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This institution reserves the right f ^ ;^^" f t° ^f _^^^^^^ copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: CROMPTON, HENRY TITLE: THE FORM OF DEVELOPED ANITY PLACE: LONDON DATE: 1902 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT * Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MTmOFORM TARCFT Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record fsiYCb93--i5'it794 Acquisitions NyCG-WMK PCss MHD I iOu i H I Y h' s a Vi f S S flOD 2 B i s •? CPIs V N H |Vii.>; .. aD5 06--02~-93 UU:U6--U:.:::-V3 BKS /b A vE Book s Fi JL / B i B Kecord i of - SavE record UN I I D s NV Cb93"-B47v4 CCs966B eLr:am DCFsv CPsenk L:eng IWTs ? *••• •-• • ~ «. . HI;: IHUZf OH: HULs Cramp ton , Henry . The Form of Developed Human i ty- i hrmirrofnrml -ihT;.-. =..--• «y . M..,rnA ur or ur mj „ - 1 D I ne annuax address at e Church of Humanity, Li9 Chanr4 strn^M- i -.«... -v- - .• • .• - • W" f T n»i +.in-, r- i. • - -^ ' -r)c*pt..x ..^Lreetn Lamb s uandui t b;trep:»i-„ i nnrinn w-L^j on the hestival of Humanity, i \Ai^<-ax~"lB IIB ^^^^^"^'O^ RATIOr.J^^ DATE FILMED: 7 2^ /? -^ im,,., . . o RELIGION OF HUMANITY. THE ANNUAL ADDRESS AT THE CHURCH OF HUMANITY, [19 CFIAPEL STREET, LAMB'S CONDUIT STREET, LONDON, W.C] ON THE FESTIVAL OF HUMANITY, 1 MOSES, 48 (1 JANUARY, 1902.) BY HENRY CROMPTON. The Form of Developed Humanity. Love for Principle And Order for Basis;— Progress for End. Live for Others— Live Openly. •'The disease of the West calls for a treatment more addressed to the affections than to th3 intellect, now that the intellect has accomplished its main function by its construction of the positive philosophy as a result of the creation of sociology, which has for its snbstlaiction the body of the preliminary sciences. At the outset, Positivists had to ascend from faith to love, but henceforward they should give the preference to the more rapid and effective method which leads downward from love to faith. The feelings are less disturbed than the intelligence ; it is mainly therefore on the feelings that will depend the re-establishment of order in the West. The heart alone is competent to complete and consolidate the convictions which have their source in the intellect, and the heart can in many respects even dispense with such convictions, — at any rate so far as regards that general support which every great construction requires."— Aug uste Comte {Sixth Circular.) SOLD AT THE CHURCH OF HUMANITY. 19 CHAPEL STEEET, LAMB'S CONDUIT STREET, W.C. 1902. [threepence.] I ''Illllll f\ RELIGION OF HUMANITY. €a i^ *W With all centres of our faith wheresoever they exist ; with all its scattered disciples ; with the members of all other religious organisations or beliefs, Monotheist, Polytheist, or Fetichist, all lesser distinctions being absorbed in the one bond of community of religious aim; with the whole human race — with man, that is, wherever found and in whatever condition, again all lesser distinctions beinoj absorbed in the one bond of our common humanity; and with the animal races which, during the long effort of man to raise himself, have been, as they still are, his companions and helpers, we on this occasion, on this Festival of Humanity, would be in conscious sympathy. Nor with our contemporaries alone are we in sympathy, but even more with the larger portion of the race which constitutes the Past. We gratefully commemorate the services of all the generations whose labours we inherit and wish to hand down with increase to our successors. We acknowledge the sway of the Dead. We gratefully commemorate also the services of our common Mother, the Earth, the Planet which is our home, and with her the orbs which form the Solar System, our World. We may not separate from this last commemoration that of the milieu in which we place that System, the Space which has ever been of great service to Man, and is destined to be greater by his wise use, as it becomes the recognised seat of abstraction, the seat of the higher laws which collectively constitute the Destiny of Man, and is introduced as such in all our intellectual and moral training. From the Present and the Past we extend our sympathies to the Future, to the unborn generations which with happier lot shall follow us on this earth ; the thought of whom should be constantly present to our minds, in order to complete the con- ception of Humanity, as revealed to man by the Founder of our 'r 4 INTRODUCTION TO THE ADDRESS. Keligion, by the full recognition of the continuity which is Her noble characteristic. The memory of Her greatest servant, AuGusTE CoMTE, and of his three Guardian Angels, finds a fitting place in this, Her greatest Festival, consecrated as it is by its very idea to the remembrance of all Her servants, known or nameless — ^to the remembrance of all the results they have achieved and by which they live. Wisest and noblest of teachers I May all of us who avow ourselves thy disciples, animated by thy example, supported by thy doctrine, guided by thy construction, face all the obstacles which indifference or hostility throws in our way, and in the midst of this revolutionary age, undebased by any hope of reward, undeterred by any ill success of our efforts, in a spirit of submissive veneration carry forward the great work to which thy life was devoted — the work of human regeneration by and through the systematic Worship of Humanity. '4 i THE ANNUAL ADDRESS. Once more it becomes my privilege and arduous duty to address you on this occasion of the Festival of Humanity. I greet, on your behalf, all the adherents of our Church, in groups or isolated in various and distant places on the Earth's surface. I acknowledge with gratitude the messages of sympathy that have reached us. We should be to-day in sympathy with all Positivists. We hold in loving remembrance those who have gone from among us, alive or dead. Among the latter are several vividly present to our minds here to-day, from whom we seek inspiration and encouragement, increase of veneration and love. If in the outside world there is a lull in the terrible events of recent years, yet the clouds on the political horizon are dark and lowering. There is no diminution in the grave anxiety with which we look to the future, albeit we know not where the storm will break. Our Master has taught us that the true method of historical judgment is to appreciate the two extremes before judging the intermediate state ; to look to the future as well as to the past, so as to arrive at a just estimate of the present. The history of British international action has been a continual interference with, and aggression upon other nations, first one and then another as occasion suited, and often avowedly for our special commercial or industrial purposes. Whole countries have been seized, without reference and contrary to tha wishes of the inhabitants. The process has generally been by getting the rulers of the coveted countries into political difficulties; then seizure by threat of war or actual war. Sometimes a resident minister, more or less despotic, has been placed among an alien people, nominally to advise and help them — too often to take advantage of opportu- nities to impose a protectorate or suzerainty over them, whatever those terms may mean. The end by war or otherwise is conquest. There have been rare exceptions to this due to the character and noble conduct of individuals. In general, if the native civilisations are not destroyed, as were the Aztec and Peruvian by the Spaniards, they have not been allowed to follow the course of their own civilisation, but are being moulded by men who are entirely ignorant of the laws of sociology. The system became at last formulated and desig- nated by the word "Imperialism," which dates from the assumption of the imperial dignity by the King of Prussia after the siege of Paris. This gave him a precedence, and wounded and stimulated the vanity of our then Sovereign, who was not satisfied with the far more glorious title of Queen of England. She thereby fomented, when she might have done much to stem the spirit of aggression and conquest. This tinsel title was at first unpopular; it had to be blazoned by warlike pageants, at Jubilees, and even in the funeral procession, when the monarch's body was conveyed on a gun carriage. They were military shows inconsistent with the pacific glory of the great people we still are. We should be a foremost part of the vanguard of Humanity, striving and leading others towards an era of peaceful industry, of intellectual and moral progress. The imperial policy has been immoral and cruel. The Union Jack has been steeped in blood to the colour of a drapeau rouge. The present monarch, far too weak to resist the passing military fever, has eao-erly gone in for the pomp and show of war, when the control of a strong man for peace was the urgent want of the time. Our Governments, Conservative or Gladstonian, have been the revolutionists ; not so much in uprooting the past order as in destroying the progression, and retrograding towards a warlike social existence, long inconsistent with the future of mankind, and therefore productive of national and international disorder. 4 T l^ T No domestic virtue can counterbalance the harm done. All Governments of the great Western States are deeply tainted with the same vice of aggression on the weaker peoples of the earth— following in our footsteps. The consequence is that the progress of Humanity has been for a time arrested, or at least we have been hindered in our advance towards the future normal state of human society. In that state towards which we Positivists are striving there will be no gigantic armies, no people drilled to war or excited to military madness; but instead, nations competing with glorious emulation and co- operation, struggling to annihilate the bodily and social diseases and its miseries which war and its adjuncts so terribly aggravate, striving towards a better discipline and a nobler life. What then is the present condition of the world 1 We have taught bloody instructions. We have adopted and glorified the law of might ; trodden down all idea of right and morality in international concerns. We have disregarded the example of the greatest European statesmen, as well as the peaceable char- acter of the Asiatic nations. We have forced Japan to become a formidable military power. We dare not now bombard and destroy a town, as we did Kagosima, because some petty insult was offered to our flag. We reserve our punitive expeditions for the weak. The devotion of the strong to the weak is not an accredited moral maxim in our national conduct. China, owing to our oppressive policy, is gradually being converted into the greatest military power in the world. The Chinese have already adopted much of the European methods of war, as it is said, the volunteer system ; and in the judgment of the acknowledged best authority, our descendents may have to cope with an army of twenty millions, proficient in all' the mechanisms and manoeuvres of modern warfare. They are already being drilled by Japanese officers. Then if the wisdom of the mercantile classes or the statesmen of China cannot prevail over the just hatred inspired by Western aggression, all foreigners may be driven out of their country, politicians and merchants as well as missionaries. The wave of military enthusiasm in Great Britain will prove 8 to be evanescent, unless as consequence of our conduct, we have, like the Boers, to fight to the death for our independence as a nation. Perhaps one of the worst features of this militarism is its inoculation into our independent colonies, which as yet are no real strength to England either for defence or attack. One cannot under present conditions foresee the mode in which their future will come about, but we can see the dangers which this deadly microbe is likely to produce among hitherto peace- able industrial communities ; how differences tend to give rise to angry passions ; how military training and the formation of armies which have begun already will render future wars more probable, and even civil wars among the rapidly increasing populations of these great countries. One could almost forecast the curses of the children upon their mother. The Royal Speech of the next Session of Parliament will probably announce our friendly relations with the other Great Powers. The very fact of our enormous expenditure on mili- tary and naval preparations in reality contradict the statement, and the peoples are not friendly. We have had the most glorious function and opportunity open to us ; to be the pro- tecting leader of the small States throughout the world, to defend them against the oppressive nations. We chose to be oiifselves the tyrants, under the hypocritical pretence of doing good to the backward races, that preferred to be their own masters, to continue their own social evolution, and who repu- diated the rule of an ignorant and often slavish British House of Commons, which has always condoned the crime after the fact. The lesson that the rulers and people of this country have to learn is that they will have to go back and, as far as can be, remedy the evil that has been done, for which the whole British nation is responsible. We have, it is true, begun a policy of retirement in China, but very late and very partial ; not generously, but because we could not help it. We ought to have accepted at once the offer made by Russia to retire from Pekin after the release of the legations, and to accept and promote the re-establishment of the Government to which the people were accustomed in Pekin. We refused, and a long course of crimes was the consequence ; crimes perpetrated by ¥^ m^ ^^t X T. Europeans ; loot or robbery unblushingly perpetrated ; and, it is said, murders, which, as the punitive executions, are for ever a disgrace to Western civilization. Some of the stolen loot has been even made a public exhibition for the citizens of London. All English men and English women who have in any way encouraged these deeds of violence, rapine and outrage, are deeply responsible for what has been done. We cannot forget the shameful propositions for the dismemberment of China, openly made by the Press and even by responsible public men. What was the motive for refusing to retire from Pekin? Was it based on the expectation of plunder, or of that plunder which is implied under the term indemnity? And what are we to say on the question of indemnity ? I have looked in vain for any protest against it. Hitherto an indemnity has been simply determined by the will of the conqueror, irrespective of any question of justice or morality. The only limit thought desirable has been the capacity of the conquered to pay, without driving them to an extreme resistance. Lord Cran- borne, in the House of Commons, and speaking for the Govern- ment, said that " in fixing the amount of the indemnities and the method of paying them we should not injure the commer- cial interests of this country. Our view was to moderate the demands for the indemnities, that they should not infringe on the commercial interests of Great Britain." But surely the question of indemnity should be subordinate to some rules of justice and referred to some impartial tribunal, both the question of liability and the measure of damages. The Americans assented to the Alabama damages being re- ferred to arbitration, and the verdict was against England. Happily the settlement of the indemnity in that case was peaceful and perhaps prevented war. With respect to China and England, seeing what has been done in the course of the nineteenth century, the verdict might easily be in favour of China. We ought to set our faces against the present indemnity extorted by England from the Chinese people. England has always used force, war or threat of war to compel the Chinese Government to grant our terms and make the 10 t't 11 commercial concessions we demanded. The Chinese will now probably bide their time. Their revenge may come through tlieir business and industrial capacity, and their remarkable commercial integrity. In the future we shall have to revert to the policy, long ago advocated by Cobden and Bright, of treating the Chinese, as we do all European nations, on the principle of justice and free barter, instead of trade compulsory by war or threat of war. Not much attention has been given to other wars while the Boer war has been waged ; not even to that in Ashanti. It is said that if the Ashantis can be kept from obtaining arms and ammunition they can never again rise in a body, but the golden stool, the symbol of their royalty, has not been captured or destroyed. Colonel Wilcocks has said, " For the first time in the hilry of the Ashantis, every one of their towns and villages has been thoroughly searched, and their farms and fetish groves destroyed. Some of the columns visited parts of the country where a white man had never before been seen, and hundreds of fetish groves with their sacrificial houses were razed to the ground. Moreover, every chief who took part in the rebellion has either been killed in action or is a prisoner." This is the British mode of promoting the evolution of the backward races. The example in Ashanti was set by Lord Wolseley in the former war, when just before the rainy season lie destroyed their capital and he said that he would have destroyed their sacred buildings if the rain had not been coming on so soon. What can we do? Very little, I fear, at present. Some- thing perhaps by way of leaven, to work in time. We can add our voices, as we have hitherto done, to those who cry for peace, who protest against these wars and the enormous increase of our armaments. We can point out the disgrace and iniquity of being in anyway concerned with preparing the mechanism or properties of war. We can urge a resistance to any com- pulsion to serve or to anything tending towards conscription. Before this orgy of imperialism, it used to be considered, at least, by the agricultural population of England, a disgrace to enlist as a soldier. Ought we not now to inculcate this view <%• V T i * • j^ more generally, to turn our backs upon those who go to prepare the subjection and slaughter of other races and peoples? It need not be for ever, but now it is disgraceful to be a soldier, and will continue so, as long as these wars go on, perhaps, indeed, until the final conversion of the army into an effective and honoured police. Under the pressure brought about by the policy and incom- petence of the government, we are threatened with the employ- ment of the lower races, as military, to fight against the European or white races. Apart from the ultimate unwisdom of such a proceeding in regard to our own safety, through drilling the backward races with our weapons and our methods of warfare ; can we look on such a savage and brutal proposal in any other light than as promoting a dreadful retaliatory mode of warefare, whether it stops short of executions by what is called martial law or not. We must remember that there is no such thing as martial law applicable to enemies, and that punishment by virtue of proclamations, is itself illegal ; a crime against the established principles of our English freedom. The sentences of penal servitude are illegal. The execution of enemies or citizens in cold blood by martial law, when the ordinary courts are sitting, whether in the course of civil war or not, is murder by our law as hitherto laid down. The recent decision of the privy council and the language used at the trial is fraught with danger to our established and most cherished liberties. It is as flagrant an attack upon the people of this country as any recorded in history. As yet there have been no retaliations by the Boers. With regard to defensive measures, the enormous increase of our preparations, of our navy and army, tends to be an incentive to war and a defiance to the rest of Europe. So too the extravagant outlay on the fortifications of Gibraltar, which is becoming a danger to us and to European peace, even were it an impregnable fortress : though it may be torn from us after a prolonged and bloody struggle. On all these matters we may reflect with sorrow,— how often and for how long, and year after year, Positivist warnings have been given, and how completely they have been disregarded. What disasters and ' t 4 miseries might have been avoided had we possessed statesmen to lead us, instead of talkative party politicians ruling our country. In respect of India, there is nothing to be added to what was said last year of the situation, of the terrible sufferings of the peoples, of the famines and pestilences with which that unhappy country is again threatened. Any diminution or cessation of them is temporary. All measures of relief, however well intentioned and devotedly carried out, are palliative only. The burdens of all undergo continual increase, whether in India or at home. Nor need I speak of the cruel war in South Africa, more than to note the circulation by the Society of Friends of their " Plea for a peaceable Spirit " which may be summed up by this quotation from it : " war has laid its spell of hate, even on the Church of Christ, in strange discord with her message of redeeming love." It is one among other signs of a religious awakening. Whatever be the ultimate result of the war, this occasion should not pass without an expression by us recording the Positivist sympathy for all the wrongs and miseries the Boers have undergone at our hands, and stating again that we regard their struggle for independence and freedom from the British yoke, not only as completely justified, but as one of the most glorious resistances to tyranny recorded in history. We condemn the continuation of the war as we did its inception. It may be too late but still our voice should go forth from this Church to our fellow-countrj^men as a cry for magnanimity in what yet remains to be done. We live in a terrible time. The sorrows and miseries of Humanity were most forcibly impressed upon us last year by Mr. Haggard. We ourselves may have a still more acute experience of them if our rulers are not wiser and more prudent. Even so, they are by nature transitory, though the transition is undoubtedly and through our national conduct abnormally prolonged : and we are too apt to let our minds and views be unduly warped thereby, to become too pessimist or fatalist through constant dwelling on the abnormal. In Positivism and the gradual rise of the Eeligion of Humanity, can we alone have assurance of a happier future for mankind. Through faith comes hope and certain assurance. ^w Y ■t Y I t 13 Although our political conduct has for some years inspired distrust in us, and for a time alienated the affections and friendship of the French people, it need only be for a time. I repeat what I said here two years ago, and which has been persistently taught by us ever since Positivism was promulgated in England : that European peace could be only satisfactorily secured at this epoch by the close political alliance and friend- ship of England and France. Such is the verdict of the past history, and is more true now in face of the grave crisis that seems to be looming upon us from the East. It does not involve much change in opinion and feeling. In both countries the difficulty is not so much with the working classes as with the governing classes and the bourgeoisie. We have allowed Russia to take the place of England with France, an alliance which may be productive of European peace, though far less stable than might have been the result of an alliance between France and England. Germany is the most uncertain and dangerous factor in the chaos of political combinations, and the country with which an effective alliance is least practicable and advantageous ; to my mind far more so than Russia, who should not be allowed to interfere in the internal arrangements and politics of Western Europe. There is one other matter that I wish to mention, not by way of judgment or anticipation, but to be watched as a move- ment of great interest, and, perhaps, of immense importance to the welfare of Humanity. I allude to the growth of a desire or attempt to inaugurate a Pan-American state system; at present it is in germ and has hardly taken root, but whatever form it assumes the United States will occupy, in its formation, a prominent and even a dominant place. All that can be said to-day is, that if an effort is made to establish such inter- connection of States, it should be on the basis of peaceful methods. The aim of the new world should be to give to the old world an example of a peaceful, industrial State system. T he recent utterance by the President of the United States is of great promise. Speaking of the Monroe doctrine he says : We do not wish to see any old world military power grow up on this Continent, or to be compelled to become a military power ourselves." The international morality of Western Europe has gone backward. We can offer no example to the Americans, as we might have done had the Religion of Humanity had greater success, or had England done her duty and accepted the glorious mission that lay before her. We have still to learn the difficult lesson of submission; to undo much that has been done in the past. We have to change our policy and our conduct by the introduction of a higher morality, based on the knowledge of, and submission to Humanity. The radical cure is religious, not political. It lies in the conception of the power of Humanity, towards whom our thoughts, acts and feelings have to be directed. Humanity replaces the war god, is Herself the Spirit of Peace. I turn now to some thoughts on the growth and development of our religion from this centre. I am doubtful whether I shall ever again address you on this occasion. I would urge upon all of us, old or young, to prepare ourselves more and more for the difficult and resjionsible task we have taken upon us, each in his sphere, alone or together, for the moulding of public opinion, which Positivism has always striven to do. This must be by careful preparation and culture of each of us, and by closer union together ; for which purpose is required a more complete acceptance of our leader, whoever lie may be, than has been in the past. It is true that when we had the advantage of a great leader, Comte's most eminent disciple, he was not successful in obtaining that submission and devoted acceptance which he might reasonably have expected at our hands, and even from those who differed most from him. It was a source of great disappointment to him, not merely in regard to other groups of Positivists, but to many of ourselves. This was a great loss of strength to him and to the cause- Seeing this very clearly now, I would impress upon you the necessity of rallying round our leader in the future, who without making any pretence to competence as a Positivist priest, must yet under present conditions occupy that position. I am not speaking as your leader, but as one of yourselves, under the feeling impressed by the past, conscious of my own inadequate preparation and looking solely to the future. Our weakness t n # ■ has been more due to opposition within our Church, than to open opponents outside. Trust should be complete or responsi- bility remains imperfect ; even though at times such trust may unhappily be betrayed. We have always been a centre of Positivist action, offering guidance to the world; a Church whence all the British Churches have sprung ; the first Church of Humanity in the world. We are so still and shall continue to be so, in spite of the difficulties which crop up around us, and although none of us may attain to eminence. The very criticisms of the children on their Mother Church, and even hostilities, are, in fact, an unwillintT acknowledgment of her character and of her past which cannot be overthrown or gainsaid. We speak as a Church and not as individuals. Our merit will depend on our united action. Our aim has always been and will be to create a priesthood, or rather, the conditions out of which a priesthood will eventually arise. At the present time there is no Positivist priesthood, nor is there anyone, not even in Paris, whom all Positivists can accept as an authority. Therefore niany of us are led, not merely to dissent and distrust, but to give thereto an exaggerated expression, and almost to take up the protestant attitudTof each being his own priest. This is contrary to the conception and teaching of Positivism. Besides, as long as this mental and moral attitude prevails the more difficult becomes the formation of a real leadership or spiritual authority, by submission to which, we may acquire those moral habits, without which a priesthood can hardly arise. One cannot easily conceive of a Positivist priest except as living in a truly Positivist environment. The Positivist Mind has perhaps been too much concentrated on the intellectual preparation essential for the aspirants to the Sacerdotal office, and insufficiently on the moral culture of the general body of Positivists. Without in the least depreciating the necessity of improved intellectual education for all of us, the improvement wanted lies far more in the moral direction. The aim of each one of us should be to make himself more worthy by his conduct to represent the Great Being. We know the means that should be adopted to this end. It is the Will that has been wanted m c 16 most of us. We have to put more control over our egoistic propensities, of which, as Comte foresaw, Pride and Vanity are bj no means the least injurious to our cause. We have to attain to an exaltation of social feeling by means of private culture, by prayer, by domestic worship in the home, and by paying due regard to the duties and the rules of family life, disregard of which tends to personal and domestic agitation, unrest and unhappiness. Of the Sacraments I have only this to say, that those who recognise their value should not shrink from them for any small motive ; although it is essential that in the acceptance of the duties involved they should be freely and even joyously undertaken. With regard to attendance at the public worship, I would lay great stress on the union of each congregation at the special Festivals. Our assembling together gives us strength and encouragement. The regular attendance of each one of us is a help to others, as well as a public acceptance of our religion. However valuable forms and ceremonies are, and must be in regard to moral culture, its essence lies in its reality, in the growth, development and direction of our social feelings. We must not take a means for the end. Our immortal authority is the work left us by our Master, who has deduced the future Form of Humanity as the result of her development, her character and laws. This Form is a true and precise prophecy, far greater than the noble but vague glimpses into futurity by the Hebrew Poets, such as we have read to-day. Throughout the history of the West there has been a striving towards and an anticipation of a future for the human race, of which at last Comte has delineated the Form. We have been taught here, Sunday after Sunday, for years, that in the study of the past our chief aim must be to see how it has constantly moved towards a definite future. In no other way can the past history of the race be understood than in its relation to the determined Future, and as being the passage from an unorganised beginning through its spontaneous devel- opment to the final fixed Form of Humanity. Comte has said that we must accept his great construction ^ T 17 as a whole. This does not however imply its being absolutely fixed and immovable in all particulars and details. It is only when the form is finally fixed that the settled normal progress can begin. Comte's construction is the lasting Form of devel- oped Humanity. The Religion of Humanity is applicable to all races and peoples, from the most advanced nations of the West to the humblest Fetish civilization. The application in practice is no doubt difiicult, especially to the varying condi- tions of time and place, opportunity and situation. For us at present, especially for those who take upon them- selves the onerous task of preaching, while holding inflexibly to the principles, which lie at the basis of Positivism, it is a paramount duty to be sufficiently conciliatory to the younger members of our body, and to the various aspirations, which, if rightly directed, have so much promise in them, even where in some degree they may conflict with the practical solutions we elders have so long adopted. We elders earnestly sympathise with them, whom we hope to be able to help and conciliate. After all, the assistance is mutual ; the guidance by the old of youthful energy ; the valuable reaction of vigorous youth upon the old. If the congregation must learn the duty of submission and the necessity of preferring others to themselves, the priest- hood or elders of the Church must take to themselves the beautiful maxim — ^that he who would safely govern must first learn to obey. By the Positivlst worship of the Great Being in the past and future we are bringing out her form and her structure ; we are promoting the future life of Humanity, and of ourselves in Her. We have to familiarise ourselves with the vast powers and faculties of Humanity, inherent in Her very nature. We have to inculcate in ourselves and in others a deeper veneration for all that is great and good in Her. Terrible as are the sufferings of the people, due to the errors and passions of men, these are not part of Her true Being, of Her Form, and progressive future. They are obstacles to be overcome by means of Her nobler nature. " Such virtues blossom in Her as should make the Peace of Life." So we idealise and picture Hjc as the ^ 18 Virgin Mother, the concentration in our minds and hearts of Her Purity and Love. O Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son ! Created beings all in lowliness Surpassing, as in height above them all ; Term by the eternal council pre-ordained ; Ennobler of thy nature, so advanced In thee, that its great maker did not scorn To make himself his own creation ; For in thy womb rekindling shone the love KeveaFd, whose genial influence makes now This flower to germin in eternal peace : Here thou to us, of charity and love, Art as the noon-day torch : and art, beneath, To mortal men of hope a living spring. So mighty art thou, lady, and so great, That he who grace desireth, and comes not To thee for aidance, fain would have desire Fly without wings. Not only him who asks Thy bounty succours, but doth freely oft Forerun the asking. Whatsoe'er may be Of excellence in creature — pity mild, Eelenting mercy, large munificence — Are all combined in thee. Bante : Par. xxxiii. r T I T AW SOME TRANSLATIONS FROM THE WORKS OF AU6USTE COMTE. s. d. The Catechism of Positive Religion. 3rd Ed 2 6 Appeal to Conservatives 2 6 The General View of Positivism. 2nd Ed 2 6 The Eight Circulars of Auguste Comte 1 6 The Will of Auguste Comte 6 Discourse on the Positive Spirit 1 6 The Positive Politics. 4 vols, (out of print) Philosophical Letter on Marriage 6 Introduction to the Subjective Synthesis 2 H The Positivist Tables, 3rd Edition 6 Contents : (1) Chronology of Comte's Life. (2) List of his Works. (3) System of Social Worship. (4) Festivals instituted. (5) Sacraments. (6) Positivist Calendar for the Western Republic. (7) Cerebral Theory ; or, Systematic View of the Soul (8) Classification of the Sciences. (9) „ ,f condensed, (10) The First Philosophy. (11) Meanings of the word Positive, (12) The Positivist Library for the Nineteenth Century. (13) Plan of the Treatises on Morals — («) Theoretic; (6) Practical. (14) List of Maxims. (15) Alphabetical Index to Names in Calendar. Italian Translation of the Catechism net 3 Portuguese „ „ „ German „ ,« 99 > Kennv a Oo. Printers 25 Camden Road London N.W. t^vk y V i. J >. ' ^ H-f '^, t>V^ :>-■.. - ) ^ I > (^^ > \\