analyse de Navier, precedee des Reflexions sur leCalcul Infinitesimal, par Carnot.

Le Cours de Mecanique de Navier, suivi de l'Essai sur l'Equilibreet le Mouvement, par Carnot.

La Theorie des Fonctions, par Lagrange.L'Astronomie Populaire d'Auguste Comte, suivie des Mondes de

Fontenelle.La Physique Mecanique de Fischer, traduite et annotee par Biot.Alphabetical Manual of Practical Philosophy, by John Carr

(Weale's Series).La Chimie de Lavoisier.La Statique Chimique, par Berthollet.Elements of Chemistry, by James Graham.Le Manuel d'Anatomie, par Meckel.L'Anatomie Generale de Bichat, pre'ce'de'e de son Traite sur la

vie et sur la mort.Blainville sur TOrganisation des Animaux.La Physiologie de Richerand, annotee par B^rard.L'Essai Systematique sur la Biologie, par Segond, et son Traite

d'anatomie generale.Les Nouveaux Elements de la Science de l'Homme, par Barthez

(2nd edition, 1806).La Philosophie Zoologique, par Lamarck.L'PIistoire Naturelle de Dumeril.Guglielmini sulla Xatura de' Fiumi.Les Discours sur la Nature des Animaux, par Buffon.The Art of Prolonging Human Life, by Hufeland, preceded by

Hippocrates on Air, Water, and Places, and followed byCornaro sur la Sobrieto.

THE POSITIVIST LIBRARY. 29

L'Histoire des Phlegmasies Chroniques, par Broussais, precedeede ses Propositions de M6decine, et d'abord dex aphorismesd'Hippocrate, en Latin, without any commentary.

Les Eloges des Savants, par Fontenelle et Condorcet.

III.—HISTORY. (60 VOLUMES.)

Abrege de Geographie Universelle, par Malte-Brun.Le Dictionnaire Geographique de Eienzi;Cook's Voyages. Les Voyages de Chardin.L'Histoire de la Revolution Francaise, par Mignet.Heeren's Manual of Modern History.Le Siecle de Louis Quatorze, par Voltaire.Les M^moires de Mine, de Motteville.Le Testament Politique de Richelieu. The Life of Cromwell.Davila, Storia delle Guerre Civile di Francia.Vita di Benvenuto Cellini.Les Memoires de Commines.L'Abrege de l'Histoire de France, par Bossuet.Denina, Rivoluzioni dTtalia.Istoria di Espafia, par Ascargorta.Robertson's Charles V.Hume's History of England.Hallam's Middle Ages.L'Histoire Ecclesiastique, par Fleury.Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.Heeren's Manual of Ancient History.Tacitus (the French translation recommended is that of Dureau

de la Malle).Herodotus, Thucydides.Plutarch's Lives.Caesar's Commentaries and Arrian's Alexander.Le Voyage d'Anacharsis, par Barthelem}\Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art.Trattato della Pittura da Leonardo da Vinci.Les Memoires sur la Musique, par Gretry.

IV.—SYNTHESIS. (30 VOLUMES.)

The Politics and Ethics of Aristotle.The Bible.The Koran.The City of God, by St. Augustine.

3O THE POSITIVIST LIBRARY.

The Confessions of St. Augustine. St. Bernard On the Love ofGod.

The Imitation of Jesus Christ (the original and Corneille's versetranslation).

Le Catechisine de Montpellier, TExposition de la Doctrine Catho-lique, par Bossuet, le Commentaire sur le Sermon de J&sus-Christ, par St. Augustine.

LTHistoire des Variations Protestantes, par Bossuet.The Novum Organum of Bacon. Le Discours sur la Methode,

par Descartes. L'Interprdtation de la Nature, par Diderot.Select Thoughts of Cicero, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Pascal,

and Yauvenargues. Les Conseils d'une Mere, par Mme. deLambert. Les Considerations sur les Moeurs, par Duclos.

Le Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle, par Bossuet. L'EsquisseHistorique, par Condorcet.

La Politique Sacree, par Bossuet. Le Traite du Pape, par DeMaistre.

Les Dissertations sur les Sourds et les Aveuelss, par Diderot.Hume's Philosophical Essays. Adam Smith's Essay on theHistory of Astronomy.

L'Essai sur le Beau, par Diderot. La Theorie du Beau, parBarthez.

Les Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Hommo. par Cabanis.Lett res sur les Animaux, par George Leroy. Le Traits sur Ivs

Fonctions du Cerveau, par Gall.Le Traite sur rirritation et la Folie, par Broussais (]>'re edition,

1828).The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (condensed by Miss

Martineau), The Positive Politics, the Positivist Catechism,the Appeal to Conservatives, la Synthese Subjective, Vol. L

HINT TO THE READER.

To facilitate the study of this Catechism, the author

advises the reader to devote at first two weeks to it,

allowing a day for each conversation. Two hours a day

will suffice for reading in the morning, and reading

again in the evening, each of the fourteen chapters,

the Preface included. After this general introduction,

the reader will be able to go back upon the several

dialogues at his pleasure, till he has made them

his own.

INTRODUCTION.1

GENERAL THEORY OF RELIGION.

CONVERSATION I.

The Woman.—I have often asked myself, my dearfather, why you persist in designating as a religion youruniversal doctrine, though it rejects all supernaturalbelief. But on reflection I considered that this term isgiven in common use to many different and even in-compatible systems, each of which claims it exclusively,whilst no one of them has at any time been able, takingthe whole of our species, to reckon up as many adherentsas opponents. This led me to think that this funda-mental term must have a general acceptation, radicallyindependent of every special faith. If so, I conjecturedthat, keeping close to this essential meaning, you mightso denominate Positivism, in spite of the greater con-trast that exists between it and the previous doctrines,which openly avow that their mutual differences are asserious as the points in which they agree. Still, as thisexplanation seems to me yet far from clear, I ask you to

1 The Roman numerals attached to the headings indicate theseries of the thirteen conversations, the Arabic the divisions ofeach part of the work.

33 C

34 I.—INTRODUCTION, ( i)

begin your exposition by explaining, in direct and pre-cise language, the radical sense of the word Religion.

The Priest.—This name, my dear daughter, has, infact, by its etymology no necessary connection with anyof the opinions that may be used for attaining the endto which it points. Izi itself, it expresses the state ofperfect unity, which is distinctive of our existence, botliindividual and social, when all its parts, moral as well asphysical, habitually converge towards a common purpose.Thus the term would be equivalent to the word synthesis,were it not that this last, not by force of its composition,but by nearly universal custom, is now limited entirelyto the domain of the intellect, whilst the other embracesall the attributes of man. Religion, then, consists inregulating each individual nature, and in rallying all theseparate individuals ; which are but two distinct cases ofone problem. For every man, in the successive periodsof his life, differs from himself not less than at any onetime he differs from others ; so that the laws of per-manence and participation are identical.

Such harmony, for the individual or society, not beingever fully attainable, so complicated is our existence,this definition of religion delineates, then, the unchang-ing type to which tends more and more the totality ofhuman effort. Our happiness and our merit consist,above all, in drawing as near as possible to this unity,the gradual development of which is the best measureof real progress towards individual or social perfection.As the various attributes of man come into freer play,the more important becomes their habitual concert, butat the same time the more difficult, were it not thattheir evolution tended of itself to make us more suscep-tible of discipline, as I will explain to you shortly.

The value always set on this synthetical state natur-ally concentrated attention on the method of attainingit. Thus men were led, taking the means for the end,to transfer the name of religion to whatever system of

1.—INTRODUCTION, (i) 35

opinions it represented. But however irreconcilablethese numerous beliefs at first sight appear, Positivismbrings them into essential agreement, by referring eachto the purpose it answered in its own time and country.There is, at bottom, but one religion, at once universaland final, to which all the partial and provisional synthesesmore and more pointed, so far as their respective condi-tions allowed. These several empirical efforts are nowsucceeded by the systematic development of human unity;for it has at length become possible to constitute thisunity, immediately and completely, by virtue of the sumtotal of our unsystematic preparations. Thus it is thatPositivism naturally removes the mutual antagonism ofthe different antecedent religions, by taking as its ownpeculiar domain that common ground on which they allinstinctively rested. Its doctrine could never be uni-versally received were it not that, despite its anti-theo-logical principles, its relative spirit secures it, by thenature of the case, strong affinities with every form ofbelief that has been able for a time to guide any partwhatever of Humanity.

The Woman.—Your definition of religion will satisfyme completely, my father, if you can succeed in clearingup the serious difficulty which seems to me to arise fromits too great comprehensiveness. For, in defining ourunity, you take in the physical as well as the moralnature. They are, in fact, so bound up together that notrue harmony is possible if one tries to separate them.And yet I cannot accustom myself to include healthunder religion, so as to make moral science, in its fullconception, extend to medicine.

The Priest.—And yet, my daughter, the arbitraryseparation which you wish to perpetuate would bedirectly contrary to our unity. It is due solely to theinadequacy of the last provisional religion, which couldnot discipline the soul save by giving into profane handsthe management of the body. In the ancient theocracies,

36 I.—INTRODUCTION, (i)

the most complete and most durable forms of the super-natural regime, this groundless division did not exist;the art of hygiene and of medicine was in them alwaysa mere adjunct of the priesthood.

Such is really the natural order which Posivitismcomes forward to restore and to consolidate, by virtue ofthe completeness which characterises it. The art of manand the science of man are each of them indivisible, asare the several aspects of their common object, all partsof which are in unbroken connection. No sound treat-ment of either body or mind is possible, now that thephysician and the priest study exclusively the physical orthe moral nature; not to speak of the philosopher, who,in our modern anarchy, wrests from the priesthood thedomain of the intellect, leaving it that of the heart.

The diseases of the brain, and even many others, dailyprove the powerlessness of all medical treatment limitedto the lowest organs. It is quite as easy to see the in-adequacy of every priesthood which aims at guiding thesoul whilst taking no account of its subordination to thebody. This separation, which is in two ways anarchical,must then cease, once for all, by a wise reincorporation ofmedicine into the domain of the priesthood, when thePositive clergy shall have adequately fulfilled its ency-clopedic conditions. In fact, the moral point of viewis alone able to secure active obedience for hygienic in-junctions, alike whether they concern the individual orsociety. This is easily verified by the fruitlessness of theefforts made by Western physicians to regulate our diet,now that it is no longer under the control of the oldreligious precepts. Men will not generally submit to anypractical inconvenience solely on the ground of theirpersonal health, where each is left to judge for himself;for we are often more sensible of actual and certainannoyance than of distant and doubtful advantages. Wemust appeal to an authority higher than any individual,to establish, even on the most unimportant points, rules

I.—INTRODUCTION, (i) 37

of real efficacy, resting then on a social judgment whichnever admits uncertainty.

The Woman.—Now that I have thus surveyed, in allits extent, the natural province of religion, I would know,my father, what are its general conditions. It has oftenbeen represented to me as depending solely on the heart.But I have always thought that the intellect has also itspart in it. Could I gain a clear idea of the parts respec-tively assigned the two ?

The Priest.—A right judgment on this point, mydaughter, follows from a searching examination of theword religion, perhaps the best in point of compositionof all the terms used by man. It is so constructed as toexpress a twofold connection which, if justly conceived,is sufficient to summarise the whole abstract theory ofour unity. To constitute a complete and durable har-mony, what is really wanted is to bind together the withinby love and to bind it again to the without by faith.Such, generally stated, is the necessary participation ofthe heart and the intellect as regards the syntheticalstate, individual or collective.

Unity implies, before all, a feeling to which all ourdifferent inclinations can be subordinated. For our ac-tions and our thoughts being always swayed by our affec-tions, harmony would be unattainable by man if these lastwere not co-ordinated under one paramount instinct.

But this internal condition of unity would be in-adequate, did not our intelligence make us recognise,outside of us, a superior power, to which our existencemust always submit, even whilst modifying it. It isin order that we may be the better subjects of thissupreme rule, that our moral harmony, as individuals oras societies, is especially indispensable. And conversely,this predominance of the without tends to regulate thewithin, by favouring the ascendency of the instinct mosteasily reconciled with such necessity. Thus, the two gene-ral conditions on which religion depends are naturally

38 I.—INTRODUCTION, (i)

connected, especially when the external order can becomethe object of the internal feeling.

The Woman.—In this abstract theory of our unity Ifind, my father, a radical difficulty, in regard to the moralinfluence. In considering the internal harmony, youseem to me to forget that our personal instincts have un-fortunately greater energy than our sympathetic tenden-cies. Now, their preponderance, which seems calculatedto make them the natural centre of our whole moralexistence, would on the other hand make personal unityalmost incompatible with social unity. Yet the two uni-ties not having been found irreconcilable, I need freshexplanation to show that they are in themselves entirelycompatible.

The Priest.—Herein you have, my daughter, directlyraised the grand problem of man's existence, which is,in fact, to secure the gradual predominance of sociabilityover personality, whereas personality is naturally pre-dominant. The better to understand the possibility ofthis, we must begin by comparing the two oppositeforms which our moral unity seems naturally to admit,according as its internal basis is egoistic or altruistic.

You just now used the plural in speaking of our per-sonality, and by so doing involuntarily bore witness taits radical inability to constitute a,ny real and lastingharmony, even in a being cut off from society. For thismonstrous unity would require not merely the absenceof every sympathetic impulse, but also the preponder-ance of one single selfish instinct. Now this is onlyfound in the lowest animals, where all is referred to theinstinct of nutrition, especially when there is no distinc-tion of sex. But everywhere else, and particularly inman, this primary wTant once supplied, there is scopefor the prevalence in succession of several other personalinstincts, the nearly equal energy of which would neu-tralise their conflicting claims to the entire commandof our whole moral existence. Unless all submitted to

L _ INTRODUCTION, (i) 39

affections resting on outward objects, the heart would befor ever agitated by internal conflicts between the im-pulses of the senses and the incitements of pride or ofvanity, etc., supposing that cupidity proper should ceaseto reign, together with the purely bodily wants. Moralunity, then, is impossible, even in a solitary existence,for every being under the exclusive dominion of personalaffections, which prevent his living for others. Such aremany Avild beasts, whom we see, allowing for times oftemporary union, usually oscillating between a disorderlyactivity and an ignoble torpor, from their not findingoutside of themselves the chief motors of their conduct.

The Woman.—I understand now, my father, thenatural coincidence between the true moral conditionson which the individual and those on which the col-lective harmony depends. Still, however, I have thesame difficulty in conceiving of the strongest instinctsas habitually yielding.

The Priest.—Your difficulty, my daughter, will easilydisappear if you observe that altruistic unity does not, asegoistic unity, require the entire sacrifice of the inclina-tions which are contrary to it in principle, but merelytheir wise subordination to the predominant affection.When it condenses all sound morality in the law of Livefor others, Positivism allows and sanctions the constantsatisfaction in just degree of the several personal in-stincts, as being indispensable to our material existence,which is always the foundation for our higher attributes.Consequently it blames, however estimable the motivesmay often be, any austerities which, by lessening ourstrength, make us less fit for the service of others. Thesocial purpose in the name of which it recommends atten-tion to ourselves should at once ennoble and regulatesuch attention, whilst we avoid equally excessive careand culpable negligence.

The Woman.—But, my father, this very sanction ofthe egoistic inclinations, constantly stimulated as they

40 I.—INTRODUCTION, ( i )

moreover are by our bodily wants, seems to me stillincompatible with an habitual supremacy of our weaksympathetic feelings.

The Priest—And therefore, my daughter, this moralimprovement will always form the principal object ofthe art of man, the constant efforts of which, both indi-vidual and collective, bring us nearer and nearer to it,but never attain it completely. This progressive solu-tion of your difficulty depends entirely on social exist-ence, in accordance with the natural law which developsor restrains our functions and our organs in proportionto their exercise or disuse. In fact, domestic and civicrelations tend to compress the personal instincts, fromthe struggles which they occasion between individuals.On the contrary, they favour the growth of our bene-volent feelings, the only ones that admit of a simul-taneous development in all — a development by itsnature continuous, as the mutual stimulus is continuous,although necessarily limited by the aggregate materialconditions of our existence.

This is why the true moral unity can only satisfactorilyexist in our species, social progress appertaining ex-clusively to the best organised of the races capable ofsociety, except so far as others join it as free auxiliaries.Still, though such a harmony cannot be developed else-where, it is easy to trace its principle in many higheranimals, which even furnished the first scientific proofsof the natural existence of the disinterested affections.If this great conception, at all times a presentiment ofuniversal experience, had not been so long in taking asystematic form, no one would at the present day taxwith sentimental affectation a doctrine which may bedirectly verified in so many species inferior to our own.

The Woman.—This satisfactory explanation leavesme, my father, only one last general elucidation to wishfor, as regards the intellectual conditions of religion.Athwart the incoherence of the various special beliefs,

L— INTRODUCTION, (i) 41

I do not clearly apprehend what constitutes the essentialprovince of faith; yet faith must admit of a sensecommon to all systems.

The Priest.—Practically, my daughter, our faith neverhad but one and the same main object: namely, to forma conception of the whole order under which man lives,so as to determine our relation generally to it. "Whetherwe assigned it to fictitious causes or studied its reallaws, our object was always to understand this orderwhich is independent of us, so the better to submit toit and the more to modify it. Every system of religiousdoctrine necessarily rests on some explanation or otherof the world and of man, the twofold object at all timesof our thoughts, whether speculative or practical.

The Positive faith sets forth directly the real laws ofthe different phenomena observable, whether internal crexternal; i.e., their unvarying relations of succession andresemblance, which enable us to foresee some as a conse-quence of others. I t puts aside, as absolutely beyond ourreach and essentially idle, all inquiry into causes properlyso called, first or final, of any events whatever. In itstheoretical conceptions it always explains the how, neverthe why. But when it is pointing out the means of guidingour activity, it on the contrary makes consideration of theend constantly paramount; as the practical result is thencertainly due to an intelligent will.

Yet though vain in its direct results, the search aftercauses was at the outset no less indispensable than in-evitable, as I will explain to you more particularly, asa substitute and preparation for the knowledge of laws,a knowledge which presupposes a long introduction. Inthe search for the why, which could not be found, menended by discovering the ho'W, which had not been theimmediate object of inquiry. Nothing is to be reallyblamed but the childish persistence, so common still withour literary men, in the attempt to penetrate to causeswhen laws are known. For as these last alone have any

42 ^-^INTRODUCTION, (i)

relation to our conduct, the search aft3r the others be-comes as useless as it is chimerical.

The fundamental dogma, then, of the universal religionis the proved existence of an unchangeable order towhich all events of every kind are subject. This order isat once objective and subjective : in other words, it con-cerns equally the object contemplated and the subjectcontemplating. Physical laws in fact imply logicallaws, and the converse. If our understanding did not ofitself obey any rule, it would never be able to appreciatethe external harmony. The world being simpler andmore powerful than man, order in man would be stillless compatible with disorder in the world. All positivebelief, then, rests on this twofold harmony between theobject and the subject.

Such an order can be shown to exist, but it can never beexplained. On the contrary, it supplies the only possiblesource of all rational explanation, the essence of whichis the bringing under general laws each particular event,which thus comes within the sphere of systematic pre-vision, the only distinctive aim of all true science. Andtherefore the universal order was not recognised so longas arbitrary wills were in the ascendant, for to them mennaturally at first attributed all the most important pheno-mena. But it was recognised at last in reference to thesimplest events, in defiance of contrary opinions, on theevidence of experience constantly recurring and neverbelied, and from the simpler the recognition graduallyextended to the more complex. Not till our own timehas this extension reached its last domain, by represent-ing as always subject to invariable laws the highestphenomena, those of the intelligence and of society—apoint still denied by many cultivated minds. Positivismwas the direct result of this final discovery, the comple-tion of our long initiation and, as such, necessarily closingthe preliminary era of human reason.

The Woman.—My father, the Positive faith on this

I—INTRODUCTION, (i) 43

first glimpse seems to me very satisfactory for the intel-ligence, but scarcely favourable enough to the activity,which it seems to place under the control of inflexibledestinies. And yet, since you often say that the Positivespirit had its origin, in all cases, in practical life, it canhardly be in contradiction with it. I wish a clear con-ception of their agreement in general.

The Priest—To attain it, my daughter, all you haveto do is to correct the instinctive judgment which leadsyou to look on natural laws as not susceptible of modi-fication. Whilst phenomena were attributed to arbitrarywills, an absolute fate was a conception necessary torectify an hypothesis directly incompatible with anyefficient order. Later, the discovery of natural lawstended to uphold this general disposition, because it re-lated first to astronomical phenomena, which are entirelyout of the reach of man's interference. But in pro-portion as the knowledge of the natural order extended,it was regarded as essentially modifiable, even by man.It becomes the more so as its phenomena become morecomplicated, as I will explain to you shortly. At presentthis idea extends even to the order of the heavens, itsgreater simplicity allowing us more easily to conceiveimprovements, with a view to correcting a spirit of blindrespect, though our weakness in regard to physical meansfor ever precludes our effecting them.

In all events equally, even the most complex, thefundamental conditions admit of no chnnge; but in allcases also, even the most simple, the secondary arrange-ments may be modified, and most often by our interven-tion. These modifications in no way interfere with theinvariability of the laws of nature, because they nevercan be arbitrary. Their nature and degree are alwaysdetermined by appropriate rules, which complete thedomain of science. Entire immutability would be socontrary to the very idea of law, that it in all casesexpresses constancy perceived in the midst of variety.

44 I—INTRODUCTION, (i)

Thus the natural order always amounts to a fatalityadmitting modifications, which becomes the indispensablebasis of the order we create. Our true destiny is thena compound of resignation and action. This second con-dition, far from being incompatible with the first, restsdirectly upon it. A judicious submission to the funda-mental laws is the only means of preventing all ourpurposes, of whatever nature, from becoming vague anduncertain ; the only means, therefore, of enabling us tointroduce a wise interference, in accordance with thesecondary rules. This is how the dogmatic system ofPositivism directly sanctions our activity, which no theo-logical synthesis could include. The development ofactivity even becomes the chief regulator of our scientificlabours in regard to the order of the world and its variousmodifications.

The Woman.—After such an explanation I have yet,my father, to apprehend how the Positive faith can bebrought into full harmony with feeling, to which it seemsto me by nature diametrically opposed. I understand,however, that its fundamental dogma supplies a strongbasis for moral discipline in two ways; first, by bringingour personal inclinations under the control of an externalpower; secondly, by awakening our instincts of sympathyto make us more wisely submit to or modify the necessitywhich presses on us all alike. But allowing these valuableattributes, Positivism still does not as yet offer me enoughof direct stimulus to the holy affections, which, it wouldseem, should constitute the chief province of religion.

The Priest.—I confess, my daughter, that hitherto thePositive spirit has offered the two moral disadvantagesattendant on science, the puffing up and withering, byencouraging pride and by turning from love. These twotendencies will always be sufficiently strong in it tohabitually require systematic precautions, of which Iwill speak later. Still in the main, on this point, yourreproach is the result of an inadequate judgment of

I—INTRODUCTION, (i) 45

Positivism, which you look at solely in the state of in-completeness it still exhibits in the greater number of itsadherents. They limit themselves to the philosophicalconception which is the offspring of the scientific pre-paration, not going on to the religious conclusion whichalone summarises this philosophy as a whole. But com-plete the study of the real order of nature, and we see thePositive doctrine finally concentrate around a syntheticconception, as favourable to the heart as to the intellect.

The imaginary beings whom religion provisionallymade use of inspired lively affections in man, affectionswhich were even more powerful under the least elaboratefictions. This valuable aptitude could not but seem fora long period alien to Positivism, from the immensescientific introduction it required. So long as the philo-sophical initiation only extended to the inorganic order,nay, even to the vital order, it could only reveal lawswhich were indispensable for our action, without furnish-ing us with any direct object for enduring and commonaffection. But it is no longer so since the completion atlength of this gradual preparation by the special study ofthe human order, both individual and collective.

This last step condenses the whole of Positive con-ceptions in the one single idea of an immense and eternalBeing, Humanity,; whose sociological destinies are inconstant development under the necessary preponderanceof biological and cosmological fatalities. Around thisreal Great Being, the prime mover of each individualor collective existence, our affections centre by asspontaneous an impulse as do our thoughts and ouractions. Its mere idea suggests at once the sacredformula of Positivism—Love for principle, and Orderfor basis; Progress for end. Always founded on thefree concurrence of independent wills, its compoundexistence, which all discord tends to dissolve, sanctionsby its very notion the constant predominance of theheart over the intellect, as the sole basis of our true

46 I.—INTRODUCTION, (t)

unity. Thus it is that henceforth the whole order ofthings is summed up in the being who studies it andis ever perfecting it. The growing struggle of Humanityagainst the sum of the necessities under which it existsoffers to the heart no less than to the intellect a betterobject of contemplation than the necessarily capriciousomnipotence of its theological precursor./' More withinthe reach of our feelings and our conceptions, by virtueof an identity of nature which does not at all precludeits superiority to all its servants, such a Supreme Beingpowerfully arouses them to an activity the aim of whichis its preservation and amelioration.

The Woman.—Stillj my father, the constant physicallabour necessitated by our bodily wants seems to medirectly in opposition with this tendency to affection inthe Positive religion. For such activity it seems to memust always, in the main, wear a character of egoism,extending even to the scientific efforts it evokes. Nowthis would be enough to prevent the predominance infact of an all-pervading love.

The Priest—I hope, my daughter, soon to make yousee that it is possible to radically transform this egoismoriginally attaching to human labour. In proportionas man's industrial action becomes more and more collec-tive, it tends more and more to the altruistic character,though the impulse of egoism must ever remain indis-pensable to its first beginnings. For, each habituallylabouring for others, this existence develops of neces-sitj^the sympathetic affections, when it is rightly appre-ciated. All that is wanting, then, to these toilsomesons of Humanity is a complete and familiar conscious-ness of the true nature of their life. Now this will bethe natural result of an adequate extension of Positiveeducation. You would even now be able to trace thistendency, if pacific activity, still subject to no sys-tematic discipline, were as regulated as the soldier's life,the only life hitherto organised. But the great morcil

I.—INTRODUCTION, (i) Aj

results obtained formerly as regards this last, and ofwhich there are still traces even in its present degrada-tion, sufficiently indicate what the industrial life allows.Nay, we must expect from the instinct of constructionsympathetic influences of greater directness and com-pleteness than those of the instinct of destruction.

The Woman.—Guided by this last indication I begin,my father, to master the general harmony of Positivism.I already see how in it the activity, naturally subordi-nate to faith, can also submit to love, which at firstsight it seems to reject. If so, your doctrine seems tome at length to fulfil all the vessential conditions ofreligion, according to your definition of the term, sinceit is adapted equally to the three great divisions of ourexistence,—loving, thinking, acting,—which were neverbefore so perfectly combined.

The Pried.—The more you study the Positive synthesis,the more you will feel, my daughter, how far its realityrenders it more complete and efficacious than any other.The habitual predominance of altruism over egoism, inwhich lies the great problem for man, is in Positivismthe direct result of a constant harmony between our bestinclinations and all our labours, theoretical as well aspractical. This life of action, represented by Catholicismas hostile to our inward growth, becomes in Positivismits most powerful guarantee. You apprehend now thiscontrast between two systems, the one of which admits,while the other denies, the existence in our nature ofthe disinterested affections. The bodily wants, whichseemed destined alwa}rs to keep us apart, may for thefuture lead to a closer union than if we were exemptfrom them. For acts develop love better than wishes;and besides, what wishes could you form for those whowanted nothing ? We may also see that the type of realexistence peculiar to Positivists necessarily surpasses,even in regard to feeling, the chimerical life promised tothe disciples of theology.

48 II.— INTRODUCTION. (2)

The Woman.—To complete this introductory conver-sation, I beg you, my father, to explain shortly thegeneral division of religion; its several main con-stituents you will treat later.

The Priest—This division, my daughter, is a con-sequence of a just appreciation of the whole of the ex-istence which religion has to direct. The worship, thedoctrine, and the life, respectively concern our feelings,our thoughts, and our actions. Our religious initia-tion must begin with the worship which, by revealingto us, synthetically, Humanity, cultivates the feelingsadapted to the mode of existence she prescribes. Afterthis, in the doctrine is set forth the scientific construc-tion which has for its object to explain the order onwhich all rests, and the Great Being who modifies thatorder. Lastly, by the life we regulate directly the con-duct of each human being. In this way Positive re-ligion embraces at once our three great continuous con-structions, Poetry, Philosophy, Politics. But everythingin that religion is subordinate to morals, be it the growthof our feelings, the development of our knowledge, or thecourse of our actions, so as to make morals our constantguide in our threefold search after the beautiful, thetrue, and the good.

CONVERSATION I I .THEORY OF HUMANITY.

The Woman.—Our first conversation, my father, hasleft me a sense of alarm at my profound incompetenceas regards the " great argument" on which you areentering. Since the doctrine of the universal religionis one and the same thing as the Positive Philosophy,my mind seems too weak, or at any rate too unprepared,to grasp its explanation, however simple you may make

IT.—IN TROD UC TIO N. (2) 49

it. I bring with me nothing beyond a full confidence,a sincere respect, and an active sympathy for the doctrinewhich seems calculated, after so many failures, at lengthto overcome our modern anarchy. But I fear that some-thing more than these moral dispositions is needed for meto enter with any chance of success on so difficult a study.

The Priest.—Your uneasiness, my daughter, calls forsome introductory remarks, which I hope will soon re-assure you. Our sole object here is to effect, for thenew religion, a general exposition equivalent to thatwhich formerly taught you Catholicism. This secondoperation ought to be even easier than the former, fornot only is your reason now mature, but the doctrine is,by its nature, more intelligible as always demonstrable.Remember, besides, the admirable maxim which ourgreat Moliere put into the mouth of the man of tastein his last masterpiece —

Je consens qu'une femme ait des clartes de tout;—Femmes Savantes, Act i. sc. 3.

I consent that a woman should have clear ideas on allsubjects—

and remark further that what was then, " I consent,"would be now, " I t is fitting."

In strict truth, the priesthood and the public hadalways the same intellectual domain, allowing for thedifference of cultivation, which was systematic in the onecase, quite unsystematic in the other. This essentialagreement, without which no religious harmony wouldbe conceivable, in Positivism becomes at once more directand more complete than it could ever be in theologism.The true philosophic spirit consists in reality, as simplegood sense, in knowing what is, in order to foresee whatshall be, with a view to bettering it where possible.One of the best Positive precepts even denounces asfaulty, or at any rate premature, every systematisationnot preceded and prepared by a sufficient spontaneous

D

SO 1L—INTRODUCTION. (2)

development. This rule is an immediate consequenceof the dogmatic verse by which Positivism characterisesour existence as a whole—

Act from affection, and think to act.

The first half answers to the spontaneity, the second tothe system atisation which follows it. Action, unguardedby reflection, may occasion many inconveniences, butnothing else can, as a general rule, supply the rawmaterial for effectual meditation, which will allow usto act better.

Consider lastly, that no intellect can abstain fromforming some opinion on the order of the world, whetherexternal or human. You now know that religiousdogma always had the same essential object, with thissingle general difference—that the knowledge of lawshenceforth takes the place of the inquiry into causes.Now, illusory hypotheses as to causes cannot seem toyou more intelligible than real notions upon laws.

Women and proletaries, for whom this exposition ischiefly meant, cannot and ought not to become professors,neither do they wish it. But all need sufficient masteryof the spirit and the method of the universal doctrine toenforce on their spiritual chiefs an adequate scientificand logical preparation, the necessary foundation for thesystematic exercise of the priestly office. Now, thisdiscipline of the intellect is, at the present day, so con-trary to the habits resulting from our modern anarch}^that it never could prevail unless enforced by the publicof both sexes on those who claim to guide its opinion.This social condition will always give a great value tothe general spread of religious instruction, over and aboveits proper object of guiding the conduct of men, whetheras individuals or as societies. But this service becomes,at the present day, of capital importance, as the means offinally terminating the anarchy of the West, the promi-nent characteristic of which is the revolt of the intellect.

II.—INTRODUCTION. (2) 51

Could this Catechism but convince women and proletariesthat their would-be spiritual guides are radically incom-petent to deal with the high questions of which thesolution is in blind confidence left them, it would largelyhelp to calm the West. Now this unanimous convictioncan, at the present day, spring only from a sufficientappreciation of the final doctrine, such as to placebeyond dispute the general conditions of its systematiccultivation.

As for the difficulties which now frighten you in thisindispensable study, you attach too little weight, as toovercoming them, to your excellent moral dispositions.No existing school would hesitate to pronounce authori-tatively that the intellect thinks at all times as if theheart were not. But women and proletaries have neverlost sight of the powerful reaction of the feelings on theintellect—a reaction explained at last by Positive Philo-sophy. Your sex in particular, whose pleasant butunconscious task it was to hand down to us, as far aswas possible, under the pressure of modern anarchy, theadmirable habits of the Middle Ages, recognises dailythe error of the metaphysical heresy which separatesthese two great attributes. Since, according to thebeautiful maxim of Yauvenargues, the heart is necessaryto the intellect for its most important inspirations,it must also aid in understanding their results. Itspowerful assistance is peculiarly available for moral andsocial conceptions; for in them, more than elsewhere,the sympathetic instinct can aid the spirit of synthesis,whilst without that aid its greatest efforts could notovercome their difficulties. But it may also be of usein the lower theories, by virtue of the necessary inter-connection of all our real speculations.

Of the two fundamental conditions of religion, loveand faith, the first should certainly take the first place.For though faith be well adapted to strengthen love, theinverse action is stronger as more direct. Not only does

52 1L—INTRODUCTION. (2)

feeling preside over the spontaneous inspirations requiredoriginally by every systematic creation, but it sanctionsand assists this creation, when it has once felt itsimportance. No woman with experience is unawareof the too frequent inadequacy of our best affectionswhen not aided by firm conviction. This word con-vince would suffice, if we look to its etymology, to recallthe power deep-seated beliefs have to strengthen thewithin by binding it to the without.

Lastly, the intellectual deficiency which alarms you atthis point rests on the usual confusion of instructionwith intelligence. Your familiarity wTith, and admira-tion for, the unrivalled Moliere have not kept you fromthe common error in this respect, an error carefully keptup by our Trissotins of all professions. And yet weought to blush at being in the present time behind theMiddle Ages, when all could appreciate the profoundintellectual eminence of persons who were very un-lettered. Have you not sometimes found in such peoplemore real capacity than in most professors ? Now morethan ever is instruction really necessary only to con-struct and develop science, which should always be soframed as a whole as to be directly within the reach ofall sound intellects. Otherwise our best doctrines wouldsoon degenerate into dangerous mystifications : thisdeviation, natural to all theoricians whatsoever, can onlybe effectually checked in them by a due surveillance onthe part of the public of both sexes.

The Woman.—Encouraged by your introduction, Iask you, my father, to begin the systematic expositionof the Positive doctrine by a more direct and completeexplanation of its universal principle. I already under-stand that your conception of the true Great Being byits very nature condenses the whole real order, not onlyhuman but external. This is why I feel the want of aclearer and more precise definition as regards thisfundamental unity of Positivism.

II.— INTRODUCTION. (2) 53

The Priest.—To reach it, you must first, my daughter,define Humanity as the 'whole of human beings, past,present, and future. The word whole points out clearlythat you must not take in all men, but those only whoare really assimilable, in virtue of a real co-operationtowards the common existence. Though all are neces-sarily born children of Humanity, all do not become herservants, and many remain in the parasitic state whichwas only excusable during their education. Times ofanarchy bring forth in swarms, nay, even enable toflourish, these sad burdens on the true Great Being.More than one of them has recalled to you the energeticreprobation of Ariosto, borrowed from Horace, (Ep. i.2. 27)—

Venuto al mondo sol per far letame:—Sat. iii. 33.

Born upon the earth merely to manure i t :

and, still better, the admirable condemnation of Dante—

Che visser senza infamia e senza lodo.Cacciarli i ciel per non esser men belli,

Ne lo profondo inferno li riceve,Ch' alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d' elli.

Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa.—Inferno, iii. 36-51.

Who livedWithout or praise or blame

Heaven drove them forth,Not to impair its lustre, nor the depthOf Hell receives them, lest the accursed tribeShould glory thence with exultation vain.

Speak not of them, but look and pass them by.—CARY'S Translation.

54 IL—INTRODUCTION. (2)

So you see that, in this respect as in all others, theinspiration of the poet was far in advance of the syste-matic view of the philosopher. Be this as it may, ifthese mere digesting machines are no real part ofHumanity, you should, as a just compensation, associatewith the new Supreme Being all its worthy animalauxiliaries. All useful habitual co-operation in forward-ing the destinies of man, when given voluntarily, raisesthe being which gives it into a real element of thiscomposite existence, with a degree of importance pro-portioned to the dignity of its species and its ownservice. To estimate rightly this indispensable com-plement of human existence, let us imagine ourselveswithout it. We then do not hesitate to look on manyhorses, dogs, oxen, etc, as more estimable than certainmen.

In this primary conception of human concert, ourattention is naturally directed to solidarity rather thanto continuity. But though the latter is at first less felt,because it requires a deeper examination to discover it,it is an idea which must ultimately predominate. Forthe progress of society comes very soon to depend moreon time than on space. It is not to-day only that eachman, as he exerts himself to estimate aright his indebted-ness to others, sees that his predecessors as a whole, incomparison with his contemporaries as a whole, havemuch the larger share in that indebtedness. The samesuperiority is manifested, in a less degree, in the mostremote periods; as is indicated by the touching worshipthen always paid to the dead, as was beautifully re-marked by Yico.

Thus the true social existence consists more in thecontinuity of succession than in the solidarity of theexisting generation. The living are, by the necessity ofthe case, always and more and more, under the govern-ment of the dead : such is the fundamental Jaw of thehuman order.

II.—INTRODUCTION. (2) 55

To grasp it more fully, we must distinguish twosuccessive lives in each true servant of Humanity : theone, temporary but conscious, constitutes life properly socalled; the other, unconscious but permanent, does notbegin till after death. The first, being always bodily,may be termed objective ; especially in contrast with thesecond, which, leaving each one to exist only in theheart and mind of others, deserves the name of subjective.This is the noble immortality, necessarily disconnectedwith the body, which Positivism allows our soul, pre-serving this valuable term to designate the sum of ourintellectual and moral functions, without any allusion toa corresponding entity.

According to this lofty conception, the true humanrace is composed of two masses, both of which are alwaysessential, while the proportion between them is con-stantly varying, with a tendency to strengthen the powerof the dead over the living in every actual operation. Ifthe action and its result are most dependent on the ob-jective element, the impulse and the rule are principallydue to the subjective. Largely endowed by our pre-decessors, we hand on gratuitously to our successors thewhole domain of man, with an addition which becomessmaller and smaller in proportion to the amount received.This necessary gratuitousness meets with a worthy rewardin the subjective incorporation by which we shall be ableto perpetuate our services under an altered form.

Such a theory seems at the present day to be the lasteffort of the human intellect under systematic guidance ;yet its germ, anterior to all such guidance, is always trace-able in the most remote forms of man's evolution, andwas already recognised by the most ancient poets. Thesmallest tribe, nay, even every family of any considera-tion, soon looks on itself as the essential stock of this com-posite and progressive existence whose only impassablelimits, in space or time, are those of the normal constitu-tion of the planet it occupies. Though the Great Being

56 II.—INTRODUCTION. (2)

is not yet sufficiently formed, its most extensive conflictsnever concealed its gradual evolution, which, rationallyjudged, supplies now the only possible basis of our ulti-mate unity. Even under the Christian egoism, whichdictated to the stern St. Peter the characteristic maxim,"As strangers and pilgrims" we see the admirable St.Paul even then by feeling anticipating the conception ofHumanity, in this touching but contradictory image," }Ye are every one members one of another." I t devolvedon the Positivist principle to disclose the one -trunkto which, by the law of their being, belong all thesemembers which were instinctively confounded.

The Woman.—I feel compelled, my father, to admitthis fundamental conception, whatever difficulties it stillpresents. But I am frightened at my own insignificancein presence of such an existence, the immensity of whichreduces me to nothing more completely than did of oldthe majesty of a God with whom, though feeble, I feltmyself in some definite and direct relation. Now thatyou have mastered me by the ever-growing preponderanceof the new Supreme Being, I need to have re-awakenedin me the just consciousness of my individuality.

The Priest.—This will follow, my daughter, from amore complete appreciation of the Positive doctrine. Itis sufficient if we see that, whilst Humanity as a wholealways constitutes the principal motor of all our opera-tions, physical, intellectual, or moral, the Great Being cannever act except through individual instruments. Thisis why the objective part of the race, notwithstanding itsincreasing subordination to the subjective, must alwaysbe indispensable for the subjective to exercise any in-fluence. But on analysing this collective participation,we find it ultimately the result of the free concurrenceof purely individual efforts. Herein we have whatshould raise each worthy individuality in presence ofthe new Supreme Being more than could be the case inrespect to the old. In fact, this latter had no real need

II.—INTRODUCTION. (2) 57

of any of our services except to give him vain praises,the childish eagerness for which tended to degrade himin our eyes. Remember this conclusive verse of theImitation:—

I am necessary to thee, thou art useless to me.

Tu mei indiges:Non ego tni indigeo.

—Imitatio Christi, iv. 12, 38, 39 (ed. Hirsche).

Doubtless but few men are warranted in thinkingthemselves indispensable to Humanity : such language isonly applicable to the true authors of the principal stepsin our progress. Still every noble human being may andshould habitually feel the utility of his personal co-operation in this immense evolution, which must ceaseat once should all the individual co-operators havesimultaneously disappeared. The development, and eventhe preservation, of the Great Being must then alwaysdepend on the free services of its different children,though the inactivity of any one in particular, generallyspeaking, admits of an adequate compensation.

This summary exposition of the fundamental dogmaof our religion enables me, my daughter, now to proceedto the explanation, first in the general, then in detail,of the Positivist worship. The study of it will make youfeel, I hope, that the poetical power of Positivism iscertainly on a level with its philosophical, though it hasnot produced as conclusive results.

Jfirst f a r t

EXPLANATION OF THE WORSHIP.

CONVERSATION III.

THE WORSHIP AS A WHOLF.

The Woman.—The two preceding conversations, myfather, have cleared up for me the theory of religionand the conception of Humanity, the centre of the wholePositive system. I ask you now to teach me directly tolove better, in order to know better, and to serve better,the incomparable Goddess whom you have revealed tome, and into whom in the end I hope to deserve incor-poration. In such a subject our conferences may assumethe character of real conversations. I shall only inter-rapt your teaching in order to throw light on, or setforth more fully, points on which you do not sufficientlydwell. I even hope to take an active part by anticipatingsome of your explanations, thus rendering your exposi-tion more rapid without detracting from its complete-ness. For in the worship we enter the domain of feeling,where the inspiration of woman, though it keep itsempirical character, can really aid the priesthood in itsconstruction.

The Pried.—I rely greatly, my daughter, on this58

I I I .—WORSHIP, (i) 59

spontaneous co-operation to shorten this part of ourCatechism as compared with the two following. But inorder to make the best use of your present disposition,this new conversation, which concerns merely the worshipin general, must begin by a systematic general plan ofour religion, though you are already familiar with it.

As all combinations, phjTsical even, and still morelogical, must always be binary, as is pointed out clearlyby the etymology of the word, the rule is applicablenecessarily to any division whatever. The fundamentaldivision of religion obeys it naturally, by partitioningout the domain of religion between love and faith.Wherever evolution, individual or collective, follows itsnormal course, love first leads us to faith, so long asthe growth is spontaneous. But when it becomes syste-matic, then the belief is constructed to regulate love.This leading division is equivalent to the true generaldistinction between theory and practice.

The practical domain of religion necessarily againbreaks up into two, as a consequence of the natural dis-tinction between feelings and acts. The theoretical partcorresponds to the intelligence only, the sole possiblebasis of belief. But the practical part embraces all therest of our existence, quite as much our feelings as evenour acts. Universal custom, prior to all theory—andsuch custom is the best rule of language—gives a directsanction to this view, by designating as religious prac-tices the habits which relate to worship, quite as muchas, if not more than, those habits which more particularlyconcern the regime. This apparent confusion rests ona basis of profound though empirical wisdom, throughwhich the people, and particularly women, early learnt,as the priesthood learnt, that the perfecting of ourfeelings is a more important and difficult task than theimmediate improvement of our actions. Our love neverbecoming mystic, Positive worship normally forms part ofthe practical domain of the true religion; .we love move

60 I I I . — W O R S H I P , ( i )

in order to serve better. But on the other hand, fromthe true religious point of view, our acts may alwayshave an essentially altruistic character, since the mainobject of religion is to dispose us and teach us to live forothers. Inspired by love, our actions in return tend todevelop love. Directly visible in the case of intellectualimprovement, when rightly guided, this natural facultyextends even to material progress, provided it proceedon right principles. This is why the regime, under itsreligious aspect, appertains to the domain of love asmuch as does the worship.

These two principles, which make our worship practi-cal, our regime affective, yet without ever confusing them,could not be discovered whilst religion remained theologi-cal. Then the worship and the regime were thoroughlyheterogeneous, one having God for its object, the otherman. The worship rose above the regime only becausethe second of the two beings was necessarily subordinateto the first. Loth were essentially egoistic in character,in accordance with the thoroughly individual constitu-tion of a faith which never could be reconciled with theexistence in our nature of the benevolent instincts, anexistence allowed by Positivism alone. Under the olderfaith, the division between the regime and the worshipwas as marked as that which separates the worship fromthe doctrine; so that the general plan of religion becameunintelligible, as a result of our just dislike to ternarycombinations.

In the final state, on the contrary, the divisions of re-ligion are as favourable to the reason as to the feelings.In it the doctrine differs from the worship and the regimemuch more than these last differ from one another. Itis in this way that the ordinary constitution of religionagain becomes ternary, but becomes so by a divisionwhich is still binary, its main division being completedby a single subdivision, heretofore absurdly placed on alevel with it. These three constituent parts together

III.—WORSHIP, ( i ) 61

ultimately form a regular progression, such is the naturalhomogeneity of its different elements. It leads withouteffort from love to faith, or the reverse ; according as wetake the subjective or the objective course, in the twomost important periods of religious initiation, respectivelyunder the direction of woman or the priest. To idealisethe doctrine in order to idealise the regime, such wasalways the destination proper of the worship, which thusbecomes capable of representing the whole of religion.Its study will make you sensible, I hope, that the poeticcapacity of Positivism is really on a level with its philo-sophic power, though not as yet able to produce suchconclusive results.

The Woman.—A very natural eagerness to enter atonce on the direct study of our worship made me, at theoutset, overleap, my father, the general preamble youhave just set before me. I now feel how much I neededit in order to gain a clear conception of the plan ofreligion, of which I had previously not sufficiently co-ordinated the three parts. This valuable explanation,however, seems to me now so complete, that I hope tostudy immediately the whole system of the worship tobe paid to our Goddess.

The Priest.—We adore her not as the older God, tocompliment her, my daughter, but in order to serve herbetter, by bettering ourselves. It is important here torecall this normal aim of the Positive worship, in orderto anticipate or correct the tendency to degenerate intomysticism, to which we are always liable under a tooexclusive attention to the feelings, as it disposes us toneglect, or even to forget, the acts which they shouldgovern. With my greater tendency to system, I ammore prone than you to such an error, the practical evilsof which would be soon pointed out by your instinctivewisdom, which would even remedy them in a degree bysome happy inconsistency in theory. It is of particularimportance for me to avoid this mistake in the present

62 III.—WORSHIP, (i)

conversation, for by its more abstract and general char-acter it makes it more easy and more serious. Yourcorrections, drawn from experience, would always ulti-mately bring me right, I doubt not, but often too late;so as at times to lay me under the necessity of laboriousefforts to repair the error.

With this precaution constantly in view, let us lookon the whole worship as having for its object to forma systematic connection between the doctrine and theregime by idealising both. As for the doctrine, the wor-ship completes it and condenses it, by rendering theconception of Humanity at once more familiar and moreimposing, through an ideal presentation of it. But, astype of the regime, the worship must tend directly toameliorate our feelings, never losing sight of the modi-fications they habitually undergo from the three stagesof human life—personal, domestic, and social. At firstsight, these two general modes of apprehending andinstituting the worship may seem irreconcilable, yet anatural agreement arises from the aptitude inherent ina worthy idealisation of the Great Being to consolidateand develop the love which is the basis of its wholeexistence. If so, the original difference in no way tendsto break up the worship into two separate domains—one belonging exclusively to the intellect, the other tofeeling. Such a division would be ordinarily as imprac-ticable as the distinction generally drawn between algebraand arithmetic, which can really stand alone only in verysimple cases, and these mostly of our own making; andyet the two, though constantly mixed, are never con-fused. This comparison gives a fair idea of the closenessof the connection which naturally binds together the twoaspects, intellectual and moral, or theoretical and prac-tical, under which we are justified in viewing either thewhole Positive worship or each of its parts. But, inspite of the spontaneousness of their connection from thenature of the religious system to which both relate, to

III.—WORSHIP, (i) 63

combine them wisely is really the chief difficulty to bemet with in instituting our worship. For the worshipis liable, as the doctrine, and even more, to degenerateinto mysticism or empiricism, according as generalisationand abstraction are in excess or defect. Now these twocontrary errors produce, in the moral point of view, equalevils; for the social efficacy of man's feelings is equallyimpaired by their becoming too refined or too coarse.

The Woman.—The better to estimate this generaldifficulty, I may—may I not, my father ?—bring it downto the difficulty of rightly instituting the subjective life,on which of necessity rests the whole Positive worship,whether we view it intellectually or morally. Our GreatBeing is formed much more by the dead in the firstplace, then by tKose to be born7 than by the living, mostof whom even are only its servants, without the power,at present, of becoming its organs. There are but fewmen, and still fewer women, who admit of being satis-factorily judged in this respect before the completion oftheir objective career. During the greater part of hisactual life each one has it in his power to balance, andeven far to overbalance, the good he has done by theevil he may do, So the human population is essenti-ally made up of two kinds of subjective elements, theone determinate, the other indefinite, between which itsobjective element, though more and more diminished inimportance, alone forms an immediate and close connec-tion. If so, I see that, to represent to us the true GreatBeing, Positive worship must largely develop in each ofus the subjective life : which, by the way, it seems to me,will render it eminently poetic. At the same time suchpractices, in which thought works chiefly by the aid ofimages, become very apt for the direct cultivation of ourbest feelings.

The intellectual condition then appears quite com-patible with the moral aim, on the principle which youhave just given me. But this necessary means seems

6 4 I I I .—WORSHIP- (i)

itself to raise a new general difficulty. For I hardlysee how it will be possible to institute, still more tosecure unanimous assent to, the daily realisation inprivate or in public of the subjective life, and yet itsuniversal practice becomes indispensable for our religion.No doubt the entire regeneration of education will pro-cure us, on this point, immense resources, which it isdifficult to estimate at the present time. Nevertheless,I fear that these resources will always be too weak toovercome the difficulty; one on which the Past seems to meto offer, directly at least, no ground for general hope.

The Priest.—On the contrary, my daughter, I hopesoon to dispel your uneasiness, natural though it be, by ajudicious survey of this long initiation, now finally ended,as is clearly shown by the very construction of thisCatechism. It is impossible, in fact, to mistake thenatural and universal capacity of our species for livinga subjective life, when we see such a life, under differentforms, prevail with it during forty centuries. Theemancipated now know that during this immense pro-bation the brains of all were habitually under the swayof beings purely imaginary, though believed to have areal and distinct existence. But the various theologistsare almost as convinced on this point; since each beliefjudges so of all the others ; yet the supporters of thoseothers, put together, were always in a strong majority,especially in the present dispersive state of supernaturalbelief. Each one thinks illusion the rule, his own fictionthe single exception.

So prone are we to the subjective life that it is moreprevalent the nearer we ascend to the simple age of fullspontaneity, individual or collective. The greatest effortof our reason consists, on the contrary, in so subordinatingthe subjective to the objective that our mental opera-tions may represent the external world, in the degree re-quired by the position we occupy, whether for action orsubmission, in relation to its unalterable predominance.

I I I .—WORSHIP, (i) 65

This normal result is obtained, in the individual as in thespecies, only in the period of complete maturity, and itconstitutes the best sign of that maturity. Though thistransformation tends radically to change the conductof the human understanding, it will never prevent ourdeveloping the subjective life, even beyond all the needsof Positive worship. We shall always need a certain dis-cipline to keep within due limits our natural dispositionto substitute in excess the within for the without. Youneed feel, then, no serious uneasiness on this head;unless you judge man, as he will be, by the presenttendency of scientific specialities to crush the imagina-tion and to wither the heart; whereas this is only oneof the natural symptoms of modern anarchy.

The only essential difference between the new and theold subjectivity must lie in this, that the new will befully felt and acknowledged, no one ever confusing itwith objectivity. Our religious contemplations will con-sciously be carried on internally; whereas our prede-cessors made a vain effort to see without them what hadno existence but within, always on the understanding thatthey might fall back on the future life for the ultimaterealisation of their visions. This general contrast iseasily condensed by confronting boldly the two ways ofconceiving the principal subdivision of the intellect. Inthe normal state, contemplation, even when inward, iseasier and less eminent than meditation; for in it ourintellect remains nearly passive. In a word, we con-template in order to meditate, because all our importantstudies always are concerned with the without. To theo-logists, on the contrary, meditation must have alwaysseemed less difficult and less exalted than contemplation,at that time made the highest effort of the understanding.They only meditated in order to be able to contemplatebeings which were always eluding them. A familiar signwill soon mark this distinction for the greater part of theprivate worship. For the Positivist shuts his eyes during

E

66 lU.-^WORSHIP. (i)

his private prayers, the better to see the internal image ;the believer in theology opened them to see without him&n object which was an illusion.

The Woman.—Although this conclusive explanationdispels at once my previous uneasiness, I still continue,my father, to look on the institution of the subjectivelife as the capital difficulty in Positivist worship. Only,the new subjectivity now appears to me always to admitof being satisfactorily reconciled with the deep realitywhich distinguishes our faith. But this agreement, itseems to me, must require special and unceasing efforts.

The Priest.—You have duly apprehended, my daughter,the essential condition which I must now fulfil. For thebest contrast is drawn between the worship and theregime, if we assign them, as their respective domains,the subjective and the objective life. Though each is atone and the same time connected with both, the subjec-tive evidently prevails in the worship, the objective inthe regime. Nothing is more adapted to characterisethe higher dignity of the worship as compared with theregime; by virtue of the necessary preponderance ofsubjectivity over objectivity throughout the whole ofman's existence, even the individual, and still more thecollective existence.

The Woman.—Your systematic sanction of my unaidedconclusion induces me, my father, now to ask you in whatconsists the true theory of the subjective life. Thoughit is impossible here to do more than give an outline ofsuch a doctrine, its fundamental principle seems to meabsolutely indispensable. No Positivist can do withouta general explanation of this point; for his worship,public or private, will require it for almost everyday use,as a preventive against any degeneration into mysticismor empiricism.

The Pried.—To satisfy your legitimate desire, mydaughter, conceive of the fundamental law of the sub-jective life as ever consisting in its due subordination to

III.—WORSHIP, (i) 67

the objective. The without never ceases essentially toregulate the within, whilst it nourishes and stimulatesi t ; as well in regard to the life of the brain as to ourbodily life. Let our conceptions be as fantastical asthey may, they always bear in an appreciable degreethe impress of this involuntary dominion, though itbecomes less simple and even less complete, in propor-tion as it is more indirect. All this is a necessary con-sequence of the indisputable principle which I shallexplain to you when expounding the doctrine, and onwhich I have rested our whole intellectual theory,dynamical as well as statical, thus connected with thefundamental system of biological conceptions.

The order we make never being anything but theperfecting the order we find, and that mainly by develop-ing it, we feel here, as everywhere else, and even morethan elsewhere, that our true liberty is essentially theresult of a due submission. But in order properly toextend to the subjective life this general rule of theobjective, we must begin by examining under this freshaspect the natural constitution of the universal order.For all the laws which form it are far from being equallyapplicable to the subjective life. To make your ideasmore definite, I will specify only the simplest and mostcommon case, namely, when we employ the subjectiveworship to bring back as in life one whom we haveloved. Without this precise determination, in which theheart aids the intellect, it would be easy to go astray inthe study of such a domain. But all the ideas formedin this way in reference to our most private and mosteasily appreciated worship, will be easily applied, withfit modifications, to the rest of sociolatry.

The Woman.—I thank you, my father, for such con-sideration, which I feel to be indispensable to me. Thisdoctrine is as new as it is difficult, for this attractiveproblem could not be stated even, under the reign ofsupernatural beliefs, which forbade us to represent to

68 111.—WORSHIP, (i)

ourselves our dead otherwise than in a mysterious con-dition, generally left vague. Such a state allowed of noanalogy on essential points between us and them. Sup-posing us free from all uneasiness as to their ultimatefate, we could never form for them a subjective lifewhich made every one guilty of impiety in giving to thecreature the affection due to the Creator. But if thisaffecting question is peculiar to Positivism, not less doesthe general answer appertain to it, as having alone re-vealed the true laws of man's intellect, of which you havealready given me a glimpse. I grasp, then, at once thegeneral method of subjective worship and its normal basis,which converts this ideal existence into a simple pro-longation of the real. But would you explain to medirectly the modifications which such prolongation allows i

The Priest.—They consist, my daughter, in the sup-pression, or at least in the neglect, of all the lower laws,so as to allow fuller predominance to the higher. Duringthe objective life, the dominion of the outer world overthe world of man is as direct as it is unbroken. But inthe subjective life, the outward order becomes simplypassive, and no longer prevails except indirectly, as theprimary source of the images we wish to cherish. Ourbeloved dead are no longer governed by the rigorous lawsof the inorganic order, nor even of the vital. On thecontrary, the laws peculiar to the human order, especi-ally the moral, though not excluding the social, govern,and that better than during life, the existence which eachone of them retains in our brain. This existence, thuspurely intellectual and affective, is composed essentiallyof images, which revive at once the feelings with whichthe being snatched from us inspires us and the thoughtswhich he occasioned. Our subjective worship is reduced,then, to a species of internal evocation, the gradual resultof an exertion of the brain performed in accordance withits own laws. The image always remains less clear andless vivid than the object, in obedience to the funda-

I I I .—WORSHIP, (i) 69

mental law of our intellect. But since the contrary isoften the case in diseases of the brain, a judicious culturemay bring the normal state nearer to this necessary limit,far beyond what could be believed possible hitherto, solong as this beautiful domain remained vague and dark.

To determine more exactly this general subordination,observe that the subjective evocation of the loved objectis always connected with the last objective impressionshe left us. This is most evident as to age, which deathwithdraws from all increase. Our premature losses arethus found to invest the object of our affections witheternal youth. This law, from the original adorer, ex-tends of necessity to his most remote adherents. Noone will ever be able to represent to himself, after Dante,his sweet Beatrice otherwise than as at the age of twenty-five. We may think of her as younger, we cannot ima-gine her older.

The objective and the subjective life then differ funda-mentally in this, that the first is under the direct controlof physical laws, the second under that of moral laws ;the intellectual laws applying equally to both. The dis-tinction becomes less marked when we see that, in bothcases, the more general order always prevails over themore special. For the difference is then limited to themode in which we estimate the generality, measuredfirst by the phenomena, then by our conceptions, as willbe explained when we are studying the doctrine.

Be this as it may, this necessary preponderance ofthe moral laws in the subjective life is so congruous toour nature that it was not merely involuntarily respected,but known and appreciated, at the earliest dawn of man'sintelligence. You know, in fact, that the empirical out-line of the great moral laws was long anterior to anyfull recognition of the lowest physical laws. Whilst thefictions of poetry set aside without scruple the generalconditions of the inorganic order, and even of the vital,they conformed with admirable exactness to the leading

70 III.— WORSHIP, (i)

ideas of the social, and still more of the moral order.Men found no difficulty in admitting invulnerable heroes,and gods who took any shape at pleasure. But theinstinct of the people, as the genius of the poet, wouldat once have rejected any moral incoherence—if, forexample, a writer had ventured on attributing to a miseror a coward, liberality or courage.

The Woman.—By the light of your explanations, Isee, my father, that in the subjective worship we mayneglect physical laws in order to cling more closely tothe moral, the real knowledge of which is to perfect sogreatly this new order of institutions. Our imaginationeasily frees itself from the most general conditions, evenof space and time, provided that the human requirementsare always respected. But I would know how we are touse such liberty, so as to facilitate our attainment of themain end of subjective worship, that is to say, thecerebral evocation of the beings dead to us.

The Priest.—So stated, my daughter, your question iseasily answered, so evident is the observation, that thebetter to concentrate our strength on this holy object,we must divert none of it on superfluous modifications ofthe vital, nor even of the inorganic order. Be careful,then, to retain all the outer circumstances which werehabitual to the being you adore. Use them even to reani-mate more effectually its image. You will find on thispoint, in the System of Positive Politics, an importantremark:—" Our personal memories become at onceclearer and more sure, when we fix definitely the materialenvironment before we place in it the living image.7' Ieven advise you in general to break up this determina-tion of the outward into its three essential parts, alwaysproceeding from without inwards, according to our hier-archical principle. This rule of worship consists in fixingwith precision, first the place, then the seat or the attitude,and lastly the dress, belonging to each particular case.Though the heart mav at first be imnatient of the delay,

I l l — W O R S H I P , (i) 71

it soon acknowledges its deep efficacy, when it sees theloved image gradually acquire by these means a strengthand a clearness which at first seemed impossible.

These operations, which are essentially aesthetic, aremore easily understood by comparing them with theoperations of science, by virtue of the necessary identityof the chief laws of both. In strict truth, science, whenit tells us beforehand of a future often distant, ventureson a still bolder effort than that of art when it wouldcall up some cherished memory. Our brilliant successesin the former case, though there the intellect derivesmuch less aid from the heart, authorise us to hope formore satisfactory results in the other, wherein alone wehave the certainty of arriving at a solution. It rests, tosay the truth, entirely on our knowledge of the laws ofthe brain, of which our conceptions are still so confused.Our astronomical previsions, on the contrary, dependmost on the simplest and best known of external laws.But whilst this distinction is sufficient to explain theinequality of our actual success in the two cases, itshows it to be simply provisional.

When the higher laws shall be sufficiently known, thePositive priesthood will draw from them results moreprecious, and susceptible of greater regularity, than thoseof the most perfect astronomy. For the previsions ofastronomy become uncertain, and often unattainable, assoon as the planetary problems become very complicated,as we see almost always in the case of comets. Withoutjustly incurring the charge of chimerical presumption,the providence of man can and ought to aspire to givemore regularity to the order which is most amenable toits action, than can prevail, as regards the majority ofevents, in the order which obeys only a blind fatality.The greater complication of the phenomena will ulti-mately yield, in these high cases, to the paramountsagacity of the modifying agent, when the human ordershall be sufficiently known.

72 III.—WORSHIP, (i)

The Woman.—I feel, my father, that to subordinatethe subjective to the objective is at once the constantobligation and the chief resource of Positive worship,You have made me quite understand that, far from with-drawing ourselves from this necessary yoke, we ousrhtfreely to accept it, even when we might neglect it. Forthis full submission makes our subjective life mucheasier, at the same time that it economises all our mostvaluable strength. But I do not see, from this pointonwards, in what consists our own action in this innerexistence, which yet ought, it seems to me, in its* ownway, to become even less passive than the outer.

The Priest.—It consists, my daughter, in idealisingalmost always by subtraction, and rarely by addition, evenwhen in adding we observe all proper precautions. Theideal must improve upon the real, or it is inadequatemorally; herein lies its normal compensation for itsgreat inferiority in clearness and liveliness. But it mustever be subordinate to the real, otherwise the presenta-tion would be untrue, and the worship would becomemystical; whereas by a too servile adherence to realityit would remain empirical. Our rule avoids equally thesetwo contrary deviations. It is naturally indicated byour tendency to forget the defects of the dead in orderto recall only their good qualities.

So regarded, see in it only a particular deduction fromthe dogma of Humanity. For if our Divinity only incor-porates into herself the really worthy dead, she also takesaway from each the imperfections which in all casesdimmed their objective life. Dante had, in his own way,a presentiment of this law, when he formed the beauti-ful fiction in which, to prepare for blessedness, the souldrinks—first of the river of oblivion, then of Eunoe,which restores only the memory of good. Add, then, tothe beings you take as types but very secondary improve-ments, so as never to change their true character, evenoutwardly, and still more morally. But give free scope,

I I I .—WORSHIP, (i) 73

though always with prudence, to your natural dispositionto clear them of their different faults.

The Woman.—So, my father, the true theory of thesubjective life makes our worship ultimately leave theexternal order as it is, to concentrate with greater effecton the human order our chief efforts after inward im-provement. The noble existence which perpetuates us inothers becomes thus the worthy continuation of that bywhich we deserved this immortality; the moral progressof the individual and of the race is ever the most impor-tant aim of both lives. The dead with us are freed fromthe laws of matter and of life, and they leave us thememory of their subjection to these laws only that wemay recall them better as we knew them. But they donot cease to love, and even to think, in us and by us.The sweet exchange of feelings and ideas that passedbetween us and them, during their objective life, becomesat once closer and more continuous when they are de-tached from bodily existence. Although under theseconditions the life of each of them is deeply mingledwith our own, its originality, both morally and mentally,is in no way impaired thereby, when it had a really dis-tinct character. We may even say that the chief differ-ences become more marked, in proportion as this closeintercourse becomes more full.

This Positive conception of the future life is certainlynobler than that of any theologists, at the same timethat it alone is true. When I was a Catholic, my mostfervent belief never prevented my feeling deeply shockedon studying the childish conception of blessedness whichwe find in a father of such high moral and intellectualexcellence as St. Augustine. I was almost angry whenI found him hoping some day to be free from the laws ofweight, and even from all wants connected with nutri-tion, though, by a gross contradiction, he kept the powerof eating what he liked, without any fear, it would seem,of becoming inordinately fat. Such comparisons are

74 HI.—WORSHIP, (i)

well adapted to make us feel how greatly Positivismperfects immortality, at the same time that it places iton a firmer footing, when it changes it from objective tosubjective. Still, clear as the superiority is, it does notprevent my regretting in the old worship the great in-stitution of prayer, .which does not seem to me com-patible with the new faith.

The Priest.—Such an omission, my daughter, wouldbe extremely serious, if it were real; since the regularpractice of prayer, private or public, is the capital con-dition of any worship whatever. Far from failing there-in, Positivism satisfies it better than Catholicism : for itpurifies this institution at the same time that it de-velops it. Your mistake on this point arises fromthe low notion still formed of prayer, which is madeto consist above all in petitions, too often for externalobjects, in accordance with the profoundly egoistic char-acter of all theological worship. For us, on the con-trary, prayer becomes the ideal of life. For to pray is,at one and the same time, to love, to think, and even toact, since expression is always a true action. Never canthe three aspects of human life be united with so inti-mate a union as in these admirable effusions of gratitudeand love towards our Great Goddess or her worthy re-presentatives and organs. No interested motive anylonger stains the purity of our prayers.

Still, as their daily use greatly improves our heart andeven our intellect, we are warranted in keeping in sightthis valuable result, without fearing that such a degree ofpersonality will ever degrade us. Though the Positivistprays especially in order to give free expression to hisbest affections, he may also ask, but only for a nobleprogress, which he ensures almost by the asking. Thefervent wish to become more tender, more reverential,more courageous even, is itself in-some degree a realisa-tion of the desired improvement; at least by the sincereconfession of our actual imperfection, the first condition

III.—WORSHIP, (i) 75

of the subsequent improvement. This holy influence ofprayer may extend, moreover, to the intellect, were itonly by urging us to new efforts to improve our think-ing. On the contrary, to ask for an increase of wealthor power would, in our worship, be a practice as absurdas it is ignoble. We do not envy the theologists theunlimited command over the external order which theyhope to obtain by prayer. All our subjective efforts arelimited to perfect as far as possible the human order,at once nobler and more susceptible of modification. Ina word, Positivist prayer takes complete possession ofthe highest domain formerly reserved for supernaturalgrace. Sanctification with us systematises more par-ticularly the progress which previously was looked on asalien to all invariable laws, although its pre-eminencewas already felt.

The Woman.—Accepting this explanation as decisive,I beg you, my father, to point out to me now the generalmethod suited to Positivist prayer.

The Priest—For that, my daughter, you must dis-tinguish in it two successive parts, the one passive, and theother active, which concern respectively the past and thefuture, with the present for connecting link. Our worshipis always the expression of a love springing from anddeveloping through an ever-increasing gratitude. Allprayer then, private or public, ought to prepare us by com-memoration for effusion, this latter usually lasting half thetime of the former. When a happy combination of signsand images has sufficiently rekindled our feelings towardsthe being we adore, we pour them forth with real fervour,which soon tends still further to strengthen them, and soto make us more ready for the concluding evocation.

The Woman. —Satisfied with these hints, I ask you,my father, to complete your general examination of ourworship, by directly explaining its fundamental influ-ences on our highest improvement. Although I feelthem profoundly, I could not define them so as to secure

76 I I I . — W O R S H I P , (i)

a fair judgment upon them. This is why I ask you, onthis point, for a systematic explanation, as a guide, firstin my own practice, and next in my legitimate effortsto convert others.

The Priest.—Though our worship improves the heartand the intellect simultaneously, it is important, mydaughter, to examine separately its reaction on ourmoral state and its influence on our intellect.

The first is an immediate consequence of the chief lawof animal life. For worship is always a real exercise, andeven a more normal exercise than any other; as is shownby ordinary language, here, as elsewhere, the faithfulpicture of human existence. Such a view of it is in thehighest degree indisputable when prayer is complete, thatis to say, when it is oral as wrell as mental. In fact, webring into play in expression, whether by sounds, or bygestures or attitudes, the same muscles that we do inaction. So every true expression of our feelings has atendency to strengthen and develop them, in the sameway as when we perform the acts which they suggest.

I ought, however, on this point, to guard against adangerous exaggeration, by urging you never to confusethese two great moral influences. Notwithstanding thesimilarity of their most important laws, in no case canthey be looked on as equivalent. By universal experi-ence, fully confirmed by our cerebral theory, acts willalways have more weight than expression, not merely inthe external result, but also in our inward improvement,Still, second to the practice of good actions, nothing ismore adapted to strengthen and develop our best feelingsthan their due expression, supposing it become sufficientlyhabitual. Now, this general means of amelioration isordinarily more within our reach than even action, whichoften requires materials or circumstances beyond ourreach, so as at times to confine us to barren wishes. Itis by virtue of their being thus accessible that thepractices of worship come to be, for our moral progress,

III.—WORSHIP, ( i ) 77

a valuable supplement to active'life, which is, moreover,fully compatible with them, such is the perfect homo-geneity of the Positive religion.

The Woman.—Understanding now the moral influenceof our worship, I need, my father, more full explana-tions as to its reaction on the intellect, which is by nomeans so clear to me.

The Priest.—Keep distinct, my daughter, its two maincases, according as its efficacy is limited to art or passesto science.

From the first point of view, the power of the Positiveworship on the mind is direct and striking, first as re-gards the general art, and even afterwards as regardsthe two special arts of sound or form. Poetry is the soulof the worship, as science is of the doctrine, and industryof the regime. Every prayer, private as well as public,becomes in Positivism a real work of art, inasmuch asit expresses our best feelings. As its spontaneous char-acter must never be departed from, every Positivistmust be, in some respects, a kind of poet—at least forhis own personal worship. Though its forms shouldbecome fixed in order to secure more regularity, theywill originally in all cases have been drawn up by himwho uses them, or he will find that they have no greatefficiency. Besides, this fixedness is never complete,since it affects only the artificial signs, which by theiruniformity bring out better the spontaneous variationsof our natural language, always, whether musical ormimic, more aesthetic than the other.

This poetical originality will be largely developed whenthe regeneration of education shall have sufficientlytrained all Positivists in the conceptions, and even in thecompositions, it requires, as I will point out to you in thethird part of the Catechism. Then the general art willalways derive fitting assistance from the special arts;since all will then be familiar with singing, the essentialbasis of music, and with drawing, the general source of the

78 III.—WORSHIP, (i)

three arts of form—painting, sculpture, or architecture.Lastly, in the construction of his worship, each willgenerally introduce special ornaments, chosen with judg-ment from the aesthetic treasure of Humanity. Thoughadditions of this kind seem limited to public worship,private worship may adopt them frequently and withprofit, provided it borrows with discretion and modera-tion. True poets having at all times given expression tothe leading feelings of our unchanging nature, their pro-ductions are often in sufficient consonance with our ownemotions. When this agreement, without being complete,is nearly so, we may find in what we borrow from thepoets more than the mere intellectual merit of a moreperfect expression. We find in them, in particular, themoral charm of a personal sympathy. The older theornaments, the better they suit us, as they sanction ouraffections by this spontaneous agreement, not merely withthe great poet, but also with all the generations which insuccession that poet has aided in the expression of theirfeelings. But the full efficacy of this valuable aid de-pends on its always remaining quite secondary, thoughthe degree in which it is admitted must vary as the casesvary, as I will shortly point out to you.

The Woman.—Before you explain to me the influenceof the Positive worship on science, would you, my father,clear up a serious difficulty naturally arising from thepreceding explanation ? Worship and poetry seem to me,in our religion, to melt so entirely one into the other,that their simultaneous growth would appear to requirea priestly class quite distinct from that which developsand teaches the doctrine. I feel that this separationwould become very dangerous by establishing an un-manageable rivalry between the two bodies, to decidewhich should have the ultimate direction of the regime,both being equally competent. So serious does such aconflict seem to me that you must settle it, under penaltyof radically compromising the general organisation of our

I I I . — W O R S H I P , ( i ) 7 9

priesthood, thus incapacitated from presiding over privatelife and still more over public life. But, on the otherhand, I do not see how we can quite avoid it, as poeticculture and philosophic study seem to require whollydifferent treatment.

Tlie Prie«t.—This mistake, which it is very importantto correct, constitutes, my daughter, one of the chiefresults of modern anarchy, which tends throughout todisperse our strength by a lamentable specialism, asabsurd as it is immoral. In the normal state, it is onlypractice that really admits of specialism, as no one can doeverything. But as each must embrace the whole rangeof conception, scientific culture must, on the contrary,always remain indivisible. Its division is the first signof anarchy. So thought the ancients under the theocracy,the only complete organisation as yet. AVhen in it thepoet separated from the priest, its decline began.

Though the genius for philosophy and the genius forpoetry cannot ever, at one and the same time, find a highdestination, intellectually they are completely identical innature. Aristotle might have been a great poet, Dantean eminent philosopher, had the times in which they livedcalled for less xscientific power in the one or less aestheticpower in the other. All these scholastic distinctionswere invented and upheld by pedants who, themselveswithout any kind of genius, could not even appreciate itin others. Mental superiority is always similar as be-tween the several careers of man; the choice of each issettled by his position, especially his position in time;for the race always rules the individual.

The only important difference that really exists inthis respect arises from the services of philosophy beingnaturally continuous, whereas the services of poetry arenecessarily intermittent. Great poets alone are of value,even intellectually, but still more morally ; all the othersdo much more harm than good : whereas the humblestphilosophers can be made of real use when they have

So III—WORSHIP, (i)

honesty, good sense, and courage. Since art has for itsmain object to develop in us the sense of perfection, itnever tolerates mediocrity; true taste always implieslively distaste. From Homer to Walter Scott, we havehad in the West but thirteen poets really great, twoancient, eleven modern, including even three prosewriters. Of all the rest you could not name more thanseven who could or should be read daily. As for therest, doubtless they will be almost completely destroyed,as equally hurtful to the intellect and the heart, when theregeneration of education shall have allowed us to extractall useful documents, especially the historical. There is noopening, then, in sociocracy less even than in theocracy,for the foundation of a definite class exclusively devoted tothe cultivation of poetry. But the priests, whose habitualcharacter is the philosophical, will become for the timepoets, when our Goddess shall stand in need of fresheffusions for general use, which may then suffice, duringseveral ages, both for public and private worship. Minorcompositions, naturally more frequent, will be generallyleft to the spontaneous impulses of women or proletaries.As for the two special arts, the long apprenticeship theyrequire, particularly the art of form, will compel us todevote to them some select masters, whom the Positiveeducation will, in its natural course, point out to thedirecting priesthood. They will become true membersof the priesthood, or remain merely pensioners, accordingas by nature they are more or less synthetical.

The Woman.—After this elucidation you may passat once, my father, to your last general explanation ofthe efficacy of the worship. Its aesthetic power seems tome evident. But I do not see in what can consist itsscientific influence.

The Priest.—In a better general development, mydaughter, of the universal logic, always based on the dueco-operation of signs, images, and feelings towards assist-ing the mind in its working. The logic of feeling is more

I I I .—WORSHIP, (i) 81

direct and energetic than any other; but its method isdeficient in precision and pliancy. Eminently accom-modating and sufficiently numerous, artificial signs makeup, by these two properties, for the inferiority in logicalpower due to the weakness and indirectness of their con-nection with our thoughts. But this sum of intellectualaids must receive its complement from images, whichindeed alone can satisfactorily give it, as being inter-mediate by their nature. Now, it is especially in referenceto this normal bond of our true logic that the worshipshould be efficacious, though it also develops the two otherconstituents. In this respect, the child who prays rightlyis exercising more healthily his meditative organs thanthe haughty algebraist who, from a deficiency of tender-ness and imagination, is really only cultivating the organof language, by the aid of a special jargon, the legitimateuse of which is very limited.

This remark affords a clear glimpse of the mostimportant scientific result of the Positive worship.It thus touches only the method properly so called,very slightly the doctrine; allowing for the moral, nay,even the intellectual notions, naturally furnished us byour religious practices. But the method will alwayshave more value than the doctrine, as feelings have morevalue than acts, morals than politics. The scientificlabours hitherto accumulated have for the most parthardly more than a logical value: they often teach usnotions that are useless, and at times even worse thanuseless. Although this provisional contrast will becomemuch weaker, when an encyclopedic discipline shall havedelivered us from all the rubbish of academies, the truelogic will always stand higher than science properlyso called, more particularly for the public, but also forthe priesthood.

The Woman.—All that remains, my father, is to askyou what is to be the special object of the two otherconversations you promised me on the Positive worship.

F

S3 III.—WORSHIP, (i)

However much I may feel that we have not thoroughlyexplored this fair domain, I do not see to what point init we are now to direct our efforts.

The Priest.—You will see this, my daughter, if youconsider that our worship, if it is not to fail utterly,must be first private, then public. These will be therespective objects of the two following conversations.But before we proceed to them, it is desirable to bringyour attention generally to bear directly on this greatsubordination, on which depends after all the chief effi-cacy of the Positive religion.

The better to grasp it, look on these two worships asaddressed respectively, the private to Woman, the publicto Humanity. You will then feel that our Goddess canhave no sincere worshippers but those who have pre-pared themselves for her august worship by the steadypractice of private homage daily due to her best organs,her subjective organs especially, but also to her objective.In a word, the true Church has ever for its originalbasis the simple Family, still more in the moral orderthan from the purely social aspect. The heart can nomore avoid this first step, retained afterwards as anhabitual stimulus, than the intellect can disdain thelower steps in the encyclopedic scale in its rise to thehighest, which constantly enforce on it the need of re-newing its strength at the fountain-head.

It is the constant practice of private worship thatmore than anything else will ultimately distinguish truePositivists from the false brethren with whom we shallbe burdened as soon as the true religion shall prevail.Without this mark, an easy hypocrisy would soon usurpthe consideration due only to the sincere worshippers ofHumanity. Between Her and the Family, we shall evenhave to develop the normal intermedium originating inthe natural feelings, at present vague and weak, whichbind us specially to the Country properly so called. Theimpossibility of rightly cultivating these intermediate

IV.—PRIVATE WORSHIP. (2) 83

affections otherwise than in associations of moderateextent, will ever be the best ground on which to rest thereduction of the large existing states to simple citieswith their due adjuncts—a process I shall have toexplain to you later.

CONVERSATION IV.

PRIVATE WORSHIP.

The Woman.—It seems to me, my father, that privateworship, as private life, must be composed of two verydistinct parts, the one personal, the other domestic, theseparation of which seems necessary for its explanation.

The Priest.—This natural division, which I was boundnot to mix up with the main division of the worship,settles, my daughter, in truth the plan of our presentconversation. Two great institutions of sociolatry, theone relating to the true guardian angels, the other tothe nine social sacraments, will in it characterise respec-tively, first our personal, then our domestic worship. Thereasons for making the latter depend on the formerare, in lesser degree, essentially similar to those whichrepresent the whole private worship as the only solidbasis of the public. More inward than any other, per-sonal worship alone can sufficiently develop firmly-rootedhabits of sincere adoration, without which our domesticceremonies, and still more our public solemnities, couldhave no moral efficacy. Thus sociolatry institutes, forthe heart of each, a natural progression, in which in-dividual prayers duly pave the way for the collectiveceremonies, through the regular intermedium of thedomestic consecrations.

The Woman.—Since the private worship is thus madethe primary basis of all our religious practices, I beg you,my father, to explain to me directly its real nature.

S4 IV.— PRIVATE WORSHIP. (2)

The Priest.—It consists, my daughter, in the dailyadoration of the best types which we can find to per-sonify Humanity, taking into account the whole of ourprivate relations.

The whole existence of the Supreme Being resting oijlove, which alone unites in a voluntary union its separ-able elements, the affective sex is naturally its mostperfect representative, and at the same time its chiefminister. Never will art be able worthily to embodyHumanity otherwise than in the form of Woman. Butthe moral providence of our Goddess is not exerted solelythrough the collective action of your sex upon mine.This fundamental source is especially the result of thepersonal influence that every true woman is unceasinglyputting out in the bosom of her own family. Thedomestic sanctuary is the continual source of this holyimpulse which can alone preserve us from the moralcorruption to which we are ever exposed by active orspeculative life. Without this private root the collectiveaction of woman on man would moreover have no per-manent efficacy. It is within the family also that wegain an adequate appreciation of the affective sex, foreach can only really know the types of it with which helives in close intimacy.

Thus it is that, in the normal state, each man findsaround him real guardian angels, at once ministers andrepresentatives of the Great Being. The secret adorationof them, strengthening and developing their continuousinfluence, tends directly to make us better and happier,by ensuring the gradual predominance of altruism overegoism, through the free play of the former and the com-pression of the latter. Our just gratitude for benefitsalready received thus becomes the natural source of freshprogress. The happy ambiguity of the French wordpatron marks sufficiently this twofold efficacy of thepersonal worship, in which each angel must be equallyinvoked as a protector and as a model.

IY.-^PRIVATE WORSHIP. (2) 85

The Woman.—This first general view leaves me, myfather, too uncertain as to what the personal type is; itmight apparently be taken indifferently from each ofthe greater family relations.

Hie Priest.—We must really, my daughter, duly com-bine three of them for the worship of angels to have itsfull effect. This plurality is indicated in our doctrine bythe plurality of the sympathetic instincts, each of whichanswers specially to a leading female influence. Themother, the wife, the daughter, must in our worship, asin the existence which it idealises, develop in us re-spectively veneration, attachment, and benevolence. Asfor the sister, the influence she exercises has hardly a verydistinct character, and may in succession be connectedwith each of the three essential types. Together theyrepresent to us the three natural modes of human con-tinuity, as regards the past, the present, and the future;as also the three degrees of the solidarity which bindsus to our superiors, our equals, and our inferiors. Butthe spontaneous harmony of the three can only be satis-factorily maintained by observing their natural subordi-nation, which ought habitually to give the supremacy tothe maternal angel, yet so that her gentle presidencynever impair the influence of the other two.

For the main object of this private worship, which, asa general rule, concerns the maturity of each worshipper,one of the three feminine types has most frequentlybecome subjective, whilst another still remains objective.This normal mixture increases the efficacy of suchhomage, in which the strength and clearness of theimages are thus better combined with coherence andpurity of the feelings.

The Woman.—Your explanation seems to me very satis-factory, yet I feel, my father, that it leaves a great void asto my own sex, whose moral wants it appears to neglect.Yet the tenderness which is our especial distinction can-not free us from the need of such habitual cultivation.

86 IV.—PRIVATE WORSHIP. (2)

The Priest—You have, my daughter, an easy andlegitimate solution of this grave difficulty in the pluralityof the angelic types, when otherwise it would be insur-mountable. In fact, the principal angel alone must becommon to both sexes, each borrowing from the other thetwo angels that complete the institution. For the motherhas, for both sexes equally, a preponderance, not merelyas the main source even of our physical existence, butstill more as normally presiding over the whole of oureducation. To her, then, as the common object of adora-tion, your sex adds the worship of the husband and theson, on the grounds assigned above for mine as regardsthe wife and daughter. This difference by itself isenough to meet the respective wants which require apatronage specially adapted, to develop in the one caseenergy, in the other tenderness.

The Woman.—Notwithstanding the attraction thisgreat institution even now has for me, still I find in it,my father, two general imperfections, whether as notusing all our private relations, or as not having sufficientlyforeseen the too frequent inadequacy of the natural types.

The Priest.—These two difficulties disappear, mydaughter, if you take into account the several subordinatetypes which naturally connect with each of our threechief types, by virtue of conformity of feelings and thesimilarity of the tie. Around the mother we groupnaturally first the father, and sometimes the sister, thenthe master and the protector, besides the analogous re-lations which may be largely increased in number withinthe family, and still more without. Extend the samemethod to the two other types, and we form a series ofadorations, less and less close to us, but more and moregeneral, the result being an almost insensible transitionfrom the private to the public worship. This normaldevelopment enables us also to supply, as far as possible,exceptional deficiencies, by substituting, in case of need,for one of the primary types its best subordinate. In

IV.—PRIVATE WORSHIP. (2) 07

this way we can subjectively re-create families whosecomposition is defective.

The Woman.—After this complementary explanation,it only remains for me, my father, to ask you for somemore precise explanations as to the general system ofprayers adapted to this fundamental worship.

The Priest.—It requires, my daughter, three dailyprayers : on getting up, before going to sleep, and in themidst of our daily occupations whatever they be. Thefirst, longer and more efficacious than the other two,

•begins each day by the due invocation of the guardianangels, which alone can dispose us to the habitual rightuse of all our powers. In the last, we express the grati-tude owing to this daity protection, so as to secure itscontinuance during sleep. The mid-day prayer shouldfor a time disengage us from the impulses of thoughtand action, in order to penetrate both more fully withthat influence of affection from which they always tendto withdraw us.

This object at once indicates the respective times ofthe three Positivist prayers, and even the mode of theirperformance. The first, prior to all work, will be said atthe domestic altar arranged in agreement with our bestmemories, and in the attitude of veneration. But theList should be said when in bed, and as far as possiblebe continued until we fall asleep, the better to ensure acalm brain when we are least protected from evil tend-encies. The hour for the intermediate prayer cannot beso accurately stated, as it must vary with individualconvenience; yet it is important that each one, in hisown way, should fix it very strictly, thereby attainingmore easily the frame of mind it requires.

The respective length of our three daily prayers is alsopointed out by their proper object. It is fitting, ingeneral, that the morning prayer be twice as long as theevening, the mid-day half as long. When the privateworship is completely organised, the chief prayer natu-

SS IV.—PRIVATE WORSHIP. (2)

rally occupies the whole first hour of each day. It doesso especially from the division of its opening portion intotwo, each as long as the concluding; the commemorationcommon to all the days of the week being made to pre-cede that which is proper to each separately. The resultis the division in practice of the morning prayer intothree equal parts, in which precedence is given respec-tively, first to images, then to signs, and last to feelings.The two other prayers do not admit of the same propor-tion between commemoration and effusion. Whilst in themorning, effusion in all lasts only half as long as com-memoration, the ratio is inverted in the evening, andequality marks the mid-day prayer. You will find nodifficulties in these minor differences. But I ask you toobserve that, as follows from these indications when com-bined, the total length of our daily worship only reachestwo hours, even for those who are led to repeat duringthe night the prayer of mid-day.

Every Positivist, then, will devote to his daily personalimprovement less time than is now absorbed by badreading and by useless or pernicious amusements. Therealone takes place the decisive growth of the subjectivelife by our identifying ourselves more and more with theBeing we adore, whose image, gradually purified, becomesmore clear and vivid with every new year of worship.By these secret practices each prepares himself to feelaright the awakening of sympathy, which will be a resultof the publicity which belongs to our other sacred rites.Such a combination of moral faculties will, I hope, enablethe rules of sociolatry to overcome, in the best of bothsexes, the present coarseness of Western manners. Ordi-nary and uncultivated minds still regard as lost all timenot occupied by work in the common sense. In thecultivated classes, there is already a recognition of thevalue inherent in purely intellectual exertion. But sincethe close of the Middle Ages, there has been a universalforgetfulness of the direct higher value of moral cultiva-

IV.— PRIVATE WORSHIP. (2* 89

tion properly so called. Men would almost blush todevote to it as much time as the great Alfred allottedto it daily, without in any way impairing his admirableactivity.

To complete this special theory of the daily prayers, Imust point out to you the unequal share assigned in themto the ornaments, always mere adjuncts, borrowed withdiscretion from the aesthetic treasures of Humanity. Bytheir nature they are more adapted to aid effusion thancommemoration. As such their aid is more available inthe evening than in the morning. But its special pur-pose is to relieve us from original effort which we usuallyfind impracticable in regard to the intermediate prayer,in which the effusion at its close may consist almostentirely in a judicious choice of passages from the poets.When singing and drawing shall have become as familiarto all as speaking and writing, this help from withoutwill more fully satisfy our internal wants, in the too fre-quent languor of our best emotions.

The Woman.—Now that I understand our privateworship, I am endeavouring, my father, to anticipate youas to the constitution of the domestic worship properlyso called. But I cannot, of myself, as yet form a satis-factory idea of it. I quite see that the domestic, like theprivate worship, can institute a constant adoration of thetypes common to the whole family. So also it can re-produce for this elementary society the collective invo-cations which the public worship addresses directly toHumanity. These two kinds of religious practices,under the natural priesthood of the head of the family,are susceptible no doubt of a high moral influence. Stillsomething is wanting to stamp on our domestic worshipa character quite its own, so that it be kept distinctfrom either of those between which it is to be theintermediary.

The Priest.—The institution of the social sacramentsfulfils, my daughter, this necessary condition. It is

90 IV.—PRIVATE WORSHIP. (2)

through it that the domestic worship is strongly markedoff from the two others, at the same time that it affordsthem a natural transition. It consists in consecratingall the successive phases of private life by connecting eachwith public life. Hence our nine social sacraments :—Presentation, initiation, admission, destination, marriage,maturity, retirement, transformation, and lastly, incorpora-tion. Their unchanging succession forms a series ofpreparations by which, during the whole of his objectivelife, the worthy servant of Humanity proceeds, in agradual course, to the subjective eternity which is ulti-mately to constitute him a true organ of the Goddess.

The Woman.—Though the normal limits of this Cate-chism preclude you, my father, from a really completeexplanation of all our sacraments, I hope you will beable in it to give a sufficient idea of each.

The Priest.—By the first, my daughter, the final re-ligion gives systematic consecration to every birth, as allthe preliminary religions instinctively did. The motherand the father of the new scion of Humanity come topresent it to the priesthood, which receives from them asolemn engagement to prepare the child properly for theservice of the Goddess. This natural guarantee is com-pleted by two additional institutions, which Positivismthinks it an honour to borrow in germ from Catholicism,developing it in a social spirit. An artificial couple, tobe chosen by the parents, but with the approbation ofthe priesthood, freely offers the new servant of theGreat Being a fresh protection, mainly spiritual, butat need temporal, all the special witnesses concurring.He also receives from his two families two special patrons,the one a theorician, the other a practician, whom hewill complete at the time of his emancipation, by takinga third name, derived, as the other two, from the con-secrated representatives of Humanity.

In the ancient civilisation, this first sacrament wasoften refused, especially to those who were judged incom-

IV.—PRIVATE WORSHIP. (2) 91

petent for the destructive activity which then prevailed.But as modern social life more and more finds a use fornatures of every order, the presentation will almost in-variably be accepted by the priesthood, allowing for casestoo exceptional to need prevision.

The second sacrament is termed initiation, as markingthe first dawn of public life, when the child passes atfourteen from its unsystematic training under the direc-tion of its mother, to the systematic education given bythe priesthood. Till then the advice of the priest wasgiven to the parents only, whether natural or artificial,to remind them of their essential duties during the firstperiod of childhood. But now the new being receivesdirectly the counsels of religion, destined specially toforearm his heart against the injurious influences toooften attendant on the intellectual training which he isto undergo. This second sacrament may be put off, andsometimes, though very seldom, refused, if the homeeducation has not succeeded to the extent required.

Seven years later, the young disciple, first presented^then initiated, receives, as the consequence of his wholepreparation, the sacrament of admission, which authoriseshim freely to serve Humanity, from whom hitherto hereceived everything, giving nothing in return. All civilcodes have recognised that it is necessary to put off,and even to refuse, this emancipation in the case of thosewhom an extremely defective organisation, uncorrectedby education, condemns to perpetual infancy. A moreaccurate judgment will lead the priesthood to measuresof equal severity, the direct consequences of which willnever extend beyond the spiritual domain.

This third sacrament makes the child into the servantwithout being able as yet to mark out his special career,often different from what was supposed during thepractical apprenticeship which coincided naturally withhis scientific education. He alone can properly de-cide on this point, as the result of trials freely made and

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prolonged for a sufficient time. Hence the institution ofa fourth social sacrament, which at twenty-eight, allowingfor a delay, either at his own request or enjoined, conse-crates the destination thus chosen. The old worshipoffered us the rudiment of this institution only in thecase of the highest functions, in the ordination of priestsand the coronation of kings. But Positive religion mustalways give a social institution to all the useful pro-fessions, with no distinction of public and private. Thehumblest servants of the Great Being will come to receivein her temple from her priests the solemn consecration oftheir entrance on their co-operation, whatever form it take.This is the only sacrament that admits of a true repeti-tion, which, however, must always be an exception.

The Woman.—I understand, my father, this series ofconsecrations prior to marriage, itself to be followed byour four other sacraments. As for this chief sacrament,which alone gives completeness to the whole series ofman's preparations, I already know the main points ofthe Positivist doctrine. Above all, I sympathise mostdeeply with the great institution of eternal widowhood,long looked for by the hearts of all true women. Besidesits importance for the family and even for the state, italone can sufficiently develop the subjective life for oursouls to rise to the familiar representation of Humanity,by means of an adequate personification. All theseprecious notions had I made almost my own before Ibecame your catechumen. I know also that you willreturn to this subject, from another point of view, whenexplaining the regime. We may then enter on the lastseries of our consecrations.

The Priest.—First, however, my daughter, we mustsettle the normal age for the chief social sacrament. Asmarriage is to follow, and not precede, the particulardestination, men cannot be admitted to it as a religiousordinance till they have accomplished their twenty-eighthyear. The priesthood will even advise the government

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to extend the legal veto of the head of the family to theage of thirty, the better to guard against any precipita-tion in the most important of all our private actions.For women, the sacrament of destination necessarilycoincides with that of admission, their vocation beingalways known and happily uniform. They are thereforeready for marriage at the age of twenty-one, an age,moreover, which gives better security for harmony inmarriage. These lower limits of age must not be loweredfor either sex, save on very exceptional grounds, whichthe priesthood must thoroughly weigh, on its moralresponsibility. But in general no higher limits shouldbe fixed, though women should almost always marrybefore twenty-eight, men before thirty-five, when marriedlife shall have taken its right constitution.

The Woman.—The first of the sacraments after mar-riage seems to me, my father, sufficiently explained byits mere definition. You had already made me observethe general coincidence of the full development of thehuman organism with the completion of man's socialpreparation, about the age of forty-two. I am herethinking only of your sex, as it alone is concerned withthe sacrament of maturity. The vocation of woman is atonce too uniform and too fixed to admit either of thetwo consecrations that precede and follow marriage.

The Priest.—Though you have, my daughter, graspedwithout help from me the true nature of our sixth sacra-ment, you would hardly be able, if you stopped at thispoint, to appreciate duly its peculiar importance. Duringthe twenty-one years which separate it from the seventh,the man is living his second objective life, on which alonedepends his subjective immortality. Till then our life,mainly preparatory, had naturally given rise to mistakesat times of a serious character, but never beyond repara-tion. Henceforth, on the contrary, the faults we commitwe can hardly ever fully repair, whether in reference toothers or to ourselves. It is important, then, to impose

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solemnly on the servant of Humanity the stern responsi-bility on which he is entering, with special reference tohis peculiar function, now clearly determined*

The Woman.—For the next sacrament I see, my father,no other purpose but to mark the normal termination ofthe great period of complete and direct action of whichthe sixth consecration marked the beginning.

The Priest.—On the contrary, my daughter, the sacra-ment of retirement is one of the most august and bestdetermined of our sacraments, when we consider the lastfundamental service which is then rendered by each trueservant of Humanity. In the Positive arrangements,every functionary, especially every temporal functionary,always names his successor, subject to the sanction ofhis superior, and allowing for exceptional cases of moralor mental unworthiness5 as I shall shortly explain to you.You see at once that it is the only means of satisfactorilyregulating human continuity. When the citizen at sixty-three, of his own free will, withdraws from an activitywhich he has exhausted, in order to have scope in futurefor his legitimate influence as an adviser, he solemnlyexercises this last act of high authority, and by so doingplaces it under the control of the priesthood and thepeople, which may lead him to modify it in a noblespirit. With the rich, this transfer of office is completedby the transmission, in accordance with the same rules,-of that portion of the capital of the race which forms theworking-stock of the functionary, after he has made pro-vision for his own personal wants.

The Woman.—Now, my father, I see the full socialbearing of our seventh sacrament, in which I saw at firstonly a kind of family festival.

As for the eighth, I am now familiar enough with thetrue religion to understand of myself in what it consists.It is to replace the horribleceremony in which Catholicism,freed from all check on its anti-social character, openlytore the dying person from all human affections, to place

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him alone before the judgment-seat of God. In ourtransformation, the priesthood, mingling the regrets ofsociety with the tears of the family, estimates justlyas a whole the life that is ending. First securing, wherepossible, the reparation of evil, it generally holds out thehope of subjective incorporation, but without ever com-mitting itself to a premature judgment.

The Priest.—As your appreciation of the last objectivesacrament is adequate, my daughter, I have now toexplain to you the final consecration.

Seven years after death, when all disturbing passionsare sufficiently quieted, the best special documents re-maining yet accessible, a solemn judgment, the germ ofwhich sociocracy borrows from theocracy, finally decidesthe lot of each. If the priesthood pronounces for in-corporation, it presides over the transfer, with due pomp,of the sanctified remains which, previously depositedin the burial-place of the city, now take their place forever in the sacred wood that surrounds the temple ofHumanity. Every tomb in it is ornamented with asimple inscription, a bust, or a statue, according to thedegree of honour awarded.

As to the exceptional cases of marked unworthiness,the disgrace consists in transporting in the proper waythe ill-omened burden to the waste place allotted to thereprobate, amongst those who have died by the handof justice, by their own hand, or in duel.

The Woman.—These clear indications as to the ninesocial sacraments leave me, my father, a general regretas regards my sex, which does not seem to me sufficientlyconsidered. Still, I in no way object to our naturalexclusion from three of these consecrations, since it restson grounds which are in the highest degree honourableto women, whose quieter life requires less religiousattention. But I cannot conceive that the subjectiveparadise should not admit those whom our religion pro-claims most apt to deserve it. I do not, however, see

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how, in the general, we should share in personal incor-poration, which seems to me only to be possible as aresult of public life, and public life is rightly forbiddenour sex, except in very rare cases.

The Priest.—You will supply, my daughter, thisserious omission by considering that the incorporationof man is to include all the worthy auxiliaries of everytrue servant of Humanity, not even excepting our ani-mal associates.

The chief function of woman being to form and perfectman, it would be as absurd as unjust to honour a goodcitizen, and neglect to honour the mother, the wife, etc.,to whom his success was mainly due. Around and attimes within each consecrated tomb, the priesthood willconsequently be bound to collect in the name of Hu-manity, all the individuals who took a worthy part in theservices such tomb rewards. Although your sex, byits superior organisation, tastes more keenly the pure en-joyment that results from the mere formation and exer-cise of good feelings, it should never renounce its claimto just praise, much less to the subjective immortalitywhich it so thoroughly appreciates.

The Woman.—After this complementary explanationit only remains for me, my father, to ask you whereinlies the obligation for each to receive our differentsacraments.

The Priest.—They must always, my daughter, bepurely optional, so far as any legal obligation is con-cerned, without ever imposing more than a simple moralduty, a duty demonstrated in our education and sanc-tioned by opinion.

The better to preserve this purely spiritual character,the chief condition of their efficacy, our sacraments musthave side by side with them parallel institutions, estab-lished and maintained by the temporal power, as alone tobe required in each case. Its judgment, less discrimi-nating and less strict, will dispense with the religious

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rites for those whom they might alarm, and who can yetrender society services which it would be a pity to loseor impair.

For instance, we must not consider as anarchical,though of revolutionary origin, the institution of civilmarriage, as a necessary preliminary to the religious,from which it may legally dispense. The contrary customarose from an usurpation on the part of Catholicismwhich Positivism will never imitate. Those who revoltfrom the law of widowhood, which yet is essential to theperformance of a Positivist marriage, need to contract acivil union to preserve them from vice and secure thelegal status of their children. The same holds good, inlesser degree, for most of the other social sacraments,especially admission and destination. The priesthoodought, in case of need, to urge the government to insti-tute legal rules with the object of moderating the juststrictness of our religious prescriptions, the persistentlyfree observance of which will never have any other re-ward than that of conscience and opinion.

CONVERSATION V.

PUBLIC WORSHIP.

The Woman.—When entering on the direct study ofour public worship, I should submit to you, my father,the answer which I have already given of myself tosuperficial but honest criticisms, directed against thissolemn adoration as a whole. It is urged that eachPositivist is glorifying himself when paying honour toa being which is of necessity composed of its own wor-shippers. Our private worship is in no way open tothis reproach : it applies solely to the direct worship ofHumanity, especially where the homage is collective.But we can easily repel it by the true idea of the Great

a

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Being which is predominantly subjective in its composi-tion. They who testify their gratitude to her are in noway assured, in general, of their final incorporation.They have only the hope of this reward, because theycount on deserving it by a worthy life, the judgment onwhich always rests with their successors.

The Priest.—Your correction is fully in agreement,my daughter, with the true spirit of our public worship,in which the present glorifies the past the better to pre-pare the future, naturally putting itself out of sightbefore these two immensities. Far from stimulatingour pride, these solemn prayers tend unceasingly to in-spire us with a sincere humility. For they make usprofoundly conscious to what a degree, despite our bestcollective efforts, we are incapable of ever rendering toHumanity more than a very small part of what we havereceived from her.

The Woman.—Before you explain to me the generaloutline of this public worship, would you, my father, giveme some sufficient idea of the temples in which it is tobe performed ? As for the ministering priesthood, I feelthat its essential constitution will be adequately statedin your exposition of the regime.

The Priest.—Our temples, my daughter, cannot atpresent be adequately conceived. For, as architectureis the most technical and the least aesthetic of all the finearts, each new synthesis reaches it more slowly than anyother art. Not till our religion be not only thoroughlyworked out, but also widely spread, can the public wantsindicate the true nature of the edifices which suit it.Provisionally then, we shall have to use the old churches,in proportion as they fall into disuse ; though this inevi-table preliminary ought to last a less time in our case thanin the case of Catholicism, which, for several centuries,was confined to polytheistic edifices.

The only general indication that can at present begiven on this point relates to site and direction, even

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now determined by the nature of the Positive worship.Since Humanity is essentially composed of the dead whodeserve to live after death, her temples must be placedamid the tombs of the elect. On the other hand, thechief attribute of Positive religion is its necessary uni-versality. In all parts of the earth, then, the temples ofHumanity must turn towards the general metropolis,which for a long time, as the result of the whole past,must be Paris. Thus Positivism turns to account thehappy if rudimentary conception of Islam in respect ofa valuable institution, wherein the common attitude ofall true believers brings out more fully the touchingsolidarity of their free homage.

This is all I have to tell you as to our sacred buildings.As for the arrangement of their interior, all we need atpresent observe is the need of reserving the chief sanc-tuary for women duly chosen; so that the priests ofHumanity may always find themselves in the midst ofher best representatives.

The Woman.—This last remark leads me, my father,to complete my former question, by asking you what willbe the symbols of our Goddess. As the decision regardspainting and sculpture, it should even now be moreattainable than that of our temples, the two first arts ofform being more rapid in their motion than the third.

The Priest.—In truth, my daughter, the nature ofthe Great Being leaves now no room for hesitation asto its plastic representation. In painting or sculpture,the symbol of our Goddess will always be a womanof thirty with her son in her arms. The pre-eminence,religiously, of the affective sex ought to be the promi-nent feature in this emblem, in which the active sexshould remain placed under its holy guardianship.Though groups with more figures might render thepresentment more complete, it would not be syntheticenough to come into really common use.. Of the two modes adapted for the expression of this

ioo V.-PUBLIC WORSHIP. (3)

normal symbol, sculpture is suitable for the image fixedin each temple, in the midst of the nobler women, andbehind the sacred desk. But painting is preferable forthe movable banners which are to head our solemn pro-cessions. Whilst their white side will present the holyimage, the sacred formula of Positivism will occupy thegreen, turned towards the procession.

The Wojnan.—As the last of my introductory ques-tions, I ask you, my father, to explain the sign whichin -ordinary use may suffice to represent this charac-teristic formula.

The Priest.—We get it, my daughter, from ourcerebral theory, as I shall carefully explain when westudy the doctrine. We may repeat our fundamentalformula whilst placing the hand in succession on thethree chief organs of love, of order, and of progress. Thefirst two adjoin one another, the last is only separatedfrom them by the organ of veneration, the naturalcement of the whole they form; so that the gesturemay become continuous. When the habit is sufficientlyformed, we soon suppress the words—the expression bygesture is enough. In fine, as the rank of the cerebralorgans indicates fully their functions, the sign, at need,is reducible to the mere succession of the correspondingnumbers in the cerebral table {see Conversation viii.)Thus it is that, without any arbitrary institution, Posi-tivism is already in possession of signs for common usemore expressive than any of those adopted by Catholicismand Islam.

The Woman.—Now, my father, I ought not anylonger to delay your direct exposition of the system ofpublic worship.

The Priest.—You will find it, my daughter, fully ex-pressed in the table I here offer you {Table A). Thispart of our worship, as the two preceding portions, hastwo objects: to make us better understand and betterlive the life which it represents. We must then, idealise

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first the fundamental ties which constitute that exist-ence, then the indispensable preparations which it re-quires, lastly the normal functions which go to make itup. Such will be respectively the objects of the threesystems of monthly festivals which are to fill the Posi-tivist year, divided consequently into thirteen months offour weeks, with one complementary day consecrated tothe dead in the aggregate.

You already know the four fundamental classes—affective, speculative, patrician, and plebeian—which areessential to society in its normal form. As for the pre-paratory stages, we cannot, without confusion, condensethem more, so profound are the intellectual and socialdifferences, which must always distinguish fetichism,polytheism, and monotheism, even in the spontaneousinitiation of every Positivist. With regard to theprimary ties, we must certainly begin by celebrating themost universal, and then honour each of the privateaffections which alone can ensure it a real consistency.Now these elementary relations are really five in number:marriage, the parental, filial, fraternal, and domesticrelation ; ranking them, in obedience to our hierarchicalprinciple, by the increase in generality and decrease inintimacy.

The number of the Positivist months, though at firstsight paradoxical, becomes then sacred when we enterinto its religious grounds. Repeated experience hasmoreover shown that it can easily prevail when thefaith on which it rests prevails. Again it is for theuniversal religion alone to establish the regularity inpoint of time attained by our exact division of eachmonth into four weekly periods. However great thepractical advantages of such an arrangement, they wouldnot secure its adoption, were it not that the needsof our worship dispelled the hesitation always attendanton mere business reasons.

The Woman.—At the first general view of the

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sociolatric table, I see, my father, no serious difficultyin it except as regards the domestic relation, the import-ance of which seems to me exaggerated, when it is placedamong the fundamental ties.

The Priest.—Such an objection reminds me, mydaughter, that by birth you are a northern, althoughhappily preserved from Protestantism. For the southernnations of the West retain, in this respect, more perfectlythe true human feelings, so nobly developed in theMiddle Ages.

So far from domesticity being destined to pass away,it will become more and more important, clearing itselfmore completely of all the original servitude. Whencompletely voluntary, it furnishes many families with thebest means of rendering worthy service to the GreatBeing, by affording her true servants, philosophical orpractical, an aid which is indispensable. This share inpromoting the public good, though indirect, is morecomplete and less uncertain than that of most whoseco-operation is direct. It may also better cultivateour best feelings. We form too restricted an idea of itwhen we confine it to certain classes. In all ranks ofsociety, above all in the proletariate, every citizen passedthrough this condition so long as his practical educationlasted. We must then idealise domesticity as the com-plement of the family ties and the starting-point of thecivic relations.

The Woman.—My heart wanted, my father, nothingbut this rational correction to rise above the anarchicalprejudices which prevented me from fraternising as Iought with the noble types, especially among women,which this position, so little understood, often presented.Your wholesome explanation leaves me only the wishfor one last general one, in respect to the other extremein our scheme of sociolatry. The respective positions ofthe patriciate and proletariate seem to me there reversed.Political considerations may rank them so, according to

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the order of material power; but religion, which classesby moral worth, ought, it seems to me, to arrange themdifferently.

The Priest.—You forget, my daughter, that in thePositive religion there must always be an exact corre-spondence between the worship and the regime. But Ieasily excuse your mistake from the nobleness of itsmotive. I have myself at times thought as you do,from allowing too much weight to the extreme imper-fection of the actual patriciate, so often unworthy of itshigh social destination. Real superiority of the brain,whether intellectual or still more moral, is at the presentday more common in proportion among the classes whichhave been preserved from an education and power whichdegrade. Still, though we must carefully take intoaccount this undeniable exception when organising thetransition of the West, we must be able systematicallyto put it aside when constructing the abstract worship ofHumanity, destined mainly for the normal state. If welooked too much to the present and not enough to thefuture, we should certainly be led to place even-thepriesthood below the proletariate; for its actual imper-fection greatly exceeds that of the patriciate, whether onejudges it as it exists among the ruins of theology or inits rudimentary state in metaphysics and science.

In the Positive worship, as in the normal existencewhich it idealises, the worthy patrician stands higher asa general rule than the true plebeian, as much in truenobleness as in real power. When we rank the classesof men by their capacity to represent the Great Being,the importance and difficulty of the peculiar services ofthe patriciate, as the education they require and theresponsibility they involve, always place it above theproletariate. It is in the very name of such classificationthat the wisdom of the priesthood, duly aided by thesanction of women and the support of the people, mustremind the patricians, singly or collectively, of their

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eternal social duties, when they come to neglect themseriously. But these extraordinary remonstrances wouldmiss their main object if the normal worship did notpay sufficient honour to the necessary ministers of ourmaterial providence. By placing the proletariate at thelower extremity of the social scale, the worship will re-mind us that its characteristic aptitude to control andcorrect all the powers of society is derived especially froma situation which is essentially passive, and which displaysno marked tendency. Our sacred synopsis, as the regimeit embodies, must then insert the two great powers, thespiritual and the temporal, between the two masses,women and proletaries, which react uninterruptedly ontheir sentiments and conduct. Were the patriciatelowered, the Positive harmony would be infringed quiteas much in sociolatry as in sociocracy.

The Woman.—I am sufficiently familiar already withthe public worship as a whole for you to explain to me,my father, your division by weeks of the thirteenmonthly commemorations. This final development,which will leave no one of our weeks without its generalfestival, must strongly support the moral aim of thegreat worship, thus recurring under widely varied yetalways convergent aspects.

The Priest.—Before I enter on this explanation, Ishould, my daughter, say that Positivism retains un-changed the established names for the days of the week.I had thought of substituting others, but I have abandonedthe project, which will leave no other trace but a suc-cessful essay, some touching domestic prayers, adaptedto connect the public with the private worship, and com-posed by M. Joseph Lonchampt, for each day of ourweek. The old names have the advantage of recallingthe whole of the past in its three stages, fetichist, poly-theist, and monotheist.*

To make our worship completely regular, it was* See Pos. Pol vol. iv. pp. 135, 404 (120, 351, E. Tr.)

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necessary that each day of any week whatever shouldalways hold the same place in the year. This invaria-bility is obtained by affixing no weekly name, first tothe complementary day with which every Positivist yearends, then to the additional day which follows it if itis leap year, according to the rule adopted in the West.Each of these two exceptional days is really sufficientlymarked by its festival. With this precaution, ourcalendar holds good for all years—a point as importantfor the regime as for the worship.

The Woman.—I grasp, my father, the full moralefficacy of such invariability, by which any day what-ever of our year might receive, as the last day does, apurely religious name ; a result which Catholicism neverattained but by exception.

The Priest.—This preliminary settled, I may, mydaughter, begin to state directly in their order theceremonies appointed for the seventh day in all ourweeks. The sociolatrical table shows you how eachmonthly commemoration is subdivided into four weeklyfestivals. All I have to do, then, is to give reasons forthis division and to make it clear by some summaryexplanations.

Our first month, dedicated to Humanity, needs littlein this respect. After opening the Positivist year by themost august of all our solemn rites, this direct festival ofthe Great Being has its completion in the four weeklyfestivals, in which we respectively appreciate the severalessential degrees of the social union. They are rankedaccording to the decrease of extension and the increaseof intimacy in the collective relations. The first festivalglorifies the bond of religion, the only one that can beuniversal; the second, the connection due to old politicalrelations which have disappeared, but not without leavinga considerable community of language and poetry. Inthe third, we celebrate directly the effective unionspringiDg from the free acceptance of one common

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government. The fourth honours the least extended,but the most complete of civic relations, in which theconstant proximity of habitation brings us nearest tothe intimacy of the family.

To give its full value to the month of marriage, itsfirst solemnity glorifies the conjugal union in all itsfulness, at once exclusive and indissoluble, even by death.In it the priesthood brings home, both to heart andintellect, the general advance of this admirable institu-tion, the primary basis of all human order, by delineatingeach of its essential phases, from the primal polygamydown to the Positivist marriage.

In the following festival is honoured the voluntaryand perpetual chastity which weighty moral or physicalreasons may enjoin on a noble couple. The capitalobject of marriage, the mutual improvement of bothsexes, comes out more clearly in such an exceptionalunion; without its obliging them, however, to renouncethe affections that concern the future, always withintheir reach by a judicious adoption. There will also bebrought into suitable relief its tendency to control atlength human procreation, while inherited disease is notallowed to preclude the benefits of marriage.

The third week of this month ends with honouringthe exceptional unions in which a disparity, often notwithout excuse, does not exclude the main benefit ofmarriage, especially when the habits of the final stateshall limit the difference to age. Lastly, the fourthfestival honours the posthumous union which will oftenbe a result of the normal constitution of human marriage,the deepest pleasures of which are strengthened anddeveloped by the purification and constancy attendanton subjective love.

One explanation will suffice for our three followingmonths, their weekly subdivisions being naturally thesame. For the most important, its first half is devotedto the paternal relation in its complete form, first involun-

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tary, then adoptive; its second half to the incompletepaternal relation which, in every regular society, resultsfrom spiritual authority or temporal patronage. Hencespring, in a descending order, the four normal degreesof paternal affection, respectively honoured in the fourweekly festivals of the third Posifcivist month. Nowthe same distinctions and gradations necessarily recurin the case of the filial and fraternal relations, thus dis-pensing with any fresh explanation for the fourth andfifth months.

As for the sixth, it honours, first, permanent domes-ticity, which will always mark off a very numerous buta special class, then the analogous position in which everyman as a rule finds himself during his practical training.The first case clearly requires an important subdivision,the practical distinction being the residence ; accordingas the domestic relation is complete, as in the case ofthe servant proper, or incomplete, as in that of theclerk, who has simply to perform a certain office. Whenthe manners of the normal state shall have made domesticservice, especially that of women, consistent with the fulldevelopment of the family affections, Positive worshipwill make the moral superiority of the first positiondeeply felt, for in it the devotion is purer and moreliving. The same distinction is applicable, though in aless marked degree, to temporary domesticity, and isthere again determined by the dwelling. Hence thelast two festivals of the sixth month, respectively devotedto pages and to apprentices, according as the masters arerich or poor.

The Woman.—All these details as to the differentfundamental ties offer me, my father, no difficulty.But I fear lest my weakness in history prevents my fullyunderstanding the second series of social festivals. Forthe preparation of man as a whole is as yet only veryimperfectly known to me.

The Priest—That is enough, my daughter, to enable

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you even now to understand in outline the succession ofthe three preliminary states mentioned in our synopsisof sociolatry. But as for the weekly division of each ofthem, you will, it is true, hardly be able to enter into ittill after the two historical conversations with which thisCatechism will end. I limit myself, therefore, to theco-ordination of the chief divisions, recommending youto complete it for yourself when you shall have gainedthe requisite knowledge.

The fictitious synthesis, in all cases based on the searchafter causes, may take two different forms, according asthe wills to which events are attributed inhere in thebodies themselves or in external beings, habituallybeyond the reach of our senses. Now the direct form,which is more spontaneous than any other, constitutesthe initial fetichism ; whereas the indirect distinguishesthe theologism which follows it. But this last state,more alloyed and less lasting than the first, offers insuccession two distinct constitutions, according as thegods are many or are condensed into one. Theologism,which after all but forms an immense spontaneous transi-tion from fetichism to Positivism, takes its rise from theone as polytheism and leads to the other by monotheism.Complete this mental advance by the correspondingsocial progress, and the whole initiation of man findsadequate expression, as you will soon feel.

You will then be able to see how well adapted is oursecond series of social festivals to pay due honour to allthe essential phases of this long preparation, from thefirst upward movement of the smallest tribes down tothe twofold development of the modern transition. Thisfull celebration of the past of man in twelve weeklyfestivals is a consequence of the historical condensationwhich the abstract worship by its nature allows.

The Woman.—We can then, my father, now enter onthe last sociolatrical series. The month dedicated to themoral providence offers me no difficulty, so clearly marked

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is the distinction between the types of woman assignedto its four weekly festivals. But I am at a loss as yetas to the subdivision of the sacerdotal month.

The Priest.—3}ake for your guide, my daughter, thedifferent forms or degrees of the Positive priesthood,ranked according to their increasing completeness. Thisgreat ministry calls for a rare union of the moral qualities,active no less than affective, with intellectual capacities,both for art and science. If, then, these last alone areremarkable, their possessors, after proper cultivation,must remain, perhaps for ever, mere pensioners of thespiritual power, without ever aspiring to be incorporatedinto it. In these cases which are fortunately exceptional,the finest genius for poetry or philosophy cannot supplythe place of tenderness and energy in a functionary whomust habitually be animated by deep sympathies andwho has often to engage in difficult struggles. This in-complete priesthood allows for the due cultivation of alltrue talent without detriment to any social function.

As for the complete priesthood, it requires, first, a pre-paratory stage, beyond which the candidate will not pro-ceed if, in spite of the announcement of his vocation, hedoes not successfully pass through the proper noviciate.After this decisive trial, at thirty-five he obtains thetrue and definitive priesthood, but exercises it for sevenyears in the subordinate position, which marks the vicaror substitute. When he has worthily gone through allthe phases of our encyclopedic teaching, and even enteredupon the other priestly functions, he reaches at forty-two the chief degree, becoming irrevocably a priest inthe fullest sense. Such are the four classes of theoricianswhich are honoured respectively by the weekly festivalsof the eleventh month.

The Woman.—The next, my father, requires no par-ticular explanation. Though not familiar with active life,its definite character enables me to understand fairly thenormal division of the patrician body into four essential

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classes, in accordance with the decreasing generality offunctions and the increasing number of functionaries.Perhaps even, in our anarchical time, women are moreapt than the proletaries, and still more than theirteachers, to appreciate rightly this natural hierarchy,as they are more thoroughly preserved from disturbingpassions and from sophistical views. I am glad, then,that the four weekly festivals of our twelfth monthyearly honour, and by honouring moralise, these severalnecessary forms of the material power, on which reststhe whole economy of society. But I am not so clear asto the subdivision of the last month.

The Pried.—It depends, my daughter, on the generalitywhich attaches naturally to the proletariate, in which allthe great attributes of Humanity require a distinct idealexpression. This immense social mass—the necessarystock of all the special classes—is mainly devoted t9active life, the direct subject of the first weekly festivalof the plebeian month. After this active proletariate, wemust pay a separate tribute to the affective proletariatewhich necessarily accompanies it. This special tribute tothe proletary women can alone give due completeness tothe general celebration of the types of women, consideredin the tenth month from a point of view which embracedall classes, but viewed here in their popular manifestation.

The third festival of our thirteenth month shouldpicture worthily the contemplative proletary, especiallythe artistic, or even the scientific, who, not able to gainadmission into a priesthood of necessarily limited numbers,yet feels himself more the theorician than the practician.We shall have at times to compassionate these excep-tional types, and in all cases to respect them, in orderto turn them to good account by wisely guiding their in-stinctive tendencies. From them principally must comethe general control of the proletariate over the specialpowers, whereas the general impulse it ought to giverequires more active natures.

V.—PUBLIC WORSHIP. (3) in

Finally, the last festival of our popular month hasreference mainly to mendicit}r, temporary, or even per-manent. The best social order will never entirely precludethis extreme consequence of the imperfections inherentin practical life. So the idealisation of our social statewould be incomplete unless the priesthood closed it witha just appreciation of this exceptional existence. "Wherethere is adequate justification and worthy conduct, suchan existence may often deserve the sympathy, at timeseven the praise, of all honourable minds. More fluctuat-ing than any other, this complementary class naturallyconnects with all ranks of society, which must in turndraw from it and feed it. It thus becomes wTell qualifiedto develop the general influence of the proletariate on allthe powers of society. There would then be as greatimprovidence as injustice in not giving mendicants aseparate idealisation.

The Woman.—As for the complementary day, I under-stand, my father, why Positivism transfers to the endof our year the collective commemoration of the dead,happily introduced by Catholicism. This touching com-memoration, the insertion of which would have disturbedthe normal economy of our public worship, is its propercompletion as a whole and a natural preparation for itsannual recurrence. It was fit that the festival proper ofthe Great Being should be preceded by the glorificationof all its organs without exception.

The additional day in leap-year is equally easy. Mysex having it scarcely ever in its power to deserve anindividual and public apotheosis, the abstract worship,without degenerating into a concrete worship, was boundto pay this honour collectively to the women worthyof an individual celebration. The ideal expression ofhuman existence is thus completed by glorifying theright use of the various exceptional powers whichwoman's nature admits, when its distinctive characteris not impaired thereby.

112 V.— PUBLIC WORSHIP. (3)

The Priest,—As you haver of yourself, my daughter,satisfactorily finished the explanation of our publicworship, the first part of this Catechism is quite com-plete. We must now proceed to the study of the doctrine,which, as the worship itself, is a direct preparationfor the regime—the ultimate end of the whole Positiveinitiation.

<£econti

EXPLANATION OF THE DOCTRINE.

CONVERSATION VI.

THE DOCTRINE AS A WHOLE.

The Woman.—In our second conversation, my father,you made me know Humanity. In the three followingconversations, you have taught me the worship we oweHer. I ask you now to set before me the systematicco-ordination of the whole system of Positive doctrinearound such an unity.

The Priest.—You should, to that end, renounce firstof all, my daughter, all aspirations after an absolute,external, in one word, an objective unity; which will beeasier for you than for our professors. Such a wish, com-patible with the inquiry into causes, is in contradictionwith the study of laws, meaning by laws constant rela-tions traced in the midst of immense variety. Theseadmit only a purely relative, human, in one word, a sub-jective unity. In fact, laws are of necessity plural, byvirtue of the impossibility that notoriously exists of everreducing under the other either of the two generalelements of all our real conceptions, the world and man.Even if we succeeded in condensing each of these twogreat studies around one single law of nature, as the two

H

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must remain separate, scientific unity would still be un-attainable. Though the knowledge of the world pre-supposes man, the world could exist without man, as isperhaps the case with many stars that are not habitable.So again, man is dependent on the world, but he is nota consequence of it. All the efforts of materialists to doaway with spontaneous vital action by exaggerating thepreponderating influence of the inorganic environmenton organised beings have ended in nothing but dis-crediting the inquiry, as useless as it is idle, henceforthabandoned to the unscientific mind.

But further, it is far from being the case that objectiveunity can ever be established within the limits of eachgeneral element of the above dualism. The variousessential branches of the study of the world or of manreveal to us an increasing number of different laws, whichwill never be susceptible of being reduced the one underthe other, despite the frivolous hopes inspired at first byour planetary gravitation. Though for the most part stillunknown, and many ever to remain so, we have madeout enough of them to guarantee against all attacks thefundamental principle of the Positive doctrine, namely,the subjection of all phenomena whatsoever to invariablerelations. The all-pervading order which is the outcomeof the sum of natural laws bears the general name of fateor of chance, according as the laws are known to us orunknown. This distinction will always remain of greatpractical importance; since the ignorance of these lawsis, for our action, equivalent to their non-existence, as itprecludes all rational prevision, and so all regular inter-ference. Still we may hope to discover for each of themore important cases empirical rules which, insufficientfrom the theoretic point of view, yet suffice to keep usfrom disorderly action.

In the midst of this growing diversity, the dogma ofHumanity gives to the whole of our real conceptions theonly unity they admit, and the only bond that we need.

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To apprehend its nature and formation, we must firstdistinguish three kinds of laws, physical, intellectual,and moral. The first by their nature belong to theactive, the last to the affective sex, whilst the inter-mediate order forms the proper province of the priest-hood, which, having to reduce to system the joint actionof the two sexes, shares in unequal degree the life ofboth. This is why the two extreme studies werecultivated empirically at all times to meet the cor-responding wants, but with very different success. Infact, physical laws being, at bottom, independent ofmoral laws, men could, in regard to them, establish con-victions which, though incoherent, were firm. On thecontrary, as moral laws are necessarily dependent onphysical laws, women could, in this department, constructno impregnable system, and their efforts were onlyvaluable for their influence on the affections. I t was,then, from the physical order that sound scientific culturemust originate, on the basis of a sufficient detachmentfrom the details of action. As, however, the moral orderis the ultimate goal of all our real meditations, logicaland scientific unity was unattainable unless by someadequate connection of these two extreme domains.Now the intermediate domain can alone unite them, forit naturally connects with each. Thus it is that theconstruction of a true theoretic unity depends in thelast resort on a sufficient elaboration of the special lawsof the understanding.

The Woman.—Your conclusion seems a difficult oneto get at, yet I feel no difficulty, my father, in at onceadmitting it. My meditations on moral subjects haveoften made me feel to what an extent a knowledge ofthe laws of the intellect would be indispensable to theirpractical coherence; since the rules proper to the func-tion that judges always mingle with those of each function judged. Men, however, are naturally less sensibleof this connection in the case of the physical laws which

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engross the attention of their sex. You may pass on,then, without further preamble, to the direct expositionof these laws of the mind, on which all systematic unitydepends.

The Priest—I must at the outset, my daughter, dividethem, here as elsewhere, into statical and dynamical,according as they concern the invariable arrangementsof the object under consideration, or its inevitable varia-tions. These two correlative terms are become indis-pensable to any serious exposition of Positivism, andthrough it they will soon become popular. Not thatthey can ever have for your sex the moral attractionwhich you will shortly find in the terms objective andsubjective, the ultimate and chief destination of which isto express with pleasantest shading our best emotions.But their purely intellectual application must not stripthem of the respect due to their scientific utility. Forthe rest, these two pairs of philosophical expressions arethe only ones that I am obliged to require you to accept.

The preceding definition renders it easy for you tosee that, in any department whatever, the statical studynecessarily precedes the dynamical, which could neverbe entered on without such a preparation. It is neces-sary, in fact, to have determined the fundamental condi-tions of any existence before considering its differentsuccessive states. The ancients, who saw everywherestationariness, were completely alien to any dynamicalconceptions, even in mathematics. Whereas the incom-parable Aristotle, the eternal prince of true philosophers,even then laid down all the essential bases of the higheststatical studies, of life, of the intelligence, and of society.But, following this necessary course, the dynamical com-plement comes to be everywhere indispensable. Withoutit, the statical appreciation can never be anything butprovisional, so as to be defective as a guide to practice,where it would, if isolated, lead to serious errors, espe-cially in the more important cases.

YI.—THE DOCTRINE, ( i ) 117

The statical law of our understanding becomes, inPositivism, a simple application of the fundamental prin-ciple which in all cases subordinates man to the world.In fact, it consists in the constant subordination of oursubjective constructions to our objective materials. Thegenius of Aristotle gave its rudimentary general concep-tion in this admirable statement:—There is nothing inthe understanding that did not originally spring fromsensation. But as modern writers often pressed thisaxiom too far to the point of representing our intelli-gence as purely passive, the great Leibnitz was obligedto add an essential restriction, with the aim of formu-lating the spontaneous character of our mental disposi-tions. This explanation, which was limited in realityto the clearer development of Aristotle's maxim, wascompleted by Kant, by introducing the distinction neverto be forgotten between the objective and the subjectivereality of all human conceptions. Still, this principlewas not really systematised til] Positivism connected itin due form with the general law which, in all vitalphenomena, places every organism in constant depend-ence on its environment. For our highest spiritual func-tions, equally as for our most corporeal acts, the externalworld serves us at once for nourishment, stimulus, andcontrol. Whilst in this way the subordination of thesubjective to the objective no longer stood isolated, Posi-tive Philosophy also supplied its necessary complement,without which the statical study of the intellect couldnot have been sufficiently connected with the dynamical.It consists in recognising the fact that, in the normalstate, the subjective images are always less vivid andless clear than the objective impressions from which theyare drawn. Were it otherwise, the without could neverregulate the within.

By virtue of these two statical principles, all our con-ceptions necessarily have their origin in an uninterruptedinterchange between the world which supplies their

n S VI.—THE DOCTRINE, (i)

materials and man who shapes them. They are pro-foundly relative, both to the subject and to the object,and as these vary respectively, so necessarily are theconceptions modified. Our great merit, in the scientificpoint of view, consists in so perfecting this naturalsubordination of man to the world that our brain maybecome the faithful mirror of the external order, thefuture results of which then admit of prevision by virtueof our internal operations. But this representation can-not be, and is not required to be, absolutely exact. Thedegree of approximation is determined by our practicalwants, which give us the standard of precision desirablefor our theoretical previsions. Within this necessarylimit there is generally left for our intellect a certainliberty in speculation, which it should use to secure fullersatisfaction for its own inclinations, whether in thedirection of science or even of the fine arts, by givingto our conceptions greater regularity, greater beautyeven, but not less truth. Such, under its mental aspect,is Positivism, which, always occupied with the studyof law, holds on its way between two paths of equaldanger—mysticism which seeks to penetrate to causes,and empiricism which confines itself to facts.

The Woman.—There seems to me, my father, oneserious omission in this statical theory of man's intellect,in that it appears solely to have reference to the stateof reason properly so called, without being able to embracemadness, which yet it ought to explain not less than theother. Actual life offers daily so many intermediateshades between these two states of mind that all thesecases must obey the same great laws, with differencesonly of degree, as in the case of our bodily functions, j

The Priest.—It will be enough, my daughter, to con-sider more attentively the preceding doctrine to see thatit does really contain the true theory of madness and ofidiocy. These two opposite states are the two extremesof the normal proportion which the state of reason

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requires between objective impressions and subjectivesuggestions. Idiocy consists in the excess of objectivity,when our brain becomes too passive; and madness, inthe strict sense, in the excess of subjectivity, from undueactivity of that organ. But the mean state, which isreason, itself varies with the regular variations to whichall human existence is subject, the social no less thanthe individual. The judgment of madness thus becomesthe more delicate in that we must take into account init times and places, in short, circumstances generally,as is so well impressed on us by the admirable composi-tion of the great Cervantes. It is the case in whichwe most clearly realise to what an extent the staticalstudy of the intelligence remains inadequate without itsdynamical complement.

The Woman.—After this striking reflection, I would,my father, if you think proper, at once enter on thiscomplementary study, which alone can allow my ownmeditations to grasp at length this great spectacle as awhole. Whatever the changes in the opinions of men,they can never in any case become purely arbitrary, thoughI cannot in any way unravel their general course.

TJie Priest.—It consists, my daughter, in the passageof every theoretical conception necessarily through threesuccessive states : the first, theological, or fictitious; thesecond, metaphysical, or abstract; the third, positive, orreal. The first is always provisional, the second simplytransitional, the third alone definitive. This last differsfrom the two former, especially in its characteristic sub-stitution of the relative for the absolute, when at lengththe study of laws replaces the inquiry into causes. Thereis, at bottom, no other difference between the two others,in point of theory, than the reduction of the primitivedeities to mere entities. But as this transformation takesfrom the fictions of supernaturalism any firm consist-ence, socially above all, but also mentally, metaphysicsalways remain a mere solvent of theology, without power

I 2 O V I — T H E DOCTRINE, (i)

ever to organise their own domain. Hence this doctrineof revolt and modification has no other utility, in ouroriginal evolution, whether individual or collective, butto allow the transition from theology to Positivism tobe gradual. It is the better suited for this transitionaloffice from the circumstance that its equivocal concep-tions can alternately become, either abstract representa-tives of supernatural agents, or general expressions forthe phenomena in question, according as we are nearerthe fictions or the real state.

The Woman.—This dynamical law finds already suffi-cient confirmation in my own experience; yet I desire,my father, to get as firm hold as possible of the intellec-tual principle of this evolution.

The Priest—It is, my daughter, a consequence of thestatical law, which compels us to draw upon ourselvesfor the subjective connections of bur objective impres-sions, which otherwise would always be incoherent. Thetrue relations of things always requiring for their per-ception a difficult and gradual analysis, which I shallexplain to you, our first hypotheses were purely instinc-tive, and as such fictitious. But this general tendency,which would now be an excess of subjectivity, was at firstquite in conformity with our mental state, in which theevolution could only originate in such an initial step.A long experience, even yet inadequate for the morebackward minds, could alone unveil to us the absolutefutility of the inquiry into causes. ISTow, this uselessproblem long had for us an invincible attraction, bothin speculation and in action, as promising us the powerof always proceeding by deduction without requiring anyspecial induction, and of modifying the world at ourpleasure. Thus, the two motives which impelled theprimeval thinker coincide essentially with that whichwill always guide our intellectual efforts. I t is the same,at bottom, as regards the logical principle of this primi-tive regime. For the whole of sound logic is reducible

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to this one rule: always form the simplest hypothesiscompatible with the whole of the information possessed.Now, the thinkers of the theological period, and even ofthe fetichist, applied this rule better than the greaterpart of our modern doctors. Their object being to arriveat causes, they limited themselves to explaining the worldby man—the only possible source of theoretic unity—byattributing all phenomena to superhuman wills, it mattersnot whether in the phenomena or external to them. Sucha problem admits, by its nature, no other solution—one far superior to the misty fictions of our atheists orpantheists, whose mental state is nearer madness thanthe naive simplicity of the true fetichists. This superiorityis made most evident by the respective results. WhilstGerman ontology is at the present day retrograding toits Greek source, without inspiring any real and durablethought, the primitive theology opened to the humanmind the only path which was practicable in our primi-tive state. Though it never could lead us to the determi-nation of causes, its provisional colligation of facts led, bya natural sequence, to the discovery of laws.

This last study, at first looked on as quite secondary,soon tended to become the chief, under the impulse ofpractice which showed it to be more adapted for the pre-visions required for our activity. In strictness, the betterminds never sought the cause except when they couldnot find the law; and no blame can attach to the coursethey adopted, as more fitted than any torpor of the in-tellect to pave the way for this ultimate attainment.Our intelligence has even such a preference for Positiveconceptions, especially on the ground of their superiorpractical value, that it often exerted itself to substitutethem for the fictions of theology, long before the prepa-ration required had been duly made. The end of ourmental evolution is consequently still less uncertain thanits opening phase.

The Woman. —This explanation of your Law of the three

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states leaves me, my father, much in a mist, as regardsthe numerous cases in which the human mind seems tome at one and the same time, theological, metaphysical,and positive, according to the questions on which it isengaged. If unexplained, this co-existence would com-promise directly your dynamical law, which, however,appears to me indisputable. Free me, I beg, from thisperplexity.

The Priest.—It will disappear, my daughter, if you willobserve the unvarying order which directs the simul-taneous advance of our different theoretical conceptionsaccording to the decreasing generality and increasingcomplication of the phenomena with which they deal.Hence results a complementary law, without which thedynamical study of the human understanding wouldcontinue obscure, and even almost inapplicable. It iseasy for you to understand that, more general phenomenabeing necessarily more simple, the speculations whichconcern them must be easier and their progress thereforemore rapid. This gradation, which is verified even inthe different phases of theologism, is especially true inthe Positive state, owing to the laborious preparations itrequires. Thus it is that certain theories remain meta-physical, whilst others of a simpler nature have alreadybecome Positive, though more complicated ones stillremain theological. But never do you meet with thereverse—a full and sufficient answer to the objectionsarising from their disparity at any one time.

The natural order which I have just indicated as exist-ing between our different conceptions, and from which Ishall deduce the true encyclopedic scale, alone allows athorough understanding of their general advance. Itfounds the Positive logic, by revealing to us the con-nection in which our different theoretical studies mustfollow one another if they are to issue into any per-manent construction. Though each class of phenomenahas always its proper laws, which presuppose special

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inductions, these last could hardly ever be of real valuewere it not for the deductions supplied by the previousknowledge of simpler laws. This subjective subordinationis a result of the objective dependence of less generalphenomena on all those which are more general. So theunbroken order of our studies, rising ever from the worldto man, is not only justified by the logical training forwhich simpler speculations are more adapted; it restsalso on the dependence scientifically of the higher theorieson the lower, a consequence of the subordination of theirrespective phenomena.

The Woman.—You have now, my father, made clearto me the laws of the intellect, dynamical as well asstatical; but I do not as yet see springing from themthe construction I looked for in respect to the wholesystem of Positive doctrine. I want, then, to see directlyhow Humanity, as an all-pervading principle, can atlength establish, by virtue of these laws, a real specu-lative unity, by connecting the moral with the physicallaws.

The Priest.—Your legitimate wish, my daughter, willbe satisfied by considering from a new general point ofview the complementary law of the intellectual move-ment which I have just stated. So conceived, it ischiefly subjective, as must be the law which it supports.But you are aware also that this classification admits byits own force of an objective application, in determiningthe general interdependence of the several phenomena.Under this new light its destination becomes statical inthe main, and serves to characterise, not the co-existenceof our several intellectual advances, but the fundamentalorder which governs all events whatsoever. Then thelaw of classification is found to be entirely distmct fromthat of filiation, though the simultaneous discovery ofthe two is sufficiently explained by their close connection.

Before I set out to you this great theoretical hier-archy, I must limit with sufficient accuracy its general

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sphere. This follows, in reality, from the true philo-sophical distinction between speculation and action.Whilst action of necessity remains special, true theory isalways general. But it never acquires its characteristicgenerality except by the aid of a previous abstraction,which more or less impairs the reality of its conceptions.Whatever be the dangers in practice of this impairment,we must resign ourselves to it to attain the coherencewhich can only be secured by the absolute universalityof theoretic laws. It is a true maxim of common sensethat every rule has its exceptions. Still, our intellectthroughout needs to find ultimately rules which neverfail, in order to avoid indefinite vacillation.

The only way of attaining this is to break up, as faras possible, the study of beings, generally the only directstudy, into the study of the several general eventswhich compose the existence of each. Thus we obtainabstract laws, the different combinations of which thenexplain each concrete existence. Though very numerousin themselves, these irreducible laws, on which rests allour speculative wisdom, are much less numerous thanthe special rules which depend on them. These last,putting aside their number, will, from their naturalcomplication, always defy all our best efforts eitherinductive or deductive. But on the other hand, to knowthem would be practically useless, except in the rare casesin which they really influence our destiny. For theseexceptional cases, practical genius, become the only com-petent authority, can always find empirical rules suf-ficient for our guidance, by availing itself wisely of thegeneral indications furnished by the speculative genius.For the regularity of the compound events, if not soeasy to see as the regularity of their constituent generalelements, is a necessary consequence of it, so that ob-servation will detect it if directed on the point for asufficient length of time.

For instance, we shall never know the general laws of

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the variations peculiar to the normal constitution of theatmosphere. Yet the sailor and the agriculturist knowhow, from. their observations of the locality or theweather, to draw special rules, which, though empirical,supersede in the main the so-called science of meteorology.I t is the same with all the other concrete studies, geo-logical, zoological, and even sociological. Whatever liesbeyond the grasp of practical genius will always remainan idle question. True science, then, is necessarilyabstract. Its general laws, relating to the few categoriesunder which all observable phenomena may be brought,are sufficient always to demonstrate the existence of con-crete laws, though most of these last neither can norought to be ever known, except for practical purposes.

The Woman.—I catch a glimpse, my father, of thegreat simplification introduced into your philosophicalconstruction by this fundamental analysis which bringsthe study of beings under that of events. But I amfrightened at the constant abstraction required by such ascientific regime, though, fortunately, I am exempt fromit. Its institution seems to me even beyond the powerof our intellect, if all orders of phenomena are to bedirectly studied in the Great Being which alone presentsthem to us in their entirety.

The Priest.—For your comfort, my daughter, all thatis required is to consider under a new aspect the generalprinciple of the abstract hierarchy. Though directly itestablishes only the subordination of events, indirectly itshould also lead to that of beings. For phenomena areonly more general in so far as they belong to more nume-rous existences. The simplest of all, though existingeverywhere, must then be found in beings which offerus no other, and where, therefore, the study of them inthemselves becomes more accessible. In strict truth, thesecond step in science will never be separated from thefirst; this it is, more even than the nature of the pheno-mena, which constitutes the increase in complication.

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But whatever be these successive accumulations, eachfresh category of events may be studied in beings inde-pendent of the succeeding categories, though dependenton the preceding, the previous knowledge of which willallow us to concentrate attention on the new class. Evensupposing the beings not always distinct, the Positivemethod will keep its main efficacy if they are seen indifferent states, and this condition cannot fail, by thenature of such a classification. Thus, the scientific hier-archy that I am going to set before you, though itsoriginal purpose was to furnish a scale of phenomena,necessarily constitutes the true scale of beings, or, at anyrate, of existences. It becomes by turns abstract or con-crete, according as its purpose is subjective or objective.This is why the encyclopedic subordination of the artsessentially coincides with that of the sciences.

The Woman.—Before you proceed, my father, to theexposition of this hierarchy, of which I begin to seethe general principle, I beg you to explain to me thecourse we are to follow. To cement the fundamentalunion between the world and man, it would seem that itmight start equally from either whilst making for theother. Its habitual use seems even to require that itshould be apt, as every other scale, to become indifferentlyan ascending or descending one. But I do not knowwhether these two paths are suited to its construction.

The Priest.—The regular concurrence of these twomethods, the one objective, the other subjective, is asnecessary, my daughter, for the formation as for theapplication of the hierarchy of science. Its spontaneouselaboration depended on the first; but its systematicinstitution required the second. The initiation of eachindividual must in this, as in every other importantpoint, essentially reproduce the evolution of the race, onlyfor the future we shall do consciously what was formerlydone blindly. The combination of these two methodsalone allows us to secure the advantages of both and

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neutralise their dangers. To ascend from the world toman, without having first descended from man to theworld, exposes us to the excessive cultivation of the lowerstudies, whilst losing sight of their true scientific destina-tion, so as to waste our scientific efforts on academictrifling, as adverse to the intellect as to the heart. Con-nection and dignity are then sacrificed to reality andclearness. Still this was the course necessarily adoptedby abstract Positivism, during the long scientific intro-duction which extends from Thales and Pythagoras toBichat and Gall, in order to elaborate in succession thematerials of the ultimate systematisation. The higherwants of our intellect then received their satisfaction,and that an imperfect one, only from the heterogeneousguardianship still vested in the theologico-metaphysicalspirit. But at the present day, when the universalprinciple of the definitive synthesis is irreversibly estab-lished as a result of this immense preparatory movement,the subjective method, become at last as Positive as theobjective, must take the direct initiative in forming theencyclopedia. I t alone can properly originate the con-struction which the other will then be able worthily towork out. This rule is as applicable to each greatscientific inquiry as to the whole system of the sciences.

The Woman.—You see me then ready, my father, toadopt fully the religious sanction given by the dogma ofHumanity to all the essential portions of abstract sciencein succession, strengthening the highest and ennoblingthe lowest through the connection of all with it.

The Priest—The better to define such a synthesis, youshould, my daughter, recall at the outset the persistentaim of human life, the preservation and perfecting of theGreat Being whom we must at once love, know, andserve. Each of his own spontaneous action dischargesthese three offices, which religion systematises by theworship, the doctrine, and the life. Though the philo-sophical construction is then necessarily prior to the

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two others, it is, at bottom, only destined to consolidatethem and to develop them. In itself, the direct study ofHumanity may degenerate as much as the lower sciences,if we forget that we are to know her only to love hermore and serve her better. When attention to themeans makes us mistake or neglect the end, the philo-sophical advance has really less to recommend it thanthe natural development of ordinary men.

Thus you see why, at the top of the encyclopedicscale, I place MORALS, or the science of the individualman. Since the Great Being never operates but throughorgans which are in the last instance individual, theseorgans must first be studied with special care, in orderthat their service may be properly rendered during theperiod of their objective existence, on which will de-pend their subjective influence. I t is thus that Posi-tivism definitely ratifies the primary precept of theinitial theocracy: Jmow tJiyself, to better thyself. In itthe intellectual principle and the social motive act inconcert. As a fact, the most useful of all the sciencesis also the most complete, or rather the only one whichis complete; since its phenomena subjectively embraceall the other, though, by that very fact, they are objec-tively subordinate to them. The fundamental principleof the scientific hierarchy gives then a direct predomi-nance to the moral point of view as the most complicatedand the most special.

But at this point the philosophical conformity ofPositivism with theologism necessarily ceases. Thelatter, always occupied with causes, placed the study ofmorals under the immediate control of the supernaturalprinciples by which it explained everything. Thus evok-ing purely internal observation, it gave a sanction to thepersonality of an existence which, bringing each intodirect connection with an infinite power, isolated himentirely from Humanity. Positivism, on the contrary,only seeking the law in order the better to guide the

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activity, always in its essence social, bases moral sciencefar more on the observation of others than of oneself, inorder to establish conceptions at once real and useful.Then we feel how impossible it is properly to enter onsuch a study without a previous study of society. Inall respects, each of us depends entirely on Humanity,especially with regard to our noblest functions, alwaysdependent on the time and place in which we live; asyou are reminded by these fine verses in Zaire—

J'eusse ete, pres du Gange, esclave des faux dieux,Chr^tienne dans Paris, Musulmane en ces lieux.

—Act i. sc. 1.I had been, by the Ganges, the slave of false gods,Christian in Paris, Musulman where I am.

Thus it is that morals, regarded as our chief science,begins by instituting SOCIOLOGY, the phenomena of whichare both simpler and more general, in accordance withthe spirit of the whole Positive hierarchy.

The Woman.—Allow me, my father, to detain you amoment on this first step, to resolve the contradictionit seems to offer between these two conditions of yourclassification. For here the complication seems togrow, exceptionally, with the generality. I have alwaysthought the moral point of view simpler than thesocial one.

TJie Priest—That is solely, my daughter, because youhave hitherto proceeded on feeling rather than on reason ;morals being justly for your sex an art rather thana science. If we had to compare the number of cases,you would see that the number of individuals is greaterthan that of nations, which absorbs your attention. Butlimiting ourselves to its native complication, you for-get that moral science, besides all the influences takeninto account by social science, must also appreciate im-pulses which social science may set aside as almostinappreciable. I mean the strong mutual influenceswhich are in constant action, in obedience to laws as yet

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too little known, between the physical and moral natureof man. Though very powerful for the individual,sociology pays no particular attention to them, becausetheir conflicting results in different individuals cancelone another in regard to nations. On the contrary, anymoral judgment which should neglect them would exposeus to the most serious mistakes, from attributing to thesoul what proceeds from the body, or the reverse, as yousee every day.

The Wonian.—I now understand, my father, whatmade me stop you at the outset of your hierarchicalseries, which I now beg you to follow out to the end,fearing no fresh interruption, which would prevent mymastering the general filiation.

The Priest.—Your objection, my daughter, is in itselfa very natural one, and it answers the purpose here ofbringing into greater prominence our first step in theencyclopedia, the indispensable type of all the others,which will be more easily taken in consequence, as inthe case of any scale whatever. I hope that you willdescend without effort from one science to the next,under the same impulsion as that which has just led youfrom morals to sociology, looking always to the naturalsubordination of the respective phenomena.

This fundamental principle makes you feel at oncethat the systematic study of society requires a previousknowledge of the general laws of life. Indeed, as nationsare beings gifted in an eminent degree with life, the vitalorder necessarily governs the social, the statical conditionof which and its dynamical progress would be deeplychanged were the constitution of our brain, or even ofour body, to change in a notable degree. In this case,the simultaneous increase of generality and simplicityadmits of no doubt. Thus it is that sociology, firstconstituted by morals, constitutes in its turn BIOLOGY,which has, moreover, its direct relations with the masterscience. Biology having to study life only in what it

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presents in common in all the beings which enjoy it,animals and plants form its proper province, though itis ultimately destined for man, whose true study, how-ever, it can only sketch in rude outline. Thus regarded,biology examines judiciously the bodily functions by th£light derived from the study of those existences in whichthey are naturally clear of all higher complication.When this logical direction of biology exposes it toacademic degeneracy by laying too much stress oninsignificant beings or acts, the discipline of philosophymust recall it to its true vocation, without ever fetteringthe method indispensable to its inquiries.

These first three sciences are so closely connected thatI make the name of the middle one stand for the wholein the encyclopedic table which I have arranged {TableB.) to render easier for you a general estimate of thePositive hierarchy. For sociology may be easily regardedas absorbing biology by way of introduction, and moralsas conclusion. When the word Anthropology shall be inmore common and sounder use, it will become preferableas the collective term, since its literal meaning is theStudy of man. But for a long time it will be desirableto use here the term Sociology, in order to mark moreclearly the principal superiority of the new intellectualregime, which consists most particularly in the introduc-tion into our encyclopedia of the social point of view,alien in the main to the earlier synthesis.

Living beings are of necessity bodies, which, despitetheir greater complication, always obey the more generallaws of matter, the invariable predominance of whichpresides over all their peculiar phenomena, always, how-ever, leaving them their spontaneity. A third step inour encyclopedia, in full analogy with the preceding ones,places, then, biology, and consequently sociology andmorals, in dependence on the great inorganic sciencewhich I have called COSMOLOGY. Its true domain is thegeneral study of man's planet, the necessary environment

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of all the higher functions, vital, social, and moral. Abetter name would then be Geology, for this conveys therequired meaning directly. But academical anarchy hasso spoilt this term that Positivism must renounce itsuse, until we eliminate, as we soon shall, the would-bescience which has been decorated with it. Then weshall be able better to conform to the laws of language,and apply to the whole of the inorganic sciences a moreexact denomination, the concrete nature of which is evenmore calculated to remind us that we need to study eachexistence in its least complicated form.

This would be the limit of my encyclopedic operation,without any decomposition of cosmology, had I only inview the final state of man's reason, which will be boundto contract the inferior sciences and expand the higher.But at present I must also provide for the special wantsof the initiation of the West, the essential equivalent ofwhich will always recur in the evolution of each indi-vidual. These two reasons compel me to divide cosmo-logy into two equally fundamental sciences, one of which,under the general name of PHYSICS, studies directly thewhole material order. The other, simpler and moregeneral, justly termed MATHEMATICS, is the necessarybasis of physics, and as such of the whole scientificedifice, as treating of the most universal form of exist-ence, reduced to the only phenomena which recur every-where. Without this division, we could not understandthe spontaneous advance of the Positive philosophy,which could only begin by such a study, the more rapidcompletion of which caused it at first to be consideredas the only science. Although its name reminds us toostrongly of this original privilege, which has long dis-appeared, it should be kept till such time as the naturalsuperiority of this type of scientific and logical studyhas duly controlled the general progress of the encyclo-pedic laws. Then a less vague and better constructedname may demarcate the true domain of the science,

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acting as a systematic check on the blind scientificambition of its too exclusive professors.

Be this as it may, you should feel the necessity ofdescending as far as mathematics to find a natural basisfor the encyclopedic scale—a basis able to make thewhole system only the gradual development of the goodsense of mankind. In fact, physics themselves, farsimpler than the other sciences, are yet not simpleenough. Their special inductions cannot be reduced tosystem without the aid of more general deductions, as inevery other case; only in physics this logical and scien-tific want forces itself less on the attention. It is onlyin mathematics that you can use induction withoutprevious deduction, such is the extreme simplicity ofits domain, where induction often escapes notice; somuch so, that our academic geometricians only see in itdeductions, which are consequently unintelligible, as rest-ing on nothing. There can exist nowhere convictionsreally proof against attacks except those that are basedultimately on this eternal foundation of all Positivephilosophy. Such will always be the necessary termina-tion of the subjective connection, guided by which everyman of intellectual ability and honest heart will at anytime be able, as I have just done, to form the funda-mental series of the five principal encyclopedic steps.

The Woman.—It is to this reaction of feeling uponthe intellect that I attribute, my father, the ease I findin following such a construction, so dreaded by me atthe outset. With its attention constantly riveted onmorals, the only solid basis of its legitimate influence,my sex will always set a high value on securing it atlength systematic foundations, capable of resisting thesophisms of bad passions. At present more than ever, weare alarmed as we contemplate the moral ravages alreadycaused by the intellectual anarchy, which threatens atno distant period to dissolve all the bonds which bindmen together, unless irresistible convictions at length

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prevent its unchecked ascendency. True philosophersmay therefore count on the secret co-operation and heart-felt gratitude of all women worthy of the name, whenthey reconstruct morals on Positive foundations, as a finalsubstitute for its supernatural bases, too evidently wornout. Women who shall feel, as I do now, the necessityof descending with this object to the most abstractsciences, will know how to appreciate duly this un-expected help that reason at length steps forward togive to love. I thus understand why the encyclopedictable which I am going to study proceeds in an inversedirection to that of the exposition which it summarises.For we must become most familiar with this ascendingorder, according to which the several Positive conceptionswill always develop. By instituting it as you have justdone, you have obviated the chief repugnance womennaturally feel for too abstract a course, which hithertothey have seen lead so often to dryness and pride. Nowthat I can always keep in sight and recall the moral aimof the whole scientific elaboration, and the conditionspeculiar to each of its essential phases, I shall have asmuch satisfaction in ascending as in descending yourencyclopedic scale.

The Priest.—This alternation will become easier toyou, my daughter, if you remark that, in both direc-tions, the method may rest on the same principle, in allcases following the decrease of generality. All that thisrequires is to refer the fundamental series at one time tothe phenomena themselves, at another to our own concep-tions, according as it is to be used objectively or subject-ively. In truth, moral notions necessarily comprehendall the others, which we draw from them by successiveabstractions. It is in this above all that consists theirgreater complication. The science of morals, then, hasmore subjective generality than all the lower sciences.Inversely, the phenomena of mathematics are the mostgeneral solely as being the most simple. Their study,

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then, offers more objective but less subjective generalitythan any other. Alone applicable to every form ofexistence within our ken, it is also the science whichgives us least knowledge of the beings with whichit deals, for it can only reveal their commonest laws.All the intermediate sciences present, in less degree, thistwofold contrast which exists between mathematics andmorals.

But whether you ascend or descend, the encyclopediccourse always represents morals as the supreme science,since it is at once the most useful and the most complete.It is there that theory, having lost by degrees the ab-straction of its beginnings, forms a systematic unionwith practice, after completing all that was indispensableas preparation. And therefore the wisdom of mankind,systematised by Positivism, will always insist on respect-ing the admirable equivocal designation, so regretted byour pedants, which, in morals alone, fuses the art andthe science in one appellation.

In this apparent confusion moral science happily findsan equivalent for the discipline which, in all the others,anticipates or corrects the scientific aberrations attendanton our upward course of intellectual culture. In fact,the general rule is to restrict each phase of the encyclo-pedic scale to the degree in which it is necessary as apreparation for the next above i t ; reserving, be it re-membered, for practical genius the more detailed studieswhich it may judge suitable in any particular case.Despite the declamations of academicians, we now knowthat such a discipline sanctions all theories of real in-terest, excluding only scientific puerilities, of which, atthe present day, the combined needs of the intellect andthe heart demand the suppression. Now, this rule, sovaluable everywhere else, fails of necessity for the sciencewhich stands at the top of the encyclopedic scale.

Were moral theories as much cultivated as the rest,their greater complication, in this special absence of dis-

I36 VI.—THE DOCTRINE, (i)

cipline, would expose them to more frequent and moredangerous aberrations. But the heart then offers a betterguidance to the intellect, by recalling more forcibly theuniversal subordination of theory to practice, by virtue ofa happy ambiguity of designation. Philosophers ought,in fact, to bring the same dispositions as women to thestudy of morals, in order to draw from them the rulesof our conduct. Only, their deductive science gives agenerality and consistence to the inductions of womenwhich they could not get otherwise, and which yet arealmost always indispensable to secure the social, or evenprivate, efficacy of the precepts of morality.

The Woman.—The true regime of the intellect beingthus constituted, I ask you, my father, to close this longand difficult conversation by delineating generally theproperties of your encyclopedic series, viewed for thefuture as an ascending series, with which I shall soon befamiliar. I see without your aid the intellectual andmoral dangers inherent in this objective culture, so longas it remained unprovided with the subjective disciplinejust explained. Then the unavoidable succession of theseveral encyclopedic phases compelled the scientific in-tellect provisionally to adopt a system of dispersivespecialism, directly counter to the full generality whichshould characterise theoretical views. Hence naturallyfollowed, more especially in the learned, and as a con-sequence even in the public, an increasing tendency onthe one hand to materialism and atheism, on the other tothe slighting of the softer affections and the neglect of thefine arts. I have long been aware how greatly, under allthese aspects, true Positivism, far from offering any realsolidarity with its scientific preamble, is on the contraryits best corrective. But I cannot by myself alone appre-hend the essential attributes which I am now to appre-ciate in the whole system of your theoretical hierarchy.

The Priest.—Reduce them, my daughter, to two chiefones, which correspond to its two general objects, equally

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subjective and objective, or here rather, logical andscientific, according as the attention is directed mainlyto the method or the doctrine.

Under the first aspect, the encyclopedic series pointsout at once the necessary course of scientific educationand the gradual development of true reasoning. Mainlydeductive in its cradle in mathematics, where the re-quisite inductions are almost always spontaneous, thePositive method becomes more and more inductive inproportion as it enters on speculations of a higher order.In this long elaboration, we must distinguish four capitaldivisions, in which the growing complication of thephenomena makes us successively develop observation,experiment, comparison, and historical filiation. Eachof these five logical phases, including the mathematicalstarting-point, spontaneously absorbs all its predecessors,as a consequence of the natural subordination of theirrespective phenomena. Sound logic thus becomes com-plete, and as such systematic, as soon as the definitivefoundation of sociology gives rise to the historical method,as biology had previously introduced the art of com-parison, after that physics had sufficiently developedobservation and experiment.

Fortunately for your sex, its ignorance relieves it atpresent from the philosophical demonstrations by whichPositivism labours to convince men that to learn reason-ing the only way is to reason, with certainty and pre-cision, on clear and definite cases. Those who are mostaware that every art should be learnt by practice alone,still listen to the sophists who teach them to reason, oreven to speak, by only reasoning or speaking on reason-ing or speech. But although you were taught grammarand perhaps rhetoric, at least you were spared logic, themost pretentious of the three scholastic studies. Bybeing spared it, your own reason, judiciously trainedunder your cherished Molikre, soon did justice to thetwo other classical absurdities. Strengthened now by

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systematic convictions, you will not hesitate to treat withjust ridicule the Trissotins who would teach you the artof deduction, without having themselves ever made theleast use of it in mathematics. Each essential branch ofthe Positive method must always be studied especiallyin the department of science which first gave it birth.

The Woman.—This first judgment having3 fortunately,no difficulty for me, as I see in it simple good sense, Ibeg you, my father, to pass at once to the second generalproperty of your encyclopedic series.

The Priest.—It consists, my daughter, in the syste-matic conception of the universal order, as is indicatedby the second title of our conspectus. From the materialto the moral order, each order is superposed on its pre-decessor, in obedience to this fundamental law, thenecessary consequence of the true principle of any hier-archy : The noblest phenomena are, in all cases, subordi-nate to the lowest This is the only rule of reallyuniversal application discoverable by the objective studyof the world and man. As it cannot in any way super-sede the necessity of less general laws, it cannot by itselfever constitute the barren external unity vainly soughtby all philosophers, from Thales to Descartes.

But, whilst renouncing this futile stimulus, which findsa more valuable substitute in the moral destination ofall our scientific efforts, we are glad to trace, between allour abstract doctrines, an objective connection inseparablefrom their subjective co-ordination. Social action aboveall must turn to account such a view of the sum of realfatalities. Our dependence and our dignity becomingthus inter-connected, we shall be better disposed to feelthe value of voluntary submission, on which dependsmainly our moral, and even our intellectual improvement.

Observe, in fact, to give completeness to this greatlaw, that, from the practical point of view, it representsthe order of nature as increasingly susceptible of modi-fication in proportion as it governs more complicated

VI.—THE DOCTRINE, (i) 139

phenomena. Improvement always implies imperfection,which everywhere increases with complication. But yousee also that man's providence then becomes more efficient,as having more varied agents at its command. Suchcompensation is still, doubtless, inadequate; so that thesimplest order generally remains the most perfect, thoughunder a blind government. Still, this general law ofmodifiability makes morals the chief art in two ways,first for its superior importance, next because it offersa larger field for our wise action. Practice and theorythen combine to justify more and more the predominancewhich Positivism systematically allows to morals.

The Woman.—Since you have now explained to mesufficiently the Positive doctrine as a whole, I wouldwish, my father, before leaving you to-day, to know be-forehand the proper object of the two other conversationsyou promised me on this second part of your Catechism.I do not see, in fact, what is left for me to know asregards this systematic basis of the Universal Religion,in order to fit me to pass to the direct and special studyof the life, which is finally to engage my attention.

The Priest.—The foregoing conceptions, my daughter,are too abstract and too general to leave a sufficient im-pression if not completed by some less general explana-tions of a more definite character, of which too I shallmake frequent use. Without detaining you at eachparticular phase of the encyclopedia, as will be the casein the new Western education, I simply ask you toappreciate separately the two unequal parts which his-torically make up the whole Positive philosophy.

This natural division consists in dividing the universalorder into external and human. The first, answering tocosmology and biology, formed, under the name of naturalphilosophy—a term ordinarily adopted in England—thesole scientific domain of antiquity, and even this it couldonly treat statically and in outline. Besides that the truescientific spirit did not admit then of a more complete

140 VII. — THE DOCTRINE. (2)

upward growth, the state of society was naturally adverseto a premature extension, which could for long end onlyin compromising the existing order without really aidingulterior progress. Only, the exceptional genius of Aris-totle, after reducing to a system, as far as was possible,natural philosophy, prepared the way for a sound moralphilosophy, by an adequate, if inchoate, treatment of thetwo essential parts of human statics—first collective, thenindividual. And therefore he was not really appreciatedtill the Middle Ages, when the provisional separation ofthe two powers led to the direct advance of our most im-portant speculations. But this precious social impulsioncould not relieve the true philosophic spirit from the longscientific preamble which still separated it from its highestdomain. Hence this provisional division lasted on to ourown day. It must therefore preside over the last tran-sition of the Western reason, directed by Positivism.

CONVERSATION VII.

THE EXTERNAL ORDER, FIRST INORGANIC, THEN VITAL.

The Woman.—By studying the table which sum-marizes our fundamental conversation, I understand, myfather, the necessity for the two others on the Positivedoctrine which you promised me at its close. My heartmust first make me feel the need of each encyclopedicphase for the moral systematisation which is the grandobject of this immense scientific construction. It is neces-sary now that my intellect should see how the separatestages of this abstract edifice succeed one another, fromthe base to the summit, without, however, penetratinginto their interior. This systematic ascent becomes theindispensable complement of the descent which serves asits foundation and which I raade under your guidance.

VIL—THE DOCTRINE. (2) 141

If the mind of man can really mount, by an almostinsensible progression, from the lowest mathematicalnotions to the sublimest moral conceptions, it will be forme the most admirable of all sights. Though my sexnever can follow such a filiation in its details, it shouldat the present day grasp its feasibility in the general, inorder to be sure that systematic morals can thus berested on really safe foundations. Then the opinion ofwomen will brand, as you wish, the anarchical sophistswho, though theological belief is absolutely decayed,oppose the advent of the Positive faith, in order to pro-long indefinitely a religious interregnum which favourstheir unworthiness and their incapacity. Fear not thento fix my attention first on the mathematical step, whereis found, according to you, the only solid base for thebody of scientific theories. The marked aversion thisstudy arouses in all our metaphysical make-mischiefspredisposes me to feel the organic power you attributeto it.

The Priest.—To get a clear conception of this logicaland scientific base of the whole abstract edifice, it isenough for you, my daughter, to estimate aright thegeneral domain assigned it in our encyclopedic table.Mathematics study directly universal existence, reducedto its simplest, and consequently lowest phenomena, onwhich necessarily rest all other real attributes. Thesefundamental properties of any being whatever arenumber, extension, and movement. Whatever cannotbe considered under these three points of view can haveno existence except in our understanding. But natureshows us many beings of whom we can know nothingbeyond these elementary attributes. Such are in especialthe stars, which, being from their distance only accessibleto investigation by the sight, admit only of this mathe-matical study, quite sufficient, it must be allowed, toregulate duly our true relations towards them. Soastronomy will always furnish us the most direct and

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complete application of mathematical science. Still, ifthe generallaws of number, extension, and motion, couldhave been studied nowhere but in these heavenly bodies,they would for ever have escaped us, despite theirextreme simplicity. But, as they recur everywhere,they were open to discovery in more accessible cases,after putting aside, by unconscious abstractions, theother material attributes which then complicated theirexamination.

Observe even here how our hierarchical principle pre-sides over the true internal distribution of each greatscience, as naturally as over the general co-ordination ofthe sciences. For, these three ultimate elements ofmathematics, the calculus, geometry, and mechanics,form, from the historical no less than the dogmaticpoint of view, a progression essentially analogous tothat which is seen more palpably in the whole of theabstract system. The ideas of number are certainlymore universal and simpler than those even of exten-sion, and these, on the same ground, in their turn,precede those of motion.

In the case of most of the stars, our real knowledge islimited ultimately to accurate enumeration, without ourbeing able even to say what their shape or size is, norare we much concerned with them. Numbers are as ap-plicable to phenomena as to beings. This point of view,which draws no distinctions, is, at bottom, the only oneuniversally applicable, as alone extending to all ourthoughts whatsoever. Its native roughness does notpreclude a noble use, that of perfecting in all directionsharmony and stability, the best types of which it origi-nates for us. So you see children of themselves begintheir initiation in abstract thought by purely nume-rical speculations, long before they come to think ongeometrical properties.

As for motion, you easily see the increase of complica-tion and the decrease of generality which place its study

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highest in the domain of mathematics. This is why theGreeks, forward as they were in geometry, could onlyattain a rudimentary grasp of mechanics in some casesof equilibrium, never having a glimpse of the elementarylaws of motion.

Comparing these three essential parts of mathematics,we see that the calculus, of which algebra rather thanarithmetic is the principal development, subserves mainlya logical purpose, over and above its peculiar and directutility. Its essential province is to enlarge to theutmost our powers of deduction. The study of exten-sion and that of motion acquire through it a generalityand coherence which they could not have unless alltheir problems were transformed into mere questionsof number. But, from the scientific point of view,geometry and mechanics are the main constituents ofmathematics; for they alone establish directly thetheory of universal existence, passive first, then active.

Mechanics thus take a very important encyclopedicposition, as the necessary transition between mathematicsand physics, the characteristics of which severally are inclose combination in mechanics. In them the wholelogical ordering does not seem purely deductive, as it issupposed to be in geometry, owing to the extreme facilityof the required inductions. In mechanics we begin tofeel distinctly the need of an inductive basis, alreadybecome difficult to trace amongst our concrete observa-tions, in order to allow the free growth of the abstractconceptions which are to connect with it the general pro-blem of the composition and communication of motion.It was mainly owing to the want of such external founda-tion that the science of mechanics could not be developedtill the seventeenth century.

Up to that time the mathematical spirit had onlybrought out subjective laws, alone perceptible in geometryand the calculus, in thinkers who did not as yet com-prehend their necessary connection with objective laws.

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But these last became distinct objects of cognizance fromthe great difficulty they presented to the founders ofmechanics. The three fundamental laws of motion areso important and so universal that I must state them toyou here, as the best types of true laws of nature—simplegeneral facts allowing of no explanation, but, on the con-trary, serving as a basis for all rational explanations.Though the metaphysical regime greatly hindered theirdiscovery, it was most delayed by its own inherent diffi-culty. For it was the first capital effort of the genius ofinduction, discerning at length, in the midst of the com-monest events, general relations which had hithertoescaped all the efforts of man's intellectual activity.

The first law, discovered by Kepler, consists in this,that motion is naturally rectilinear and uniform. Hencecurvilinear or any motion which is not uniform can onlyresult from a continuous composition of successive impul-sions—impulsions again either active or passive. Thesecond law, due to Galileo, proclaims the independenceof the inter-connected movements of a plurality of bodiesas regards any common movement of the system theyform. But this community of movement must be com-plete, in velocity no less than in direction. Only on thiscondition do the particular bodies remain in the samerelative state of rest or motion as if the system weremotionless. So this second law is not applicable torotatory movements, from which in fact came the un-tenable objections which met its discovery. Lastly, thethird law of motion, that of Xewton, consists in theconstant equality between reaction and action, in everymechanical collision; provided that, in measuring eachchange, proper regard be paid to the mass as well as tothe velocity. This law is the proper basis of all notionsrelating to the communication of motion, as that ofGalileo governs all those that concern its composition,that of Kepler having throughout determined, to beginwith, the nature of each movement. These three laws

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together suffice for the general problem of mechanics to beapproached deductively, by bringing gradually the morecomplicated cases under the more simple, by mathematicalartifices often difficult to invent in particular cases.

These general laws will be of direct use to you inexplaining numbers of phenomena of daily occurrence,in the midst of which you live without understanding,or even perceiving them. They are eminently fitted tomake you feel what it is that constitutes the truescientific genius. Finally, you should observe how eachof them naturally comes under a law common to allphenomena whatever, social and moral quite as much assimply material phenomena. The first connects with thelaw of persistence which reigns everywhere; the secondwith the law which recognises the independence of theaction of the part as regards the conditions common tothe whole, whence, in social questions, is derived the re-concilement of progress with order. As for the third, itat once admits of an universal application, which nevervaries save so far as concerns the measure of the severalinfluences. This philosophical comparison completes ourestimate of the importance, from the encyclopedic pointof view, attaching to the extreme limit of the domainof mathematics.

The Woman.—Though these considerations by theirabstractness and novelty are naturally, my father, beyondmy grasp to-day, I feel that, on sufficient reflection, Ishall be able to master them. I beg you then to passat once to the direct study of the material order.

The Priest.—To place it on its proper philosophicalfooting I am compelled, my daughter, to require of youone last encyclopedic effort, that of decomposing thesecond cosmological science, which in its collective formI called Physics, into three great and really distinctsciences. They are, in the ascending order, now becomingfamiliar to you, first, Astronomy, next, Physics properlyso called which keeps the common name, lastly, Chemistry,

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as you may find from the secondary division in ourtable. So, the hierarchy of science has finally to offeryou seven encyclopedic degrees, in place of the five youhave hitherto recognised. We pass from one form tothe other by simply drawing out more fully the secondof the five original degrees, as you lengthen a pockettelescope by drawing out its tube. It is only when youcome to apply them that you will see which arrange-ment you should prefer in each case.

In fact, this fundamental series allows of severaldifferent arangements, according as you contract it orexpand it, the better to satisfy our different intellectualwants, never inverting the order of succession. Its mostcondensed form is as clearly indicated in our table asthe most expanded. When further advanced, you willoften reduce the whole encyclopedic bundle to the simpledualism, cosmology and sociology; to do which at theoutset would expose you to vagueness. But you willnever contract it more, so evidently impossible is it toreduce objectively one under the other two primarygroups, which can only be united by the subjective con-ception of them, when we place ourselves directly at thetrue religious point of view.

After having, by the help of very familiar language,pointed out to you this expansion of the encyclopedia, Iam especially bound to give reasons for it, by explainingits nature.

The Woman.—From the slight knowledge I have, fromhearsay, of the three sciences you have just introduced,I guess, my father, why you intercalate them here. Fortheir introduction anticipates a wish I was on the pointof laying before you, as to the continuity of the ency-clopedic series. When comparing, in this respect, thelower and higher sciences, our primitive scale of fivedegrees offered me a serious disparity. I understandwithout effort, by the simple connection of the pheno-mena, how we rise insensibly from biology to sociology,

VII.—THE DOCTRINE. (2) 147

and from sociology to morals, though I need on thispoint your special explanations, to give greater precisionto my ideas. On the other hand, I could not at firstunderstand to my satisfaction the transition from mathe-matics to the direct study of the inorganic order, andstill less that from cosmology to biology. That mightdoubtless arise from my more complete ignorance of thelower conceptions. But I felt also that this want ofharmony must be connected with the very constitution ofour first scale, though I could in no way see the remedy,nor even know that there was one. I shall easily, then,accustom m}7self to the seven encyclopedic steps, if bythis slight complication I feel my sense of order satisfied.Still I allow, that had you begun with seven at first, Ishould have felt too great a difficulty in conceiving yourabstract hierarchy as a whole.

The Priest.—Since you have guessed the ultimatemotive of this final modification, it only remains for me,my daughter, to complete your own unaided effort, bypointing out in a systematic way the nature and objectof the three sciences introduced.

Positive religion defines astronomy as the study of theearth as a heavenly body; that is to say, the knowledgeof our geometrical and mechanical relations to the starswhich can affect our destinies by influencing the state ofthe earth. It is then around our globe that subjectivelywe condense all astronomical theories, absolutely rejectingall such as, disconnected with it, become at once mere idlequestions, even granting them to be within our reach.Hence finally we eliminate, not merely the so-calledsidereal astronomy, but also the planetary studies whichconcern stars invisible to the naked eye, and as suchnecessarily without any real influence on the earth. Thetrue domain of astronomy for us will then, as originally,be limited to the five planets always known, togetherwith the sun, the centre of our movements as of theirs,and the moon, our only satellite in the heavens.

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The whole difference between our doctrine and that ofthe ancients, here as elsewhere, consists essentially insubstituting at length the relative for the absolute, acentre which was long objective being made purely sub-jective. This is why the discovery, or rather the proof,of the double movement of the earth constitutes the mostimportant revolution in science belonging to the prelimi-nary state of human reason. One of the most eminentprecursors of Positivism, the sagacious Fontenelle, ex-plained admirably to your sex its philosophical bearing,so far as was then desirable, in a charming little work,the apparently trifling character of which did not depriveit of the immortality it deserves.

In fact, it is by virtue of the earth's motion thatPositive doctrine has come to be directly incompatiblewith all theological doctrine, by its making our largestspeculations profoundly relative, whereas previously theywere able to retain an absolute character. The discoveryof our planetary gravitation was at no long interval itsscientific consequence and its philosophical complement.Though academical routine has greatly hampered the in-fluence of these two theories in an encyclopedic point ofview, Positivism finally establishes them as the primarygeneral basis for the direct study of the inorganic order,thus brought into immediate connection with the mathe-matical basis of the whole doctrine.

In this initial step, this order is, in fact, regardedsimply under its geometrico-mechanical aspect, to theexclusion of all inquiries, as absurd as they are idle, as tothe temperature of the stars or their internal constitu-tion. But, on passing from astronomy to physics proper,a passage made almost imperceptibly through planetarymechanics, we penetrate more deeply into the study ofinert nature. In order, however, to give a truer idea ofthis new science, we must first gain a conception of thehighest cosmological science, the more decided characterof which will enable us subsequently to more easily grasp

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pure physics, somewhat indefinite in themselves. Thiscourse allows you to observe one of the most importantlogical precepts of Positivism, which bids us, in all cases,look first to the two extremes if we wish to form a rightconception of the intermediary by which they are con-nected. Chemistry was actually introduced, as a distinctscience, in the East as in the West, several centuriesbefore physics, which Galileo created on his own impulsein order to establish a sound transition from astronomyto chemistry, in place of their previous chimericalconnection.

To shorten and simplify the explanation of the two,consider chemistry and physics as in the main subject tothe same general influences, which only differ, at bottom,in the greater or less intensity of the modifications whichthe constitution of matter receives from them. But thissole difference never leaves any ambiguity as to the truenature of each case, despite the confusion due to academicteaching. In their full intensity, states of heat, of elec-tricity, even of light, modify the constitution of mattersufficiently to change the internal composition of sub-stances. In this case the event belongs to chemistry;that is, to the study of the general laws of compositionand decomposition. These processes can and ought to belooked on always as purely binary. They rarely allowmore than three successive combinations, the union be-coming more difficult and less stable in proportion as itbecomes more complicated. At lower degrees, the sameinfluences modify at farthest the condition of bodieswithout ever altering their substance. In this casematter is only studied under the strictly physical aspect.Though both these sciences are equally universal, thedecrease of generality is as sensible as the increase ofcomplication when we pass from the one to the other.For physics, as they study the whole of the propertieswhich make up every material existence, consider equallyall bodies, with mere differences of degree. Its several

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branches must then correspond to the different senseswhich unveil to us the external world. Chemistry, onthe contrary, considers all substances as in their naturedistinct; and chiefly addresses itself to the problem ofdetermining these radical differences. Though the phe-nomena it studies are always possible in any body what-ever, they are practically never found in it except underspecial conditions, the rare and difficult concurrence ofwhich often demands the intervention of man.

Of these two neighbour sciences, physics are logicallythe most important, chemistry scientifically, on a com-parison of their encyclopedic value, when we have onceallowed the indispensable necessity of each of them, bothfor theory and practice. It is from physics most of all thatthe genius of induction takes a vigorous spring, by the de-velopment of observation, too spontaneous in astronomy;and then of experiment, which nowhere else leads to suchunequivocal results. But chemistry carries the day as tothe encyclopedic importance of the notions we derivefrom it. Its extreme imperfection as a science, whichcan only cease under the discipline of Positivism, hasnot prevented its exercising a luminous influence on thewhole reason of the West. This valuable power is de-rived especially from the general analysis of our earthlyenvironment, gaseous, liquid, and solid, completed by theequally indispensable analysis of vegetal and animal sub-stances. We may thus at length apprehend the funda-mental economy of nature, previously unintelligible, be-cause we had not recognised, in all real beings, lifelessas well as living, material elements essentially identicalin character.

You understand, then, how chemistry properly so calledalone forms a normal transition between cosmology andbiology, in accordance with your legitimate wish for un-broken continuity. You would set a still higher valueon this great encyclopedic condition, as favourable ulti-mately to the heart as to the intellect, were I to point out

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the true internal arrangement of astronomy, physics, andchemistry, as I did at the outset in the case of mathe-matics. But we must keep such developments for morespecial conversations, which are not immediately indis-pensable from the religious point of view. This initialtype must suffice here to make you feel the generalpossibility of a really gradual ascent from mathematicsto morals, by the application, with increasing exact-ness and detail, of the unchangeable principle of ourhierarchy.

If we complete this subjective or logical appreciationby an equivalent objective or scientific appreciation, thegeneral succession of these three abstract studies beginsto disclose to you a real concrete scale, if not of beings, atleast of existences. In astronomy you observe only simplemathematical existence, which, previously almost a mereidea, becomes there a reality in the case of bodies whichwe cannot examine under any other point of view, andwhich become therefore its best type. But in physics,we rise to phenomena of a higher and nearer kind, whichtend to approach man. Lastly, chemistry offers you thenoblest and deepest form of material existence, alwayssubordinated to the antecedent forms, according to ouruniversal law. Though the great objective conceptionemanating from this progression can only find its adequatedevelopment in biology, it is important to notice its germin cosmology, in order thoroughly to master the trueprinciple of classification for beings of whatever order.

The Woman.—This admirable continuity enables me,my father, better to judge the noisy disputes which attimes arise between the different departments of science.The natural predilection of my sex for moral explanationsdisposed me to look on these scientific discussions as inthe main attributable to the passions of men. I now seea more justifiable origin for them in the profound un-certainty which, from want of encyclopedic principles,the different classes of savants must often have felt as to

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their legitimate sphere, in consequence of this almostimperceptible succession of their respective domains.

The Priest.—This continuity, my daughter, is themost important philosophical result of the sum of theefforts made by modern reason. For the true scientificgenius is shown above all in connecting, as closely aspossible, all phenomena and all beings. Practical geniuscompletes later this general result; since our artificialimprovements always end in strengthening and develop-ing the natural connections. Thus you should begin tofeel that the modern spirit is not exclusively critical, asit is accused of being, and that it substitutes durable con-structions for the decrepit remnants of the old doctrine.At the same time, you may already see at this point thenecessary incompatibility of the theological and Positiveregimes, by virtue of the irreconcilable opposition be-tween laws of nature and supernatural wills. What wouldbecome of this admirable order, which, by a graduatedseries, connects our noblest moral attributes with thehumblest natural phenomena, if we were obliged tointroduce into it an infinite power whose capriciousaction, allowing of no prevision, would threaten it atany moment with an entire subversion ?

The Woman.—Before grasping directly this generalcontinuity, there remains for me, my father, a great gapto fill as regards the vital order, the systematic concep-tion of which you must now explain to me. In ourencyclopedic descent I already saw its natural connectionwith the human order. But I cannot get to see as yethow it connects in itself with the inorganic order: foran impassable abyss seems to me to separate the domainof life from that of death.

The Priest.—Your difficulty, my daughter, is in fullconformity with the historical progress of the initiationof the race. It is scarcely two generations since truethinkers were able to begin to form a clear conceptionof this fundamental connection, which is the capital

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problem of all natural philosophy. It was incumbent,in the first place, on cosmologists, through the advent ofchemistry, to push the study of the material order on toits noblest and most complicated phenomena. But itwas after that incumbent on biologists to descend duly tothe lowest and simplest functions of life, the only onesthat could connect directly with this inorganic basis.Such was the chief result of the admirable conceptiondue to the true founder of the philosophy of biology, theincomparable Bichat. As the result of a profoundanalysis, the most noble vital functions were repre-sented by it as always resting, even in man, on thelowest, in obedience to the general law of the order ofnature. Animality is throughout subordinate to vege-tality, or the life of relation to that of nutrition.

This luminous principle leads us to see that the onlyphenomena really common to all living beings consist inthe decomposition and recomposition which their sub-stance is constantly undergoing from the action of theirmilieu. The whole system of vital functions thus restson acts which have a strong analogy with chemical effects,from which they only differ essentially by the instabilityof the combinations, which are, moreover, more compli-cated. This simple and fundamental life is found onlyin plants, where it reaches its highest development,since there it directly transmutes inorganic materialsinto organic substances, which is never done by higherbeings. The general definition of animality consists, infact, in the living nature of the substances which nourishit : whence follow, as necessary conditions, the capacityof discerning these substances and the power of seizingthem ; consequently sensibility and contractility.

To consolidate his fundamental analysis of life, thegreat Bichat had shortly to construct an anatomical con-ception which might be at once its complement and itscondensation. The cellular tissue, alone universal, is theproper seat of vegetative like; whilst animal life resides

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in the nervous and muscular tissues. Then the generalidea of biology is complete, so as to render possible in allcases a sufficient agreement between the statical anddynamical point of view, to enable us to pass properlyfrom the function to the organ or the reverse.

In obedience to the precept of logic which bids us studyall phenomena especially in the beings where they are atonce most strongly marked and most free from any com-plication with higher phenomena, the theory of plantsbecomes the normal basis of biology. I t establishesdirectly the general laws of nutrition by a considerationof the simplest case and the one where they are seen inmost intensity. This is the only part of biology whichcould be absolutely separated from sociology, were not thesubjective arrangement always paramount over the objec-tive cultivation. It is there that is directly effected thenatural transition from inorganic to vital existence.

The Woman.—I see by this, my father, that the ency-clopedic continuity can be established in reference tothe lower portion of the scientific hierarchy. But instarting from a vitality so low as this simple vegetality,I do not see how we can rise to the true human type,although I recognise our own subjection to the laws ofnutrition, as much as to those of weight.

The Priest.—The difficulty which you experience, mydaughter, corresponds in fact to the most importantartifice of biology, gradually constructed, by biologistsfrom Aristotle to Blainville, in order to form an immensescale, at once objective and subjective, destined to connectman with the plant. If these two extremes alone existed,a supposition which in no way involves a contradiction,our scientific unity would become impossible or at anyrate very imperfect, in consequence of the sudden breakthus introduced into encyclopedic continuity. But theimmense variety of animal organisms enables us toestablish between the lowest form of life and the highesta transition as gradual as our intelligence should require .

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Still, this concrete series is necessarily discontinuous,by virtue of the fundamental law which upholds theessential permanence of each species in the midst ofits secondary variations. The old intellectual systemwas a great obstacle to the upward growth of this greatconstruction, by its vain endeavour to find therein theabsolute result of the objective relations. But the pre-dominance in our encyclopedia of the subjective methodputs a final end to these sterile and endless debates, byalways subordinating the formation of the animal seriesto its true object, which is logical rather than scientific.As we ought to study the animals only to gain a sounderknowledge of man by connecting him with the plant, weare fully authorised to exclude from such a hierarchy allthe species which would disturb it. An analogous motiveenables us, or rather commands us, to introduce underproper restrictions some purely imaginary races, speciallycreated to facilitate the leading transitions, without anyshock to the statical and dynamical laws of animality.The fuller study of certain animals really belongs to thedomain of practice, in the case of the few species withwhich the human race finds itself, on various grounds,more or less connected. All other specialties in zoologywould be but the result of an intellectual degeneracy,in a science which by its complication and vast extentis more exposed to academic absurdities, so numerouseven in mathematics.

But the whole constituted by the animals adapted toform a true series will always have for us a profoundabstract interest, as serving to throw light on the generalstudy of all our lower functions, as we trace each of themin its gradual simplification and complication. Humanitybeing, at bottom, but the highest degree of animality, thehighest notions of sociology, and even of morals, havenecessarily their first germs in biology, for the reallyphilosophical minds which can detect them there. Oursublimest theoretic conception thus becomes more within

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our ken, when we look on each animal species as a GreatBeing more or less abortive, from the inferiority of itsown organisation and the development of the predomi-nance of man. For collective existence always constitutesthe necessary tendency of the life of relation which is thecharacteristic of animality. But this general result can-not, on'one and the same planet, be fully attainable bymore than one of the sociable species.

The Woman.—From these explanations as a whole, Isee, my father, how biology, when cultivated philosophic-ally, can finally fill up all the serious gaps in the ency-clopedia, by forming a gradual transition between theexternal order and the human. This immense progres-sion, at once of beings and phenomena, in constant con-formity with the hierarchical principle of Positivism,connects, at its lower end, with the regular succession ofthe three essential modes of material existence. I thussee attainable the full realisation of the admirable con-tinuity which at first seemed to me impossible. Butbefore quitting the vital order properly so called, I shouldbe glad to know more clearly and precisely the twoessential parts of its domain, vegetal and animal life.

The Priest.—This legitimate wish, my daughter, willbe duly gratified by mastering the three great laws whichgovern each of them. You must see in them so manygeneral facts, subordinate to one another but completelydistinct, and which taken together always explain, boththe continuous functions of the life of nutrition, and theintermittent functions of the life of relation.

The first law of vegetality, the necessary basis of allvital studies, without excepting the case of man, consistsin the renewal of its substance to which every livingbeing is constantly subject. On this fundamental lawfollows that of growth and decay, ending in death,which, not in itself the necessary consequent of life, iseverywhere found to be its constant result. Lastly, thisfirst biological system is completed by the law of repro-

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duction, by which the preservation of the species compen-sates the loss of the individual.

The chief property of all living beings is the capacityeach has to reproduce its like, as itself sprang from itslike. Not merely does no organic existence ever emanatefrom inorganic nature. But, further, no species whatevercan spring from another, either inferior or superior, allow-ing for the variations within very narrow limits, as yetbut little known, which each species admits. There isthen a really impassable gulf between the worlds of lifeand of inert matter, and even, though less broad, betweenthe different modes of vitality. Whilst it strengthensthe position that any simply objective synthesis is im-possible, this view in no way impairs the true subjectivesynthesis, which throughout results from a very gradualascent towards the human type.

As for the three laws of animality, the first consistsin the alternate need of exercise and rest inherent in thewhole life of relation, with no exception for our noblestattributes. This characteristic intermittence of theanimal functions naturally connects with the beautifulobservation of Bichat on the constant symmetry of theirorgans, either half of which can be in action whilst theother half remains passive. The second law, which, asin all other cases, presupposes the preceding withoutbeing its consequent, proclaims the tendency of everyintermittent function to become habitual; that is to say, toreproduce itself spontaneously when the original stimulushas ceased. This law of habit finds its natural comple-ment in that of imitation, nor are the two really distinct.According to the profound reflection of Cabanis, theaptitude to imitate others is, in fact, a result of theaptitude to imitate oneself; at least in every speciesendowed with sympathy. Lastly, the third law of animallife, subordinated to that of habit, consists in the perfec-tibility, both statical and dynamical, inherent in all thephenomena of relation. For each of them, exercise tends

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to strengthen the functions and organs, prolonged disuseto weaken them. This last law, which rests on the twoothers whilst remaining distinct, condenses the wholetheory of animality, as you at first saw was the casewith the last law of vegetality.

Combining these two great laws, we form a seventhlaw of life, that of hereditary transmission, which de-serves a distinct scientific appreciation, although logic-ally it is only a necessary consequence of the precedinglaws. As every animal function or structure is perfec-tible up to a certain point, the capacity of every livingbeing to reproduce its like will have power by this lawto fix in the species the modifications which have takenplace in the individual when they are sufficiently deep.There follows from this the improvement, limited butcontinuous, dynamical in the main but also statical, ofevery race whatever, by a succession of regenerations.This high faculty, which condenses spontaneously thetwo systems of biological laws, is the more developed inproportion as the race is higher and as such more modi-fiable as well as more active, by virtue of its greatercomplexity.

Although the general laws of hereditary transmissionare as yet too little known, the above considerationindicates its high efficacy as regards the direct ameliora-tion of our own physical, intellectual, and above all moralnature. It is indisputable, in fact, that vital heredity isas applicable, nay, even more applicable, to our noblestattributes as to our lowest. For phenomena become moremodifiable, and consequently more perfectible, in propor-tion as they are by nature higher and more special. Thevaluable results obtained in the principal races of domesticanimals can convey but a faint idea of the improvementsreserved for the most eminent species, when it shall besystematically guided, under its own providence.

The Woman.—This general conclusion of the studyof vitality makes me, my father, fully see its theoretical

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and practical importance. I feel thus prepared for thedirect study of the human order, for which you reserveour last conversation on the Positive doctrine.

TJie Priest.—You may, my daughter, find it useful tosum up, under its most important philosophical aspect,this conversation as a whole, guided by the simple con-trast which you must have observed, in our encyclopedicsynopsis, between the two divisions of Positive Philo-sophy, the historical and doctrinal divisions. The first,which is adapted to every scientific initiation, individualor collective, brings biology nearer to cosmology; theother, which represents our ultimate state, combines it,on the contrary, with sociology. This contrast bringsout clearly the principal characteristic of the vital order,as the natural link between the external and the humanorder.

CONVERSATION VIII.THE HUMAN ORDER, FIRST SOCIAL, THEN MORAL.

The Woman.—Before we enter on the highest provinceof science, I should, my father, submit to you a generaldifficulty, the outcome of the metaphysical objectionsI have often heard urged against this capital extensionof the Positive doctrine. Any subjection of social andmoral phenomena to invariable laws, similar to those oflife and matter, is now represented, by certain reasoners,as incompatible with the liberty of man. Though theseobjections have always seemed to me purely sophistical,I never knew how to break their force with the minds,still too numerous, which let them thus act as a checkon their instinctive tendency towards Positivism.

The Priest.—It is easy, my daughter, to overcomethis preliminary difficulty, by a direct definition of trueliberty.

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Far from being in any way incompatible with the orderof things, it consists throughout in obeying without hin-drance the laws applicable to the case under considera-tion. When a body falls, it shows its liberty by moving,according to its nature, towards the centre of the earth,with a velocity proportionate to the time, unless the in-terference of a fluid modify its natural action. So, inthe vital order, every vegetative or animal function issaid to be free, if it is performed according to the lawsapplicable to it, without any hindrance from within orfrom without. Our intellectual and moral existencealways admits of a similar judgment which, evidently in-disputable as regards action, becomes therefore necessaryfor affection as its motor and for reason as its guide.

If human liberty consisted in obeying no law, it wouldbe even more immoral than absurd, as making all regula-tion impossible, for the individual or for the society. Ourintelligence most fully evidences its liberty when it be-comes, in accordance with its normal vocation, a faithfulmirror of the world without, in spite of the physical ormoral influences which might tend to disturb it. No mindcan refuse its assent to demonstrations which it under-stands. Nay, more, no one can reject the opinions whichare generally received by those among whom he lives,even when he knows not their true grounds, unless he bepreoccupied by a counter-belief. For instance, we maychallenge the proudest metaphysicians to deny the earth'smotion, or still more recent doctrines, though they haveno knowledge whatever of their scientific proofs. I t isthe same in the moral order, which would become onemass of contradictions were it possible for every one, atpleasure, to hate when he ought to love, or the converse.The will admits of a liberty similar to that of the intel-lect, when our good instincts acquire such ascendency asto bring the impulse of affection into harmony with itstrue purpose, overcoming the antagonist motors.

Thus, throughout, true liberty is inherent in and sub-

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ordinate to order, human as well as external order.But in proportion as the phenomena become more com-plicated, they become more exposed to disturbance, andtheir normal state presupposes more effort, for which,however, there is scope owing to their being more opento systematic modifications. Our best liberty, then, con-sists in making, as far as possible, our good inclinationsprevail over our bad; and here, too, it is that our poweris most extensive, provided that our intervention alwaysconform to the fundamental laws of the universal order.

The metaphysical doctrine on the so-called moral libertymust be considered historically as a passing result ofmodern anarchy. For its direct aim is to sanction com-plete individualism, to which has tended more and morethe insurrection of the West which naturally succeededthe Middle Ages. But this sophistical protest againstall sound discipline, whether private or public, can inno way hamper Positivism, though successful as againstCatholicism. It will never be possible to represent ashostile to the liberty and dignity of man the doctrinewhich places on the surest basis, and gives freest scopeto, his activity, intelligence, and feeling.

The Woman.—This preliminary explanation will enableme, my father, henceforth to meet sophisms which haveyet too great weight with minds deficient in cultivation.Would you then explain at once the capital extension ofthe Positive doctrine to the social world ?

The Priest.—At the outset, my daughter, you mustlook on this great science as made up of two essentialparts: the one statical, which constructs the theory oforder; the other dynamical, which sets forth the theoryof progress. Pteligious instruction looks most to theformer, for there the fundamental nature of the trueGreat Being is the direct object of study. But thesecond must complete this conception, by explaining thesuccessive destinies of Humanity, in order to give aright direction to our social action. These two halves of

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sociology are closely bound one to another by virtue of ageneral principle which Positivism establishes in order toconnect throughout the study of movement with that ofexistence : Progress is the development of order. Such alaw, applicable even in mathematics, finds a larger appli-cation in proportion as the phenomena become morecomplicated. For the distinction then becomes moremarked between the statical and the dynamical state;whilst the simplification produced by this connection ofour studies also acquires greater value. Sociology thenwould naturally offer the best application of this greatprinciple, and the true source of its systematisation. Inthis science it is as applicable in its inverse as in itsdirect sense. For the successive states of Humanitymust in this way throw more and more light on itsfundamental constitution, all the essential germs ofwhich are necessarily contained in its rudimentary be-ginnings. But the theoretical and practical efficacy ofdynamic sociology will be specially delineated in the twoconversations which will conclude this Catechism. Forthe present, then, I should confine myself to explainingto you the principal notions of social statics.

The Woman.—Such a limitation, I may add, my father,suits my inadequate knowledge of history. Though theconceptions of social statics must be more abstract thanthose of social dynamics, I shall find it easier to graspthem, if I give the attention which their importance anddifficulty call for. There, at any rate, I shall feel sup-ported against my ignorance by the certainty of findingin myself the confirmation of a doctrine emanatingdirectly from our nature.

The Priest.—It is in fact enough for you, my daughter,attentively to examine yourself to see at once thenecessary constitution of the social order. For, in orderto represent the general existence of Humanity, it mustpresent unmistakably a combination of all our essentialattributes. Though your own existence shows you them

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indistinctly, it makes you sufficiently alive to them foryou to be able better to grasp their fundamental harmony,when collective organs enable each of them to have theexpansion which shall fully express them.

Conceive of the Great Being then as being, as you are,only in a more marked degree, directed by feeling, enlight-ened by intelligence, and supported by action. At onceyou have the three essential elements of society, the sexin which affection prevails, the contemplative class, thatis, the priesthood, and the strength of the active class.They are thus ranked according to their decrease indignity, but also according to their increase in independ-ence. The last then is the necessary basis of the wholeeconomy of the Great Being, by the fundamental law,now familiar to you, that the noblest attributes are inall cases subordinate to the lowest.

In reality, the unintermitting wants arising fromour bodily constitution enforce on Humanity a materialactivity which governs the whole of her existence. Onlyable to develop itself by an increasing co-operation, thisactivity, the most powerful stimulant of our intelligence,supplies in especial the strongest excitement to oursociability. In it our activity more and more sub-ordinates solidarity to continuity, which is the seat ofthe most characteristic as well as the noblest attribute ofthe Great Being. For the material results of human co-operation depend more on the combined action of thesuccessive generations than on that of the contempora-neous families. Far from being radically unfavourableto intellectual and moral advance, this continuous pre-ponderance of active life ought then to furnish the bestsecurity for our unity, by providing the intellect and theheart with a definite direction and a progressive aim.Without this all-pervading impulse, our best mental, andeven our best moral dispositions, would soon degenerateinto vague and incoherent tendencies, which would end inno progress either for the individual or the community.

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Still, the necessarily personal origin of this activitywill at first stamp it with a profoundly egoistical char-acter, only to become altruistic under the gradual trans-formation due to the collective advance. This is why,in order fully to understand the general constitution ofsocial order, we must break up the active class into twoconstituents always distinct and often in opposition.They have as their special object to develop, one thepractical impulse, with the personality implied in itschief energy, the other the reaction of society whichmore and more ennobles it.

For this indispensable decomposition, it is enough totake the active power under the heads of concentratedand dispersed, according as it is the result of wealth orof number.

Though the first can only tell indirectly, it is generallythe stronger, and is so more and more even, as represent-ing continuity, whilst the second answers to solidarity.For the material treasures which Humanity entrusts tothe rich are mainly formed by a long antecedent accumu-lation, in spite of the permanent need for the partial re-placement which their necessary consumption involves.All strong practical impulsions then must come from thepatriciate in which are vested these powerful nutritive reser-voirs, the chief social efficiency of which depends on theirconcentration in individuals. Thus it is that materialproperty receives a direct sanction from the Positive reli-gion, as the essential condition of our continuous activity,and so indirectly the basis of our noblest progress.

The second practical element, without which the firstwould be worth nothing, is the proletariate, which formsthe necessary basis of every nation. Unable to gain socialinfluence except by union, it has a direct tendency to bringinto play our best instincts. Its conditions draw unceas-ingly its main attention towards the moral regulation ofan economy the disturbances of which fall especially onit. Naturally relieved from the serious responsibility

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and the mental absorption which all authority habituallybrings, be it theoretical or practical, the proletariate iswell fitted to remind by its own action both the priest-hood and the patriciate of their social function.

The Woman.—I believe, my father, that this con-tinuous influence of the active class is not less indispen-sable to control or to compensate the exaggeration offeeling by women. Not mixing in active life, my sex isoften disposed not to see or not to allow for the roughconditions it imposes. But the feeling which sways it canalways make it accept them nobly, in order to attain thegood which is its natural aspiration; when this necessarystimulus leads us to a right estimate of those conditions.

The Priest.—You have thus, my daughter, reached byyourself the complete understanding of the great socialfunction which marks the proletariate. For if even theaffective sex can forget its true mission, from being tooexclusively occupied with its own wants, the speculativeand the active powers are naturally far more exposed tothis danger, as their attention is habitually engrossed byspecial efforts. The moral providence of women, the in-tellectual providence of the priesthood, and the materialprovidence of the patriciate, require then to be completedby the general providence derived from the proletariate,so to form the admirable system of human providence inits entirety. All our powers, each according to its nature,may thus always conduce to the preservation and per-fecting of the Great Being.

This general conception of our social constitutionsuffices to characterise its three essential elements.Pranked by their decreasing aptness to represent natu-rally Humanity, they follow the same order in the pre-dominant influence they successively exercise in everycomplete education. The providence of woman, whichshould always preside over our moral growth, first leadsus to feel continuity and solidarity, by directing the un-systematic education which is given in the bosom of the

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family. Next the providence of the priesthood teachesus the systematic conception of the nature and destiny ofthe Great Being, by disclosing to us step by step thewhole order of the world. Lastly, we come directly andpermanently under the power of the material providence,which initiates us into practical life, the influences of whichon affection and thought complete our preparation.

So a natural coincidence between our full individualdevelopment, as well of the brain as of the body, and thecompletion, as a general rule, of our initiation as membersof society, constitutes our real maturity. Then begins oursecond life, a life essentially of action, following the wholeseries of preparations which fit us for the right serviceof Humanity. This fresh stage of objective existence,though usually shorter than the first, is alone decisive ingaining for each head of a family the subjective existencewhich shall incorporate him in due form into Humanity.

The better to understand the social constitution, wemust consider separately its two most special elements,the only classes properly so called, the priesthood whichcounsels, the patriciate which commands. With themrespectively are preserved and increased the spiritualand material treasures of Humanity, to be properly dis-tributed, in accordance with their natural laws, amongstall her servants.

From the theoretical class in the first place comes syste-matic education, in the next a consultative influence uponthe whole of life, in order to accord therein each particularactivity with the general harmony, which active life leadsus to neglect. The admirable institution of humanlanguage, though always the result of the co-operationof all, becomes the special patrimony of the priesthood,as the natural depository of religion, and the chief in-strument in its exercise. By its nature imperishable,spiritual wealth may be useful to all simultaneously with-out ever being exhausted ; so that its conservation needsno distribution, and is but a simple adjunct of the priestly

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office. Eminently synthetical and social, language con-solidates and develops the natural subordination of thehuman order to the external. It also increases our mutualunion, most of all by establishing a close connection be-tween systematic wisdom and common reason.

Material products, as destined for individual consump-tion and as perishable by nature, have to obey quite otherlaws in their preservation and use. Over and above thecollective attention of the patriciate, aided by the generalwatchfulness, they require to be appropriated to indivi-duals, as otherwise the concentration which is normal forthem would become illusory, or rather impossible. Thispersonal appropriation, the primary basis of the materialprovidence, must rest on the land, or it will not attainthe requisite stability, the land being the natural seatand necessary source of all material production. Thusby a natural process are formed, through the ages, thenutritive reservoirs of Humanity, which have everywhereto renew incessantly man's material existence, whilsttheir managers direct the labours required for theircontinuous replacement.

This chief office of the patriciate consists in restoring, toeach organ of society, the materials which he is constantlyconsuming, as provisions for his subsistence or as theinstruments of his function. Wages have never any otherlegitimate function, whatever the class that receives them.In fact, the labour of man, that is to say, the usefuleffort of man to react against his destiny, cannot be otherthan gratuitous, because it does not admit of nor requireany payment in the strict sense. A true equivalence canonly exist as between the materials of labour, and notbetween its essential attributes. Always recognised inthe case of the affective sex and the contemplative class,nay, even for the practical power which pays the wages ofthe rest, this inherent gratuitousness of all human ser-vices is left in doubt only as regards the proletariate, thatis to say, for those who receive the least. Such a contra-

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diction clearly indicates the source historically of thisanomaly, essentially due, not to the inferiority of thelabour in question, but to the long servitude of those whogive it. Positive religion alone can on this point over-come modern anarchy, by awakening in all the sense thatno individual service ever admits of other reward than thesatisfaction of rendering it and the gratitude it excites.

The Woman.—Vulgar minds may at the present daytax this view with sentimental exaggeration, but I ven-oure to promise you, my father, that it will soon meetwith a cordial reception amongst women. I have oftenbeen shocked at the prevailing egoism, which, on thestrength of a very small salary, acquits us of all grati-tude for important and difficult services, services whichendanger the health, and sometimes the life, on eachoccasion, of those who perform them. This Positivistprinciple gives systematic consistence to feelings uni-versally felt, which only require a formal statement andco-ordination to secure their gradual prevalence. I t com-pletes the process by which I have been brought to seethat it is possible at length to stamp on our whole exist-ence, even our material existence, a really altruisticcharacter. All that this holy transformation in factrequires is that each, without being in a state of habitualenthusiasm, should feel deeply his real participation andthat of all others in the common work. Now, such aconviction can certainty be produced by a wise educationimparted to all, in which the heart will dispose theintellect ever to grasp truth as a whole.

The Pried.—To complete the fundamental view ofsocial order, it remains for me, my daughter, to explainthe three forms or degrees proper to it.

Every collective organism necessarily offers to view theseveral essential elements which I have just explained toyou. But they have a more or less marked character,and consequently are more or less distinct, according tothe nature and extent of the society under consideration.

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Their respective predominance leads us to recognise threedifferent associations, to be ranked by the decreasingcloseness of the union and their increasing extent. Theintermediate one rests on its predecessor and serves asbase for the one that follows. The only one of whichthe natural foundation is love, the Family, is the closestand most limited society, the necessary element of thetwo others. Man's activity then forms the City, wherethe bond results mainly from an habitual co-operation, thesense of which would be too weak if this political associa-tion were to unite too large a number of families. Lastlycomes the Church, where the essential tie is faith, andwhich alone admits of a real universality, which thePositive religion will inevitably attain. These threehuman societies have as their respective centres, woman,the patriciate, and the priesthood.

The family from which each comes is always part ofsome city or other, and even of some church or other.But this last tie, as the weaker, is susceptible of greatervariations, though always within fixed limits. When itattains sufficient consistence, it alone gives us the meansof reducing to its proper size the city, around whichusually centres each existence, by virtue of the naturalpreponderance of action over intellect and even overfeeling. For the social state can only be really per-manent in so far as it succeeds in reconciling independ-ence with concert, two conditions equally inherent inthe true idea of Humanity. Now, this necessary agree-ment prescribes for political societies limits muchnarrower than those usual at the present day.

In the Middle Ages, the inchoate separation betweenthe religious and the civil society made it possible eventhen to substitute the free incorporation of the nationsof the West for the compulsory incorporation originallygiven them by the dominion of Rome. Thus the Westpresented, during several centuries, the admirable spec-tacle of a persistently voluntary union, founded solely on

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a common faith, and maintained by a common priesthood,between nations whose different governments had all theindependence that was requisite. But this great politicalresult could not survive the premature emancipation of apower which the Positive religion alone will organisearight and definitely enfranchise. The necessary declineof Catholicism led to a fresh concentration of the temporalpower, indispensable at the time to prevent the entirepolitical disseveration to which society was being drivenby the increasing disruption of all religious bonds.Hence it was that, notwithstanding the feelings andhabits of the Middle Ages the traces of which are yetvisible, the nations of the West acquiesced in the forma-tion everywhere of States on far too large a scale.

The political reasons for this exorbitant extensionhaving in great measure ceased, even in France menbegin to feel the deep-seated danger of this anomaly,and also the approach of its end. But the Positivereligion will soon reduce these monster associations tothe normal size which will supersede any need of forceto maintain temporal union between nations betweenwhom spiritual union alone is admissible. Thus shall weshortly apply the statical principle which considers theGreat Being as politically the organ of the simple city,with its complement of the less condensed populationsin free connection with it. The feeling of patriotism,now so vague and weak in consequence of its excessivediffusion, will in the new order be able to developfully all the energy attendant on this concentration ofthe city. But the habitual union of the great citieswill become more real and more efficacious by assumingits normal character of a voluntary concert. The Posi-tive faith will inspire a due sense of the solidarity,and even of the continuity, which ought finally toprevail between all the regions of the earth withoutexception.

The Woman.—Guided by the whole of your remarks

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on the theory of society, I feel now, my father, wellprepared to take my seat at last at the highest point ofthe encyclopedic edifice, each successive stage of whichyou have brought within my ken. Though moral sciencemust be the hardest of all, its empirical cultivation is toofamiliar to my sex for it to feel as much alarm at it asat the others. I am therefore glad to reach in due timethe systematic study of the individual man.

The Priest.—In truth, my daughter, this necessaryterminus of the whole encyclopedic preparation is aloneable to satisfy the intellect and the heart. Moral scienceis more synthetical than any other, and its direct con-nection with practice gives strength to this natural attri-bute. In it alone do all the abstract points of view meetspontaneously to build up a general guidance for concretereason. From Thales to Pascal, every genuine thinkercultivated simultaneously geometry and morals, from asecret presentiment of the great hierarchy which wasfinally to combine them. The name microcosm or littleworld given by the ancients to man even then indicatedhow entirely the study of man appeared apt to condenseall the others. Morals are naturally the only science sus-ceptible of real completeness, without putting aside anyessential aspect, as must be the case in each of the scienceswhich serve as their basis. For when we look on theselatter as determining the laws which in each science con-cern man, they only attain this end by purposely neglectingall the properties higher than their respective provinces,into which they incorporate only the inferior attributes.By this course of decreasing abstraction, the scientificintellect is sufficiently prepared to approach finally theonly study which no longer compels it to abstract any-thing essential from the common object of our variousreal speculations. Thus only is the meditation of manirrevocably united with the contemplation of woman, toconstitute the final condition of human reason.

First cosmology establishes the laws of mere matter.

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Then, on this basis biology constructs the theory of life.Lastly, sociology subordinates to the twofold foundationthe proper study of the collective existence. But,though this last preliminary science is necessarily morecomplete than its predecessors, it does not yet embraceall that goes to form human nature. For our mostimportant attributes find in it but inadequate apprecia-tion. Sociology considers in man mainly intelligenceand activity, in combination with all our lower pro-perties, but not in direct subordination to the feelingswhich govern them. This collective development especi-ally brings into relief our theoretical and practical pro-gress. Our feelings only figure in sociology, even instatical sociology, for the stimulation they give to thecommon life or the modifications they receive from it.Their own laws, to be properly studied, must be studiedin moral science, where they acquire the preponderancedue to their higher rank in the system of human nature.This it is which often leads minds of an unsystematicorder to misconceive the fulness of synthetical characterwhich distinguishes this final science, by them limitedtoo closely to this its chief sphere, around which as acentre all the rest must ultimately be grouped.

The Woman.—The theoretical connection betweensociology and morals is still somewhat obscure to me,so I beg you, my father, to disperse these mists beforeyou directly expound the Positive conception of humannature. I have not forgotten the indisputable reasons,which, in our fundamental conversation on the doctrine,made me recognise the objective subordination of moralsto sociology; since man is always under the sway ofHumanity. But on the other hand, it seems to me thatthe social science stands in continual need of the moreimportant notions which we should derive from moralsas to our true nature.

The Priest. — This very reasonable difficulty, mydaughter, will disappear, if you take into account the

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unsystematic knowledge which in all cases precedes andprepares the way for systematic study. Science is alwayssimply an extension of the common wisdom. Never doesit really create any essential doctrine. Its theories arelimited to the generalisation and co-ordination of theempirical insight of the reason of mankind, with a viewof giving it a consistence and development otherwiseunattainable. This relation between the two moreespecially holds good in moral studies, which, thoughthey could not, owing to their greater complexity, besystematised till the last, always supplied, such is theirparamount importance, the main food for the commonmeditations, especially with women. From this empiricalculture there soon emerged notions of great value, in spiteof their incoherence, which have been hitherto despised bythe systematic intellect only because it could find no placefor them in its theological or metaphysical theories. Itis for the Positive spirit, alone capable of taking in thesocial point of view, that it was reserved to generalisethem and co-ordinate them, after it had founded the lastpreliminary science. But its ability to systematise themallowing it to appreciate them at their value in defiance ofphilosophical prejudices, it was able at once to turn themto account so far as at length to construct sociology. Ifyou examine the w ay in which we habitually use insociology the knowledge of human nature, you will soonsee that all that we really use is this spontaneous study,far more real than all the moral speculations of earlierphilosophers. This empirical sketch may, in fact, sufficefor the conceptions which concern the collective existence,before it has been reduced to the systematic shape whichthe final science alone can give it.

The Woman.—This explanation, my father, entirelyremoves the confusion in theory which the two essentialaspects of the human order presented to me as a secondaryquestion. My ignorance having preserved me from theclassical theories of human nature, I could better appre-

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ciate the reality of the moral ideas which sociology em-ploys, and see that they coincide with the results obtainedby the spontaneous action of the common reason.

The Priest.—To found directly the final science, it isenough, my daughter, if we put in proper systematicform the division which this common reason early recog-nised in the whole of man's existence, when it dis-tinguished therein feeling, intelligence, and activity.Traceable in the oldest poets, under different forms,this basic analysis finds in them its empirical com-pletion by the general division of our inclinations intopersonal and social. Though the theories of theology,and still more of metaphysics, were for special reasonsunable to embody this last idea, its self-evidence alwaysovercame the sophisms of philosophy in the uncultivatedmind. Such is the natural domain, to systematise anddevelop which is the essential object of moral science.The other true sciences also have always as their highestobject the determining the general laws of the commonestphenomena ; as for instance chemistry, with reference tocombustion and fermentation.

Although moral science could not be adequatelyhandled by any theology, observe with due honour theoriginal attempt of the true founder of Catholicism tomeet the philosophic needs created by the new religiousteaching. The great St. Paul, in constructing his generaldoctrine of the permanent conflict between nature andgrace, really sketched, in his own way, the whole moralproblem, not merely the practical, but also the theoreticproblem. For, this valuable conception was provisionallya compensation for the radical incompatibility of mono-theism with the innate existence of the benevolentinstincts, which impel all creatures to mutual unioninstead of devoting themselves separately to theirCreator. In spite of all the flaws inherent in such atheory, its development in the Middle Ages is reallythe only great advance possible for morals between its

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rudimentary state in the early theocracy and its recentformation into a Positive science. The essential resultsof the common wisdom found therein, at any rate, a farbetter presentment than in the lamentable ontologywhich presided over the gradual dissolution of Catho-licism. And so the mystics of the fifteenth century, andabove all, the admirable author of the Imitation, are thelast thinkers in whose writings, before Positivism, onecan really grasp human nature as a whole, so defectivelyappreciated in all the metaphysical systems.

When I remind you of a moral doctrine which wasjustly dear to you in your youth, it is not merely thatI wish to honour an attempt now too generally miscon-ceived. Besides being a provisional substitute for thePositive theory of human nature, the objective introduc-tion to which still required a long period, it spontane-ously prepared that theory by a formal demarcation ofits systematic domain. It was under this influencethat, even prior to the foundation of sociology, the truescientific genius undertook, on this point, a decisive,though an inadequate attempt, immediately after therise of the philosophy of biology.

The first step was to establish, in this highest provinceof science, a general harmony between the statical anddynamical points of view, by determining the seat of ourchief functions. Despite the metaphysical confusionwhich would make the intellect all in all, assigning to itthe whole brain, the common reason had broken throughthe mists of philosophical speculation, at least as to ourinstincts, especially the personal instincts, on a considera-tion of their spontaneous energy. The older thinkerssanctioned their distinct existence, by placing them,though vaguely, in the several viscera of the life ofnutrition. Still, no organ was allotted to the instinctsof sympathy, and science, agreeing with theology,always spoke of the passions as if there were only badones. Moreover, the intellect remained undivided, and

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its subordination to feeling could find no scientificexpression.

Without this historical introduction, you could notduly appreciate the admirable effort of genius by whichGall founded the Positive theory of human nature,though unable to construct it so far as to give it realefficacy; this presupposed sociology. Under this powerfulimpulsion two general principles were laid down, onedynamical, the other statical, the natural inter-connec-tion of which will always serve as a base for the truestudy of the soul and the brain. Gall established at oncethe plurality of our higher functions, mental and moral,and their common seat in the brain, the different regionsof which ought to correspond to the real distinctionsbetween them. Notwithstanding the important errors,especially in regard to the intelligence, due to a super-ficial analysis ^nd an empirical localisation, he succeededin giving an adequate idea of the general division of ourexistence, and even in finally sanctioning the benevolentinstincts. The imaginary conflict between nature andgrace was thenceforward replaced by the real oppositionbetween the posterior mass of the brain, the seat of thepersonal instincts, and its interior region, where thereare distinct organs for the sympathetic impulses and theintellectual faculties. Such is the indestructible basison which the founder of Positive religion constructedsubsequently the systematic theory of the brain andsoul, when he had instituted sociology, from which alonecould come the requisite inspiration.

The Woman.—I have a glimpse, my father, of the vastphilosophical importance of the two principles laid downby the immediate precursor of Positivism. The continuousinter-action of our feelings and our thoughts, as thenatural relations of our several instincts, could not beadequately accounted for with such an excessive intervalbetween their positions as was formerly assigned them.The cerebral theory at length enabled us to apprehend

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these important relations, so as to perfect our real know-ledge of them. Still, when we take from the nutritiveorgans this moral function, alien as it was to their phy-sical, we expose ourselves, it seems to me, to a gravegeneral omission as regards their undisputed connectionswith our higher functions. The reciprocal influence ofthe physical and moral nature, exaggerated in the ancienthypothesis, seems to me then neglected in the new view.

The Priest.— The reproach is only applicable, mydaughter, to the cerebral theory in its rudimentary state.It does not apply to its definitive state, where these greatrelations are fully systematised. Retaining of the oldopinion the true notions which so long accredited it, wemust first limit these vegetative influences to the pro-pensities properly so called, without giving them anydirect bearing on the intellectual functions, or even on theactive motors. The speculative and active regions of thebrain have nervous communications only with the sensesand the muscles, in order to perceive the outer world andto modify it. On the contrary, the affective region, whichforms its largest mass, has no direct communication withthe outer world, with which it is indirectly connectedthrough its special relations with the intelligence and theactivity. But, beside these cerebral connections, specialnerves bind it closely to the chief organs of the life ofnutrition, in consequence of the necessary subordinationof all the personal instincts to the vegetative existence.If this general correspondence can be sufficiently specifiedin detail, as there is reason to hope it may be, it willfurnish powerful means for the reciprocal improvementof man's moral and physical nature.

The Woman.—This positive conception of humannature seems to me, my father, quite in agreement withthe experience of mankind, especially in that it basesour unity directly on the constant subordination of theintellect to the heart. You had already explained to methat, of the two modes admissible for this preponderance

M

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of feeling, the altruistic regime alone can secure for man,even as an individual, a complete and lasting unity, one,however, more difficult to form than the egoistic unity.But this theory of human harmony presents still a seriousdifficulty, as to how to reconcile it with the first law ofanimality, which asserts the intermittence of the wholelife of relation, with no power to except the functions ofthe brain. For the true unity cannot be discontinuous.The intellect and the activity can and ought to restperiodically, as the senses and the muscles which corre-spond to them. On the contrary, affection admits ofno suspension. Could we ever cease to love withinourselves and without ?

TJw Priest.—The direct connection between the affec-tive and the nutritive life should lead you, my daughter,to regard the first as equally continuous with the second.To reconcile this necessary continuity with the inter-mittence common to the whole life of relation, it isenough if we consider the double structure of the brain.All the organs of the brain are, as the senses and muscles,composed of two symmetrical halves, separate or con-tiguous, each of which can function whilst the otherrests. Such an alternation exempts feeling from allinterruption notwithstanding the intermittence of thebrain. Sometimes the intelligence functions in this wayduring sleep, if not by the organs of contemplation, indirect connection with the senses, at any rate by thoseof meditation, where the dependence on the senses isnot immediate. This is the origin of dreams, states oftemporary mental alienation, in which, as in madness,subjective impulses, without our will, get the upper hand.This occasional persistence of the intellectual functionsduring sleep enables us to understand, by analogy, thenormal persistence of the affective functions. Nay more,it furnishes us indirect evidence of such persistence.For dreams always bear the stamp of the dominantinstincts. Since the heart directs the intellect in the

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waking state despite external impressions, it must asserta greater power over it when these impressions are inabeyance. We may hope, then, that the cerebral theorywill ultimately lead to a right interpretation of dreams,and even to their modification, in accordance with thepremature aspiration of all antiquity.

The Woman.—I could not, my father, satisfactorilygrasp the Positive theory of human nature, unless, afterexplaining the general relations to one another of theheart, the intellect, and the character, you showed methe systematic division of each of the three into reallyelementary functions.

The Prirst—It follows, my daughter, from the cere-bral table which you see. (Table C.) I t should becomeas familiar to you as our encyclopedic table. But thoughlonger, you will find it less difficult. Any person ofsufficient age, especially a woman, would soon feel thereality of such an analysis, which, by its nature, can onlyrest on observations within the reach of all. If specialand difficult contemplations were indispensable for itsverification, that would be enough to prove it defective.The great efforts it took to construct this synopsis can inno way affect its use, especially for minds preserved fromour classical education. For these difficulties dependedless on the nature .of the problem than on the falsetheories which prevailed on the subject. Though theearliest sphere of our intellect, it is the last to be in-cluded in the gradually attained harmony between thetheoretical and practical reason. But this fundamentalagreement is at length thus introduced into i t : so asto produce in it, better than elsewhere, the progress towhich this agreement always gives rise.

This classification of the organs of the brain offers youthroughout a fresh application of the universal principleof decreasing generality, on which you have already seento rest the encyclopedic hierarchy. You observe itespecially in the case of the instincts, which are both

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more numerous and more marked in character. Theirdecrease in generality in proportion as they become noblerand less energetic is fully verified in the whole of theanimal series. In the lowest stages we find only the funda-mental instinct of individual preservation, up to the com-plete separation of the sexes. Then in succession all theother instincts are added, first the personal, then thesocial, in the order indicated by the conspectus of thebrain, in proportion as we rise towards man. This zoo-logical comparison would suffice then to prove the truthof such an analysis, of which it even frequently facili-tated the elaboration, always, however, under the guid-ing inspiration of sociology. The highest portion ofthe animal series, comprising the mammalia and birds,certainly offers a complete union of all our higher func-tions, with mere differences of degree. See how thegreatest of poets had a presentiment of this fundamentalresemblance, when he placed in the midst of the sublimeconceptions of his Paradise, this admirable picture of themoral existence of a bird—

Come 1 augello intra l'amate frondePosato al nido de' suoi dolci nati,La notte che le cose ci nasconde,

Che per veder gli aspetti desiati,E per trovar lo cibo onde li pasca,In che i gravi labor gli son aggrati,

Previene '1 tempo in su l'aperta frasca,E con ardente affetto il sole aspettaFiso guardando pur che l'alba nasca.

—DANTE, Parad., xxiii. 1-9.E'en as the bird, who midst the leafy bower,Has in her nest sat darkling through the night,With her sweet brood, impatient to descryTheir wished looks, and to bring home their food,In the fond quest unconscious of her toil;She, of the time prevenient, on the sprayThat overhangs their couch, with wakeful gazeExpects the sun, nor ever, till the dawn,Removeth from the east her eager ken.

—CARY'S Translation.

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In this charming description, an animal very far removedfrom man offers us the same normal co-operation of feel-ing, intelligence, and activity as exists among us. Sucha brotherhood is still more precious for the heart thanfor the intellect, as extending our sympathies beyond ourspecies, so as to temper our too frequent conflicts withthe subordinate races.

The Woman.—Although I am very fond, my father, ofwatching animals, with the view of tracing in them allour leading impulses, I suppose that the synopsis of thebrain may do without this verification, which is notsuited to all minds.

The Priest.—Observations limited to our own speciesare indeed sufficient, my daughter, to dispel all uncer-tainty as to each part of this Positive theory of the souland brain. Even the analysis of the intellect, more deli-cate than the two others as less marked in character, maybe verified by facts of daily experience. I t is enoughto compare in this way the two sexes to see the principaldistinction between the organs of contemplation and thoseof meditation ; since the first function is more developedin woman, and the second in man. Similarly we distin-guish the two organs of meditation, by remarking thatyour sex is more adapted for comparing facts, and minefor co-ordinating them. Were our professors as sagaciousas most women, and as clear of erroneous views, thestrongly marked comparisons supplied by the zoologicalseries would not be needed to convince them on this point.

The Woman.—Before studying the cerebral table, Ishould like, my father, to clear up some doubts suggestedby a first inspection. The instincts, as a whole, seemplaced in their right light, except the maternal instinct,which I expected to find under altruism, not under

egoism.The Priest.—You confound it, my daughter, with the

sympathetic influences it may have, but which are not in-herent in it, since they are often wanting. The observation

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of animals leaves us no doubt as to this distinction, forit shows us the maternal relation in animals at too low apoint in the scale to have the higher sentiments whichare associated with it amongst us. But you can dispelall uncertainty without going beyond our own species.However invaluable the improvement in this instincteffected by civilisation, particularly modern civilisation,through the increasing influence of society on the family,it is still possible daily to detect its true nature in womenof weak sympathies, where it is easier to isolate it.Then we see that the child, for the mother no less than forthe father, is regarded directly as a mere personal posses-sion, an object of tyranny, and often of avarice, more thanof a disinterested affection. Only, as the relations whichspring from maternity can give a strong stimulus to theinstinct of benevolence, they spontaneously aid in the de-velopment of these latter in all kindly natures, but theynever create the sympathies such a reaction presupposes.On comparing the different states of society, coexisting orsuccessive, we see the true character of an instinct which,previous to its cultivation by the providence of man,often leads to the sale, or even the murder, of children onpurely selfish grounds. Besides, look around you and seethe principles on which professions are habitually chosenor marriages made; and ask yourself whether it is notthe egoism of the parents that oftenest prevails therein,now that the anarchy of modern times has weakenedthe influence of society on the family.

The sexual instinct was at times honoured with asimilar mistake, not by your sex, which, in general, is notblind to its selfish character, but by men who equally con-fused it with the sympathies of which, when rightlyguided, it may stimulate the growth. All the personalpropensities, not excepting the destructive, are open tosimilar influences, which do not give rise to similar mis-conceptions, because they are less direct and less marked.This general relation makes it much easier to solve the

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great human problem, the subordination of egoism toaltruism. In truth, the greater energy of the personalinstincts may thus serve to compensate the natural weak-ness of the sympathetic instincts,' by originating an im-pulse which these latter would not find in themselves.Once called out, the benevolent affection persists andgrows by virtue of its supreme charm, though this coarserstimulant has ceased to act. The moral superiority of yoursex often relieves it from the need of such a preparation,by disposing it to love as soon as it finds objects to love,without seeking in love any selfish gratification. But thecoarseness of man can hardly ever dispense with this in-direct beginning, which has become especially necessaryto public life, to ennoble in it pride or vanity.

The Woman.—For the intellectual functions, I amsurprised, my father, to find excluded from the cerebraltable the classical faculties—memory, judgment, imagi-nation, etc.

The Priest.—Look on them, my daughter, as results ofthe mental organisation as a whole, results long regardedas special functions. The comparison of individuals andof the sexes, completed, if necessary, by that of species,proves directly the groundlessness of the old analysisof the intellect and the soundness of the new. For suchobservation shows us marked and permanent differencesas regards contemplation or meditation, but never leadsto clear and sure results as to the faculties acknowledgedby the schools. The most unimportant judgment requiresan habitual concurrence of the five intellectual functions,if it is to establish, between the within and the without,that lasting and unanimous coincidence which is thecharacteristic of truth. So it is, even more strongly,with each effort of memory or imagination, which oftencalls for inductions or deductions absolutely analogous tothe operations of science. As for the will, it becomesthe direct result of every affective impulse sanctioned bythe intellect as fit to direct our conduct.

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The Woman.—Contrariwise to my last remark, I amsurprised, my father, to see language holding a distinctplace in the cerebral table, instead of being treated as aproduct of the whole of our intellectual functions.

The Priest—Your mistake depends, my daughter, onyour confusing the special aptitude to create artificialsigns with the results that follow on its due subordi-nation to the other mental powers. The intellectualanalysis of Gall was generally inadequate, but he didnot hesitate to assign to language a separate organ, as tothe existence of which the observation of animals, ofmen, and of nations, could leave him no doubt.

When left to itself, without any control from the brain,as is often seen in illness, and at times in health, itsdirect activity produces nothing but mere verbiage, whichreason alone transforms into true discourse. In othercases, on the contrary, the exceptional atony of this organhinders the transmission of the most carefully elaboratedthoughts. For the rest, we must not confound, in theanimals, the proper function of language with its vocalinstruments, which do not always correspond to it. Eachhigher species has its natural language, understood by thewhole race, and even by the races pretty near it in theseries : but the physical means of communication oftenremain very imperfect. As for the actual language ofcivilised nations, it is in reality a very complex resultof the whole of man's development. Still its primarysource equally lies in the organ of the brain which leadsus to create, by some means or other, artificial signs,without any direct thought of the mental and moralcommunications to be effected by them.

The Woman.—To complete this important apprecia-tion, pray, my father, point out to me the general useI ought to make of the cerebral table when I havesufficiently studied it.

The Priest—It can, my daughter, become your ownonly by a constant application. Women practise them-

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selves habitually in discerning, in our actions andlanguage, the feelings and thoughts which really inspirethem. Consider the synopsis of the brain as a generalinstrument for perfecting greatly this function of women.You will often acknowledge that the human soul is notimpenetrable. The brain may thus become a bookexempt from change, which you will read despite all theartifices of dissimulation. Complete this observation ofindividuals by the comparison of nations in sufficientlydistinct states, and even of the animals which are easilyunderstood, and you will have finished your initiation inthe Positive theory of human nature.

But, to avoid or correct mistakes which are but tooeasy, you must always remember that most of the resultsobserved, intellectual as well as moral, spring from theconcurrent action of several functions of the brain. Eachof these can seldom be observed alone. So your inquirywill most frequently require an analysis, the elements ofwhich you will always find in our table, and you willcombine them till your synthesis adequately representsthe case under notice. For instance, envy is the resultof a combination between the instinct of destruction andsome one of the other six egoistic instincts; under asecret feeling of personal inferiority, mental as well asmoral. There are then six kinds of envy, according asits second element is avarice or luxury, etc.

The cerebral table summarises all that is at presentreally demonstrated in the Positive theory of humannature. This is why the number and position of theintellectual and moral organs are alone indicated by it,without any precise statement as to their form or size.An objective study, not as yet properly organised, canalone complete this subjective theory of the brain, by de-termining the peculiar constitution of each organ. Butwe must not set too high a value on this complement, aswithout it the cerebral theory is sufficient for its chiefobject, as is shown by this Catechism.

i85 Y1II.—THE DOCTRINE. (3)

The position of the organs is really the most importantpoint to determine as it is also the most difficult. It atonce points out the mutual influences which, without anyintervention of nerves, depend on simple contiguity. I tis thus easy to explain the relations, otherwise unintel-ligible, and yet indisputable, between the sexual and thedestructive instinct. The order of the organs, especiallythe affective organs, gives the measure of their respec-tive energy, by the law which you see written in thetable. For instance, between two consecutive instincts,we thus see that the destructive is naturally stronger thanthe constructive instinct. We cannot doubt it, when wesee the preference everywhere given it, with no excep-tion for man, when a being thinks it has free choice ofits means.

But the noblest use of the cerebral table consists instating better the human problem, the ascendency ofsociability over personality, as you have already so keenlyfelt before this direct explanation. The three practicalqualities are, in themselves, indifferent to good and evil:their sole direct aim is action. As for the five intellec-tual functions, their true destination evidently consistsin serving the three social instincts rather than the sevenpersonal affections : it is the only method, if their ownproper growth is to be large and durable. Still, theirintrinsic weakness often hinders them from resisting thenatural energy of the selfish impulses; and hence arisesthe chief difficulty. If the intellect is not false to itsholy mission, personality, in itself incoherent, easilysubmits to a sociability which never refuses it duesatisfaction. Harmony thus established between thefeeling and the intellect/the activity instinctively followsan impulsion which affords it an inexhaustible field.Ultimately then all depends on a thorough combinationof the two contiguous organs which respectively presideover the chief sympathetic instinct and the properlysynthetical part of the intellect. By taking the pre-

VIII.—THE DOCTRINE. (3) 187

dominant organ as the representative of each of thethree regions of the brain, the sacred formula of Posi-tivism is naturally graven on every brain, since it enjoinsthe habitual harmony of three adjacent organs.

The Woman.—By the whole of this and the precedingconversation I see, my father, that the Positive doctrineis now adequate to the spiritual government of Humanity,as our two first conversations had led me to anticipate.Its profoundly relative character excludes the stagnationinherent in the absolute character of theological doctrine.But this immutability which it claimed really issues indeath ; whereas the gradual modifications of Positivismare certain symptoms of a life as lasting as that of therace. Without waiting for its inexhaustible improve-ments, I feel that it is already elaborated to the pointat which it can direct the actual reorganisation of theWest.

The Priest.—This definitive conviction allows me, mydaughter, to proceed now to the exposition, first in thegeneral, then in detail, of the Positivist life. Afterappreciating Positivism as the true religion, first of love,then of order, we must, in the last place, recognise in itthe sole religion fully adapted to human progress in itsentirety, and most particularly to moral progress.

EXPLANATION OF THE REGIME, OR SYSTEMOF LIFE.

CONVERSATION IX.

THE REGIME AS A WHOLE.

The Woman.—In this final study, I am aware, myfather, that I have to be nearly as passive as I wastoward the doctrine, though I expect to find in it fewerdifficulties. The regime does not offer me an essentiallyaffective domain, as was that of the worship, where attimes I could by my own effort anticipate your explana-tions. Here the heart is no longer competent to inspireme with views which frequently imply the maturestexperience and the deepest reflection, both naturally for-bidden the sex whose contemplations can hardly passwith good result beyond the limits of private life. Forit is now necessary to construct directly the general ruleswhich should preside over human acts, the habitual mostof all, but also the exceptional. Now, to determine theserules demands an accurate conception of our whole exist-ence, collective no less than individual, in order to judgethe real results attendant on each system of conduct.The aberrations of feeling must in such conception be

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the more shunned, in that their influence would here bemore noxious, from bearing immediately on our practicaland social life.

The Priest.—It must not be, my daughter, that thisbecoming reserve conceal from you the fundamental officeassigned to your sex by the whole human regime. ThePositive worship has for its main object the developmentof the feelings required by the disposition to live forothers. All our study of the Positive doctrine leads tothe conclusion that our true unity consists above all inthis living for others. Resting on this double basis, theregime must now secure the direct predominance, in practi-cal life, of this unique principle of the universal harmony.Now, such an aim necessarily implies the close and con-tinuous union of the two sexes, for it depends as muchon the heart as on the intellect. In thus passing fromtheoretical to practical morals, it is the intellect alonethat can decide what habits should prevail, and even bywhat means they gain a footing. But this twofold studywould almost always end in nothing if feeling did notimpel us constantly to overcome its arduous difficulties.Hence the respective parts of the priesthood and the affec-tive sex in our moral regime. Whilst the priest acts onthe heart through the intellect by his judgment of theconduct of each, women should act on the intellect throughthe heart by securing the spontaneous ascendency of thenobler dispositions. This necessary co-operation is equallyapplicable in the age of preparation and in real life.

The Woman.—Encouraged by this introduction, I haveto ask you, my father, what is the true field of this thirdpart of our religion. Though the regime always concernsthe life of action, as the worship has reference to the lifeof affection, and the doctrine to that of thought, I shouldfind a difficulty in conceiving of its religious precepts asembracing all action indifferently. Yet I do not see onwhat would rest any distinction.

The Priest.—The practical domain of religion is limited,

15o IX.—THE LIFE, (i)

my daughter, to the dispositions which are really commonto all, without entering into the particular discharge ofeach function. It must, however, accurately appreciatethe different social functions, but only to lay down in re-gard to them the rules adapted to maintain and developthe general harmony. All that concerns the detail ofexecution appertains to the various modes or degrees ofgovernment properly so called, whether private or public,and never to the priesthood.

To give more precision to this fundamental distinc-tion, we must now extend to progress the general divisionwith which your study of the doctrine has familiarisedyou as regards order. As we at first divided the uni-versal order into the external and human order, we shouldtreat in the same way the improvements of which it issusceptible. We thus distinguish two species of progress,the one external, the other human. Though both ulti-mately have reference to ourselves, the last alone concernsour own nature, and the first is limited to our externalcircumstances, which it improves by reacting on all theexistences which have power to influence ours. Hencewe habitually designate as material this external progress,notwithstanding that it embraces the vital order properlyso called, but only as concerns the species which are use-ful to us as food or as instruments. The point of viewof progress being necessarily more subjective than thatof order, the uniformity of the language we use cannotalways correspond to the identity of conceptions.

This distinction is a sufficient and apt introduction tothe fundamental division between the practical spheresof the government and the priesthood. Whilst all thesocial forces are, in our view, equally devoted to the per-fecting of the Avhole, we must by this division distinguishthem according as they improve the outward order orthe human. Such is the truest elementary source of thenormal separation of temporal from spiritual action. Thehigher dignity of the latter is in that case a consequence

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of the natural preponderance of the progress it promotes.Thus, the practical sphere of religion is the perfecting thehuman order—first physical, then intellectual, lastly andchiefly moral. Different as the three aspects are, theirclose connection forbids their ever being separated, andit must be respected more even for action than for specu-lation. As for the external order, its direct and specialimprovement concerns not religion : it forms the properprovince of politics or industry. Still, religion in-directly finds an important though general share inthe work, by virtue of the great influence which thestate of the human agent necessarily exerts on the actualresults of his effort. In all practical work, success re-quires as its first condition that each co-operator shouldbe honest, intelligent, and courageous. But it is only inthis sense that religion takes part in the fundamentalconstitution of each special industry.

The Woman.—So, my father, morals, as an art, differsfrom all others by its complete generality. It is the onlyart which all without exception must learn, since allhuman beings equally stand in constant need of it. Itsunsystematic study then is for all, in proportion to theirnatural ability and the light they derive from experience.But its systematisation must be left to the priesthood, asa consequence of the priesthood's necessary connectionwith the whole body of scientific theory. It is in thisway that morals seem to form the essential domain ofreligion, first as science, then even as art.

The Priest—You ought, my daughter, to completesuch a view by taking into account the special partici-pation of the Positive priesthood in each industry as awhole, on the ground that it alone knows all the essentiallaws of the external order. Although these theoreticnotions can never dispense with practical studies, asscientific pride often dreams, they must subserve themas basis and even as guide. After first learning from thepriesthood the more important laws of the phenomena to

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be modified, each practician connects with them all thespecial developments to which the inductions of hisexperience lead him. When the progress of his ownlabours makes him feel the want of new general ideas,it is to the priesthood he must again go for them, insteadof disturbing his industrial action by a vain scientificcultivation.

The Woman. —From this explanation as a whole, Ithink, my father, of the fundamental separation of thepriesthood and the government as resulting above allfrom the necessary division between theory and practice.But the foregoing appreciation essentially relates to pro-gress only, that is to say, to the activity. Now to placeso capital a principle on a solid foundation, it would stillbe necessary, it seems to me, to connect it directly withorder properly so called, that is to say, with conservation.If in the social harmony the proletariate should naturallyin the main be progressist, my sex, by its passive posi-tion, has for its principal function to conserve.

The Priest.—Duly to satisfy you, it is enough, mydaughter, to consider the human order from the staticalpoint of view. Study in it existence and not motion, andyou will soon arrive at the separation of the two powers,as the all-pervading basis of the social order; yourstarting-point being the single principle of co-operation,on which Aristotle founded the true theory of the cityassociation resulting from the concert of families. Foreach servant of Humanity must always be looked atunder two distinct but co-existent aspects, first as regardshis special office, then in reference to the general har-mony. The first duty of every social organ is, withoutdoubt, the right discharge of his own function. Butgood order also requires that each assist, as far as he can,all others in the discharge of theirs. Such assistancebecomes even the chief characteristic of the collectiveorganism, as a consequence of all its agents being in-telligent and free.

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Now, from their nature these two offices of each humanfunctionary, the one special, the other general, are in moreand more marked opposition to each other. For, as thefirst becomes more special in proportion as co-operationis developed, it fosters intellectual dispositions, and evenmoral tendencies, which are more and more adverse togenerality of conception, in itself also become more andmore difficult. Such is the true elementary point of viewof the general theory of government, first temporal, thenspiritual.

As no function, even vital, and still more social, canbe rightly performed unless through a special organ, thehumblest co-operation of man requires a force speciallycharged to bring back to general views and feelingsagents whose constant tendency is to abandon them. Itmust unceasingly restrain their divergences and fostertheir convergences. From another point of view, thisindispensable power is a natural outgrowth of the in-equalities always attendant on human advance.

Deep as is the sympathy which constitutes the simpleassociation of the family, even when reduced to the ori-ginal pair, it is yet never exempt from this necessity.It is there that we can best appreciate this great axiom :There exists no society ivithout a government.

In the civic order, each combination of families fora given end soon throws up a practical leader whoseauthority is limited naturally by the amount of the opera-tions which either his ability, or still more his capital,enables him really to conduct. In such chiefs is vestedthe true temporal power, which can equally impel orhold back as need directs. All power on a larger scalenecessarily has a spiritual origin. The several practicalchiefs have, however, a tendency to mutual co-ordinationon the basis of a hierarchy determined by the naturalrelations of their several departments. This instinctiveconcert establishes then a kind of government, butmore general, always reduced to its material power,

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I 94 IX.—THE LIFE, (i)

more qualified for resistance than direction. Its severalmembers are usually unable to grasp the whole systemin which they move, though each is competent as regardsone of the component systems.

Solidarity alone then would suffice, if not too restricted,to indicate the inadequacy of the practical power, andthe need of a theoretic authority, which, renouncing allspecial action, has to secure the constant supremacy of thegeneral harmony. But continuity, on which the humanorder more and more depends, places this necessity be-yond all dispute. These empirical powers, whilst aspir-ing to direct the present, know neither the past whichgoverns it nor the future which it is preparing. Theirinterference is therefore blind and often disturbing, whenthey do not submit it to the advice of the priesthood.At the same time, they cannot dispense with the influ-ence of the priesthood, as alone able to give an adequatesanction to their temporal ascendency, almost alwaysliable to be jealously disputed. Each consecration con-sists in representing the power sanctioned as the minis-ter of a higher power which all respect—God under theprovisional regime, Humanity in the final. Now this im-plies always, but more particularly as regards this finalstate, that the present is duly connected with the pastand with the future. The priesthood, which alone canestablish this twofold connection, thus becomes the neces-sary consecrator of all human powers, without needingfor itself any consecration from an external power, sinceit is the immediate organ of the supreme authority.

Here we see the source of this second axiom : Nosociety can be maintained and developed without a priest-hood in some form or other. Equally indispensable to allfor education and counsel, this theoretic power is alonecompetent to consecrate the governors and protect thegoverned. It is the normal moderator in public life, aswomen are in private life; not forgetting, however, thatboth these forms of existence demand the continuous con-

IX.—THE LIFE, (i) 195

currence of moral influence and intellectual power. Youmay condense all the social attributes of the priesthoodby adopting the biblical name, Judge. For, its threefoldoffice of adviser, consecrator, and regulator, is dischargedalways by judging, that is to say, on the basis of anappreciation which commands respect.

The Woman.—Catholicism had fortunately preparedme, my father, to apprehend aright this fundamentalprinciple, disregarding the popularity of the Protestantand deistic sophisms, aimed, with a blind fury, againstthe chief construction of the Middle Ages. But I do notquite see why Positivism, whilst it consolidates andcarries farther this grand but inchoate conception, ad-heres to expressions which at first sight seem only refer-able to its theological origin, though susceptible of apurely natural sense. Over and above the just respectinspired by this historical nomenclature, I suppose that italso rests on dogmatical grounds, though I do not discernthem.

The Priest—They are especially derived, my daughter,from the want of homogeneity traceable in these twoexpressions, which thus by their contrast recall the twoprincipal characteristics of the great social division, in-stead of merely pointing to one. In terming the theoreticpower spiritual, we make it clear that the other is purelymaterial. Thereby we indirectly indicate the best pointof comparison between them socially, which consists inlooking at them as disciplining, one wills, the other acts.Conversely, to call the practical power temporal, is to sug-gest with sufficient force the eternity which is charac-teristic of the theoretical power. By the aid of thesedistinctions, we define satisfactorily their respective pro-vinces ; on the one hand the present, on the other thepast and future : the one specially establishes solidarity,the other continuity; to the one belongs above all theobjective, to the other the subjective life. Now, thesetwo essential attributes, simultaneously indicated by the

196 IX.—THE LIFE, (i)

very discordance of the names in use, concur in recallingalso the last contrast between the two human powers^namely, as to their respective extent. For the theoreticalpower, whether as spiritual or as eternal, by its natureadmits of complete universality; whilst the practical, asmaterial and temporal, must always be local From thi*last contrast, if drawn out to its full consequences, theseparation follows.

The Woman.—My old Catholic habits lead me, myfather, to condense all the essential attributes of thespiritual power in the systematic direction of the com-mon education, where its exclusive competence admits ofno dispute.

The Pried.—Such is, in fact, my daughter, the funda-mental office of the priesthood, which, when it dischargesworthily this main duty, necessarily derives from it greatinfluence over the whole of human life. Its other socialfunctions are but the natural consequences or the neces-sary complement of this characteristic destination. First,preaching becomes a necessary continuation of it, in orderduly to recall the principles of the general harmony, whichour action in detail often inclines us to forget. Again, itis on this ground that the spiritual power acquires itscompetence to consecrate functions and organs, in thename of a doctrine which all regard as having perma-nently to regulate human existence. Similarly it drawsfrom it its consultative influence on all the important actsof life, private and public, wherein each man often feelsthe need of having recourse voluntarily to the enlightenedand kind advice of the sages who guided his systematicinitiation. Lastly, the education enables the priesthoodto become, by common consent, the regular arbiter inindustrial disputes, by virtue of the equal confidence withwhich it naturally inspires superiors and inferiors.

The Woman.—I am thus Jed, my father, to ask you inwhat consists, in the Positive regime, this paramountfunction of the religious power. Already I feel that the

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education should especially qualify to live for others, inorder to live again in others by others, a being naturallyinclined to live for itself and in itself. This great changedemands the close union of the woman and the priest,acting duly on the heart and the intellect. But I need amore accurate conception of their respective offices.

The Priest—For that, my daughter, look first oneducation in its strict sense as naturally ended at theage of emancipation, when each, after receiving the thirdsocial sacrament, becomes at length a direct servant ofHumanity, which previously kept him as was fit inpupilage. Next break up this preparation of twenty-one years into two main parts, the one unsystematic, theother systematic, the second lasting only half the timeof the first. You thus mark off the successive rule ofthe affective sex and the theoretic power in the wholeof human initiation, which is begun by the heart andcompleted by the intellect, though both always take ashare in it.

The first phase, lasting till the age of puberty, must besubdivided into two periods of equal length, separated bythe true dentition. Till that period, the mother has thesole direction of an education, which is entirely spon-taneous, whether for the body, the intellect, or the moralnature. Though the development of the body shouldthen take the first place, the heart soon plays a capitalpart, and its action will make itself felt throughout life.The upgrowth of home affections leads the child at thisearly stage of his existence to the first rudiments ofPositive worship, through the adoration of its mother, whonecessarily is for him the representative of Humanity;her distinct predominance, however, being brought withinhis reach by the institution of language. At the sametime, the intellect collects from experience notions ofall kinds, which later will supply the materials for thetrue systematisation. If these natural exercises of thesenses and muscles are wisely guided, without ever

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impairing their spontaneity, the life of thought and the]ife of action will be judiciously begun, whilst they are inconstant subordination to the life of affection. But themother alone can rightly combine these three aspects.She will urge the child, especially if patrician, habituallyto accomplish some practical task, so that he may betterunderstand the difficulty of carrying on the most unim-portant work to its natural end, and be in more sym-pathy with the classes engaged in such labour. Theseexercises will give accuracy and clearness to his intellect,as well as tenderness and humility to his heart.

From dentition to puberty, we begin to systematise theeducation in the family, by introducing gradually a seriesof regular studies. Still, the direction rests always withthe mother, who can easily guide purely aesthetic studies,when she herself has received in the needful degree theeducation which all are to receive. Till that time, allstudy properly so called should have been carefullyeschewed, even reading and writing, allowing for whatthe child acquires absolutely by itself. But in thisperiod there is born the habit of intellectual exertion,by the development under regulation of the faculties ofexpression, the culture of which is peculiarly suited tothis second phase of childhood. Such a study, in themain kept clear of all rules, consists solely in aestheticexercises, in which readings in poetry are wisely com-bined with singing and drawing. Whilst the moralgrowth continues of itself, the worship soon developsin this period, in proportion as the child gains freshmeans of giving better expression to his affections. Heshould, in fact, sum up all his exercises in a song anda portrait in honour of his mother. At the same time,he acquires a more complete sense of Humanity, as hebecomes familiar with the great masterpieces in everyart; provided that his taste and his morality are notboth at once lowered by an admixture of mediocre pro-ductions.

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The Woman.—These two periods of the home educa-tion convey to me, my father, no sense of serious difficultyexcept as to religion. Though you may then disposethe child favourably towards it by the heart, no attemptcau be made to give him any dogmatic teaching, fromthe want of the scientific bases, reserved for his lastpreparatory period. Yet it is not possible to avoid histhinking and inquiring on the subject.

The Priest.—Remember, my daughter, that the growthof each individual must in all essential features spontane-ously reproduce the initiation of the race. You will thensee that, on this point, the child must be left to followunchecked the general laws of our intellectual growth.Till dentition he will naturally be f etichist, and then poly-theist till puberty. He will be led by these two philoso-phical states, as the race was, to develop more fully firstthe power of observation, then the artistic faculties.

As for the questions he may ask his parents, if he per-ceives that they do not think as he does, the profoundlyrelative nature of Positivism will always allow them toanswer without hypocrisy. Enough if they frankly tellhim that the opinions he now holds are natural at hisage, but warn him that he will change them soon, by alaw which they themselves formerly obeyed. If madeto observe that he has already of himself passed fromfetichism to polytheism, he will easily believe in furtherchanges, which, it may be added, need not be hastened byartificial means. His intellect is thus diverted from theabsolute, whilst his heart sympathises better with thepopulations which represent these preliminary states.

The Woman.—This point clear, I may now, my father,proceed to the examination of the systematic education.Though always under the guidance of the priesthood, thecontinuous ascendency which Positivism assigns to theheart over the intellect already warns me that it willnever withdraw the adolescent from his family ties.Their daily influence becomes even more needful for him

2oo IX.—THE LIFE, (i)

when his scientific studies will be tending to dry up hisfeelings and foster his pride. I know your profound dis-like to our scholastic conventual establishments, wheremoral corruption grows faster even than stupidity.

The Priest.—Yes, my daughter, it is under the con-stant superintendence of his mother that the adolescent,after receiving the sacrament of initiation, goes, eachweek, to the school adjoining the temple of Humanity,to hear from the priesthood one or two lectures on thedoctrine. Moreover the chief fruit of this outside teach-ing depends on the work done in connection with it athome. For the true influence of teaching is to qualifyfor active thought, rather than to dispense with it.

The general plan of this systematic study of the doctrineof Positivism is naturally pointed out by the encyclopedichierarchy which delineates the universal order. Its sevenprimary degrees correspond to as many years of an intel-lectual noviciate, a quarter of each year being reservedfor examination and rest. The number of yearly lessonsis thus reduced to forty, one per week, which is sufficientfor the philosophical study of each science. Only inmathematics, the extent and peculiar difficulty of thetraining, which will always be in a scientific point of viewthe most important, require two lectures a week duringthe first two years, when the practical apprenticeship isless engrossing. It is thus that, from geometry up tomorals, every adolescent must, in seven years, systemati-cally accomplish the objective ascent which exacted fromHumanity so many centuries of spontaneous effort.

During this scientific initiation, a monotheism, gradu-ally becoming simpler, offers the adolescent, as the race,a general transition towards Positivism as the goal.The normal uniformity of the Western priesthood willrender such study quite compatible with the most usefultravels of our proletaries. During the course of thesestudies, the natural prolongation of the aesthetic trainingwill support the mother's influence in preventing or

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remedying their moral degradation. At first limited toour living languages, the poetical readings of the Westernnations will then take in the Greco-Roman sources ofour intellectual and moral development, always, however,without any special master.

After having developed his private worship, and learntto feel the charm of family worship, the future citizenenters on the direct and systematic adoration of thetrue Great Being, whose principal benefits he can thenworthily appreciate. As the result of this system ofpreparations the young Positivist deserves the sacra-ment of admission, when his intellect is at length com-petent to serve the Family, the Country, and Humanity,without his heart ceasing to love them.

The Woman.—During this last initiation the super-intendence of the mother, as it seems to me, my father,will have seriously to consider the deviations from rightconduct to which the passions expose the adolescent atthat age. The language of physicians on this point hasoften alarmed me, by making me fear lest the naturallaws of our bodily development render these vices asa general rule unavoidable. I should need to be re-assured on this particular danger, in regard to whichthe moral disturbance may besides compromise the intel-lectual development.

The Priest—You would, my daughter, attach muchless weight to these assertions of medical men, if youknew how profoundly incompetent are those who makethem. Though professing to study man, physicians,whether theoretical or practical, especially in moderntimes, are far from being able to know his nature. Forthey confine themselves essentially to what we have incommon with the other animals; so that their propername would be veterinary surgeons, were it not that, inthe best of them, practice makes up, in some small degree,for the defects of their scientific instruction. Since manis of all living beings the most indivisible, whoever does

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not study in him body and mind together can form onlyfalse or superficial notions of him.

The materialism of our schools of medicine cannot thenprevail as against a large and decisive experience, fullyexplained by the true theory of human nature. Thisalleged sexual necessity was overcome commonly, duringthe whole of the Middle Ages, by all those who sub-mitted duly to the discipline of Catholicism and chivalry.Even in the midst of modern anarchy, many individualinstances still prove that it is possible to remain reallypure until marriage. A life of labour, and above allthe uninterrupted play of the family affections, are gene-rally sufficient protection against such dangers, whichonly in very rare cases become insurmountable, caseserroneously treated as typical by physicians unversed inmoral struggles. Our young disciples will be accustomed,from childhood, to look on the triumph of the socialover the personal feelings as the grand object of man.They will train themselves to overcome one day thesexual instinct by early struggling with that of nutri-tion, which it must be remembered is closely connectedwith it by virtue of the juxtaposition of the respectiveorgans. Lastly you are aware that a deep affection wasalways the best preservation against libertinage. Thus,the mother will complete the protection of her son againstthe vices you fear, by leading him to centre on a worthyobject the personal affections which are to determinelater his home destiny, instead of waiting till such affec-tion come abruptly from chance contacts.

The Woman.—This valuable explanation leaves me,my father, as regards the whole system of Positive educa-tion, in want of no other important elucidation exceptas concerns my own sex in particular. I feel alreadythat, for mothers to direct the initiation of the family,they must themselves in due measure have shared inthe encyclopedic instruction from which, with rare ex-ceptions here and there, none must be excluded. In

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default of this complete universality, the Positive faithcould never gain the systematic ascendency requisite forits social mission. Besides, the mother would be unableto retain in sufficient degree the moral superintendenceof human education, if her ignorance exposed her to theill-concealed contempt of a son often puffed up with thepride of knowledge. Still I doubt as to women, whetherthey are to follow the same course of studies as men andunder the same masters, though at separate times.

The Priest. — You have your answer already, mydaughter, from the great Moliere, who prescribes to yoursex a general insight, clear ideas on all subjects.* For,in fact, our encyclopedic instruction has no other aim.It is quite free from the character of specialism, which isjustly repugnant to you in the existing education, as littlesuited, as a general rule, for men as for women. To thiscommon stock, the theoretical or practical man mustafterwards, by himself, apply for the further knowledgewhich his function demands, not as a general rule need-ing any private instruction, unless he have but imper-fectly profited by the common teaching.

Our general plan of the systematic noviciate reallyadmits, in the case of your sex, of no other reductionthan halving the number of the weekly lectures whichdistinguishes the first two years. Not mixing in activelife, women should confine themselves, in mathematics,to a logical rather than a scientific training, and for thisone lecture a week is enough, as in all the rest of the.seven years' course. This simplification only requiresgreater philosophical efforts from the professor.

As for a difference of professors, it would tend to dis-credit equally teacher and pupil. Not to say that itwould be contrary to the profoundly synthetical naturewhich should be the characteristic of the Positive priest-hood. The more entirely to exclude dispersive tendencies,it is important that each priest teach in succession the

* See p. 49.

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seven encyclopedic sciences. A further result of thisshould be the great social advantage of fostering, duringthis long initiation, unbroken relations with the samepupils, who will thus be indebted to him for the wholeof their instruction in science. This permanence willgreatly facilitate the after influence of our priesthoodon the whole of active life.

Now, on similar grounds, the two sexes must drawtheir systematic education from the same sources. If theHigh Priest of Humanity do not change too frequentlythe stations of the priests, all family disputes will bemore easily settled through this personal subordinationof the several members of the family to the same masters.Priests who should only speak to one sex would berendered incompetent for their social office, besides beingso intellectually to begin with.

The Won tan.—Now, my father, I fully grasp the socialinfluence which the priesthood of Positivism will derivenaturally from the adequate discharge of its fundamentaloffice. Still, I am not clear that, on this basis alone, itwill acquire sufficient authority. I beg you then to ex-plain directly the various general means it has at its dis-posal to secure, as far as possible, the constant harmonyof the whole.

The Priest.—They must all be derived, my daughter,from the educational system. The better to estimatethem, we must remember that the Positive noviciate endsin a year entirely devoted to moral science. This lastbranch of instruction will be always divided into twoequal portions, one theoretic, the other practical. In thefirst, all the essential laws of our nature will be solidlybased on the whole system of our conceptions relating tothe world, to life, and to society. This basis will enableus to establish definitively real demonstrations as regardsthe general rules of conduct applicable to each case,individual, domestic, or civic. In them there will bespecified all the duties of each of the four powers indis-

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pensable to the human providence. These final deter-minations, which condense the Positive education, mayhave a great power, by virtue of the moral dispositionof the taught, as yet kept free from the aberrationsattendant on active life.

The system of these practical rules fulfils for each thetwofold purpose of guiding his own conduct and judgingthat of others. This second application of it is bettersecured than the first against the disturbing action of thepassions, which seldom prevent us from appreciating thefaults of others, however blind they make us to our own.An egoist is the last person to tolerate egoism, as it raisesall around him unmanageable competitors.

We must thus distinguish two general modes in thespiritual discipline, the one direct, the other indirect.The priesthood's main effort is to change the guiltyperson, by acting first on his heart, then on his intellect.This is at once the purest and most efficacious method,though the least apparent. It will always remain theonly method perfectly consonant with the nature of thespiritual power, which should constantly discipline thewill by persuasion and by conviction, with no coerciveinfluence. But its wise and prolonged use is often in-adequate. In such cases the priesthood, not able tocorrect the internal tendencies, proceeds indirectly againstthem, by an appeal to outside opinion.

Without converting the criminal, it controls him bythe judgment of others. That this indirect mode ofaction is perfectly legitimate cannot be denied, as it restsin all cases on a simple examination of the conduct ofeach. No one can bar such a judgment, in which everyone takes part as regards others, and which rests on adoctrine which has the free assent of all. Yet theoriminal, who does not allow that he is wrong, or whosewill has undergone no change, is thus subjected to thepressure of a real coercive force. But he cannot object,as it remains purely moral. If others abstained from

2o6 IX.—THE LIFE, (i)

judging, it is they who would be the oppressed party, andthat without having in any way deserved it. Legitimate,however, as this indirect method evidently is, we must onlyhave recourse to it when all direct means are exhausted.

When necessary, it admits of three degrees in succes-sion. The priesthood employs first a simple remonstrancein the family, before the relations and friends calledtogether for the purpose; then a public censure, pro-claimed in the temple of Humanity; lastly, excommunica-tion from society, either for a time or for ever. Withoutoutstepping its just authority, the spiritual power may, infact, go so far as to pronounce, in the name of the GreatBeing, the absolute unworthiness of a false servant, thusrendered incapable of sharing in the duties and benefitsof human society. But, if the priesthood abused thispower, either to gratify unjust animosity, or even froma blind or mistaken zeal, it would be speedily punishedfor its fault. For the whole force of excommunicationdepending on the free sanction of the public, the neutralityof the latter would make the blow fail, and by failing itwould tend to discredit its authors. When the generalopinion strongly supports the priesthood in its condemna-tion, this spiritual discipline will be efficacious to a degreeof which we can form no conception from the past, forsuch a concert could not in the past be fully established,in the absence of Positive education.

Then, however rich or powerful the criminal may be,he will, at times, without any loss of property, see him-self gradually abandoned by his dependants, his servants,and even his nearest relatives. In spite of his wealth,he might, in extreme cases, be reduced to provide him-self his own food, as no one would serve him. Thoughfree to leave his country, he will only escape the con-demnation of the universal priesthood by taking refugewith populations not as yet acquainted with the Positivefaith, which will ultimately spread over the whole humanplanet. Fortunately this extreme development of religious

IX. — THE LIFE, (i) 207

discipline will always be exceptional. But its distinctappreciation is necessary here to indicate more clearlythe efficacy of our regime.

The Woman.—Whatever be this moral power, I shouldfind it difficult to think, my father, that it ever entirelysuperseded the recourse to temporal repression, whetherdirected against property, or even against the person.

The Priest.—In truth, my daughter, legislation pro-perly so called will always be necessary, to make up forthe inadequacy of mere moral force as regards the moreurgent social needs. Conscience and opinion would beoften powerless against daily violations of right, werenot the temporal power to apply physical repressionin the most ordinary cases. Besides these frequent yetslight deviations, due mainly to the inactivity of the goodinstincts, the same protection is more suitable to themore serious transgressions resulting directly from thepredominance of the bad instincts. There are, in fact, inour species, as in the others, thoroughly vicious indivi-duals, for whom true correctives are useless or undeserved.In the case of these exceptional organisations, society inits own defence will never fail to be driven to the destruc-tion by a solemn act of every vicious organ, when hisunworthiness has been sufficiently proved by decisive acts.It is only a false philanthropy that can lead us to lavishon criminals a pity and a care which would find betterobjects in so many honest victims of our imperfect socialarrangements. But, although capital punishment and,still more, total or partial confiscation, can never entirelybe given up, their employment will become less and lessfrequent as Humanity advances. The continuous upwardgrowth of feeling, intelligence, and activity tends moreand more to place spiritual discipline above temporal re-pression, though we can never dispense with this last.

The Woman.—This general glimpse of the regime ofman seems, my father, to omit the cases in which the moralperversion should originate with the priesthood itself.

2o8 IX.—THE LIFE, (i)

The Priest—Then, my daughter, the spiritual disciplinetakes a similar course, though somewhat less regularly.For our moral system is of universal application, anddemonstrates the duties of the priesthood as much as thoseof any other class; nay, it even brings them into strongerlight, seeing their paramount importance. Moreover, thepublic censure tends by preference to assail these judgesof the rest, secretly hated by the patricians, coldly re-spected by the proletariate, and arousing no deep sym-pathy, in general, anywhere but in women. Finally, thePositive faith is, by its nature, always open to discussion,which prevents it from creating any prestige strongenough to bar criticism when become really necessary.

Whatever the veneration with which the priesthoodof Humanity is habitually regarded, it never has anyother source but the adequate discharge of a well-definedoffice. The intellectual and moral conditions which thespiritual power imposes on all in the name of the commonfaith may be turned against it, in the same name, whenit fails to fulfil them.

If, on the commonest hypothesis, the perversion ispartial, the priesthood is competent to meet it by its owninternal discipline. But, in case of its neglect, reparationmay at any time be freely called for by any believerwhatever. The fulness and precision which characterisethe Positive faith allow each individual to exercise, forhimself, on his own responsibility, this irregular priest-hood, which becomes efficient if sanctioned by opinion.Finally, if the corruption were to become general in ourpriests, a new clergy would soon arise to meet thegeneral wish, fulfilling better the conditions imposed bya doctrine not liable to adulteration, and always superiorto its organs, whoever they may be.

The Woman,—I am thus led, my father, to ask you toend this general survey by pointing out the true consti-tution of the Positive priesthood.

TJie Priest.—You will easily see, my daughter, that the

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first condition required by its fundamental object is acomplete renunciation of temporal power, and even ofmere wealth. This is the primary engagement whichevery aspirant to the priesthood must solemnly contract,when he receives, at the age of twenty-eight, the sacra-ment of destination. Our priests do not even inheritfrom their families, whether to keep clear of deviationsin the temporal direction, or to leave capital to those whocan use it. The contemplative class should as a body bealways maintained by the active; at first through thefree contributions of the believers, afterwards by aid fromthe public treasury, when the faith is unanimously ac-cepted. It must not then possess anything as its own,land, houses, nor even annuities ; allowing for its annualbudget, always settled by the temporal power. The gene-rality of views and the generosity of feeling which shouldalways distinguish the priesthood are absolutely incom-patible with the ideas of detail and the disposition topride inherent in all practical power. If you would re-strict yourself to advice, you must always be unable tocommand, even by wealth : otherwise our poor natureremains inclined often to substitute force for demonstra-tion. This condition of the priesthood was felt in itssublimest exaggeration by the admirable saint who, in thethirteenth century, endeavoured, but in vain, to regenerateexhausted Catholicism. But he forgot, when prescrib-ing to his disciples an absolute poverty which they soonevaded, that he was distracting them from their properoffice by the daily cares for their subsistence.

The better to define the befitting moderation, I thinkI should name the yearly stipends of the several ranksof the priesthood, adapting them to the actual rate of ex-penditure usual in France, which is a mean, on this point,between the different Western nations. This summarystatement will, moreover, give you the internal organisa-tion of the Positive clergy, already sketched in outlinein the exposition of the worship.

o

2io IX.—THE LIFE, (i)

Generally it is composed of three successive orders, theaspirants admitted at twenty-eighty the vicars or substi-tutes at thirty-five, and the priests proper at forty-two.

Though the first, whose number has no natural limit,are already considered as having a real priestly vocation ?they do not as yet belong to the spiritual power, andexercise none of its functions. Their free renunciation,therefore, of all inheritance remains simply provisional,as is their stipend, fixed at 3000 francs (^120). With-out any clerical residence, they are yet under regularsurveillance, as to their work and conduct.

The vicars are irrevocably members of the priesthood,though limited as yet to the functions of teaching andpreaching, allowing for special delegation in cases ofurgency. Besides their definitive renunciation of pro-perty, their admission is conditional on a worthy marriage.They live with their families, but apart from the priests,in the philosophical presbytery annexed to each templeof Humanity, parallel to the Positive school. The classwhich directs in all other classes the influence of theheart upon the intellect, should itself furnish the bestmasculine type of moral elevation, by the full develop-ment of the family affections, without which the love ofthe race is an illusion. Though marriage is left optionalfor other citizens, it becomes then obligatory for thepriests, whose office cannot be worthily performed with-out the persistent influence, it may be objective or sub-jective, of woman on the man. The better to test themon this point, the Positive religion requires even simplevicars to fulfil this condition. This second rank, which,with exceptions for failure, always leads to the third,secures a yearly stipend of 6000 francs (^240).

During the seven years which separate him from fullpriesthood, every vicar has taught all the encyclopedicsciences, and duly exercised his powers of preaching.Then he becomes a true priest, and may discharge, inthe family or the city, the threefold office of adviser, con-

IX.—THE LIFE, (i) 211

secrator, and regulator, which is the social characteristicof the Positive clergy. In this final state, his annualpayment rises to 12,000 francs (^480), besides theexpenses of visiting his diocese.

Every philosophical presbytery is composed of sevenpriests and three vicars, whose residences may always bechanged, such change never taking place, however, with-out really serious justification. The number of thesepriestly colleges is two thousand for the whole West:which gives a spiritual functionary for every six thou-sand inhabitants; whence we get one hundred thousandfor the whole earth. The rate may appear too low, butit is really adequate for all the services, from the natureof a doctrine which seldom demands systematic explana-tions, almost always replaced by the unprompted inter-vention of women and proletaries. It is important tolimit as far as possible the priestly corporation, both toavoid superfluous expense, and still more to secure thebetter composition of the clergy.

The Woman.—In this statement I do not see, myfather, the head which is to direct this vast body.

The Priest.—Though its doctrine and its office tend,my daughter, to give it a self-direction with the aid ofpublic opinion, it really does require a general head.This supreme power is vested in the High Priest ofHumanity, whose natural residence will be Paris as themetropolis of the regenerated West. His income is fivetimes that of ordinary priests, over and above the ex-penses necessitated by his vast administration.

He governs alone the whole Positive clergy, ordain-ing, changing their residence, and even cashiering, on hismoral responsibility, any of its members. His chief careis to maintain the priestly character in its integrity asagainst the various temporal seductions. Any servile orseditious priest, who should aim at temporal power byflattering the patriciate or the proletariate, would be ulti-mately excluded from the priesthood, though in certain

212 X.—THE LIFE. (2)

cases finding a place amongst its pensioners, supposinghim to have sufficient scientific merit.

In the general discharge of his functions, the supremehead of Western Positivism has the aid of four nationalsuperiors, whose income is half the amount of his. Underhis direction, they guide the four classes of churches,Italian, Spanish, English, and German.* As for France,there the High Priest is in place of the nationalsuperior, though he may be taken from any one of thefive Positivist populations. The regular mode of replac-ing him is, as in the temporal order, his own nomination,but sanctioned in this case by the unanimous assent ofthe four national superiors, and even, when there isdivision of opinion, in accordance with the wish of thesenior priests of the two thousand presbyteries.

CONVERSATION X.PRIVATE LIFE.

The Woman.—At the close of the foregoing conversa-tion, I did not ask you, my father, what would be theproper subject of each of the two other conferences onthe life. I quite felt that the two halves of the practicaldomain of our religion must have essentially the samesubdivisions, always taken from the existence which theyare respectively to idealise and guide. The study of theworship, then, indicated the plan which suits that of theregime, first private, then public life. In that which isour subject to-day, I also feel that you are going todistinguish similarly the individual existence and thefamily life.

The Priest.—For the first, which becomes the normalbasis of all human conduct, its regeneration by Positivism

* See Pos. Pol, iv. p. 426.—27. Tr.

X.—THE LIFE. (2) 213

consists, my daughter, in placing it on a social footing.This radical transformation, at all times denied to theo-logism, monotheistic more than any, but constantlyanticipated and demanded more and more loudly by thepublic instinct, is not now the product of any senti-mental exaggeration. It rests solely on an accurateappreciation of the real facts, which in the human order,more synthetical than any other, looks to the wholebefore the parts.

Although every human function is necessarily dis-charged by an individual organ, its true nature is alwayssocial; since the share of the individual agent in it isalways subordinate to the indivisible contribution of con-temporaries and predecessors. Everything we have be-longs then to Humanity; for everything comes to us fromher—life, fortune, talents, information, tenderness, energy,etc. A poet never suspected of subversive tendenciesput into the mouth of Titus this decisive sentence, asentence really worthy of such a mouthpiece:

So che tutto e di tut t i ; e che ne pureDi nascer merit6 chi d"' esser natoCrede solo per se.

—METASTASIO, Clem de Tito, Act ii. Sc. 10.

I know that all is from all; and that not even did he deserveTo be born, who thinks himself born for himself alone.

Similar anticipations might be found in the oldestwritings- Thus, Positivism, when condensing all humanmorality into living for others, is, in reality, only system-atising the universal instinct, after having raised thescientific spirit to the social point of view, unattainableby the synthesis of theology or metaphysics.

The whole of the Positive education, intellectual aswell as affective, will familiarise us thoroughly with ourcomplete dependence on Humanity, so as to make usduly feel that we are all necessarily meant for her unin-termitting service. In the preparatory period of life,

2i4 X.—THE LIFE. (2)

when incapable of useful action, every one owns hispowerlessness as regards his chief wants, the habitualsupply of which he sees to come from others. At firsthe believes himself indebted for it to his family only,which feeds, cares for, instructs him, etc. But beforelong he discerns a higher providence, of which his motheris for him merely the special minister and the bestrepresentative. The institution of language alone wouldbe enough to reveal it to him. For its construction isbeyond any individual power, and is solely the resultof the accumulated efforts of all the generations of men,notwithstanding the diversity of idioms. Moreover, theleast gifted man feels himself continually indebted toHumanity for quantities of other accumulations, material,intellectual, social, and even moral.

When this feeling is sufficiently clear and vivid duringthe preparation, it is able later to resist the sophisms ofthe passions to which real life, theoretic or practical, givesoccasion. The exertions we habitually make then tendto make us ignore the true providence, whilst overratingour own value. But reflection can always dispel this un-grateful illusion, in those who have been properly broughtup. For it is enough if they observe that their successin any work whatever depends mainly on the immenseco-operation which their blind pride forgets. The mostskilful man with the best directed activity can never payback but a very slight portion of that which he receives.He continues, as in his childhood, to be fed, protected,developed, etc., by Humanity. Only, her agents arechanged, so as no longer to stand out distinct to his view.Instead of receiving all from her through his parents,she then conveys her benefits through a number of in-direct agents, most of whom he will never know. Tolive for others is seen to be, then, for all of us, the ever-during duty which follows with rigorous logic from thisindisputable fact, the living by others. Such is, withoutany exaltation of sympathy, the necessary conclusion from

X.—THE LIFE. (2) 215

an accurate appreciation of reality, when philosophicallygrasped as a whole.

TJie Woman.—I am happy, my father, to find thussystematically sanctioned a disposition for which at timesI reproached myself as due to an exaggeration of my feel-ings. Before I became Positivist, I used often to say :" Wliat pleasures can be greater than those of devotedness toothers ? " Now I shall be able to defend this holy prin-ciple against the sneers of egoists, and perhaps raise inthem emotions which will prevent their doubting it.

The Priest.—You have, my daughter, unaided antici-pated the chief characteristic of Positivism. It consistsin finally condensing, in one and the same formula, thelaw of duty and the law of happiness, hitherto assertedby all systems to be irreconcilable, although the instinctof men always aimed at reconciling them. Their neces-sary harmony is a direct consequence of the existence inour nature of the feelings of benevolence, as demonstratedby science, in the last century, on a survey of the wholeanimal world, where the respective participation of theheart and the intellect is more easily traced.

Besides that our moral harmony rests exclusively onaltruism, altruism alone can procure us also life in thedeepest and truest sense. Those degraded beings, who inthe present day aspire only to Uve^ would be tempted togive up their brutal egoism had they but once reallytasted what you so well call the pleasures of devotedness.They would then understand that to live for othersaffords the only means of freely developing the wholeexistence of man ; by extending it simultaneously to thepresent in the largest sense, to the remotest past, andeven to the most distant future. None but the sympa-thetic instincts can have unimpeded scope, for in themeach individual finds himself aided by all others, who, onthe contrary, repress his self-regarding tendencies.

This is how happiness will necessarily coincide with duty.No doubt, the fine definition of virtue, by a moralist

216 X.—THE LIFE. (2)

of the eighteenth century (Duclos), as an effort over oneselfin favour of others, will always remain applicable. Ourimperfect nature will indeed always need a real effort tosubordinate to our sociality the personality which is con-stantly stimulated by the conditions of our existence.But the triumph once gained, it tends of itself, not tomention the power of habit, to gain strength and to growby virtue of the incomparable charm inherent in sym-pathy whether of feeling or in act.

It is then felt that true happiness is above all theresult of a worthy submission, the only sure basis of alarge and noble activity. Far from grieving over thesum of the fatalities to which we are subjected, we exertourselves to strengthen the order they form by imposingon ourselves rules of our own creation, which may moresuccessfully contend with our egoism, the main source ofhuman misfortune. Where such rules are freely insti-tuted, we soon find, according to the admirable precept ofDescartes, that they deserve as much respect as the lawsnot within our choice, which have less moral efficacy.

The Woman.—Such a view of human nature makes meat length see, my father, that it is possible to give anessentially altruistic character even to the rules whichconcern our personal existence, rules hitherto alwaysgrounded on selfish prudence. The wisdom of antiquitysummed up morals in this precept: Do to others as youmould be done unto. However precious at the time thisgeneral rule, all it did was to regulate a purely personalcalculation. This character recurs if you sift it in thegreat Catholic formula : Love your neighbour as yourselfNot only is egoism thus sanctioned and not compressed,but it is excited directly by the motive on which therule is based, the love of God, without any humansympathy, not to say that such love was generally butanother expression for fear. Still, when we comparethe two precepts, we see in them a great advance. Forthe first only bore upon acts, whereas the second presses

X.—THE LIFE. (2) 217

on to the feelings which direct them. Still, this moralimprovement remains very incomplete, so long as love inthe theological sense retains its stain of selfishness.

Positivism alone becomes at once both noble and true,when it calls on us to live for others. This definitiveformula of human morality sanctions explicitly only theinstincts of benevolence, the common source of happinessand of duty. But implicitly it sanctions the personalinstincts, as necessary conditions of our existence, pro-vided they are subordinated to the former. With thissole limitation, their continuous satisfaction is even en-joined on us, so as to fit ourselves for the real serviceof Humanity, whose we are entirely.

Thus I understand the strong reprobation with whichI always saw you visit suicide, previously, as it seemedto me, condemned only by Catholicism. For our life isless even than our fortune or any of our talents at ourarbitrary disposal; since it is more valuable to Humanity,from whom we hold it. But, on the same principle, thePositive religion also condemns, though often due torespectable motives, that kind of chronic suicide, at leastsocial suicide, which the Catholic system too often en-couraged. I remember that the daily abuse of bodilydiscipline had so completely reduced the hermits of theThebaid, that their abbots were at length obliged to autho-rise them to pray sitting, or even lying down, becausethey were unable to remain long enough on their knees.

The Priest.—Besides that we ennoble the just satis-faction of the personal instincts by ever subordinatingit to its social purpose, observe, my daughter, that thisnecessary subordination becomes the only possible basisof really unassailable prescriptions on the subject. With-out this unique principle, the simplest rules relating toour individual existence necessarily retain a character ofinstability, unless connected arbitrarily with supernaturalordinances, valid only for certain times and within limits,with a validity which is now exhausted.

2i8 X.-THE LIFE. (2)

If our sobriety rests solely on personal prudence, it isoften exposed to the sophisms of greediness, which areeven not to be refuted in the case of many individuals,who can commit excesses for a long time with realimpunity physically. But the social point of view atonce dispels all uncertainty, prescribing for each anamount of food almost always less than that which hemight take without physical risk. For beyond the verymoderate limits set by our service as regards the Family,the Country, and Humanity, we are thus consuming pro-visions which in moral fairness belonged to others. Atthe same time the reaction of this bodily regimen onthe brain tends necessarily to degrade our feeble intelli-gence in science, art, or industry. Images become habi-tually more indistinct, induction and deduction harderand slower : all is weakened, even to the faculties ofexpression.

But it is the moral influence of the slightest dailyintemperance that is its chief danger, as more difficult toavoid and more corrupting. For, in thus indulging themost personal of our acts beyond what is required reallyfor our support, we are cultivating, as far as possible,egoism at the expense of altruism; since we even over-come our involuntary sympathy for those who are at thetime in want of food. Moreover, the close connection inthe brain of the several egoistic instincts soon propagatesto all the others the strong, even if passing, excitementof any one of them. The admirable painter of humannature to whom we owe the unrivalled poem of theImitation, felt profoundly this normal connection, whenhe tells us (book i., chap, xix., § 4): Frena gulam, etoranem carnis indinationem welius frenabis.—Bridle thyappetite, and thou shalt the easier bridle all fleshly desires.If you read daily this inexhaustible treasure of truewisdom, substituting therein Humanity for God, you willsoon feel that this final change gives great strength tosuch a precept, as to most others.

X.—THE LIFE. (2) 219

The wholesome restraint of the instinct of nutrition isstill very far short of the systematic extension which itwill gradually receive from the Positive religion. Forthe sophisms of our sensuality continue to treat asessential wants many material stimulations which arerather hurtful than beneficial. Such is especially theuse of wine, the Musulman prohibition of which wasgeneral and sincere during the centuries in which Islambest displayed the kind of bodily activity for which inparticular we think wine indispensable. When wescrutinise as they deserve the admirable designs of thegreat Mohammed, we soon come to see that by this pro-hibition he wished radically to improve the whole natureof man, first in the individual, then in the race, by thelaw of hereditary transmission. This noble attempt hasnot really failed any more than all the other effortsof the monotheism of the Middle Ages, Eastern noless than Western, to further our highest improvement.Only, as they, it requires to be systematised by Positivism,which will know how to strengthen and develop it,without detriment to the progress of industry. Evenat the present day, this salutary abstinence, already socommon with your sex, at least in the South, may gradu-ally extend to all the advanced organs of human progress.As Positivism shall prevail, women and priests will freely,throughout the West, allowing for exceptional cases, re-nounce the habitual use of this stimulant, the more fatalinasmuch as it often leads to many other excesses.

The Woman.— I understand, my father, why you havelaid so much stress on the Positive discipline of the nutri-tive instinct. For, besides its predominance directly andits indirect reaction, it stands here as the sufficient typeof all the other restraints we must regularly place on thepersonal appetites. These rules as a whole give syste-matic expression, in both sexes, to true j.mrity^ the firstbasis of an unshakeable morality. In fact, this preciousterm must not be confined to the two adjacent organs on

220 X.—THE LIFE. (2)

which depends the conservation of the species and of theindividual. We must make it include also the whole ofthe seven personal instincts, which we alwa)Ts have topurify to a considerable extent, on the ground of theirnormal subordination to the unintermitting service ofHumanity.

The Priest.—This great principle, my daughter, willalways be able to surmount all honest doubts on the point,and even to solve the most captious sophisms. The heartof the true Positivist should, in the within, always re-ject arbitrary wills, as his intellect rejects them in thewithout. Our humble Goddess is, in truth, exempt fromthe various capricesattendantonheromnipotentprecursor.All her acts follow intelligible laws, more and more re-vealed to us by the Positive study of her nature and herdestin}T. By subordinating ourselves to them as muchas possible, we shall without ceasing advance in an inex-haustible progress towards peace, happiness, and dignity.

The Woman.—These indications when combined seemto me, my father, to delineate clearly the regimen ofindividual life in Positivism. With the cerebral table inour hand, we might, in reference to each of the egoisticinstincts, carry out a study equivalent to that which wehave just made of the most important, so as to determinetheir suitable repression. As for the means of developingthe several sympathetic instincts, our worship has alreadypointed out those which are not a consequence of theirdirect action. All these detailed explanations wouldexceed the limits of our present exposition, and wouldeven divert it from its main object. When the Positivefaith shall be accepted, it will be time to compose a newCatechism, more closely resembling those of the Catholics,to give in detail these different practical rules, the generalbases of which will then be familiar to the true be-lievers. But this first Catechism is, on the contrary,especially meant to lay down these essential bases, onlyconsidering their applications so far as they are indispens-

X.—THE LIFE. (2) 221

able to the establishment of the principles. I beg youthen, without dwelling any longer on personal morality, topass on to the second part of the private life, and describethe Positive regeneration of family life.

The Priest.—It depends essentially, my daughter, onthe constituting on an altruistic basis human marriage,which has hitherto been made to rest on a purely egoisticprinciple, as the legitimate satisfaction of the sexualinstinct, tending to the reproduction of the species. Thiscoarse view was naturally adopted on system, so long as theprevalent theory ignored the benevolent instincts. But theinstinct of mankind never ceased to protest against it, andat all times evoked efforts of an empirical character, eachstronger than the last, to which were due the successiveimprovements of the marriage institution. Positivismalone comes forward at length to institute, on this funda-mental point, a noble harmony of theory and practice, inreliance on the chief discovery of modern science, as tothe innate existence of the altruistic instincts.

This great conception, the full bearing of which is yetso imperfectly understood, leads at once to the regenera-tion of human marriage, by conceiving of it henceforwardas having for its special object the mutual perfectingof the two sexes, putting aside every sensual idea. Jtshows by direct proof the twofold affective superiority ofwoman, from the less intensity of the personal instincts,especially the lower ones, and the greater energy of thesympathetic. Hence follows the Positive theory of mar-riage, in which your sex raises mine, by disciplining theanimal desire without which the moral inferiority ofman would hardly ever allow him sufficient tenderness.But this fundamental relation is fortunately aided by allthe other differences in the cerebral organisation of thetwo sexes. The superiority of man is indisputable in allthat regards the character properly so-called, the chiefsource of command. As for the intellect, on the oneside, it is stronger and of wider grasp; on the other,

222 X.—THE LIFE. (2)

more accurate and penetrating. Everything then com-bines to show the mutual efficacy of this close union,which constitutes the most perfect friendship, embel-lished by an incomparable mutual possession. In allother human ties, possible if not actual rivalry alwayschecks the fulness of confidence which can only existbetween those of different sex.

In this view the sexual appetite has no other purposethan to originate or to sustain, more particularly in theman, the impulses calculated to develop tenderness.But for that object it must be gratified very moderately.Otherwise its profoundly egoistic nature tends, on thecontrary, to stimulate self almost as much as excess infood, and often with even more serious results, as thewoman is odiously sacrificed to the brute passions of theman. When my sex becomes sufficiently pure, as yoursis generally, for tenderness to have a due hold withoutthis coarse stimulant, the true influence of marriage ismuch better brought out.

So it will be in the normal case of the chaste unionsanctioned by our worship to meet the wants of thosewho are disqualified for contributing to the propagationof the species. Many diseases are transmitted, and evenaggravated, by inheritance \ so that thousands of chil-dren are born in a wretched condition to die early, theirlife never having been anything but a burden. Inmodern civilisation, where all births equally are pro-tected, these sad results are far more frequent than withthe ancients who destroyed as a general rule their off-spring when weak. A thorough sifting of this impor-tant question would perhaps show that a fourth of thepopulation in the West would be wise to abstain fromhaving children, to concentrate the function where theparents are properly qualified. When there shall bepaid the same attention to the propagation of our speciesas to that of the more important domestic animals, therewill be a recognition of the necessity of thus regulating

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it. But that can only come from the voluntary adoptionof chaste marriages, in accordance with the Positivetheory of the marriage union, in which the sexual rela-tion is not directly necessary. For to forbid marriageby law in the case of hereditary disease, as physicianshave often urged, would be a remedy as odious as itwould be illusory. The influence of Positive religion onprivate and public life can alone give birth, on this point,to resolutions which if not absolutely voluntary fail inefficacy as much as in dignity. In these exceptionalunions, the true nature of marriage will be more appre-ciable, when the two souls are rightly organised. Anextension of the practice of adoption will even allow freescope in such marriages to the other family affections,besides relieving the pairs on whom it devolves to havechildren.

The Woman.—This theory, my father, is adequate toexpress the true idea of marriage, independently of itsbodily results, which are at times not attained. Themoral amelioration of man is then the principal functionof woman, in this unrivalled union instituted for themutual perfecting of both sexes. As for the functions ofthe mother, you have already defined them, as consistingespecially in directing the whole human education, so thatthe heart may therein always prevail over the intellect.So, by virtue of the succession which is normal for thesetwo offices of woman, your sex is ever under the affectiveprovidence of mine. Such a mission at once indicatesthat the marriage tie must be exclusive and even indis-soluble, so that the family relations may attain the com-pleteness and stability required for their moral efficacy.These two conditions are so consonant with human naturethat illicit unions instinctively tend towards them. StillI believe that divorce ought not to be absolutely pro-hibited.

The Priest—You are aware, my daughter, that St.Augustine, overcoming, by his own reason, the necessarily

224 X.—THE LIFE. (2)

absolute character of his theological doctrine, opens hischief work by remarking that murder may be often ex-cusable, and sometimes praiseworthy. The same maybe said of falsehood, and of almost everything else thatgenerally deserves reprobation. But whilst extendingthe exception to divorce, we must not impair the funda-mental indissolubility of marriage. There is in truth butone case in which the marriage union should be dissolvedby law, the condemnation of one or other of the partiesto any degrading punishment which carries with it socialdeath. In all other disturbances, the long continuance ofunworthiness can merely determine the moral disruptionof the union, resulting in separation, but without allow-ing a second marriage. Positive religion imposes on theinnocent in such cases a chastity compatible, be it re-membered, with the deepest tenderness. If the conditionseems to him hard, he should accept it first in the interestof the general order, then as a just consequence of hisoriginal mistake.

The Woman.—I know already, my father, the holy lawof eternal widowhood, by which Positivism at lengthcompletes the great institution of marriage. My sex willnever raise an objection on this point, and you havetaught me how to refute the various sophisms, even thescientific, which might yet come from yours. Unless1

so completed, monogamy becomes illusory, since the newmarriage always creates a subjective polygamy, unless thefirst wife is forgotten, which can be but small comfort tothe second. The mere thought of such a change is enoughgreatly to impair the existing union, as the event of deathis always possible. It is only by the assurance of anunchangeable permanence that the ties of intimacy canacquire the consistence and completeness which are indis-pensable for their moral effect. The most contemptibleof the ephemeral sects sprung from modern anarchy seemsto me that which wished to make inconstancy a conditionof happiness, as the want of fixity in occupations a means

X.—THE LIFE. (2) 225

of improvement. I read, in the Positive Politics, a remarkon this point which struck me greatly : " Between twobeings so complex and so different as man and woman,the whole of life is not too long to know each other fullyand to love each other worthily.7' Far from taxing withillusion the high estimate which a true husband and wifeoften form of one another, I have almost always attributedit to the deeper insight only to be gained by completeintimacy, which, moreover, developes qualities whichescape the indifferent. I t is even to be considered as veryhonourable to our species, this strong mutual esteem whichits members inspire when they study each other carefully.For hatred and indifference alone would deserve the re-proach of blindness which a superficial judgment bringsagainst love. We must consider then as in full confor-mity with human nature the institution which prolongsbeyond the tomb the identification of a noble marriedpair. No intimacy can stand a comparison with theirs;since, between the mother and son, the disparity of age,and even a just veneration, are always a bar to entireharmony.

The Priest.—Besides, my daughter, widowhood canalone give woman's influence its main efficacy. For,during the objective life, the sexual relation impairs toa great degree the sympathetic influence of the wife, bymixing with it something coarsely personal. This iswhy the mother is then our chief guardian angel. Angelshave no sex, as they are eternal.

But when the subjective existence has purified thehigher intimacy which distinguishes the wife, she defi-nitively becomes our highest moral providence. Onesingle year of a true marriage is enough to procure forthe longest life a source of happiness and ameliorationwhich time never ceases to nourish, purifying it constantlyin proportion as, imperfections being forgotten, the excel-lences come into fuller light. Thus, without the subjectiveunion which is a consequence of widowhood, the moral

p

226 X.—THE LIFE. (2)

influence of the woman on the man would be extinguishedat the very moment when its main results should becomevisible, perfected as it is and purified by death. Whenthis complement of marriage shall be adequately appre-ciated, it will furnish one of the best practical distinctionsof the Positive religion, from the evident incompatibilityof such an institution with the principle of theology.

The Woman.—To complete my understanding of theconstitution of the family, my father, I need but know-ledge of its material conditions.

TJie Priest.—They follow, my daughter, from its socialand moral destination. The two fundamental functionsof woman, as mother and as wife, are, for the family, theequivalent of the spiritual power in the State. Theyrequire then the same exemption from active life and thelike renunciation of all command. To stand aloof fromboth is still more indispensable for the woman than forthe priest, in order to preserve that superiority in affec-tion in which her real merit consists, and which is lessqualified than superiority of intellect to resist the in-fluences of action. Every woman, therefore, must becarefully secured from work away from home, so as tobe able to worthily accomplish her holy mission. Re-maining willingly within the sanctuary of home, shethere freely devotes herself to the moral improvement ofher husband and children, from whom she there receivesgracefully their just homage.

This constitution of the family rests from the materialpoint of view on this fundamental rule, systematicallyformulated by Positivism alone, but of which the generalinstinct always had a presentiment—Man must supportwoman. The obligation is equivalent to that of the activeclass towards the contemplative class, allowing for theessential difference in the mode of discharging it. Themaintenance of the priesthood remains purely a socialduty, and can only become an obligation for individualsin very exceptional cases. Precisely the reverse is the

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case with woman, from the difference in the moral in-fluences, on the one hand domestic, on the other general.At first maintained by her father or brothers, each womanis subsequently supported by her husband or sons. Indefault of these special supports, the obligation of theactive sex towards the affective becomes general, and thegovernment must provide for its discharge, on the repre-sentation of the priesthood. Such is the first materialbasis of the true constitution of the family.

But the fulfilment of this condition necessitates at onceanother institution, the renunciation by women of all in-heritance. This voluntary renunciation rests on groundsas valid as in the case of the priesthood, be it to preventa corrupting influence, or in order to concentrate humancapital in the hands which are to direct its employment.AVealth is even more dangerous to your sex than to thepriesthood, as more detrimental to moral superiority thanto intellectual. Lastly, the renunciation of inheritanceby women provides the only means of abolishing thecustom of dowries, so injurious to so many families, anddirectly contrary to the true objects of marriage. Thenthe marriage union will issue from a worthy choice, freelymade without restriction of class, from the uniformitybetween the classes due to the common education, de-spite the necessary inequalities of power and wealth.But, to give all these conjoined reasons their full validity,women's disinheritance must remain absolutely voluntary,and never be the result of a legal enactment.

The Woman.—The Positive religion will have littledifficulty, my father, in getting women to adopt thisresolution, when their material existence shall be dulyguaranteed on the security of private duties enforced bythe general convictions. Regret has often been expressedfor the caprices produced by idleness and wealth in womenwho wish to command by wealth instead of loving. Butthe moral degradation has seemed to me still greater whenwoman grows rich by her own labour. The hardness of

228 X.—THE LIFE. (2)

continuous money-making robs her then even of thatinstinctive kindness which the other type keeps in themidst of its dissipation. There can exist no worseindustrial chiefs than women.

The Priest.—In order to complete this general glimpseof the family constitution peculiar to Positivism, it re-mains for me, my daughter, to point out an institutionwhich is indispensable for the full efficacy of such a reno-vation. It consists in giving perfect freedom of devising,adding to it freedom of adopting ; but under the moralresponsibility of the head of the family, always submittedto the due examination of the priesthood and the public.The next conversation will show you the social value ofthese two institutions, as remedies, so far as possible, forthe main inconveniences attending the hereditary trans-mission of property. But for the present you should onlylook at their power to purify and strengthen all the ele-mentary ties, by clearing them from the mean desireswhich at present sully them. It is the only means tomake the affection of sons for their fathers, if not astender, yet as noble as that of wives for their husbands.Fraternal affection will be thus more secure than underthe revolutionary system of equal division, or evenunder the feudal subordination to the elder. Amongstthe rich, no one will expect anything from his familybeyond the assistance required for his education and hisestablishment as a social functionary. Then all withoutcheck will give themselves up to the full cultivation ofthe best affections. If fathers have not worthy sons,they will remedy it by wise adoptions.

Such are the families amongst which a priesthood, theobject of the free veneration of all, will unceasingly exertitself to anticipate or to repair the contests occasioned bybad passions. I t will in such a milieu make women feelthe merit of submission, by drawing out to its consequencesthis admirable maxim of Aristotle : The greatest strength0/woman lies in overcoming the difficulty of obeying. Their

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education will have prepared them to understand thatall power, far from really raising, necessarily degradesthem, by vitiating their highest claim, as expecting fromstrength the ascendency which is due only to love. Atthe same time, the priesthood will protect them againstthe tyranny of their husbands and the ingratitude of theirsons, judiciously reminding both of the precepts of Posi-tive religion as to the moral superiority and social officeof the affective sex. It is mainly by the powerful reac-tion on it of public life that private life was graduallyraised in the past. The fostering this preponderatinginfluence is by the final regime vested in the priesthoodof Humanity, which alone can enter on a right footing thecircle of the family, in order to ennoble and to strengthenall the domestic affections by connecting them constantlywith their social destination.

CONVERSATION XL

PUBLIC LIFE.

The Woman.—On approaching the higher portion ofPositive morals, I must, my father, ask for three pre-liminary explanations.

The first refers to the metaphysical objection oftenmade to Positivism that it admits no kind of rights. Ifit is so, I am more inclined to congratulate you on itthan to complain. For the interposition of right hasalmost invariably seemed meant to supersede reason oraffection. It is fortunately not allowed women, and theyare all the better for it. You know my favourite maxim :Our species more than the others needs duties to engenderfeelings.

The Priest.—It is true, my daughter, that Positivism

230 XL-THE LIFE. (3)

recognises no other right for any one but the right alwaysto do his duty. To speak more accurately, our religionimposes on all the obligation to help each one to dischargehis proper function. The idea of right has to disappearfrom the political, as the idea of cause from the philo-sophical domain. For both notions refer to wills abovediscussion. Thus, all rights whatever imply of necessitya supernatural source, for no other can place them abovehuman discussion. Whilst concentrated in the governors,they could have a real social efficacy, as the normalguarantees of an indispensable obedience, so long as thepreparatory regime lasted, based on theology and war.But since the decay of monotheism spread them amongthe governed, in the name, more or less distinctly, of thesame divine principle, they have become as anarchical onthe one side as retrograde on the other. As such theylead to nothing, on either side, but to prolong the disorderattendant on the revolution ; so that they should entirelydisappear, by the common consent of the honest and thesensible men of whatever party.

Positivism never admits anything but duties, of allto all. For its persistently social point of view cannottolerate the notion of right, constantly based on in-dividualism. We are born loaded with obligations ofevery kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, and toour contemporaries. Later they only grow or accumulatebefore we can return any service. On what humanfoundation then could rest the idea of right, which inreason should imply some previous efficiency ? Whatevermay be our efforts, the longest life well employed willnever enable us to pay back but an imperceptible part ofwhat we have received. And yet it would only be aftera complete return that we should be justly authorised torequire reciprocity for the new services. All humanrights then are as absurd as they are immoral. As divineright no longer exists, the notion must pass completelyaway, as relating solely to the preliminary state, and

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directly incompatible with the final state, which admitsonly duties, as a consequence of functions.

The Woman.—Now, my father, I would know if, overand above the general relation between public and privatelife, the latter does not call into existence dispositionscalculated to fit us individually for the former.

The Priest.—Those which arise from our individualexistence have their chief sphere, my daughter, in theprivate worship which answers to that existence. It isnot merely adapted to solidify and develop all privatevirtues. It finds its most important application in publiclife, where our three guardian angels should at once turnus from evil and urge us to good, through short specialinvocations to meet the various conjunctures of import-ance. The power of such assistance was rightly felt inthe noble beginning of the worship of woman which wasessayed by the admirable chivalry of the Middle Ages.So well had these eminent natures harmonised privateand public life that the beloved image often arose toanimate and embellish their warlike existence, giving riseto the tenderest emotions in the very midst of desolationor terror. If then the softer affections could be familiarlycombined with destructive activity, a similar combinationshould more easily issue from labours directly bearing onthe happiness of man, and free from any painful con-sequence to any one. The holy canticle which ends themost beautiful of poems is still more suited to the newthan to the old worship :—

Donna, se' tanto grande, e tanto valiChe qual vuol grazia e a te non ricorreSua disianza vuol volar senz' ali.

La tua benignita non pur soccorreA chi dimanda, ma molte fiateLiberamente al dimandar precorre.

In te misericordia, in te pietate,In te magnificenza, in te s'adunaQuantunque in creatura e di bontate.

—DANTE, Parad. xxxiii. 13-21,

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So mighty art thou, lady, and so great,That he who grace desireth, and comes not'To thee for aidance, fain would have desirePly without winc:s. Not only him who asksThy bounty succours, but doth freely oftForerun the asking. Whatsoe'er may beOf excellence in creature, pity mild,Relenting mercy, large munificence,Are all combined in thee.—CAKY'S Translation.

More than any other class should the priesthood ofHumanity avail itself of such aid. Its social strugglescannot but largely develop in it courage, perseverance, andeven prudence. But they will often tend to impair itsmoral purity by the seductions of ambition, the more foi•-midable as they will seem to spring from a holy zeal. Ourpriests will then frequently feel the need of temperingafresh their true dignity in a noble intercourse, at firstsubjective, then even objective, with the loving sex.

As for the dispositions emanating from family life, itwill always offer in special degree the best apprentice-ship in this fundamental rule which each should freelybind on himself, as the personal basis of public life :Live openly. To hide their moral misconduct, our meta-physicians secured the adoption of the shameful legis-lation which still forbids us to scrutinise the privatelife of public men. But Positivism, giving due systematicexpression to the common instinct, will always court acareful examination of the personal and domestic as thebest guarantee of the public life. As no one should wishfor the esteem of any but those who inspire him withesteem, each does not owe to all without distinction aconstant account of all his actions. But, however limitedmay become, in certain cases, the number of our judges,it is enough that we always have judges for the law ofliving openly not to lose its moral efficacy, impelling usconstantly to do nothing but what we can avouch. Sucha disposition involves at once undeviating respect fortruth and the scrupulous performance of every promise.

XL—THE LIFE. (3) 233

In these two general duties, nobly introduced in theMiddle Ages, is condensed all public morality. They showyou the thorough soundness of that admirable judgmentin which Dante, unconsciously representing the spirit ofchivalry, assigns to traitors the worst hell. In the verymidst of modern anarchy, the best poet of chivalry washeard to proclaim nobly the grand maxim of our heroicancestors:—

La fede unqua non deve esser corrotta,O data a un solo, o data insieine a mille ;

Senza giurare, o segno altro piu espresso,Basti una volta che s'abbia promesso.

—ARIOSTO, Orlando Furioso, xxi. 2.Faith never must be broken,Be it given to one, or to a thousand at once ;

Without oath, or other more distinct sign,Enough that once the promise have been given.

These strengthening presentiments of sociocratic mannersare definitively systematised by the Positive religion,which represents falsehood and treason as directly in-compatible with all human co-operation.

The Woman.—I have, my father, lastly to ask you ifpublic life does not admit of a general division analogousto that of private life, founded on the inequality inextent of the two concerned. Neither the heart noreven the intellect can properly rise from the Family toHumanity without the intermedium of the Country. Ifso, public life seems to me necessarily to present twovery distinct degrees, when we take first the relations ofcitizens, then the relations of men.

The Priest.—As a fact, my daughter, this distinctiondetermines the general plan of the present conversation.But before applying it, we must give it the requisiteaccuracy and consistence, by limiting the sacred idea ofCountry, which has in modern times become too vagueand consequently almost barren, as a result of the exor-

234 XI.—THE LIFE. (3)

bitant extension of the Western States. Following outthe indication roughly stated in the study of the doctrine,you should here look on the republics of the future asmuch smaller than is foreshadowed by the revolutionaryprejudices of the day. The gradual break-up of thecolonial system since the independence of America is, atbottom, only the beginning of a final disruption of allthe overgrown kingdoms which arose on the dissolutionof the Catholic union.

In the final arrangement the normal extent of theWestern States will not be larger than that which we nowsee in Tuscany, Belgium, and Holland, and shall soonsee in Sicily, Sardinia, etc. A population of one to threemillions, at the average rate of one hundred and fifty persquare mile, is really the extent suited to States enjoyingtrue freedom. For we can so designate States only thoseof which all the parts coalesce, without any violence,from the instinctive sense of a practical community ofinterest. The continuance of peace in the West, by dis-pelling all serious fear of foreign invasion and even of areactionary coalition, will soon awaken a general feelingthat it is desirable by peaceful means to break up facti-tious aggregates which for the future have no real justifi-cation. Before the end of the nineteenth century, theFrench Republic will of its own free will be divided intoseventeen independent republics, each comprising five ofthe existing departments. The approaching separationof Ireland will naturally lead on to the rupture of the arti-ficial bonds which now unite Scotland, and even Wales,with England proper. A similar process of decomposi-tion taking place in all the States which are overgrown,Portugal and Ireland, granting they remain entire, willbe, at the beginning of next century, the largest republicsof the West. It is to countries with these limits that weare to apply here the normal examination of public life.Then the national feeling becomes a true intermediumbetween the family affection and the love of the race.

XI.—THE LIFE. (3) 235

The Woman.—With this valuable simplification ofPositivist policy, I hope not to find, niy father, any seriousdifficulty in your direct explanation of our public life.

The Priest. — It consists wholly and entirely, mydaughter, in the due realisation of these two maxims :Devotion of the strong to the weak ; veneration of the 'weakfor the strong. No society can last if the inferiors do notrespect their superiors. The strongest confirmation ofthis law is the existing degradation, wherein, in defaultof love, each obeys force only ; though our revolutionarypride laments the so-called servility of our ancestors, whowere able to love their chiefs. The second then of thesetwo conditions of society is common to all times. Butthe first really dates its introduction from the MiddleAges; since all antiquity thought otherwise, with hereand there a happy exception, as its favourite aphorismwitnesses : Faucis nascitur hnmanum genus. Mankind isborn for the few. Thus the social harmony rests on thecombined activity of the two best altruistic instincts, re-spectively adapted to the inferiors and superiors in theirrelations with one another. Still, this concurrence canonly come into existence and be permanent in mindsprepared for it by a sufficient habitual exercise of themost energetic, though the least eminent, of the threesympathetic instincts, as a consequence of the legitimatedevelopment of the domestic affections.

Such a solution depends entirely on the fundamentalseparation of the two powers, the spiritual and the tem-poral. To secure the devotion of the strong to the weakthere must arise amongst the strong a class which canattain social ascendency solely by devoting itself to theweak, as a return for their veneration freely given. Itis thus that the priesthood becomes the soul of the truesociocracy. It is of course implied, however, that italways limit itself to counsel, without ever being able tocommand.

This is why I laid such stress on its complete renuncia-

236 XL—THE LIFE. (3)

tion of power, and even of wealth. The better to secureit, the priests must also abstain from deriving any materialprofit from any works, books, or lectures; so as alwaysto subsist solely on their annual stipends. The centralbudget of the priesthood will, with certain exceptions,provide for the printing of all their writings, requiringonly the signature of the authors, and leaving them theirdistribution, as naturally the best judges, and so con-stantly responsible. The priest who should sell his booksor his lectures would then be severely punished, even tothe loss of his position on the third offence.

Still more completely to purify the priesthood, it mustalso be prevented from crushing any teaching contrary toits own. This is why the Positivist regime will alwaysrequire full liberty of exposition, and even of discussion,as is but fitting where the doctrines are throughoutdemonstrable. The only normal restrictions of thisfundamental liberty must come from public opinion,which, by virtue of a sound common education, will ofitself reject doctrines contrary to its convictions. Wemay even now understand this by the unconsciousdiscipline which upholds the Positive faith, withoutany material constraint, as regards the leading doctrinesof modern science. Provided there never be any legalprohibition of opposition, no one can complain reason-ably of the aversion he excites in the public. Such a bodyof conditions will always compel the priesthood to per-suade or convince In order to exert a real influence on,high and low equally.

The Woman.—Its interference in civic life beingdirected mainly to regulate aright the habitual relationsof the patriciate and proletariate, I ask you, my father,to delineate in particular its office on this essential point.

Tlie Priest.—For that, my daughter, I must first givein more detail the normal constitution of modern industry.It rests on two general conditions, already perceptible atthe close of the Middle Ages, and in constant growth

XI.—THE LIFE. (3) 237

ever since; the distinction between capitalists and work-men ; and the internal hierarchy of the patriciate, whencewe get that of the proletariate. The subordination of thecountry districts to the towns completes this organisation.

On the abolition of serfage, industry became sufficientlystrong to dispense with working to order; it anticipatedthe public demand. In consequence of this change, themasters proper {entrepreneurs) soon separated from thesimple workmen. Their separate upgrowth graduallyworked out, from the nature of their occupations, thenormal hierarchy already indicated in our worship. Itrises from the agriculturist to the manufacturer, from himto the merchant, the last step being the banker, basingeach class on the one that precedes it. Operations moreindirect, entrusted to agents more carefully selected andfewer, require, it is found, more general and more abstractconceptions, as also a greater responsibility. This spon-taneous classification, systematised by Positivism inaccordance with our hierarchical principle, makes thenormal co-ordination of industry the natural continua-tion of the co-ordination applicable first to science, thento art.

For this industrial hierarchy to have social efficacy itis presupposed that the patriciate is so far concentratedthat each patrician administers all that he can reallysuperintend, so to lessen as much as possible the expensesof management and the better to ensure responsibility.Here the true interest of the inferiors entirely coincideswith the natural tendency of the superiors. For greatduties demand great powers. Our existing disorders aremost aggravated by the jealous ambition of the smallercapitalists and their blind contempt of the people.When the conduct of this class shall be 'in sufficientdegree regenerated, under the joint stimulus of circum-stances and convictions, its heads will be absorbed intothe patriciate and its mass into the proletariate, so doingaway with the middle classes properly so called.

238 XL—THE LIFE. (3)

Tlie Woman.—This necessary concentration of wealthis even now, my father, desired by the proletaries of ourlarge towns, as a real social benefit, though our countrypopulation clings too strongly to its almost indefinite dis-persion. But such concentration must largely depend onthe hereditary transmission of property. The hints givenin outline on this point in the exposition of the worshipnot appearing to me adequate, I beg you to complete themhere.

The Priest.—We must, my daughter, connect it withthe more general principle which regulates the normalsuccession for all functionaries whatsoever. The methodof election was only introduced as a protest, long neces-sary, against the caste system, finally become oppressive.But, in itself, all choice of the superiors by the inferiorsis thoroughly anarchical: it has never been of use but tobreak up gradually a defective order. The final statemust, in this respect, differ from the primitive state onlyin substituting for the heredity of theocracy, resting solelyon birth, the heredity of sociocracy, in all cases dependenton the free initiative of each functionary.

All the social complications originating in distrust endafter all in irresponsibility. Perfect confidence and fullresponsibility, such are the two characteristics of thePositive system. The worthy organ of any functionwhatever always comes to be the best judge of his succes-sor, submitting, however, his nomination of him to hisown superior. In the spiritual order alone is the choicealways vested in the supreme head, so as to obtain therequisite concentration of so difficult an office.

For the highest temporal functions, the control of thesuperior finds a natural substitute in the examination ofthe priesthood and the public. This is why the chiefmust solemnly nominate his successor on receiving, asyou are aware, the sacrament of retirement, at an agewhen his choice may still be modified on suitable advice.In exceptional cases, the priesthood might then, by

XI.— THE LIFE. (3) 239

refusing this sacrament, prevent in a degree this lastact of an unworthy or incapable power.

Wealth being from the social point of view an autho-rity, must pass by the same general rules. This freechoice of an heir, involved in the full liberty of devisingand adopting, offers the best remedy against the ordinaryabuses of property. Indeed, each one then becomesresponsible for an unworthy successor, who now can beno reproach to him. There is little need to fear that theinheritance will generally fall to one of the sons, if allare really incapable. For the tendency of the industrialchiefs to perpetuate their houses in proper hands makesthem often disposed to choose their successors outside oftheir own family, which at the present day they can only doby sacrificing their daughters. Thus sociocratic heredity,far from lessening the power of the wealthy, is foundmore favourable to it than theocratic, at the same timethat it largely increases their moral responsibility.

The Woman.—Such an explanation sufficiently com-pletes, my father, my knowledge of the temporal con-stitution of the Positive regime. You may then directlyconsider the interposition in general of the priesthoodof Humanity in the more important civic disputes.

The Priest.—The better to describe this capital func-tion, I think I should, my daughter, begin by giving youthe statistics of the patriciate when regularly organisedfor the whole West. Two thousand bankers, a hun-dred thousand merchants, two hundred thousand manu-facturers, four hundred thousand agriculturists, in myjudgment provide enough industrial chiefs for the hun-dred and twenty millions who form the population of theWest. With this small number of patricians will beconcentrated all the capital of the West, of which theywill have to direct in freedom the active employment,under a constant moral responsibility, and in the interestof a proletariate of thirty-three times their number.

In each separate republic, the government properly so

24o XI.—THE LIFE. (3)

called, that is to say the supreme temporal power, willbe vested naturally in the three leading bankers, respec-tively taking by choice the operations of commerce,manufactures, and agriculture. I t is then to these twohundred triumvirs in especial that the Western priest-hood, under the direction of the High Priest of Humanity,will have to refer in due form the legitimate claims ofan immense proletariate. The exceptional class, whichhabitually contemplates the future and the past, thenconcentrates its care on the present, speaking to theliving in the name of those who have lived and in theinterest of those who shall live.

TJie Woman.—This language, my father, seems to menever to depart from a sound estimate of the severaldivisions of human existence. By raising all citizens tosocial functionaries, their respective offices being reallyuseful, Positivism ennobles obedience and strengthensgovernment. Instead of a simple private aim, each formof activity feels honoured by its due participation in thepublic welfare. Now, to effect this wholesome change,the priesthood need never evoke an exceptional enthu-siasm. Enough if it always secure an accurate judgmentof the ordinary realities of life.

The Priest—Our basic principle of the necessarygratuitousness of human labour gives us, my daughter,powerful means for better developing the feelings andconvictions which are suited to each class of society.When wages are no longer looked on as paying the valueof the functionary, but merely the material he consumes,the merit of each individual stands out more clearly inthe eyes of all. The priesthood can then more easilydischarge its chief social duty, which consists in alwayscontrasting in a right spirit the abstract classification,founded on the intellectual and moral appreciation of theindividuals, with the concrete classification drawn fromthe subordination of the functions. If properly drawn out,this contrast will recall the superiors to a better disposi-

XL—THE LIFE. (3) 241

tion towards their inferiors, when they shall see that theirown elevation depends more on position than on merit.Though the subjective life alone can really insure thepreponderance of the personal classification without excit-ing any subversive tendency, still this contrast emanatingfrom religion will place in a truer light the official classi-fication, whilst upholding the respect which is its due.

But, at the same time, the priesthood will make theproletaries deeply conscious of the real advantages of theirsocial condition. To minds prepared by a wise education,and under the constant influence of home affections, itwill have no difficulty in proving the thorough reality ofthat admirable maxim of the great Corneille—

On va (Tun pas plus ferme b, suivre qu'h, conduire.

(in paraphrase of the Imitation, i. 9, 51)—

With firmer step we follow than we lead.

The happiness springing from a noble submission andfrom a just freedom from responsibility will be unceas-ingly appreciated by them, when the family life shallhave been properly organised in the class best qualifiedto enjoy it rightly. Then the proletariate will feel thatthe main office of the patriciate is to secure to all thepeaceable enjoyment of these home satisfactions, in whichour true happiness chiefly lies. Their less attainment bythe spiritual or temporal rulers of society, who are everunder the sense of a vast responsibility, will make theirexalted position generally more an object of pity than ofenvy, having for sole compensation a larger share in pro-moting the public welfare. But this noble reward is onlyfully tasted by the higher minds, who are very rare at alltimes in the patriciate, and even within the limits of thepriesthood. There must be left, then, a fair course forthe ordinary gratifications of pride or vanity, as aloneable on the average to sufficiently stimulate the zealrequisite for command and counsel.

Q

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The Woman.—I would, my father, know with moreprecision this essential function of the free administratorsof the capital of the race which aims at ensuring the pro-letaries a due development of their domestic existence,the first normal guarantee of civil order.

The Pried.—Limit yourself, my daughter, to lookingon each first as possessing property, then as receivingwages. Every proletary should own in property all thematerials of exclusive and constant use. either for himself,or for his family. This rule, evidently feasible, can aloneensure order in practical life. But we are far from itssatisfactory attainment. Many estimable men are yetwithout property in their furniture in most common use ;and some do not even own the clothes they wear. As forthe dwelling, you know that most proletaries are stillrather encamped than housed in our anarchical towns. Itwould be enough, however, to sell by apartments the housesthat are sold, as we see done in some towns, for eachfamily of the people, on payment of a slightly increasedrent for some years, to own in property its lodging.

The private worship and private life fix with sufficientprecision the normal extent of such domicile, and show theimportance of its fixedness, without which we may saythat the first revolution in man's existence, the passagefrom the nomad to the sedentary life, remains incompleteoIt ought even to react on the outward stability of indus-trial relations, by suppressing as a natural consequence anoxious vagabondism. Whilst sanctioning the full libertyof human co-operation, the Positive religion prescribes ifcas a duty for each never to change his inferiors or superiorswithout serious reasons. The capricious change of theshops we deal with is itself blameable, tending as it doesto disturb the general economy of their operations, whichpresupposes the requisite steadiness in their customers.

As for the wages paid at fixed periods, they must beregularly divided into two unequal parts, one independentof the actual labour and attached to the service performed,

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the other dependent on the results obtained. It is theonly means of securing the workmen against the stoppagesfor which they are not responsible, without, however,ceasing to allow the chiefs due scope for the various in-dustrial improvements, especially in machinery. Theextension of machinery, which raises the moral dignityof the human workman and gives him increased efficiency,may then go on freely, open to no objection on socialgrounds. But the proportion between the fixed and thevariable portion of the workman's wages will differ indifferent industries, in obedience to laws which the patri-ciate alone can settle.

The Woman.—In spite of the healthful influence of thisnormal order, I feel, my father, that the instinct of de-struction, stimulating the other egoistic propensities, willalways occasion conflicts in the Western populations evenwhen regenerated. I should then ask you what will be theinterference of the priesthood in these unavoidable disputes.

The Priest.—It will endeavour at first, my daughter,to prevent them as far as possible, by a wise use of itsspiritual discipline. This differs from the temporalmainly in that it evokes the good instincts rather thancontends with the bad. Its method is then positiverather than negative, correcting by comparison ratherthan by compression, rewarding the one rather thanpunishing the others; though at need it can be severe,as I have already explained.

The combination of these means will often prevent,or will soon repair, the civic conflicts resulting from thepractical activity, under the natural play of the egoisticpassions. The whole of Positive religion tends to incul-cate the truth, that, society resting always on free co-operation, the only lasting arrangements and legitimatemodifications are those which result from a voluntaryassent of the several co-operators. The greatest of socialrevolutions, the gradual abolition of Western slavery, waseffected, in the Middle Ages, without a single insurrection.

244 XL—THE LIFE. (3)

Still, as the imperfection of our brain will not alwaysallow the priesthood to secure due respect for the wills ofman, it must ultimately apply itself to moderate the con-tests it cannot prevent. Its general rule, in accordancewith the nature of modern civilisation, is to brand asradically wrong, as equally anarchical and retrograde, allrecourse to force on the one side or the other. In the in-dustrial society, material contests, when inevitable, mustbe decided by wealth, concentrated or dispersed, never bypersonal violence, which is to be reserved for criminals inthe strict sense. For we ought to repress by force onlysuch acts as are unanimously disapproved, even by thosewho commit them.

The destructive instinct is always susceptible of thischange, one already almost complete as regards chronicviolations of order, even by bodies of men, and whichit only remains to systematise by extending it to acutedisturbances. Already persecution which is the habitof men, and which formerly attacked life, respects evenliberty, confining itself to property, so as to be moreeasily avoided and remedied; as, with criminals, murderhas given way to theft. There is ground for hope, then,that the Positive religion will bring men to settle theirmost violent disputes without any war properly so called,even between fellow-citizens. The normal restriction ofthe several republics should greatly facilitate this finaltransformation, by increasing simultaneously the power ofthe patriciate and the independence of the proletariate.

The Woman.—However precious the conversion thuseffected in material contests, it seems to me, my father,more advantageous to the superiors than to the inferiors.In renouncing habitually all use of force in the strictsense, to limit themselves to a struggle of purses, theworkmen seem to me to be doing an act of great socialgenerosity, not but that there is ample reason for it.But I fear lest by thus suffering the dispute to be trans-ferred to the peculiar domain of the masters, they often

XI.-THE LIFE. (3) 245

fall victims to the selfishness of the rich, even when theysball have everywhere obtained the just permission toform coalitions at their pleasure without any violence.For, whatever social power the plebeians may derive fromtheir just refusal, as a body, of industrial co-operation, theimmense capitals of our patricians will perhaps enablethem ultimately to triumph over the most legitimateresistance. Though the priesthood will give great strengthto the unions of workmen when it sanctions them, I stilldread the abuse of the paramount power of wealth.

The Priest.—To reassure you, my daughter, considerfirst the habitual influence of the priesthood on thepatriciate through their close personal relations. By ourstatistical statement, the regular number of bankers inthe West is the same as that of the Positivist temples,each of which will be under the temporal protectorate ofthe adjacent banker, commissioned by the national trium-virate to be the channel of all sacerdotal payments. I tfollows that there will be frequent intercourse betweenthe priests and the principal industrial chiefs; so as torekindle specially in the latter the veneration engenderedby their own education and prolonged by that of theirchildren.

The Woman.—Allow me, my father, to interrupt youa moment as to this last influence. As our encyclopedicinstruction is never to be compulsory, the rich perhapswill be deterred, by a foolish pride, from letting theirsons share in it, and still more their daughters, renounc-ing of course the sacraments which will follow it, andeven the social weight it will carry. If so, the personalinfluence you speak of would be essentially nothing morethan the involuntary deference everywhere gained byability and virtue.

The Priest.—Your incidental objection has more forcein it, my daughter, than you think; and yet I shall notfind it difficult to set aside. In fact, attendance in ourPositivist schools will not be necessary for admission

246 XL—THE LIFE. (3)

to our social sacraments, or even to our public examina-tions, where no question will be asked as to whom theinstruction comes from, provided it be real and adequate.Only, when it does not come from the priesthood, ourpriests will have to take greater pains in getting theinformation as to moral character which will always beas indispensable as the judgment on intellectual ability.

Notwithstanding this full liberty of teaching, whichwill have the further result of increasing the zeal of ourprofessors, the official schools will never be deserted bythe rich, unless the priesthood degenerate. For they willnot like their children to be in instruction below thepeople, and yet they will not be able to get them itsequivalent, even at a great cost, in private. Indeed,the priesthood will naturally absorb the best professors,always diverted by their other functions from givingprivate instruction, to say nothing of its being, as youknow, strictly forbidden. The private masters will berecruited then from those who are incapable of becomingpriests or even vicars; so that their lectures will be inpermanent disrepute.

The Woman.—Your explanation quite sets me at ease,my father, as to the aristocratic dislike to our commoneducation. So I beg you to resume your important appre-ciation of the influences attaching to the priesthood ofPositivism, as regards the industrial chiefs, to prevent orremedy the effects of the more serious practical disputes.

The Priest—Over and above its personal relations withthe highest patrician class, which can act so powerfullyon the rest, it will find everywhere, my daughter, specialallies, by virtue of a befitting reorganisation of the volun-tary protectorate. The institution of chivalry is in noway peculiar to military existence, the rough principle ofwhich must, on the contrary, have greatly shackled itsadmirable development in the Middle Ages. I t is moreadapted, under better forms, to the Positive regime, wherethe protection, though in the main given in the form of

XL—THE LIFE. (3) 247

money, will often call forth a devotion less striking, butmore effectual and moreover better regulated. Manyindustrial chiefs, especially amongst the bankers, will,from early life, enrol themselves as members of the freeassociation which, having at its disposal enormous wealth,will, either on its own impulse, or on an appeal from thepriesthood, generously interfere in the more importantcontests. Its noble protection will not be limited tooppressed proletaries; it ought also to secure the priestsagainst temporal tyranny.

The Woman.—This valuable institution seems to meto complete, my father, the sum of the means at the dis-posal of the priesthood of Humanity for duly regulatingcivic relations. You may then explain to me its normalintervention in the widest human relations.

The Priest.—We must, my daughter, in them distin-guish two classes, according as they concern Positivistpopulations, or peoples still unacquainted with the truereligion.

The first case simply requires the enlargement of thepreceding considerations; and may therefore be readilyapprehended. Nay, the influence of the priesthood be-comes then at once more easy and more decisive. Forafter the approaching break-up of the existing States, thegreat Western Republic will be divided into sixty inde-pendent republics, which will have really in common onlytheir spiritual organisation. There will never arise in ita temporal power with a possibility of universal dominion,such as the phantom emperor of the Middle Ages, whowas therein, for Catholicism, nothing but a disturbingrelic, an empirical offshoot of the Roman order. Allcollective action, for the rest purely temporary, will bealways directed by the national triumvirates acting forthe time in concert. As for the practical institutionswhich ought to become really universal, their very objectreserves them always for the priesthood, for it alone canoverride national rivalries sufficiently to secure their free

248 XI.—THE LIFE. (3)

adoption by all. The several governments should onlyinterfere to aid in their foundation by finding the re-quisite money. I t is only in this way that monies,weights and measures, etc., can readily and peaceablybecome truly universal.

Thus, the sixty republics of the regenerated West willhave no other habitual bond than a common education,community of manners and customs, and common festivals.In a word, their union will be religious and not political;allowing for the historical relations resulting from previousaggregations, and soon to disappear in the new connection,unless when they rest on community of language. TheHigh Priest of Humanity will be, more truly than anymediaeval pope, the only really Western chief. He will beable then, at need, to concentrate the whole priestly actionin order to repress any tyrannical triumvirate, calling alsoon the neighbouring knights for aid, and even on theneutral governments for peaceful mediation. If, how-ever, the industrial contests are found to be unavoidable,his well-weighed sanction will be able to secure for thecombinations of the workmen an extension which mustdecide the issue, by inducing all their fellow-workmenin the West, even when not belonging to the industrythreatened, to take part in them. But, conversely, whenthe priesthood shall blame the conduct of the workmen,or only refuse its approval, the capitalists will easilyovercome any unwarranted demands.

The Woman.—We have now only, my father, to deter-mine the systematic relations of the Positivist populationwith the nations that have not yet embraced the Religionof Humanity.

The Priest.—By virtue of the close connection origin-ating in the Catholic-feudal initiation, which followedeverywhere on the Roman incorporation, you may con-ceive, my daughter, that the new faith will prevail simul-taneously in the whole of the European West, includingtherein its various colonial appendages, especially the

XI.—THE LIFE. (3) 249

American. The convergences due to the growth of thePositive spirit in science, art, and industry, are, in manyways, far more powerful than the divergences caused bythe disruption of the Catholic bond, and even by a faultyexcess of nationalism. But this vast spiritual republichardly comprises more than the fifth of the whole humanpopulation. It is important then to consider, in the general,how the West when regenerated should gradually bringinto communion with it all the inhabitants of our planet.

When the reorganisation of the West shall be fairlysecure, this noble missionary proselytism will become theprincipal collective occupation of the Positive priesthood.No claim of the temporal power is valid against itsexclusive prerogative in respect to such a function. Ifthe priesthood is even now alone competent to regulateproperly the mutual relations of the several Westernnations, for still stronger reasons can it have no competi-tor in regulating the widest social relations. Under anddespite ephemeral and disastrous attempts at domination,it is to advances in science or industry that is really dueall the beneficial and permanent intercourse of the Westwith the rest of the globe. The persistently relativecharacter of Positivism adapts it exclusively for truemissions, calculated gradually to bind all populationswhatever to its characteristic unity, which is aloneworthy to embrace all.

The Woman.—This immense conversion, indispensableto the full organisation of Humanity, will have to follow,my father, a natural course; I should like to know itsessential features.

The Priest.—It depends, my daughter, on the decreas-ing affinities of Western Positivism with the severalpopulations outside its pale; first monotheistic, thenpolytheistic, and lastly fetichist. But the cases that seemmost unfavourable, from a less degree of spontaneouspreparation, allow, on the other hand, more systematicinterference, if we rightly apply the general theory of

2SO XL—THE LIFE. (3)

human transitions. The whole conversion may be inprinciple satisfactorily effected in three generations, onefor each of the main phases, leaving it to the next centuryto develop the various bases of uniformity laid down bya numerous and zealous priesthood, if properly aided.

The first case is that of the monotheists of the East,first Christian, then Musulman, or Russia and Turkeywith Persia. In both cases the populations may be raisedto the definitive level of the West, without requiring fromthem a servile and hazardous imitation of the stormy anddifficult course exacted by the original evolution. Evenat the present day, by its historical theory, Positivismwill offer valuable guidance to the noble governmentswhich are exerting themselves to direct this necessaryascent whilst guarding it from Western disturbance.Russia which, in the last century, guided itself by France,is at present led to hold aloof from her systematically.The change is a very wise one, since the old policy ofimitation would henceforth expose the Slav populationsto very great disturbance, without offering to them anyreal intellectual or social progress.

But, when regenerated Paris shall cease to present acompletely revolutionary type, it will be able to furnishthe Czars who are worthy of their station with ideas andassistance such as may second systematically their admir-able instinctive zeal for the peaceable amelioration of theirvast States. Instead of urging them to imitate a pastwhich can never be repeated, Positivism will soon exhortthem to appreciate more justly their peculiar advantages.For instance, the break-up of the great feudal fortuneswas necessary in France as a step to the advent of a newpatriciate under the ephemeral ascendency of the middleclasses. In Russia, on the contrary, it is important at thepresent day to maintain the concentration of wealth whichis required by the final state, and which we shall have greatdifficulty in reconstituting in France. The whole effort ofa wise autocrat should then be limited to the substitution

XL—THE LIFE. (3) 251

of the industrial for the military character, the foundationof which transformation is already laid by the perman-ence of general peace, for the future perfectly secure.

The Woman.—Such an influence of Positivist adviceseems to me, my father, confined to Russia, from itsresemblance to the West in religion. But Turkey andPersia perhaps afford much less scope for intervention,as they have not yet reached even monogamy.

The Priest.—Polygamy is at present, my daughter,often more real at Paris than at Constantinople. Besidesthat Islam has undergone the same dissolving process asCatholicism, we form, in general, very exaggerated ideasof the difference of manners and opinions between theEastern and Western nations; witness the instinctivetendency of the Musulmans to take us as guides.

When rejecting the separation of the two powers, thebetter to constitute his military theocracy, the incompar-able Mohammed had a presentiment that this enormousimprovement of the social order was as yet premature, asbeing incompatible with the theological principle. Henaturally at that time looked on such an attempt aspeculiar to the West, where its ultimate failure wouldlong give rise to serious dangers. If Islam deprived theEasterns of the admirable progress effected under theimpulse of Catholicism in the Middle Ages, it preservedthem, afterwards, from the anarchical transition fromwhich we have suffered these five last centuries, and whichis now the origin of so many obstacles. Thanks to theirregime, Musulmans are in the main exempt from meta-physicians and even lawyers. Positivism, whilst dissuad-ing them from a disastrous imitation, will enable themfully to appreciate this capital advantage, which maypowerfully aid their final regeneration.

The Woman.—I understand, my father, this relation,though I had missed the principle on which it rests, fromdefective knowledge of your historical theory. But forthe polytheists, who are nearly half the human race, it

252 XL-'THE LIFE. (3)

would surprise me much if our faith were equally suscep-tible of an immediate efficacy, as the distance between usand them is too great.

The Priest—On the contrary, my daughter, we maybe much more useful to the polytheists than to the mono-theists, by sparing them a longer and more difficult transi-tion. Their unaided ascent would perhaps take them firstthrough some monotheism or other; although they are butlittle disposed thereto by observing the complete discreditwhich attaches to it, for a century at least, in the Westand even in the East. But the Positive religion will relievethem from this empirical course, by a special manage-ment of their direct passage to the final religion of man.Monotheism is really indispensable only in the originalevolution. Many of our adolescents will unconsciouslyoverleap it in their encyclopedic novitiate. Much morecertainly will the rational zeal of the Western priesthoodbe able to preserve the existing polytheists from it, fortheir leading doctrines are transformable into Positiveconceptions, covered merely with a species of theologicalillumination, which would soon disappear.

The Woman.—As for the fetichists, who are moreoverfew in number, their state seems to me, my father, so dis-tant from ours that I cannot conceive the possibility ofbringing them rapidly to the ultimate level of the West.

The Priest.—Though few in number, my daughter,they occupy, in the centre of Africa, a vast region stillwholly out of the reach of our civilisation, which can onlypenetrate there by the sustained impulse of the priest-hood of Positivism. Our noble missionaries will find inAfrica the case best adapted to stimulate their intellectualefforts and their practical zeal, when they set before themthe spreading among these simple populations the Uni-versal Religion, without requiring of them any mono-theistic or even polytheistic transition. The feasibilityof such success is a consequence of the profound affinityof Positivism for fetichism, which differs from Positivism,

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in point of doctrine, only in that it confuses activity withlife, and, for the worship, in that it worships materialsinstead of products.

In every human initiation, unaided or guided, fetichismis the only form of the fictitious regime which is reallyunavoidable, because both for the race and the individualit comes at a period when they are incapable of reflection.Each of the other two preliminary phases may be sparedwhere the evolution is completely systematic. If we clungto preserving our children from polytheism, we could doso by prolonging the fetichist state till, by gradual modifi-cations, it issued in Positivism. But this effort wouldthen be unseasonable, not to speak of its tendency to dis-turb the natural development of the human imagination.It is quite otherwise with the evolution of the nations ofcentral Africa, where such transformations may have themost wholesome results, not merely local but for the wholeof mankind.

The Woman.—I have, my father, but one last remarkto make to you on these vast intellectual and social meta-morphoses, which give such an interest to the most ex-tended relations of men, heretofore always stained byegoism and empiricism. Without in any way sharing thebarbarous prejudices of the white against the black, Iscarcely venture to hope that the universality of the Posi-tive faith will not be hampered to an indefinite extent bythe difference of race.

The Priest.—The true biological theory of the races ofmen, my daughter, follows from the conception of Blain-ville, which represents these differences as varieties dueto the environment, but become fixed, even hereditarily,when they had reached their greatest intensity. On thisprinciple, we may subjectively construct a theory inessential agreement with the only differences establishedby objective study, which really admits but three distinctraces, white, yellow, and black.

In fact, it has not been possible for essential and per-

254 XL—THE LIFE. (3)

manent differences to be developed except as regards therelative preponderance of the three ultimate divisions ofthe brain, its speculative, active, and affective parts. Suchare then our three necessary races, each of which issuperior to the other two, either in intelligence, or inactivity, or in feeling, as all sound observations com-bine to show. This final judgment should turn themfrom all mutual contempt, and make them all equally seethe power there lies in their close union, to complete theconstitution of the true Great Being.

When our labours shall have made our planet uni-formly healthy, these organic distinctions will tend todisappear, by virtue even of their natural origin, andespecially of proper intermarriages. The increasingfusion of the races will, under the systematic directionof the universal priesthood, procure us the most preciousof all improvements, that which concerns our cerebralconstitution as a whole, thus become more apt to think,to act, and even to love.

(Conclusion,

GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.

CONVERSATION XII.

THE FETICHIST AND THEOCRATIC PERIOD COMMON TOALL PEOPLES.

Tlie Woman.—These last conversations have a strongantecedent attraction for me, my dear father, from thewant I have often felt of such an historical complementof the triple exposition you have just completed. I havealready understood, in many cases, that the final stateregulated by the Religion of Humanity had always to bepreceded by a long and difficult initiation, especiallyindispensable to every original evolution. But thesepartial glimpses excite, rather than satisfy, my desire toknow the outlines of the historical theory which enablesyou to appreciate the past, so as to determine the future,with a view to clearly delineate the present.

The Priest.—Its main foundation, my dear daughter,is in the two laws of mental evolution with which youare now familiar. You already know how there followsfrom them the general division of the preparation of man,begun by fetichism, carried on by polytheism, and com-pleted under monotheism. However, before we proceed

256 XIL—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (1)

further, you must for a short time return on this funda-mental principle, to convince yourself in regard to it thatthe course which at first seemed merely inevitable wasreally indispensable.

Attend particularly to the intellectual necessity of suchan initiation, as it is less understood than any other. Ifevery true theory necessarily rests on observed facts, it isnot less certain that any connected observation demandsa theory. Originally, then, the human mind could findno outlet but in a purely subjective method, by drawingfrom the within the means of connection which the with-out would only supply after long study. Then feelingmakes up for the weakness of the intelligence, by supply-ing it with a principle for all explanations, in the simi-larity of the affections of all beings, instinctively assimi-lated to the human type. But this primitive philosophyis necessarily fictitious, and consequently merely provi-sional. It establishes, between theory and practice, aconstant antagonism, which, gradually modified by theincreasing influence of the activity on the intellect, con-tinues during our whole preparation, and ends only inthe Positive state. Whilst speculation was attributingeverything to capricious wills, action always assumedinvariable laws, the knowledge of which, less and lessempirical and more and more extended, has at lengthreorganised the human intellect.

The Woman.—I needed, my father, this explanation,to understand the philosophical mission of the initialregime, though I had already quite felt its poetical power.But the necessity for it morally seems to require noexplanation. Whoever has studied children to anypurpose, or who has even seen through the accountsof travellers and formed a true idea of savages, mustlook on this external support as indispensable for ouroriginal weakness. The fictitious regime is still moreadapted to develop our tenderness, for which the Posi-tive state can only offer an equivalent nurture when

XIL— GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION, (i) 257

it reaches its full maturity. Thus suited to our three-fold individual nature, the primeval religion must beequally applicable to our social existence, which at firstcould find no other source of common opinions or of guid-ing authority.

The Priest.—To complete this basic theory of the humanevolution, all that is left for me to do, my daughter,is to point out the law which governs our temporal ad-vance. It presents, as does the spiritual advance, and forsimilar reasons, the necessary succession of three distinctstates : the first purely provisional, the second simplytransitional, and the third alone definitive, in correspond-ence with the several modes of our activity. Man'sexistence begins, in fact, by being essentially military,to become ultimately completely industrial, passingthrough an intermediate stage in which conquest istransformed into defence. Such, clearly, are the re-spective characteristics of the civilisation of antiquity,of modern society, and of the transition peculiar to theMiddle Ages.

This course of our activity, as that of our intellect, isdue to the impossibility of any other at the beginning.The social state cannot, doubtless, gain strength anddevelop but through labour. But, on the other hand,the growth of labour as much implies the pre-existenceof society as that of observation demands the impulse oftheory. The unravelling of this difficulty is then againeffected by a spontaneous evolution, which supersedesany complex preparation. Now, war is the only activitywhich fulfils this condition, considering the naturalpreponderance of the destructive over the constructiveinstinct. Effective only through collective action, war ispeculiarly adapted to create strongly cemented and per-manent associations, in which the sympathy becomesvery intense though very limited, by virtue of a strongsolidarity. Lastly, war alone caji determine the forma-tion of large States by a gradual incorporation, which

258 XIL—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION, (i)

restrains military restlessness everywhere but in the1 uling people, where it takes a higher character from anoble destination. There exists no other general meansof overcoming the aversion man originally feels for allregular labour.

When this rule founded upon war attains a sufficientextension, the primitive regime tends to transform itselfof itself, because defence becomes more important thanconquest. Then we pass to the intermediate stage,during which the predominance of war prepares the wayfor industrial existence, which soon remains the only onesusceptible of uninterrupted progress.

The Woman.—The evolution of activity seems to me,my father, easier to grasp than that of the intelligence.But I am surprised at your thinking that the two incombination are a sufficient basis for the theory of his-tory. True, there is a natural correspondence betweenthem; for the fictitious synthesis harmonises with war asPositive religion with industry; one feels even that meta-physics would naturally prevail whilst war was in themain defensive. Nevertheless this dynamical conceptionof Humanity seems to me not sufficiently in consonancewith the statical conception of our nature, in whichfeeling towers above both the intelligence and the ac-tivity. After the two laws of the spiritual evolution,and that which governs the temporal evolution, I ex-pected an equivalent statement as to the affective life,without which motion and existence are to me equallyunintelligible.

The Priest.—You forget, my daughter, that the chiefregion of the brain is not, as the two others, in direct com-munication with the outer world, which cannot then acton feeling except through the medium of the intellect orthe activity. It is true that the organs of affection areimmediately connected with the viscera of organic life.But the moral influence of these last, to say nothing ofits depending on laws imperfectly known, is only to be

X I I . — G E N E R A L HISTORY OF RELIGION, (i) 259

taken into account in the individual existence. Asregards society we may neglect it, as a consequence of theneutralisation it there spontaneously undergoes amid thevariety of cases, co-existent or successive.

Our opinions then and our circumstances constitute theonly normal sources of the variations our feelings undergo,in the different phases of the human evolution, especiallyof the collective evolution. But the general course ofthese indirect changes conforms, moreover, to that of thedirect changes on which they depend. For if we can sumup the speculative evolution and the active by consideringthem as tending to make us more synthetical and moredisposed to co-operation, we equally recognise that ouraffective evolution consists above all in our becoming moresympathetic. As the grand characteristic of our existenceis unity, the great object of our growth is to develophuman harmony. Thus, the whole history of Humanityis necessarily condensed in that of religion. The generallaw of the human movement, whatever the point of viewchosen, consists in this, that man becomes more and morereligious. Such is the ultimate result of the whole bodyof dynamical conceptions, thus in perfect consonance withthe statical: the education of the race, as that of theindividual, trains us gradually to live for others.

The Woman.—By this last explanation, I feel now,my father, no serious difficulty as to the theory of evolu-tion which serves as base to the true philosophy ofhistory. You may proceed then at once to explain inoutline the principal phases of Humanity.

The Priest—To make the study easier, I urge you,my daughter, to consult frequently the table I subjoin(Table D), taken from the fourth edition of The generalsystem of public commemoration adapted for the organictransition of the Western Republic.

The first point that will strike you in it will be theentire absence of any notice of fetichism, which yet con-stitutes our primeval state, and still exists in vast popula-

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tions. But this inevitable omission is solely a consequenceof the concrete character of this synopsis, not able toinclude a phase of history which threw up no name thatabides. Fetichism can only receive its due honour inour abstract worship, where you know how fully weshall glorify it.

Its intellectual value consists above all in its spon-taneously originating the subjective method, which, atfirst absolute, directed the whole of the race's preparation,and which, become relative, will more and more presideover our normal state. The true logic, in which feelingstake precedence of images and signs, has then its origin,in fetichism. When any strong emotion impels us toseek for the causes of phenomena of which we know notthe laws, in order first to foresee and then to modifythem, we attribute directly to the beings with whichwe are concerned human affections, instead of subjectingthem to external wills. Fetichism is then more naturalthan polytheism.

Its moral efficacy is beyond dispute, by virtue of itstendency to give spontaneously the predominance to thehuman type. It inspires us with deep sympathy for allforms of existence, even the most inert, for it alwaysrepresents them as essentially analogous to our own. Andtherefore this primal state of humanity awakes keenerregret than any other in those who are rudely torn fromit; such is the daily experience of the unhappy Africanscarried far from their homes by Western barbarity.

Even under the social aspect, less favourable to fetich-ism, we owe to it important services which the Positiveworship will duly honour. So long as man's existenceremains nomad, it moderates, by its tendency to theworship of external objects, the vast destruction, neces-sary, it is true, but blind, which the hunter or the pas-toral tribes then inflict on animals or plants, in order toprepare the scene of man's action. But its highest ser-vice is its unconscious guidance of the first social revolu-

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tion, that which serves as the basis for all the others, thepassage to sedentary life. This great change, of whichwe misjudge the difficulty no less than the importance,certainly belongs to fetichism, as a consequence of thedeep attachment it fosters for our native land.

The chief imperfection of this spontaneous regime liesin its only allowing very tardily the rise of a priesthood,qualified to direct man's future progress. For this cult,even when highly developed, requires at first no priest,as it is by its nature essentially a private worship, whichpermits each to worship without a mediator beingsalmost always within his reach. Ultimately, however,a priesthood arises in fetichism, when the stars, longneglected, come to be the principal fetiches, and as suchcommon to vast populations. Their inaccessibility beingclearly recognised, it gives rise to a special class, whoseduty is to transmit homage and interpret their will.But, in this its last stage, fetichism borders on poly-theism, the origin of which in all cases was astrolatry;as is still shown by the names of the greater gods, alwaysborrowed from the stars most adapted to perpetuate thefictitious synthesis.

The Woman.—Although this passage cost no effort, itseems to me, my father, the most difficult of the pre-liminary revolutions of our intelligence. For we havethen to pass by an abrupt transition from activity toinertia in our general conception of matter, so as to givea reason for the influence of the gods.

The Priest—Still, my daughter, external agents comein without effort when the human mind, reaching thesecond period of childhood, rises from the contemplationof beings to that of events, the only possible basis forscientific meditations. Carrying on the original method,the phenomena, considered simultaneously in many bodies,are then attributed to more general wills, wills neces-sarily of external origin. This intellectual transforma-tion should become familiar to us, as we have frequent

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opportunities of observing it, at the corresponding periodin the individual evolution.

Be this as it may, it is chiefly on polytheism thatdepends the whole preparation of man, his social evolu-tion most, but also his mental. In the first place italone completes the primitive philosophy, by extendingit to our highest functions, which shortly give occasionfor the favourite occupation of the gods. For fetichism,in the main relating to the material world, could not dis-tinctly take in our intellectual and moral nature, whence,on the contrary, were drawn all its physical explanations.But when we introduce supernatural beings, we can adaptthem to this new sphere, and it soon becomes the chiefone. At the same time, polytheism necessarily gives riseto a priesthood in the strict sense, or rather consolidatesand develops that which astrolatry had originated.

In the midst of the varieties of the polytheistic regime,we trace two closely connected institutions, common to allits modes : the radical confusion of the spiritual and tem-poral powers; the slavery of the labouring population.

On the intellectual, and still more on the social ground,all combines without effort in the explanation of the first.In the first place, you cannot confine yourself to advicewhen you speak in the name of an authority withoutlimits, all the suggestions of which naturally becomeabsolute commands. In the second place, our preliminaryregime had above all to develop the several powers ofman, reserving for the final state their wise regulationon the basis of such apprenticeship taken as a whole. Init then all powers had to be extensively combined, soas to overcome in due degree the indiscipline naturalto primitive man. The separation of the two humanpowers would have radically hampered the active missionof polytheism, by thwarting the progress of conquest.Lastly, the complete divergence of scientific conceptionsand practical notions made it at that time imperativethat these two orders of thought should equally engage

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the attention of the brain, in order that their respectivedefects might be sufficiently neutralised therein. Onthe other hand, this indispensable concentration was aspontaneous result; as is shown by the then inability toconceive a real separation of counsel from command, evenin the philosophers who were best prepared for it.

A similar remark is applicable to the slavery of anti-quity, always considered necessary to the social order, tillthe times bordering on the final emancipation. The slave,as we are reminded by the Latin etymology (servus),was originally a prisoner of war, saved to labour, insteadof being killed or eaten. By virtue of the conciliatorycharacter of polytheism, he could keep his own worship,in subordination of course to the religion of his conqueror,now become his spiritual and temporal leader. Thissocial status to which all were more or less liable, con-sidering the vicissitudes of war, was at that time sonatural as to be often accepted without any reference towar, which, however, was always its chief source.

The institution of slavery was in two ways the basisof ancient civilisation, first as indispensable to the pro-gress of conquest, then in order to accustom man tolabour, which thus became the only means of personalimprovement, after having been the pledge of life.Under all these aspects, it is impossible to compare itwith the ephemeral and monstrous form thrown up bymodern colonisation.

The Woman.—After this general glimpse of the poly-theistic regime, I need, my father, a knowledge in out-line of its principal forms.

The Priest. — The most fundamental consists, mydaughter, in theocracy properly so called. This con-servative polytheism constitutes the only really completeorder attainable throughout the whole preparation ofman, all its other phases offering but destructive modifi-cations of this primitive regime, the sole source of theirpartial consistence.

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It rests on two closely connected institutions, theheredity of all professions, and the universal supremacyof the priestly caste. The first supplies the only meansfor preserving the advances made, and for allowing slowlysecondary modifications ; so long as education took theform rather of imitation than of instruction, there beingno separation of theory from practice. Bat this neces-sary system would break up the population into com-pletely independent castes, did not the uniform supremacyof the priesthood intervene to organise the state, by offer-ing to all the castes a bond which they revered, andwhich is naturally susceptible of a wide extension.

This primitive constitution is so natural that it stillsubsists, in the largest existing populations, in spite ofimmense disturbances. Though universal, it could onlyattain such durability in countries where the developmentof intelligence and industry preceded that of the militaryactivity. This last, indeed, always acts as the spontaneoussolvent of theocracy, by its tendency to raise the soldierabove the priest. Great as were the efforts of the priestlypolicy to divert the military energy on distant expedi-tions, always followed by permanent colonisation, thetheocracy in all cases issued in the supremacy of themilitary patriciate, but without losing the old mannersand customs. Its power in this last respect, a convincingevidence of the tenacious character of the regime, enablesus at the present day to study it in existence, greatlyaltered though it be, even in China and India, so betterto understand ancient Egypt, the venerable mother ofall the civilisation of the West. We can then appreciate,on a large scale, the social office of the priesthood, as atonce counselling, consecrating, regulating, and lastlyjudging. But we also see, at the same time, to what anextent the exercise of this fundamental function wasvitiated by the command and wealth which necessarilysullied the original interference of the intellect in thedomain of feeling and activity.

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It naturally surprises you that such a regime findsso small a place in the Table I have given you. Thisdepends chiefly, as for fetichism, on the concrete characterof this historical composition, esthetic rather than scien-tific. Still, in regard to a system which leaves so manymemorials of all kinds, this general explanation requiresa fuller treatment. Such treatment leads us to observeone of the noblest characteristics of the true theocracy,where the government of man is vested in vast and per-manent corporations, whilst the services rendered canscarcely ever be connected with individual names. Hadthere not been this tendency to absorb the individual, thevarious priestly colleges would often have been disturbedby the natural rivalries of the gods of polytheism. It isonly when the theocracy, by what is happily a solitaryexception, is founded on monotheism, that an extremeconcentration brings into full light the highest names.And so the concrete character of our Table necessitatedthe choice of Moses as the personal type of the initialregime, though he but very imperfectly represents anorganisation which is essentially polytheistic.

The Woman.—This thoughtful admiration for theo-cracy makes me judge more soundly, my father, the pro-found unfairness of the blind reproaches it is yet exposedto from most of those who claim to be advanced thinkers.It would seem from them that the organisation from whichall springs, and which lasted longer than any other, wasalways oppressive and degrading ; so that it would bebeyond comprehension whence the progress made couldtake its rise.

The Priest.—All these criticisms of theocracy shouldbe regarded, my daughter, as equally frivolous with thereproaches levelled by St. Augustine against the whole ofpolytheism and the attacks of Yoltaire on Catholicism.No regime could deserve such blame except in its decay.It would never have risen or prevailed if the greater partof its supremacy had not been to a considerable extent in

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agreement with our nature, and even largely favourableto our progress.

The oppressive tendencies towards stagnation are onlydeveloped really in the latest stage of theocracy. Theyare there a consequence of the inevitable degradationof the priestly character through command and wealth.But after all, the unchangeableness of theocracy has beengreatly exaggerated, from judging it by the contrastoffered by the greater rapidity which marks the Westernmovement. Apart from any external interference,decisive and numerous indications attest, and that farback, the spontaneous movement of theocratic civilisa-tion. For instance, Bouddhism, though crushed at itscentre, soon led in Thibet to great modifications of thetheocratic system, which were carried farther in Chinaby the adoption of the examination system.

When it shall be incumbent on Positivism to make itsway to these immense populations, then will be the time tostudy carefully the natural progression by which of them-selves they would ultimately have risen to the definitivelevel of the West, by a distinct but equivalent course.For it is with these instinctive tendencies that we shallhave wisely to connect our systematic acceleration, elimi-nating all the violent disturbing influences imported bymonotheism, first Musulman, then Christian. Neverthe-less, reserving this important question, we should for thepresent concentrate our historical studies on the imme-diate ancestors of Western civilisation. We are thusled to give precedence to the examination of the popula-tions in which the establishment of theocracy was barredby the precocious growth of military activity.

But this progressive polytheism appears under two verydifferent forms, the one mainly intellectual, the othereminently social. The first is found when local andpolitical circumstances prevent war, although very largelyencouraged, from organising a real system of conquest.Then its latent reaction is to impel all the higher minds

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to mental cultivation, which has also become the chiefobject of public attention, and thus is detached from thesacerdotal discipline. When, on the contrary, war is freeto tend to universal empire, the intellect subordinatesitself to activity, and all citizens, as a rule, are absorbedin social cares, at home as abroad. These two formsof progressive polytheism were, each according to itsnature and in its time, equally indispensable to the greatWestern movement which followed on the spontaneousthrowing off of the yoke of theocracy.

Ultimately no theocracy escapes the social ascendency ofthe soldier over the priest. Even in Judea, despite its ex-ceptional concentration, theocracy underwent this change,when the kings took the place of the judges, six cen-turies after its foundation. But it is important to distin-guish the cases where this change is not effected till afterthe theocratic manners have acquired great consistence,and those where its rapid introduction precedes suchsettlement, which consequently is essentially a failure.Our Western evolution depended mainly on this lastimpulsion, which, however, would never have answeredthe purpose without the germs judiciously borrowed fromthe pure theocracies.

The times sung by Homer mark distinctly the begin-ning of such sequence. For there had then elapsed twogenerations at most since the soldiers began to overbearthe priests among our Grecian ancestors. The primevaltheocracy still manifests itself there in numerous andrespected, though dispersed oracles, which lasted longerin Greece than elsewhere.

The Woman.—Starting from this era in the West, youtold me, my father, that the human evolution forms inreality an immense transition, admitting no real orga-nisation. One feels strongly the accuracy of such ajudgment, when one contrasts the short duration of theseveral states of society which from that time forth followone another, either with the previous persistence of the

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theocracy which succeeded fetichism, or with the magni-ficent future of the Positive order. But I should likenow to understand the general outline of this indis-pensable transition.

The Priest.—Such a preparation, accurately representedby our concrete Table, is in relation, my daughter, as isthe whole of human nature, first with intelligence, thenwith activity, in order to arrive ultimately at feeling.The initial theocracy cultivated simultaneously these threeaspects of our existence, thus brought under a completesystem of rules, though one too little favourable to ourcontinuous advance. But this discipline was so surelythe only one adapted to theologism that it was neverpossible to find any durable substitute so long as the ficti-tious synthesis prevailed. The rate of progress was onlyquickened by breaking up such harmony, in order todevelop in succession each part of man's existence at theexpense of the two others. This marked character ofincompleteness distinguishes clearly first the Greek intel-lectual evolution, then the Roman preparation, lastly theCatholic-feudal initiation.

The order of these three partial evolutions is at oncedetermined by their common destination. For it was thenthe first object to develop the powers of man, withoutattempting as yet to discipline them, otherwise thanthrough their spontaneous antagonism. Every prematureattempt to regulate the whole of human life tended tore-establish a theocracy which was always imminent, andbecame adverse to the partial growth it was wished topromote. This is why feeling, the chief source of humandiscipline, was naturally long despised, so as only to pre-vail when the intellectual and practical developmentshould be sufficiently advanced. For the due growth ofour powers, intelligence must precede activity. For, asour activity at that time tended to unite all the progres-sive polytheists under one dominion, it would have be-come incompatible with the full liberty required for the

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speculative evolution, had this latter not been previouslyaccomplished.

CONVERSATION XIII.

THE TRANSITION OF THE WESTO

The Woman.—I understand thus, my father, the natureand the succession of the three great phases which belongto the necessary transition which separates us from theHomeric times. But I need a clearer understanding oftheir course and their connection, beginning with theGreek evolution.

The Priest.—Its imperishable brilliancy should notprevent you, my daughter, from regretting the contrast itoffers in the general to the Roman evolution, as to therespective influence of each on its nation. In Rome, weare in contact with a collective construction, in which allfree men must always take an active part, or the failurewould be complete. In Greece, the people is in the mainpassive, and forms a kind of pedestal for some thinkers ofreal eminence, the total number of whom is not above onehundred, in art, philosophy, and science, from Homer andHesiod to Ptolemy and Galen. On the one side, the highcommunity of action stamps on the whole nation a noble-ness of which the traces are yet distinguishable. But, onthe other, the monstrous preponderance allowed to specu-lation over action issues in the degradation, too perceptibleat the present day, of a population sacrificed to it whichended by assigning the first place to the gift of expression.Their conquest by Rome alone preserved the Greek citiesfrom succumbing in every case to the despicable tyrannyof some rhetorician.

These overpraised tribes were really incapable ofmore than one fine phase of social existence, lasting withdifficulty for two centuries, often, too, interrupted by their

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wretched disputes. That phase was due to their admir-able struggle, defensive at first, then offensive, against theforcible compression with which the Persian theocracythreatened this precious nucleus of freethinkers, at thattime charged with the intellectual destinies of Humanity.But, even there, it is mainly to some citizens of pre-eminent merit that the chief successes are due : for eachpopulation is seen often ready to sacrifice the nationaldefence to mutual jealousies.

In this long intellectual elaboration, we must distin-guish three periods of unequal length, faithfully repre-sented in our Calendar. The movement begins with art,and Homer is for all time its representative. It was quitenecessary that poetry, at once more independent and morefettered, should be the first to detach itself from thetheocratic stem, so to begin the Western emancipation.It prepares the advent of philosophy which, first outlinedby Thales and Pythagoras, finds its impersonation atlength in the incomparable Aristotle, so far above his agethat it was not till the Middle Ages that he could beappreciated. Under his immortal elaboration, this secondmovement attains sufficient distinctness to make truethinkers soon feel the impossibility of outstripping itwithout a long scientific preamble which should adequatelydevelop its primary Positive basis. Then true science,admirably represented by Archimedes, became, in itsturn, the chief object of Greek genius, its capacity for artand its philosophical power being irreparably exhausted.

The Woman.—As for the Roman preparation, I havealways found it, my father, much easier to appreciate,owing to the homogeneous and strongly marked char-acter which distinguishes this admirable gradual ascent touniversal empire. Bossuet's greatest work contains, onthis point, some remarkable hints, which I have longknown. This political system is so within grasp that itcould be adequately presented in a few matchless lines,which were once explained to me (Virgil, JEn. vi., 848-

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854). Though they bear only on Rome's external mission,they make us feel how intimate is its connection withthe internal constitution.

The Priest—You have only now, my daughter, to com-plete this whole by distinguishing its two main phases.So long as the Roman incorporation did not include thegreater part of the West, Rome's warlike energy wasnaturally directed by the senatorial caste, strong in itstheocratic ascendency, by virtue of which the commonadvance was sufficient restraint on the jealousy of theplebeians. But this military constitution had to changewhen the dominion became so extended and so consoli-dated as no longer to absorb the attention of the people,of whom the emperors became the true representativesas against patrician tyranny. Yirgil defined the policyof Rome, personified in the incomparable Csesar, at thevery time when that policy was undergoing, unknownto the tender poet, this decisive change, the first symptomof its inevitable decline.

These two nearly equal phases, the one eminently pro-gressive, the other essentially conservative, had each apowerful social influence on the whole preparation of theWest. If to the first we owe the salutary sway whicheverywhere put a stop to fruitless and yet continuouswars, we are indebted to the second for the civil benefitsof this political incorporation, by virtue of the uniformpropagation of the Greek evolution. In conqueringGreece, Rome always paid her a noble tribute, anddevoted her influence to spread results in art, in philo-sophy, and in science, which, unless so disseminated,would not have fulfilled their highest purpose.

When the last movements peculiar to antiquity, theone intellectual, the other social, had thus fused irrevoc-ably, the preparation of man at once set towards its lastnecessary phase. The development, theoretically andpractically, of our chief powers soon awoke a deep con-sciousness of the need of their regulation. For the

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spontaneous discipline which resulted from a temporaryend was altogether broken up on the attainment to acertain extent of that end. Then the intellect and theheart gave themselves over to an unparalleled dissipation,in which all our intellectual and material wealth waswasted in ignoble gratification of unbridled selfishness.At the same time that regeneration was becoming indis-pensable, the whole of our Grseco-Roman antecedentsseemed to supply it with a systematic basis, through acombination of the intellectual superiority of monotheismwith the social tendency towards an universal religion.

Thus arose Catholicism to satisfy this great want ofcomplete discipline, under the impulse, an impulse toolittle recognised, of the incomparable St. Paul, whosesublime self-abnegation facilitated the growth of the newunity, by accepting a founder who had no claim. But theprofoundly self-contradictory nature of this constructionwas in itself an indication that this last transition wouldbe more rapid and less extensive than its predecessors.For its chief end could be attained only through theradical separation of the two human powers, a separation,it is true, spontaneously issuing from a state of things inwhich monotheism was slowly growing under the politicalsupremacy of polytheism. Still, such a division alwaysremained incompatible with the necessarily absolutecharacter of theologism, which, especially in its mono-theistic concentration, only allows its priesthood to con-fine itself to counsel so far as it cannot grasp command.

This inevitable contradiction is best drawn out by twogeneral contrasts, the one social, the other intellectual.The only possible foundation at that time for human dis-cipline is the future life, to which the new priesthoodgives an importance previously unknown, even in Judea,in order to have in it an exclusive domain. But such aform of discipline became unfit to regulate real life, for itdissuaded each believer from society in order to impelhim to a solitary asceticism. Under another aspect, the

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complete disunion between theory and practice, which wasmasked, and even atoned for, whilst the two powers re-mained fused, became quite evident on their separation.The monotheistic concentration drew out most stronglythe inherent opposition between arbitrary wills and im-mutable laws. For the ingenious reconcilement of the twowhich Aristotle had prepared was only available for thelater phase when the Positive spirit should be first tendingtowards its final ascendency under the guardianship oftheology.

On combining these points of opposition, we need feelbut little surprise that the Catholic movement was longrejected as purely retrograde by the most eminent philo-sophers and statesmen of the Roman empire. These greatchiefs had been gradually prepared, since Scipio andCaesar, for the direct advent of the kingdom of Humanity,under the simultaneous predominance of the Positive spiritand the industrial life. But they had not perceived thenecessity of one last social preparation, essentially rela-tive to feeling, for the introduction of the final regimeby the twofold emancipation reserved for the Middle Agesas to woman and the labouring classes.

The Woman.—This great result seems to me, myfather, here referred at the outset to Catholicism solelywith the view of bringing out more clearly its histori-cal filiation, by representing it as a possible outcomeof the regime of antiquity under the new religious im-pulsion. But it was very greatly aided, and even muchaccelerated, by the influence of feudalism. Catholi-cism, which once had my belief, must always have myreverence. And yet I could never prevent myself fromsecretly preferring chivalry, the noble condensation ofwhich I hear echoing still in the sixteenth century :Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra. Do thy duty, cometvhat may.

The Priest.—I need, my daughter, but complete yourjust estimate by showing you that feudalism, erroneously

s

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attributed to the German invasions, was itself a necessaryconsequence of the Roman system, which at its closetended spontaneously towards it. For the extension ofthe empire soon substituted defence for conquest. Now7the two other political characteristics of the Middle Agesare necessary results of this leading change. On the onehand, it gradually transformed slavery into serfage, afterhaving naturally limited the slave trade to the interior ofthe Roman world. At the same time, it more and morebroke up the central power into local authorities, eachcharged with a part of the common defence, and it wastheir hierarchical subordination that constituted feudal-ism properly so called. All that Catholicism did wasimplicitly to sanction these three political tendencies, byrecommending peace, emancipation, and submission. Butit was at that time the worthy exponent of the feelingscalled forth by the circumstances of the West, nor are webound to attribute them to its doctrine, which oftenserved later to sanction dispositions of an entirely oppositekind, by virtue of its vague and even anti-social nature.It contributed much less than feudalism, either to theabolition of Western slavery, first in the towns, then inthe country; or to the emancipation of women, in respectof which we owe it the prerequisite of purity, but in nowise the final aim, tenderness, ever of chivalric origin.Throughout the Greek Church, it still sanctions theseclusion of women and the serfage of the worker, whichthe Czars alone modify nobly.

The Woman.—Sufficiently prepared, my father, forthis general estimate of the Middle Ages, it remainsfor me only to know the chief division of this lastorganic transition.

Tlie Priest.—It is taken, my daughter, from the twosystems of defensive wars which naturally absorbed atthat time the collective action of the West, whilst thegreat social revolution which I have just delineated wasin process of gradual accomplishment. A first phase,

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beginning with the opening of the fifth and ending withthe seventh century, is occupied by the primary settle-ment, where, under the invasions which admitted oflasting success, we trace all the proper characteristics ofthe Middle Ages, with the exception of language. Inthis period independence takes precedence over concert.In a second period of equal length, concentration becomesthe paramount want, in order to repel the unsettlinginvasions of the populations which were ready for in-corporation into the West, so easy was their conversionfrom polytheism to Catholicism. This collective actionof the West was directed especially by the dictatorshipof the incomparable Charlemagne, worthily carried onby his German successors.

Thus is founded the Western Republic, in which thecommonalty of antiquity, due to forcible incorporation, istransformed into a voluntary association of independentStates, whose only direct bond is a common spiritualregime, concentrated in the papacy. Even at its com-mencement this change tends, notwithstanding the in-fluence of the church and political memories, to displacethe social centre of the system, removing it from Rometo Paris, where, by the end of the Middle Ages, it wasirrevocably fixed, as more in conformity with geographicalrelations.

But during this second period, the East experienced avast convulsion, which soon reacted deeply on the wholeWest, first by prolonging its Catholic-feudal regime, thenby beginning its irreparable dissolution.

The want of a really universal religion had been longfelt by the greater part of the white race, including eventhat portion which, though adjacent to the Romanempire, had escaped its dominion. Now, this univer-sality, the appeal to which is at once the chief merit andthe best test of Catholicism, can in no wise belong totheologism, and is exclusively the apanage of Positivism.Monotheism, however, approaches it more nearly than

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polytheism. This last was always an essentially nationalreligion, though very compatible with the incorporationby war. Monotheism, on the contrary, may be therallying-point for quite independent nations, though ithas never practically been so except in the West duringthe mediaeval period. It was natural then for the Eastalso to aspire to a monotheistic belief, but one entirelyincompatible with the faith of the West, owing to thedifference in their social missions.

In fact, Islam directed principally the military develop-ment of another noble portion of the white race, aspiring,in its turn, to become the central nucleus of the true GreatBeing. This is why the fusion as in antiquity of the twopowers was retained perforce, and even carried farther byIslam, as a result of its monotheistic concentration. Thusbecome more consonant with the natural genius of theo-logism, monotheism could, and must even in the East,attain a simplicity of doctrine inadmissible for it in theWest. For, with us, the factitious separation of the twopowers had compelled the real founder of Catholicism tocomplicate its dogma, by adding as complement to therevelation, with which no monotheism can dispense, thegodship of the reputed founder. Hence other secondarycomplications, which, to the honour of Islam, it alsorejected, the better to secure the predominance of itsmilitary character against the degeneracy of the priest-hood in the person of its supreme head. The independ-ence of the clergy was, in fact, the real ground of thesesubtle refinements of Catholicism, which, judged histori-cally, deserve the respect of the philosopher, howeverrepugnant they may be to our reason.

At the very beginning of this struggle between twoirreconcileable monotheisms, an unprejudiced thinkermight have foreseen that it would shortly end in dis-crediting both equally, by showing the thorough futilityof their common claims to universality. This vast con-test fills the last period of the Middle Ages, beginning

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with the eleventh century and ending at the close of thethirteenth. Then first was established feudalism in thestrict sense, in which independence and concert, whichprevailed in turn, were at length admirably combined, soas to inspire even then an anticipation of the final socio-cracy. This admirable institution became, in the twelfthcentury, the general basis for those heroic expeditions inwhich the Western Republic, consolidated and developedby collective action, finally dispelled all anxiety as to aMusulman invasion. As early as the next century, theCrusades, as essentially deprived of any social purpose,were soon perverted and discredited. The whole of theRoman world was from that time divided between twoincompatible monotheisms, each of which tended at onceto its inevitable decline, which was only delayed, in eithercase, by the difficulty of substituting a new system.

The Woman.—This general theory of the Middle Ages,my father, makes me at length understand Catholicism inits entirety, as an intellectual and social system : I appre-hend its necessary advent, its temporary mission, and itsirremediable decay. But such an insight shows moreclearly how unjust Catholicism was towards the intel-lectual creation of Greece and the Roman incorporation,the spontaneous combination of which had determinedits own formation. After cursing its parents it was inits turn cursed by its children. Though the first wrongexcuses not the second, it explains it by manifesting thebreach in human continuity.

The Priest.—As a fact, my daughter, this continuityhad been respected in the preceding revolutions. Atthe outset polytheism had almost insensibly supplantedfetichism, by a spontaneous incorporation of it into itself.When the primitive theocracy gave place to the militaryregime, there was still no breach of social antecedents,which always retained their honour. So it is whenRome absorbs Greece, making it her glory to continue itsevolution. But the advent of Catholicism has, on the

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contrary, an anarchical character. The future and thepresent are conceived of and directed by it as thoughthe Greco-Roman past had never existed. Nay, theChristian injustice extends even to its Jewish ante-cedents, notwithstanding the importance unwiselyattached to them.

This rude disruption of continuity, which Islam exerteditself to avoid, greatly weakened the general consciousnessof social progress, the first inchoate notion of which wasa spontaneous outcome of Catholicism, by virtue of thereal superiority of its system to its predecessor. I t is im-portant to rightly judge such a rupture of historicaltradition. First of all it explains the profoundly con-tradictory position, intellectually and morally, in whichis soon placed a doctrine which, the child of discussion,subsequently wished to stifle it, and" which claimed fromits children the respect it refused its parents. Butabove all we must see in it the true origin of the mostserious tendency which attends on modern anarchy. Theanti-historical feeling and spirit, the prevalence of whichis now the greatest obstacle to the regeneration of theWest, thus date as far back as the rise of Catholicism.Positivism alone can overcome this enormous difficulty,as alone able to do equal justice to all the phases, socialor intellectual, of the human evolution.

Still, here as everywhere else, we must acknowledgethat the Catholic priesthood by its remarkable wisdomlong neutralised the main defects of its deplorable doc-trine. By adopting the language of Rome, when it ceasedto be the language in common use, it preserved as anatural consequence all the intellectual treasures of anti-quity, even its beautiful theology. The touching legend,so well immortalised by Dante, of the successful interces-sion of a sainted pope on behalf of Trajan, were enoughto indicate to what an extent nobler Catholic spirits re-gretted that their doctrine in its blindness prevented theirhonouring their best ancestors. But the general respect

XIII. — GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2) 279

for the Greek and Roman antecedents was most developedin the temporal chiefs, despite their frequent ignorance.

Throughout we meet the same contrast. An admirablediscipline is then applied to the whole range of humanfeelings, though it rests on an immense egoism, the pre-ponderance of which alone could overpower in thebeginning the ordinary selfishness. The tenderness ofchivalry finds its way prepared by, its sanction in, thefaith the most adverse to women which ever heldsupremacy. By its institution of the celibacy of theclergy, which destroys all sacerdotal heredity, the mostsignal blow struck, in the West, at the system of castecomes from a doctrine by its nature favourable to theo-cracy, the ultimate aim of the papacy in its degeneracy.Monotheism, which ultimately became thoroughly hostileto all intellectual progress, prepared the way for itsgeneral advance, by completing the elaboration of humanlogic. Founded by fetichism on the feelings, it owed topolytheism the introduction of images. But its spon-taneous growth was only completed under monotheism, bythe habitual aid of signs. This result, essentially commonto Islam and Catholicism, appertains more to Catholicism,considering the habit of discussion to which its separationof the two powers gave rise, amongst all classes.

All these contrasts should greatly increase the admira-tion and respect of true philosophers for those beautifulpriestly natures which, during several centuries, foundsuch powerful resources in a faith which was radicallydefective, though the only one suited to this transition.Still, let us never forget that the progress made in theMiddle Ages was always clue to the necessary concert ofthe two heterogeneous elements which we must ever com-bine in our view of them, Catholicism and feudalism.

Over and above its immediate services, this admirabletransition called into existence once for all the essentialgerms of the final state. Nay, it initiated, under eachgreat aspect, the true human order, at once temporal and

28o XIII.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2)

spiritual, as far as was possible with the then belief andcircumstances. And so Positivism has now but to take upits programme as a whole in order to carry it out worthily,on the groundwork of a better faith combined with amore propitious form of activity. But the influence offeudalism, at the present time without special advocates,is unjustly sacrificed, in these historical estimates, to thatof Catholicism, the only one studied by the retrogradeschool. A searching examination, however, shows thereaction of chivalry even on the little understood modifi-cations which the last provisional belief then underwent.After inaugurating admirably the worship of Woman, thenecessary prelude to the Religion of Humanity, the feudalfeeling really brought about, in the century of the Cru-sades, the change which Western monotheism underwentwhen the Virgin tended to take in it the place of God.

But in assigning to their true authors the results ofthe Middle Ages, we feel more clearly the profoundlyprecarious constitution of the Catholic feudal system, thelatest form of the theological and military regime. Ifit was the priesthood alone that compensated the im-perfections of its doctrine, its power to do so could onlyendure so long as its social and moral mission made it keepa progressive character Now, the very fulfilment ofsuch a mission impelled the West towards progress in-compatible with the Catholic faith, and at variance withthe ultimate constitution of its clergy in its retrogradestate; as is shown by the admirable but unsuccessfulattempt at regeneration in the thirteenth century. In aword, all the results of the Middle Ages imperativelycalled for a new system, from the moment that Islam and(. Catholicism finally neutralised one another. For instance,the emancipation from theology, long limited to certainindividuals, spread widely in consequence of the Crusades,under the impulse of the Knights Templars, who werein better contact with the Musulmans.

With the fourteenth century then begins the vast

XIII.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2) 281

revolution in the West, which Positivism comes forwardat the present day to close. At that date the wholehuman movement becomes profoundly hostile to theearlier order, though the new system can as yet in no waybe seen. For, after Catholicism, no theological organisa-tion was possible; just as after its feudal constitution nomodification of the military system was possible. TheWest was beginning to realise the too precocious anticipa-tions of Caesar and of Trajan as to its direct tendency toaccept definitively the supremacy of a Positive faith anda peaceful activity. But to attain this end it was stillrequired that science, industry, and even art should under-go a long elaboration, which in the main must be one ofdetail and dispersive, so as to mask its social bearing.Hence are derived these two characteristics of the lasthuman transition, which is one of growing anarchy asregards the whole, though also more and more organicas to its elements.

The Woman.—Since it is thus, my father, that thepresent is directly tied to the past, I need to know thegeneral course of this movement, to be able to followin it the simultaneous advance of anarchy and reorga-nisation.

The Priest.—In the negative progress, more distinctlymarked than the other, we must, my daughter, above alldistinguish two necessary phases; according as decom-position remains purely spontaneous, or becomes moreand more systematic. The first embraces the fourteenthand fifteenth centuries, the other the three following.These two periods differ similarly as concerns the Positivemovement, though the difference is less marked. Thewhole West partakes in the spontaneous decomposition,whereas the systematic negation triumphs only in theNorth.

From its commencement, the direction of the revolu-tionary movement was always in the hands of two closelyconnected classes, originally emanating from, and soou

282 X1II.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2)

rivals of, the old powers. They are the metaphysiciansand lawyers, who constitute the spiritual and temporalelement in this negative regime, most traceable, particu-larly in France, in the universities and the parliaments.But the second class is more entitled to respect than thefirst, because the spirit which actuates both was modifiedin the legists under the wholesome influence of socialconsiderations. Whilst the metaphysicians never wereanything, as regards theology, but inconsistent destruc-tives, the lawyers, and above all the judges, not to men-tion their temporary or special services, always tendedto construct, on the vestiges of Rome, a purely humanmorality.

During the first modern phase, the whole mediaevalregime was in a state of utter disorder from the internalconflicts between its component parts, its doctrines re-maining intact. The chief struggle was naturally thatbetween the temporal and spiritual powers, whose pre-carious harmony had always oscillated between thetheocracy and the empire. . The vain efforts of thepopes in the thirteenth century to establish theirabsolute dominion were succeeded generally, and inFrance more than elsewhere, by the successful resistanceof the kings, who in the course of the next centuryannihilated beyond hope of recovery the power of thepapacy in the West. This decisive revolution was com-pleted, in the fifteenth century, by the subordinationof every national clergy to the temporal authority, leavingonly a delusive appearance of influence to the centralhead, thus degenerating into an Italian prince. Withits independence the priesthood loses also its morality—its public morality first, then even its private. Toensure its material existence, it places its teaching atthe service of all the strong.

At the same time, the struggle, begun in the MiddleAges, between the local and central constituents of thetemporal order, continues on a larger scale. Everywhere

XI1L—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION, (2) 283

the power which was originally weaker gets the upperhand, by the instinctive aid of the classes thrown up bythe abolition of serfage. In the normal case, royaltyprevails over aristocracy. The contrary result is to belooked on as an exception, of which Venice was the firstinstance, England the most complete.

In both forms alike, the combination of this politicalconcentration with the humiliation of the priesthoodinaugurates, in every Western state, a true dictatorship,which could alone keep in bounds the temporal anarchyarising from the spiritual disorganisation. The eminentLouis XI. was the best type of this exceptional magis-tracy ; he alone rightly discerned and wisely guided thewhole of the modern movement.

As for the positive progression, its most importantfeature during this first period is the upgrowth of in-dustry. Prepared by the twofold organisation of thelabouring classes in the Middle Ages, it then developsunder the stimulus of three capital discoveries, the occur-rence of which has nothing fortuitous in it. First, theinvention of gunpowder comes to perfect the transitionalinstitution of standing armies, so relieving the Westernnations from a military education opposed to their newform of activity. Then printing connects science withindustry, by allowing the gratification of the intellectualfervour which was becoming universal. Lastly, the dis-covery of America and a sea passage to India offer a widefield for the decisive extension of commercial relations, sogiving shape and solidity to the new Western life. Theintellectual movement becomes at that time remarkableonly in poetry, beginning the fourteenth century with apeerless epic, and producing, in the fifteenth, an admirablemystical composition. But the growth of science isbeing prepared by the accumulation of useful materialsof all kinds.

This simultaneous progress of the intelligence andactivity throws into stronger relief the lamentable neglect

284 XIII.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2)

of moral improvement, which in all classes constitutedthe chief merit of the Middle Ages. The twofold ardourwhich then prevails in the West rests mainly on an uni-versal and ill-regulated development of pride and vanity,often in conjunction with the most ignoble egoism. Theesthetic development, it is true, despite its revolutionarytendencies, spontaneously keeps alive better sentiments.But moral culture is more and more centred in theaffective sex, which, unaffected by the impetus of scienceand action, alone, amid modern anarchy, hands down themore important results of the Middle Ages, in spite of theincreasing aversion they awakened. This holy provid-ence cannot, however, prevent the gradual weakening ofthe true principle of all human discipline from coincidingwith the special development of the new forces, spiritualand temporal, peculiar to the final state of the West.

The Woman.—The initial stage of the two modernmovements being adequately delineated, I beg you, myfather, to give me a similar view of its systematic period.

The Priest.—Hitherto unassailed, the doctrines of theold regime were then, my daughter, directly attacked bypurely negative principles. That the anarchy should sospread was as indispensable as inevitable, in order toevidence the need of a real reorganisation, masked by theappearance of life which was still worn by a system ofwhich all the social bases were irrevocably destroyed.But to form a sound judgment on its mission, we mustdivide this period into two parts, the first of which,beginning with the sixteenth century, ends at the retro-gradation of the French monarchy, coinciding with thetriumph of the English aristocracy. The second bringsus, a century after, to the actual commencement of therevolutionary crisis, which still, after two generations,inflicts on the West its deplorable vicissitudes.

This necessary distinction is traceable especially to theincrease of system introduced into the negative doctrine,which at first seems compatible with the fundamental con-

XIII.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2) 285

ditions of the theological regime, whilst later it becomesevidently contrary to them. We should demarcate thesetwo successive degrees of the negative movement by therespective names of Protestant and deist. Infinitelyvaried as are the sects of Protestantism, their commonadherence to the Christian revelation suffices to separatethem all from the more complete emancipation whichdistinguishes deism.

At the very commencement of the second modernphase, the negative doctrine broaches directly its anarchi-cal principle, by asserting absolute individualism, which itdoes by its allowing to every one, without any conditionsof competence, the decision of all questions. Then allspiritual authority is utterly broken up. The living risein complete insurrection against the dead; witness theblind reprobation of the whole mediaeval period, a repro-bation but ill compensated by an irrational admiration ofantiquity. Thus is widened, under the influence of Pro-testantism, the fatal breach which Catholicism institutedin the continuity of the race.

The Woman.—Allow me, my father, for a moment tointerrupt you that I may express the profound dislikewhich was always aroused in me by Protestantism,which professed to reform Western monotheism by strip-ping it of its best institutions. Thus it suppresses thedogma of purgatory, the worship of the Virgin and ofthe Saints, the system of confession, and perverts themysterious sacrament which supplied to the hearts of theWestern nations a sublime condensation of their wholereligion. Hence it was that my sex, which of old hadaided so powerfully the rise of Catholicism, remainedalmost completely passive in a reformation in which forthe rejection of its tenderness it was offered as sole com-pensation the permission to interpret books which areunintelligible and dangerous. Protestantism would havegrievously lowered the institution of marriage in theWest by re-establishing divorce, had not modern habits

286 XIII.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2)

and feelings always instinctively rejected so retrograde amovement, even where it was accepted officially.

The Priest—Your just repugnance explains of itself,my daughter, the extreme disagreement of the West inregard to a purely negative doctrine, which soon dividednations, cities, nay, even families. Its partial successmust, however, then have met some important wants,intellectual and social. Despite its anarchical character,the principle of Protestantism aided at first the progressof science and the development of industry, by stimulat-ing individual efforts and setting aside oppressive rules.We owe to it the two preliminary revolutions directed, inHolland, against foreign tyranny, and, in England, tointernal reform. Though the second, as too premature,was doomed ultimately to fail, it gave even then anindication, under the admirable dictatorship of Cromwell,of the inevitable tendency of the Western movement.

Then the requirements of order and of progress, bothequally imperative, became absolutely irreconcilable, andthe Westerns ranged themselves apart accordingly as theyfelt more strongly the one or the other. There was im-minent danger of universal oppression had Protestantismnowhere obtained the ascendant, because a retrogradeclergy was everywhere awakening the anxious attention ofthe older powers in opposition to a movement of which thetendency was no longer doubtful. But we should rathercongratulate ourselves that the greater part of the Westwas preserved from the ascendency of Protestantism. Forits universal acceptance, which would have been deemedgenerally the legitimate issue of the common revolution,would have everywhere completely masked all the essen-tial conditions of human regeneration, by proclaiming thepermanent fusion of the two powers. By these two judg-ments, we find ourselves led to sympathise equally with thegreat spirits who fought nobly in that immense struggle,the necessary preliminary to a true reorganisation.

In spite of the obstacles arising from the Protestant

XIIL—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION, (2) 287

agitation, the second period of modern history perfectedthe temporal dictatorship which issued from the first.Its rise coincides with the formation of the great nation-alities, a provisional result of the disruption of theWestern union which marks the Middle Ages. But thispolitical anomaly has really a high social value, one more-over necessarily temporary, only for the central popula-tion. More and more charged, since Charlemagne, withthe general direction of the Western movement, Franceneeded to become a very compact power, large enoughto give a decisive impact and overcome all reactionaryaggression. Everywhere else, such concentration wasbut a blind and perilous imitation of this exceptionalpolicy.

In this second phase, the Positive movement developedmost of all its scientific character and philosophical tend-ency. Cosmology makes a capital advance by establishingthe doctrine of the earth's motion, soon completed by thesystematisation of celestial geometry and the foundationof celestial mechanics. Then the scientific spirit becomesradically at variance with all theology and metaphysics.The direct tendency to a thoroughly Positive philosophyfinds visible expression, under the joint impulse of Baconand Descartes, which indicates even then the preparationdemanded by such a synthesis. During this decisivemovement, the general and the special arts pursue worthilythe course of evolution which the preceding period owedto the Middle Ages. Notwithstanding the absence ofphilosophical guidance and of social purpose, the poetryof the West produced, in five centuries, more real master-pieces than we derive from the whole of antiquity. Asfor the growth of industry, its extension becomes thenincreasingly the object of the attention of governments,though they still subordinate it to warlike aims. But italready displays the tendency of the masters to separatethemselves from the workmen, so to gain admission intothe degenerate aristocracy.

288 XIIL—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2)

The Woman.—I would now, my father, form an ideaof the character and object of the last modern phase.

The Priest—It was rendered necessary, my daughter,by the general result of the preceding. Abandoning allidea of universal supremacy, Protestantism and Catholi-cism divided the West definitively between them, as theRoman empire was divided formerly between the Koranand the Bible. In the more important cases, this divisionof the West coincides naturally with the distinction,henceforward more marked, between the two forms,aristocratic and monarchical, taken by the temporaldictatorship everywhere thrown up by the precedingphase.

Both forms equally had become hostile to the radicalemancipation which threatened them alike. Progressiveso long as it had a powerful opposition to overcome,royalty, in France especially, displayed its retrogradetendencies, as soon as it no longer feared resistance.As early as the second half of the reign of Louis XIV.,it gradually rallied round it all the fragments of the olderorder, to arrest in union with them a social movementwhich it could not but consider as simply anarchical. Butthe aristocratical and Protestant dictatorship became atthat time, especially in England, a still more formidableenemy to the Western movement than the monarchicaland Catholic, because it found more aid from the people.Protestantism, which, so long as it had to struggle,favoured liberty, as soon as it was established officially,exerted itself to check emancipation, as is the tendencyof every system which rejects the separation of the twohuman powers. It set up, in England, an all-pervadingsystem of hypocrisy, more skilfully organised and morepernicious than that with which it taunted Jesuitism,the latest form of expiring Catholicism. But the mostcorrupting influence of such a regime lay in the fulldevelopment of the system of national selfishness, whichin Venice had not been able to be more than inchoate,

XIII.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2) 289

and which, too cordially welcomed by the whole Britishpopulation, tended to isolate it from the West.

Such a state of affairs rendered as indispensable asinevitable the negative explosion of the eighteenth cen-tury, without which it was impossible to work out, nay,even to imagine, a true re-organisation. The criticaldoctrines, which had their original source in their funda-mental principle under the two Protestant revolutions, werealready sufficiently co-ordinated by the metaphysicianswho succeeded Bacon and Descartes. They were thenspread broadcast by the assiduous exertions of a classhitherto subaltern, the litterateurs properly so called,which thus took the place of the mediaeval doctors in thedirection of the revolutionary movement, in which thelawyers soon supplanted the judges. Two generationsexhausted the preliminary ascendency of these incon-sequent schools, who wished to destroy the altar andmaintain the throne, or conversely. But the eighteenthcentury will never be represented philosophically by puredestructives, such as Voltaire and Rousseau, nearly for-gotten at the present day. Its great school, that ofDiderot and Hume, of which Fontenelle is the precursorand Condorcet the complement, accepts the total work ofdestruction only to gain as clear a conception as possibleof the final regeneration, of which Frederick the Greatwas the precursor among the statesmen. For, from thattime forward, it was only the narrower minds that couldhope by any conceivable modification of the older orderto meet the wants of the modern renovation.

During this final phase, the Positive movement com-pleted cosmology by the foundation of chemistry. Withthis signal advance end the services of the analyticalspirit and of the academical regime, the blind predomi-nance of which became at once an obstacle of growingimportance to labours which were bound to be essentiallysynthetic. In the industrial progress, we see then theclass of bankers rising to its natural supremacy, which

29o XIII.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2)

alone can reduce to system material activity. At thesame time war becomes the minister of industry, thecolonial disputes furnishing the occasion. The capitalextension of machinery gives its last characteristic tomodern industry. But it also fosters the lamentableneglect of the masters as regards the social conditionsproper for the workmen, who became more and more amere source of profit instead of being governed.

We thus understand the necessarily stormy characterof the vast revolution which was the final issue of thewhole five centuries which lie between us and the MiddleAges. It is the result of a fatal want of harmony be-tween the two progressions which together make up thewhole Western movement, in which the positive advancewas unable to meet the demand for organisation createdby the negative. Whilst this last was destroying allgeneral conceptions, the former could only substitutefor them special notions. The leadership in the modernregeneration, at the time of its greatest difficulty, haddevolved on the most incompetent class, the class of merewriters, whose sole aspiration was the metaphysicalpedantocracy dreamed of by their Greek masters, in orderto centre all power in themselves.

The Woman.—Although these hints explain clearlyenough the revolutionary crisis as a whole, I should like,my father, to know in outline its general course, so as torightly estimate its actual state, the last object of thisconcluding conversation.

The Priest.—In it you must, my daughter, observe firstthe necessary abolition of the French monarchy, in whichhad centred the whole of the decaying regime. Thefuneral of Louis XIV. might have led men to foresee it,had there been at that time a true theory of history tointerpret it aright as indicating at once the irremediabledegeneracy of the government and the rooted antipathyof the people.

After some years of metaphysical hesitation, a decisive

XIIL—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2) 291

shock overthrew for ever this retrograde institution, thelast vestige of the caste system, according to the theo-cratic consecration given it by the servility of the modernclergy. But the glorious assembly, the only really popularassembly in France, which had thus to prelude the socialregeneration, could not make good the intellectual defi-ciencies of the Western movement. Not in possession ofany real organic doctrine, whilst directing in an heroicspirit the defence of the republic, it could only vaguelystate the modern programme under cover of a metaphysicalphilosophy ever incapable of any construction.

The thoroughly subversive tendencies inevitably broughtto light by the political triumph of this negative doctrinesoon led to a retrograde reaction. Begun by the epheme-ral ascendency of a bloodthirsty deism, it took its largestproportions on the official restoration of Catholicism underthe military tyranny. But the basic tendencies of moderncivilisation repelled from it alike theologism and war.Though every egoistic instinct was at that time stimulatedin an unparalleled degree, the military spirit could nothelp resting, in its last orgies, on a system of compulsoryrecruitment, the universal adoption of which presages theproximate abolition of standing armies, to be replaced bya police force. No one of the retrograde expedients sinceintroduced to avert such a result has been able to revivethe corpse of war any more than that of theology, evenunder the plea of progress, and despite the absence ofsuch convictions in the public as should reprobate thisconduct. In reference to the most immoral of theseexpedients, I venture here to avow the wish which Isolemnly express, in the name of true Positivists, that theArabs may forcibly expel the French from Algeria, if thelatter cannot bring themselves to restore it nobly. It willalways be a matter of pride to me that, in my childhood,I ardently wished success to the heroic defence of theSpaniards.

This retrogression, which drew its apparent strength

292 XIII.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2)

solely from war, issued in a complete failure as a result ofthe definitive advent of peace in the West. But the con-tinued absence of all organic views then led metaphysicalempiricism to try to put forward as a solution for universaladoption a futile imitation of the parliamentary systempeculiar to the English transition. Its official supremacyduring a single generation really had no other result forthat generation than to give regularity to a lamentableseries of oscillations between anarchy and reaction, wherethe sole merit of either party lay in saving us from itsrival.

During this long fluctuation, which more and more dis-played the equal powerlessness of all the doctrines invogue, the spiritual anarchy reached its height, all pre-vious con victions?revolutionary as well as retrograde, beingin a state of languor. No partial discipline can be real andlasting. Now the sole principle of an universal discipline—the constant supremacy of the heart over the intellect—had fallen into more and more discredit since the close ofthe Middle Ages, notwithstanding the holy resistance ofwomen, who were less and less respected by the insanityof the West. This is why, even in the scientific evolution,the provisional order which Bacon and Descartes had triedto institute soon disappeared under the upgrowth onempirical grounds of dispersive specialisms, which rejectedblindly all philosophical control. Instead of reducingeach encyclopedic phase to what was required for the in-troduction of the next above it, every exertion was madeto develop it indefinitely, by isolating it from a wholewhich was more and more lost sight of. This tendencybecame as retrograde as anarchical, in that it threatened todestroy even the leading results of former labours, underthe increasing sway of academical mediocrities. Butanarchy and reaction are still more rampant in art, theeminently synthetical nature of which rejected analyticalempiricism more absolutely. Even in poetry itself, thedegradation has become so great that the literary world

XIII.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2) 293

can appreciate nothing but style ; so far as often to placereal masterpieces below compositions not less mediocrethan they are immoral.

The Woman.—In this sad picture, whose accuracy Icannot dispute, I do not see, my father, whence couldcome the final solution set forth in this Catechism.

The Priest.—It had its origin, my daughter, in theaccomplishment in fair degree of the immense objectiveintroduction which, beginning with Thales and Pytha-goras, was carried on during the whole of the mediaevalperiod, and did not cease to advance in defiance of modernanarchy. At the beginning of the French Revolution,it was adequate only in cosmology, owing to the recentcreation of chemistry. But the decisive rise of biology,begun by Bichat and completed by Gall, soon achievedthe supply of a scientific basis for the total renovation ofthe philosophical spirit. The whole Positive movementthen issued in the advent of sociology, already heraldedby Condorcet's immortal though abortive attempt to bringthe future into systematic subordination to the past, inthe face of a most anti-historical spirit.

The human point of view prevailing universally, asubjective synthesis could thus at length construct aphilosophy really proof against all objections, and thatled to the foundation of the final religion, as soon as themoral development had completed the regeneration ofthe intellect. Henceforward, the mediaeval period wasadmired, at the same time that antiquity was betterappreciated. A radical reconcilement was effected be-tween the culture of feeling and that of the intelligenceand the activity.

All noble hearts and all great intellects, henceforwardalways convergent, accept this termination of the longand difficult initiation through which Humanity had topass, under the constantly declining sway of theologismand war. The modern movement loses its radically dis-parate character. Under its Positive aspect it at length

294 XIII.—GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. (2)

shows itself able to meet all the demands, intellectualand social, made by its negative advance, and that notsolely as regards the future, but also for the present,though I was not bound to take it into account here.Everywhere the relative definitively takes the place of theabsolute, and altruism tends to bear down egoism, whilsta systematic method takes the place of a spontaneousevolution. In a word, Humanity definitively substitutesherself for God, without ever forgetting his provisionalservices.

There, my beloved daughter, you have the last explana-tion I owed you as to the triumphant advent of theUniversal Religion, the aspiration, during so many cen-turies, of the West and the East. Though it be yet verygreatly hampered, especially at its centre, by the pre-judices and passions which, under different forms, rejectall wholesome discipline, its eiEcacy will soon be felt bywomen and proletaries, chiefly in the South. But itsbest recommendation must come from the exclusive com-petence of the Positive priesthood to rally everywhere thehonest and the thoughtful, nobly accepting the wholeinheritance of mankind.

TABLES, &c.

Love for Principleand Order for BasisProgress for End

ple^is; V. J

TABLE A.

SYSTEM OF SOCIOLATRY,

SOCIAL WORSHIP,

f Live for Others.-[ (The Family, Coun-t try, Humanity.)

Embracing in a Series of Eighty-one Annual Festivals the Worship of Humanityunder all its aspects.

iOozn<*.

6?

ft

ist Month. HUMANITY.

f New Year's Dav /Synthet ical Festival of theJNlew Year s ±>ay j G r e a t B e i n g >

2nd Month.

freligiqus.Weekly Festivals of J historical.

the Social Union. j national.C complete. (.municipal.

MARRIAGE. \t^?-

.^

. ] u^equal,( s b j t i(

subjective.

3rd Month. The PATER- (complete {

NAL RELATION | i n C 0mplete /

4tREL°lTION.he. F I L I A . L }Same ^divisions.

^ ^ subdivisions.RELlTION

5th Month. TheTERNAL RELATION., f

6th Month. The RELA- f n e r m a n e n t /complete.TION OF MASTER i P e r m a n e n t \ incomplete.

- AND SERVANT I temporary Same subdivision.r*™^4-o ^,-.o /nomad Fcsti ml of the Animals.

rth Month WTTPTTT^vr -5 s p o n f c a n e o u s \ sedentary . . . .Festival of Fire.7th Montn. FETICHISM. x r d t l F t i l f t h S(.systematic •/conservativeI/cI

-7 i

9th Month.TSM

MONOTHE-J

/10th Month. WOMEN...Moral Providence.

aI scien". . J t i f i c a n d

(Salamts) | p h i l o s o .^ h i

\ y fr sacerdotal... .Festival of the Sun.\ military Festival of Iron.. .Festival of Castes.

esthetic. .Homer, JEschylus,Phidias.i ~) T/iales, PytJiagorus,

( Aristotle, Hipocrates,>• Archimedes, ApoUo-) nius, Hipparchus.j

catholic

Islamic {Lepanto)

tViMnnth ThpPTfrFCiT fincompleteHOOD raUto-T-J preparatory

Intellectual Providence/* (definitive {

phic.^.social..Scipio, Ccesar, Trajan.theocratic Abraham, Moses, Solomon.

fSt. Paul.I Charlemagne.! Alfred.

Hildebrand.Godfrey of Bouillon.St. Bernard.

. .Mahomet.(Dante.

^metaphysical < Descartes.(mother. (.Frederic II.J wife.1 daughter.Isister.Cincomplete Festival of Art.

Festival of Science.

12th Month. The P A T R I - \C*T A T*!? < commerce.OliVXJL \ r n Q > i nro of , r

Festival of Old Men..Festival of the Knights.

Material Providence. ) manufactures.

^ s , Francis of AssisL

COMPLEMENTARY DAY Festival of all the DEAD.The additional Day in LEAP YEARS General Festival of HOLY WOMEN.

Paris, Saturday, 7 Archimedes, 66. (1 April 1854.)Pol, Pos., iv. p. 141, E. Tr. Positivist Catechism, p. ioo.

TABLE B.

A

g

S

A

STUDY

or THE EARTH,

orCOSMOLOGY.

STUDY OF MAN,

orSOCIOLOGY.

THEORETICAL HIERARCHY OF HUMAN CONCEPTIONS,OR SYNTHETICAL VIEW OF THE UNIVERSAL ORDER,

Iu an Encyclopedic Soale of Five or Seven Degrees.

POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY, OR SYSTEMATIC KNOWLEDGE OF HUMANITY.

Abstract, orFundamental Study of the form of

Existence common to all things I. MATHEMATICS(Number, Extension, Motion).

^Celestial, or ASTRONOMY. . 2

(General, or PHYSICS 3

Concrete, orDirect Study of the Laws of

Matter II. PHYSICS1 Terrestrial -j (Proper.)I (special, or CHEMISTRY 4

Preliminary, orGeneral Study of the Laws of Life. III. BIOLOGY 5

In Society. IV. SOCIOLOGY 6(Proper.)

Final, orDirect Study of Man ;

or of Social andMoral Laws

Positivist Catechism, p. 131.

V Individual. V. MORALS 7

Paris, 10 Dante, 64. (Saturday 24 July 1852.)

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HUMANITY.

O_

TABLE C.

POSITIVE CLASSIFICATIONOF THE EIGHTEEN INTERNAL FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN,

LIVE FOR OTHERS.

OR

SYSTEMATIC YIEW OF THE SOUL.

M 1

"iINTEREST

(Instincts of Preservation..,

I Instincts of Improvement.

PRINCIPLE.f of the Individual, or nutritive Instinct i\

nctQ. I * w-DT T ^ / Temporal, or Pride, desire of power 6

! AMBITION . • \ Spiritual, or Vanity, desire of approbation 7

_; r ATTACHMENT 8

- I OQ'3 \ VENERATION 9CD . (

g "eS -! BENEVOLENCE or Universal Love (sympathy), humanity 10

MEANS.

w § ^CONCEPTION -3^2

Passive,or Contemplation,

hence objective materials.

Active,or Meditation,

hence subjective constructions.

EXPRESSION Mimic, oral, written, hence Communication

Concrete, or relative to Beings,essentially synthetical.

Abstract, or relative to Events,essentially analytical.

Inductive, or by comparison,hence Generalisation.

Deductive, or by co-ordination,hence Sy.stematisation.

}

13

14

S. 5*

?iisl i §> c <. a

RESULT. Q H

ACTIVITY -f Courage 16 I £ ^ Q5 3 \ A C T I V I T Y • • \ Prudence 17 > t W dPHH I FIRMNESS, hence Pemvera?ice l 8 ) P O

•

SUMMARY OF THE CEREBRAL THEORY.These eighteen organs together form the cerebral apparatus, which, on the one hand, stimulates the life of nutrition, on the other, co-ordinatea

the life of relation, by connecting its two kinds of external functions. Its speculative region is in direct communication with the nerves ofsensation, its active region with the nerves of motion. Its affective region has no direct communication except with the viscera of organic life;it has no immediate correspondence with the external world, its only connection with which is through the other two regions. This part of thebrain, the essential centre of the whole of our existence, is in constant activity. It is enabled to be so by the alternate rest of the two symmetricalparts of each of its organs. As for the rest of the brain, its periodical cessation of action is as complete as that of the senses and muscles. Thus,our harmony as living beings depends on the principal region of the brain, the affective; it is from this that the two others derive their impulse,and in obedience to this impulse, the two others direct the relations of the animal with the external agencies which influence it, whether suchrelations be active or passive.

(Positivist Catechism, p. 179,)

TABLE D.

POSITIVIST CALENDAE.

TABLE

POSITIYISTADAPTED TO ALL

CONCRETE VIEW OF THE PREPARATORYESPECIALLY INTENDED FOR THE FINAL PERIOD OF TRANSITION THROUGH WHICH THE WESTERN KEPUBLIC

OF THE FIVE LEADING POPULATIONS, THE FRENCH,

Monday...Tuesday...WednesdayThursday. .Friday . . . .Saturday..Sunday

Monday...Tuesday...WednesdayThursday. .Friday . . . .Sa tu rday . .Sunday

T

2

34567

8

Q

I I

*3J 4

151 01718i q

2 1

2 2

232 42 S

2728

T

2

4567

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1 2

1 4

I S1 6

1 7

i q

2 !

2 2

24

262728

FIRST MONTH.

MOSES.THE INITIAL THEOCRACY.

Prometheus Cadmus.Hercules Theseus.Orpheus Tiresias.Ulysses.Lycurgus.Romulus.NUMA.

Belus Semiramis.Sesostris.Menu.Cyrus.Zoroaster.The Druids Ossian.BOUDDIIA.

Fo-Hi.Lao-Tseu.Meng-Tseu.The Theocrats of Thibet.The Theocrats of Japan.Manco-Capac Tamehameha.CONFUCIUS.

Abraham Joseph.Samuel.Solomon David.Isaiah.St. John the Baptist.Haroun-al-Raschid.. AbderrahmanMAHOMET. [///.

EIGHTH MONTH.

DANTE.MODEES EPIC POETRY.

The Troubadours.Boccaccio Chaucer.Rabelais. Swift.Cervantes.La Fontaine Burns.De Foe Goldsmith.ARIOSTO.

Leonardo da Vinci Titian,Michael Angelo Paul Veronese.Holbein Rembrandt.Poussin Lesueuer.Velasquez Murillo.Teniers Rubens.RAPHAEL.

Froissart Joinville.Camoens Spenser.The Spanish Romancers.Chateaubriand.Walter Scott Cooper.

TASSO.

Petrarca. [and Jlunyan.Thomas a Kempis Louis of GranadaMme. de Lafayette., ilfme. de Stael.Fenelon.'. St. Francis of Sales.Klopstock Gessner.Byron. Mlisa Mercmur and Shelley.MILTON.

SECOND MONTH.

HOMER.ANCIENT POETRY.

Hesiod.Tyrtseus Sappho.Anacreon.Pindar.Sophocles Euripides.Theocritus Longus.^ESCHYLUS.

Scopas.Zeuxis.Ictinus.Praxiteles.Lysippus.Apelles.PHIDIAS.

Msop Pilpay.Plautus.Terence Menander.Phaedrus.Juvenal.LucianARISTOPHANES.

Ennius.Lucretius.Horace.Tibullus.Ovid.Lucan.VIRGIL.

NINTH MONTH.

GUTENBERG.MODERN INDUSTRY.

Marco Polo Chardin.Jacques Coeur Gresham.Vasco de Gama Magellan.Napier Briggs.Lacaille Delambre.Cook Tasman.COLUMBUS.

Benvenuto Cellini.Amontons Wheatsto7ie.Harrison Pierre Leroy.Dollond Graham,Arkwright Jacquard.Conte.VAUCANSON.

Stevin Torricelli.Mariotte Boyle.Papin Worcester.Black.Jouffroy Fulton.Dalton Thilorier.WATT.

Bernard de Palissy.Guglielmini JRiquet.Duhamel (du Monceau) Bourgelat.Saussure Bouguer.Coulomb Borda.Carnot Vauban.MONTGOLFIER.

THIRD MONTH.

ARISTOTLE.ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

Anaximander.Anaximenes.Heraclitus.Anaxagoras.Democritus Leucippus.Herodotus.THALES.

Solon.Xenophanes.Empedocles.Thucydides.Archytas Philolaus.Apollonius of Tyana.PYTHAGORAS.

Aristippus.Antisthenes.Zeno.Cicero Pliny the Younger.Epictetus Arrian.Tacitus.SOCRATES.

Xenocrates.Philo of Alexandria.St. John the Evangelist.St Justin St. Irenceus.St. Clement of Alexandria.

PLATO.

TENTH MONTH.

SHAKESPEARE.THE MODERN DRAMA.

Lope de Vega Montalvan.Moreto Guillein de Castro.Rojas Guevara.Otway.Lessing.Goethe.CALDERON.

Tirso.Vondel.Racine.Voltaire.Metastasio Alfieri.Schiller.CORNEILLE.

Alarcon.Mme. de Motteville..3fwie. Roland.Mme. de Sevigne.. Lady Montagu.Lesage Sterne.Mme. de Stael. ...Miss Edgeworth.Fielding Richardson.MOLIERE.

Pergolese Palestrina.Sacchini Gretry.Gluck Lully.Beethoven Handel.Rossini Weber.Bellini Donizetti.MOZART.

Seventh Edition, Aug. 1855, in Appel aux Conservateurs, p. iPositivist Catechism*, p. 259.

To face p. 300.

15. Paris, Monday, 22 Charlemagne 67 (9th July 1855).

D.

CALENDAE,YEARS EQUALLY ; OE,

PEE1OD OF MAN'S HISTORY,HAS TO PASS : THE REPUBLIC WHICH, SINCE CHARLEMAGNE, HAS BEEN FORMED BY THE FREE COHESION

ITALIAN, SPANISH, BRITISH, AND GERMAN.

FOURTH MONTH.

ARCHIMEDES.ANCIENT SCIENCE.

FIFTH MONTH.

CESAR.MILITARY CIVILISATION.

SIXTH MONTH.

ST. PAUL.CATHOLICISM.

SEVENTH MONTH.

CHARLEMAGNE.FEUDAL CIVILISATION.

Theophrastus.Herophilus.Erasistratus.Celsus.Galen.Avicenna Averrhoes.HIPPOCRATES

Miltiades.Leonidas.Aristides.Cimon.Xenophon.Phocion EpaminondaTHEMISTOCLES.

i St. Luke St. James.St. Cyprian.St. Athanasius.St. Jerome.St. Ambrose.St. Monica.ST. AUGUSTIN.

Theodoric the Great.Pelayo.Otho the Great. .Henry the Fowler.St. Henry.Villiers La Valette.Don John of Austria. John Sobieski.ALFRED.

Euclid.AristEeus.Theodosius of Bithynia.Hero Ctesihius.Pappus.Diophantus.APOLLONIUS.

Pericles.Philip.Demosthenes.Ptolemy Lagus.Philopoemen.Polybius.ALEXANDER.

Constantine.Theodosius.St. Chrysostom St. Basil.St. Pulcheria Martian.St. Genevieve of Paris.St. Gregory the Great.HILDEBRAND.

Charles Martel.The Cid Tanered.Richard I Saladin.Joan of Arc Marina.Albuquerque Sir W. Raleigh.Bayard.GODFREY.

Eudoxus Aratus.Pytheas Nearehuts.Aristarchus Berosus.Eratosthenes Sosigenes.Ptolemy.Albategnius Nasir-Eddin.IIIPPAECHUS.

Juniua Brutus.Camillus Cindnnatus.Fabricius Requlus.Hannibal.Paulus JEmilius.Marius The Gracchi.SCIPIO.

St. Benedict St. Antony.St. Boniface St. Austin.St. Isidore of Seville... .St. Bruno.Lanfranc St. Anselm.Heloise Beatrice.The Arch'ts of Mid. Ages. St. Benezet.ST. BERNARD.

St. Leo the Great Leo IV.Gerbert Peter Dayman.Peter the Hermit.Suger St. Eligius.Alexander III Becket.St. Francis of Assisi. .St. Dominic.INNOCENT III.

Varro.Columella.Vitruvius.Strabo.Frontinus.Plutarch.PLINY THE ELDER.

Augustus MiVespasian Titus.Hadrian Nerva.Antoninus Marcus Aurelius.Papinian. Ulpian.Alexander Severus Aetius.TRAJAN.

St. Francis Xwier. Ignatius Loyola.St. Ch. Borromeo. Fredk. Borromeo.St. Theresa. .St. Catharine of Siena.St. Vinc'tde Paul The Abbe de VEpee.Bourdaloue.. Claude Fleury.W. Penn G. Fox.BOSSUET.

St. Clotilde. [cany.St. Bathilda. .St. Mathilda o/Tus-St. Stephen of Hungary. MathiasCor-St. Elizabeth of Hungary, [vinus.Blanche of Castille.St. Ferdinand III .Alfonso X.ST. LOUIS.

ELEVENTH MONTH.

DESCARTES.MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

Albertus Magnus John of Salisbury.Roger Bacon Raymond Lully.St. Bonaventura Joachim.Ramus The Cardinal of Cusa.Montaigne Erasmus.Campanella Sir Thomas More.ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.

TWELFTH MONTET.

FREDERIC II.MODERN POLICY.

THIRTEENTH MONTH.

BICHAT.MODERN SCIENCE.

Marie de Molina.Cosmo de Medici the Elder.Philippe de Comines. .Guicciardini.Isabella of Castille.Charles VHenry IV.LOUIS XL

Hobbes „Pascal Giordano Bruno.Locke Malebranehe.Vauvenargues.. Mme. de Lambert.Diderot Duclos.Cabanis George Leroy.LORD BACON.

Grotius Cujas.Fontenelle Maupertuis.Vico ....Herder.Fre"ret Winckelmdnn.Montesquieu D'Aguesseau.Button Oken.LEIBNITZ.

Robertson Gibbon.Adam Smith Dunoyer.Kant Fichte.Condorcet Ferguson.Joseph de Maistre Bonald.Hegel Sophie Germain.HUME.

L' H6pital.Barneveldt.Gustavus Adolphus.De Witt.Ruyter.William III.WILLIAM THE SILENT.

Copernicus Tycho BrahLKepler Halley.Huyghens Varignon.James Bernouilli. John Bernouilii.Bradley Rb'mer.Volta Sauveur.GALILEO.

Vieta Harriott.Wallis Fermat.Clairaut Poinsot.Euler Monge.D'Alembert. Daniel Bernouilli.Lagrange Joseph Fourier.NEWTON.

Ximenes.SullyMazarinColbertD'ArandaTurgotRICHELIEU.

Oxenstiern.. WalpoU.

Louis XIV.Pombal.

. . . . Campomane's.

Sidney Lambert.Franklin Hampden.Washington Kosciusko.Jefferson Madison.Bolivar Toussaint-L'Ouverture.Francia.CROMWELL.

BergmannPriestley , Davy.Cavendish.Guyton Morveau Geofroy.Berthollet.Berzelius Ritter.LAVOISIER.

Harvey Ch. Bell.Boerhaave Stahl. Barthez.Linnaeus Bernard de Jussieu.Haller Vicq-d'Azyr.Lamarck. Blainville.Broussais Morgagni.GALL.

The provisional era begins January i, 1789 (see Pos. Pol. iv., Eng. trans., p. 347).The names in Italics are those of the persons who in Leap-years take the place of their principals.