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AUTHOR: 
 
 COMTE, AUGUSTE 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 THE CATECHISM OF 
 POSITIVE RELIGION 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DA TE : 
 
 1858 
 
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 I 
 
 Catechieme positiidgte. 
 English, 
 
 Comte, Augusts, 1798-1857; 
 
 The catechism of positive religion; tr. from 
 the French of Auguste Comte, by Richard Congreve, 
 London, Chapman, 1858. 
 
 vi, 428 p. tables. 18 era. 
 
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 LIBRARY 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 • •-J"" - — ,--1^. . 
 
 THE CATECHISM 
 
 OB' 
 
 POSITIVE RELIGION 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF 
 
 AUGUSTE COMTE, 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD CONGREVE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN CHAPMAN, 
 
 8, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. 
 
 M DCOG LVIII. 
 
 [/ 
 
9^ 6o<- 
 
 REPUBLIC OF THE WEST. 
 
 ORDEE AND PROGRESS. 
 
 W C"73 
 
 tOKDOW : 
 BATIi:<I< A.TfI> BDWARDS, PBIITTERS, 
 CBANBOS STREKT. 
 
 THE 
 
 CATECHISM OF POSITIVISM; 
 
 0B| 
 
 ^ummatg fEipogition 
 
 ov 
 
 THE UNXVEESi^X. EEXiIQION". 
 
 IN THIRTEEN SYSTEMATIC CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN A WOMAN 
 AND A PRIEST OP HUMANITY. 
 
 • < 
 
 
 « • • 
 
 # » • 
 
 By AUGUSTE COMTE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the SVBTBM OF POSITIVE PHILOSOPUY," iHD OF 
 "tHB SYSTEM OF POSITIVE POLITICS." 
 
 • « 
 
 
 Love as our principle, 
 Order aa our basis, 
 Progress as our end. 
 
i 
 
 \\ 
 
 1L. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ? 7 ^""/ 
 
 
 Advertisement ^" 
 
 Preface 
 
 Positivist Library • ^^ 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 GENERAL THEORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 CONVEBSATION I 
 
 XI 68 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 EXPLANATION OF THE WORSHIP. 
 
 Conversation III. The Worship as a whole .... 82 
 
 IV. Private Worship 118 
 
 V. Public Worship 139 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 EXPLANATION OF THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 Conversation, VI. The Doctrine as a whole . ... 160 
 VII. The oi-der of the External World- 
 Inorganic Matter, Life . . . 201 
 VIII. Man— first, as a Social, secondly, 
 
 as a Moral Being 228 
 
 
ki 
 
 i 
 
 Yl 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 EXPLANATION OP THE REGIME, OR MODE OF LIFK 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Conversation IX. The Regime as a whole .... 270 
 
 „ X. Private Life 306 
 
 XI. Public Life 831 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 GENERAL HISTORY OP RELIGION. 
 
 Conversation XII. Fetichism. Conservative Poly- 
 theism, or Theocracy .... 368 
 „ XIII. Intellectual and Social Polytheism, 
 
 Monotheism 389 
 
 Tables A. System of Sociolatry or Social Worship . 429 
 
 B. Hierarchy of the Positive Sciences . . . 432 
 
 C. Positive Classification of the internal Func- 
 tions of the Brain 430 
 
 „ D. Positivist Calendar 433 
 
 >> 
 
 »> 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The alterations in the arrangement of the Catechism 
 have, in every case, the sanction of Auguste Comte. 
 See Politique Fositivej vol. iv. 
 
 The Tables at the end of the volume are given 
 from the latest edition of the Author. 
 
 I have felt warranted by an extract from one of 
 his letters in inserting the name of Shelley in the 
 
 Calendar. 
 
 In the Preface, p. 4, the formula alluded to is : 
 Faire de Vordre avec du desordre. Your inateruds 
 are disorder ^ ivith tliem you must organize order. 
 
 In the Positivist Library, Old Mortality should 
 be substituted for Woodstock. 
 
M «<! m lU" • 
 
 -, I . ■ I II i wuTJ's*— ;■- 
 
 it 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Ili 
 
 « In the name of the Past and of the Future, the 
 servants of Humanity— both its philosophical and 
 practical servants — come forward to claim as their 
 due the general direction of this world. Their 
 object is, to constitute at length a real Providence, 
 in all departments — moral, intellectual, and material. 
 Consequently they exclude, once for all, from poli- 
 tical supremacy, all the different servants of God — 
 Catholic, Protestant, or Deist— as being at once 
 behindhand and a cause of disturbance." With 
 this uncompromising announcement, on Sunday, 
 October 19th, 1851, in the Palais Cardinal, after a 
 summary of five hours, I ended my third course of 
 Philosophical Lectures on the General History of 
 Humanity. Since that memorable conclusion, the 
 second volume of my System of Positive Politics 
 has lately given a direct proof how entirely a social 
 destination, such as that above indicated, is the 
 appropriate destination of Positive Philosophy; for 
 it has shown itself able to suggest the most syste- 
 matic theory of moral and social order. 
 
 We come forward then, avowedly, to deliver the 
 Western world from an anarchical democracy, and 
 
2 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 from a retrograde aristocracy. We come forward 
 to constitute, as far as practicable, a real sociocracy ; 
 one which shall be able to combine wisely, in fur- 
 therance of the common regeneration, all the powers 
 of man, each of course brought to bear according to 
 its own nature. In fact we, Sociocrats, are as little 
 democi-atical as we are aristocratical. In our eyes, 
 these two opposite parties — the respectable poi-tion 
 of them, that is — represent, though on no theory, on 
 the one hand, Solidarity, on the other, Continuity. 
 These two ideas have hitherto been unfortunately 
 antagonistic. Positivism removes this antagonism, 
 and replaces it by a subordination of the one to the 
 other, by showing Solidarity to be subordinate to 
 Continuity. So we adopt both of these tendencies, 
 in themselves, singly, incomplete and incoherent; 
 and we rise above them both equally. Yet at the 
 present time, we by no means condemn equally 
 the two parties which represent them. During the 
 whole of my philosophical and social career, a period 
 of thirty years, I have ever felt a profound contempt 
 for that which, under our different governments, 
 bore the name of the Opposition ; I have felt a secret 
 affinity for all constructive statesmen, of whatever 
 order. Even those who would build with materials 
 evidently worn-out — even them I never hesitated to 
 prefer to the pure destructives, in a century in which a 
 <yeneral reconstruction is everywhere the chief want. 
 Our official conservatives are behindhand, it is true. 
 And yet, the mere revolutionist seems to me still 
 more alien to the true spirit of the time ; for he 
 
 PREFACE. ^ 
 
 continues blindly, in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, the negative line of action which could 
 only suit the eighteenth. And he does not redeem 
 the stagnation caused by his error by the generous 
 aspirations after a universal renovation, which were 
 the characteristic of his predecessors. 
 
 Hence it is that, although the popular sympathy 
 is instinctively with the revolutionary party, poli- 
 tical power constantly passes into the hands of its 
 opponents. For they, at least, recognise the fact, 
 that the metaphysical doctrines are powerless to 
 organize ; and recognising this, they seek elsewhere 
 for principles of reconstruction. With the majority 
 of them, their retrograde attitude is, at bottom, 
 only provisionally adopted as the least of two evils. 
 They adopt it to meet the anarchy which threatens 
 them, not because they have really any theological 
 convictions. All our statesmen seem for the moment 
 to belong to this school. Yet we may be confident 
 that all they derive from it is, the formulas which 
 they find indispensable for the co-ordination of their 
 empirical views. They wait for the more real and 
 more stable connexion to spring from a new doc- 
 trine of universal applicability. 
 
 This may certainly be said with justice of the 
 only temporal governor of real eminence of whom, 
 up to the present time, our century can boast — I 
 mean the noble Czar, who, whilst he gives the 
 immense empire of Russia all the progress compatible 
 with its actual condition, preserves it by his energy 
 and prudence from useless ferment. His sagacity, 
 
 b2 
 
* PKEFACE. 
 
 however empirical, leads him to see that the West 
 alone is charged with the glorious and difficult 
 
 -^mission of laying the foimdations of the regeneration 
 of society. The East must wait, and without dis- 
 turbance make the result its own, as each successive 
 step shall be gained. I am even inclined to think 
 that the Emperor Nicholas feels that this immense 
 elaboration is reserved in especial for the great 
 central nation of the Western world. Its spon- 
 taneous action cannot but be attended with disorders ; 
 but it is the only one which must never be inter- 
 
 ' Sored with, for its action is absolutely indispensable 
 to the attainment of a solution applicable to all. The 
 agitation that habitually prevails in all the rest of 
 the West, though more difficult to restrain than 
 that of the East, exercises in reality an almost 
 equally injurious influence on the natural course of 
 
 ^the final regeneration. It has a tendency, which 
 can lead to no useful result, to put forward some 
 other country as its principal seat, whereas the 
 whole of past history points to France. 
 
 Our situation in the West is so wholly adverse 
 to the simply revolutionary point of view, that we 
 find the conservative party able to produce the 
 maxims of most real value. I do not forget the 
 memorable practical formula, the author of which, 
 M. Caussidiere, was a democrat fortunately without 
 the ordinary literary training. Still it is amon<y 
 pure conservatives that the most profound political 
 
 sentence of the nineteenth century had its birth 
 
 To destroy, you must replace. The author of this 
 
 PREFACE. o 
 
 admirable sentence, equally excellent in thought and 
 expression, presents nothing remarkable in point of 
 intellect. Louis Napoleon's claim to notice is entirely 
 dependent on a rare combination of the three practical 
 qualities — energy, prudence, and perseverance. But 
 the constructive point of view has, at the present 
 time, so direct a tendency to enlarge our conceptions, 
 that, given a favourable situation, it is capable of 
 suggesting to an intellect of small depth a really 
 profound principle. This principle is adopted and 
 systematically developed by Positivism. 
 
 Be this as it may, the retrograde nature of the 
 worn-out ideas which our conservatives provisionally 
 employ, disqualifies them absolutely for directing 
 political action in the midst of the present anarchy. 
 For that anarchy has its origin in the irremediable 
 weakness of the old beliefs. Western Europe no 
 longer submits its reason to the guidance of 
 opinions which evidently admit of no demonstra- 
 tions J nay, which are radically illusory. For such 
 is the character of all opinions of theological origin, 
 whatever the theology be, be it even the purest 
 Deism. All now recognise the fact, that the pi-ac- 
 tical activity of man must no longer waste itself on 
 mutual hostilities, but must set itself peaceably to 
 carry forward, in common, the work of developing 
 the resources of the earth— man's residence. Still 
 less can we persist in the state of intellectual and 
 moral childhood in which, for the conduct of our 
 life, we look to motives which are absurd and 
 degrading. The nineteenth century must never 
 
 .1 
 
 <-, 
 
i 
 
 II 
 
 fl 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 D PREFACE. 
 
 repeat the eighteenth, but it must never break off 
 from it. It must continue the work of the eighteenth, 
 and realize at length the noble object of its wishes, 
 a religion resting on demonstration, and directing 
 the pacific activity of man. 
 
 Every tendency that is simply negative has, for 
 some time, been set aside by the mere force of circum- 
 stances. Of the philosophical schools, then, of the 
 last century, the only ones which are really discre- 
 dited are the illogical, inconsequent sects, whose 
 predominance was necessarily very short. Those 
 who with Voltaire and Rousseau aim at an incom- 
 plete destruction of the older order — who think 
 that they can destroy the altar and preserve the 
 throne, or vice versd — are fallen without possibility 
 of rising. They ruled, such was the destiny allotted 
 them, the two generations which prepared and 
 carried out the revolutionary explosion. But ever 
 since reconstruction has been the order of the day, 
 the attention of men has been more and more 
 directed to the great and immortal school of Diderot 
 and Hume. This is the school which will really 
 give its stamp to the eighteenth century, connecting 
 it with the seventeenth in the person of Fontenelle ; 
 with the nineteenth, in that of Condorcet. Equally 
 emancipated, both in religion and in politics, those 
 [iowerful thinkers necessarily tended towards a total 
 and direct re-organization of society. It mattei-s 
 little that their idea of such re-organization was con- 
 fused. All of them would now rally in support of 
 the only doctrine which bases the future on the 
 
 PREFACE. ' 
 
 past, and so lays a perfectly firm foundation for the 
 regeneration of the West. This is the school from^ 
 which I shall always consider it an honour to be 
 immediately descended in a direct line through him 
 who was indispensable as my precursor, the eminent ^ 
 Condorcet. On the other hand, I never expected 
 anything but hindrances, intentional or not, from 
 the broken remains of the superficial and immoral 
 sects who trace their origin to Voltaire and 
 
 Rousseau. 
 
 Sprung from this great stock historically, I have 
 never scrupled to connect with it whatever of real 
 eminence our latest adversaries have produced, 
 whether of the theological or metaphysical school. 
 Hume is my principal precui-sor in philosophy, but 
 with Hume I connect Kant as an accessory. Kant's 
 fundamental conception was never really systema- 
 tized and developed but by Positivism. So, in 
 political science, De Maistre was, in my judgment, 
 the necessary complement of Condorcet. At the 
 very commencement of my career, I appropriated all 
 the essential principles of De Maistre, which now 
 find no adequate appreciation except in the Posi- 
 tive school. These, with Bichat and Gall, as my 
 precursors in science, are the six immediate prede- 
 cessors who will ever form the connecting links 
 between me and the three fathers of the system of 
 modern philosophy— Bacon, Descartes, and Leibnitz. 
 Carrying on this noble genealogy, the Middle Ages, 
 through their intellectual exponents, St. Thomas 
 Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and Dante, place me in 
 
 ^v. I 
 
Ill 
 
 i 
 
 ii 
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 direct subordination to the incomparable Aristotle, 
 the eternal prince of true thinkers. 
 
 On our progress upwards towards this regular 
 fountain-head, we become deeply convinced that, 
 since the adequate extension of Rome's dominion, 
 the more advanced populations are vainly seeking 
 for an universal religion. The experience gained 
 in this search has made it quite clear that no super- 
 natural belief can satisfy this, the ultimate long- 
 ing of humanity. Two incompatible Monotheisms 
 equally aimed at this necessary characteristic of 
 Universality, without which the human race could 
 never follow out its natural destiny ; but the efforts 
 of the two in opposite directions resulted only in 
 neutralizing each other, so that the attribute they 
 claimed remained as the heritage of doctrines sus- 
 ceptible of demonstration and admitting discussion. 
 Five centuries have passed since Islamism renounced 
 the conquest of the West, and Catholicism abandoned 
 to its eternal rival even the tomb of its pretended 
 founder. In vain did the two religions aspire to 
 spread themselves over the whole territory com- 
 prised within the dominion of the Roman empire. 
 That territory is divided with an almost equal divi- 
 sion between the two irreconcilable Monotheisms. 
 
 The East and the West, then, must put aside all 
 theology and all metaphysics, and look elsewhere 
 for a systematic basis on which to rest their intel- 
 lectual and moral communion. This long-desired 
 fusion of the two must afterwards gradually embrace 
 the whole of our species ; but it can come from no 
 
 PREFACE. ^ 
 
 other quarter but Positivism. It must, that is, 
 have its origin in a doctrine whose characteristic is 
 the constant combination of the real with the useful. 
 Long limited to the simplest phenomena, the theories 
 of Positivism have, within the sphere of such phe- 
 nomena, produced the only convictions which, at 
 the present moment, can claim to be universal. 
 But this, the natural privilege of the methods 
 adopted and the doctrines taught by Positivism, 
 cannot be for ever confined to the domain of mathe- 
 matics and physics. It found its first development 
 in the sphere of material order ; it passed naturally 
 thence to that of life ; from this it has lately ex- 
 tended over that of man, whether viewed in society 
 or as an individual. Now that Positivism has 
 attained this absolute fulness of development, there 
 is no longer any pretext for preserving, by artificial 
 means, the theological spirit. This spirit is now, 
 in modern Europe, as much a source of disturbance 
 as metaphysics were, of which it is the parent, both 
 historically and dogmatically. Besides, the moral 
 and political degradation of its priesthood has long 
 forbidden any hope of restraining, as was the case 
 in the Middle Ages, the vices of the doctrine by the 
 instinctive sagacity of its best interpreters. 
 
 From henceforth the belief in Monotheism, 
 whether Christian or Mussulman, is left to its 
 natural course of inherent decay. In this late stage 
 of its existence, it deserves more and more the 
 unfavourable judgment which, during the three 
 centuries of its rise to power, it elicited from the 
 
10 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 11 
 
 II 
 
 m 
 
 i 
 
 noblest philosophers and statesmen of the Roman 
 world. They could at that time only judge the 
 system by the doctrine ; and they felt no hesitation 
 in rejecting, as the enemy of the human race, a pro- 
 visional religion which considered perfection as con- 
 sisting in an entire concentration upon heavenly 
 objects. Our modem instinct condemns still more 
 strongly a morality which proclaims that the bene- 
 volent sentiments are foreign to our nature ; which 
 so little understands the dignity of labour as to refer 
 its origin to a Divine curse j and which puts forward 
 woman as the source of all evil. Tacitus and Trajan 
 could not foresee that, during some centuries, the 
 wisdom of the Christian priesthood, aided by a 
 favourable situation, would be able so far to check 
 the natural evils of such doctrines as to draw from 
 them, provisionally, admirable results for society. 
 But now that the priesthood of the Western world 
 has become hopelessly retrograde, the belief which 
 it preaches, left to itself without check, has a ten- 
 dency to give free scope to the immoral character 
 which its anti-social nature inherently involves. It 
 deserved respectful treatment on the part of prudent 
 conservatives, only so far as it was impossible to 
 find a substitute for it in a better conception of the 
 world and of man. Such a conception could not be 
 formed without Positivism, and the rise of Positivism 
 was necessarily slow. But this laborious initiation 
 is now completed, and Positivism proceeds finally 
 to eliminate Catholicism, as well as every other form 
 of theology. It does so by vii-tue of the admirable 
 
 social maxipj above quoted— it destroys them by 
 
 replacing them. 
 
 Positive religion, then, gives full satisfaction to 
 the intelligence of man, and to his activity. Im- 
 pelled onwards by the character of reality which 
 distinguishes it, it has embraced the region of sen- 
 timent. This for the future forms its principal 
 domain, and becomes the basis of its unity. We 
 see no reason to fear, then, that any thinkers worthy 
 of the name, whether theoretical or practical, can 
 commit the mistake committed at the early period 
 of Catholicism, and fail to see the superiority of a 
 faith which is real and complete ; which is social 
 not by any accident, but by its own inherent nature. 
 For the rest, it is for the nascent priesthood of 
 Positivism, and for all its true disciples, by their 
 conduct as men and as citizens, to secure a due ap- 
 preciation of its excellence. Even those who can- 
 not be expected to form a judgment on its principles, 
 may be led by experience to a favourable conclusion. 
 A doctrine which shall be seen to develope all 
 human virtue— personal, domestic, and civil— will 
 soon gain the respect of all honest opponents, how- 
 ever strong may be their preference for an absolute 
 and egoistic, as opposed to a relative and altruistic, 
 
 synthesis. 
 
 On such a competition must depend the issue of 
 the struggle between Christianity and Positivism 3 
 but such a competition is impossible till Positivism 
 has been put into a shape which, by its condensa- 
 tion, can enable it to become really popular. This 
 
12 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 13 
 
 !l 
 
 is the particular object of this small work, which 
 stands apart from the general series of my works. 
 For it, I interrupt for some weeks my great 
 religious construction, the first half only of which 
 is as yet actually accomplished. I had thought 
 that this valuable episode in my labours should 
 be postponed till the entire completion of that 
 immense work; but in January, 1851, I had 
 written tlie Positive theory of human unity, and 
 1 felt sufficiently forward with my work to allow 
 myself an interlude. As such, this present volume 
 might follow the one in which the theory above 
 mentioned forms the first and most important 
 chapter. This hope grew on me as, step by step, I 
 worked out that volume — the turning-point of the 
 whole system. It became complete when I wrote 
 the final preface of that volume. I realize the hope 
 to-day, before I begin the construction of Dynami- 
 cal Sociology, or in other words, of the Philosophy 
 of History — ^the special subject of the third volume 
 of my System of Positive FoliticSj to be published 
 next year. 
 
 My resolution to publish this Catechism was due to 
 my finding my principal conceptions more ripe than 
 I had expected. It was greatly strengthened by the 
 fortunate crisis which has lately set aside the Parlia- 
 mentary regime and instituted a dictatorial republic. 
 These two steps are necessary as the previous conditions 
 —of any true regeii eration. It is quite true that the dic- 
 tatorship established by no means wears the character 
 which is necessary to its full utility, as explained 
 
 in my coui-se of Positive Lectures, delivered in 1847. 
 The most prominent defect is, that it cannot permit 
 the co-existence with itself of free and full exposi- 
 tion, or even of discussion. And yet such liberty is 
 absolutely indispensable to any re- organization of— 
 the spiritual power ; not to say, that it is the only 
 security which we can have against every form of 
 retrograde tyranny. But under one form or another, 
 before long, this necessary complement of the new 
 order will be attained. Unfortunately its attain- 
 ment seems to involve, as the preceding phases of 
 our revolution have involved, one last violent crisis. 
 Once attained, once established as a mere political 
 experiment, it must lead us further. Its proximate 
 consequence will be the peaceful creation of the 
 systematic triumvirate which is to give its form and 
 expression to the temporal dictatorship, that dicta- 
 torship which, in the co\irse of lectures above alluded 
 to, I set forth as the proper mode of government 
 for the organic period of transition. We may have 
 to wait for these two phases of our revolutionary 
 experiment ; but in the mean time, the actual form 
 of dictatorial power already permits the direct pro- 
 pagation of all thought that has a tendency to re- 
 construction. For it has, at last, broken the power— 
 a power which could lead to no good— of mere 
 talkers. By so doing, as a natural consequence, it 
 secures those who would really construct something 
 the liberty of expounding their plans. The enjoy- 
 ment of this liberty was naturally a strong induce- 
 ment to me to direct the thoughts of women and 
 
u 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 working men to the question of a thorough renova- 
 tion of the social order. 
 
 My present work, then, is an episode. It claims 
 to be competent to furnish a systematic basis for 
 the active propagation of Positivism. By so doing it 
 necessarily forwards my principal construction, 
 for it brings the new religion to bear on the classes 
 which constitute its true social audience. The intel- 
 lectual discipline instituted by Positive Philosophy 
 rests on logical and scientific foundations of the 
 utmost solidity ; but no solidity can secure its pre- 
 valence, so antipathetic is its severe reghne to minds 
 trained as at present, unless it can gain the support 
 of women and the proletary class. That support 
 would lend it irresistible strength. The urgent 
 need of it can only be soundly appreciated by these 
 two great classes of society. Alien to all pretension 
 to teaching, they alone can enforce on their systema- 
 tic chiefs the fulfilment of the encyclopedic con- 
 ditions demanded by their social office. Therefore 
 I was bound not to shrink from introducing into 
 the popular language philosophical terms which are 
 bsolutely indispensable ; terms not created by 
 Positivism, but which it has systematized in point 
 of meaning, and the use of which it has developed. 
 I mean, in particular, two pairs of essential value 
 in expressing the distinctions of Positivism : — first, 
 Static and Dynamic ; then. Objective and Subjective, 
 Without these I could not sufficiently explain my 
 views. Once properly define these terms, and 
 secure their uniform use according to their defini- 
 
 PHEPACE. 
 
 15 
 
 tion, then philosophical explanations become much 
 easier by their j udicious employment. Otherwise they 
 are but a source of obscurity. I do not scruple, in 
 this work, to consecrate these expressions to the use 
 of Positive religion. They must pass by its agency 
 into universal circulation, considering the high im- 
 portance of their use from the intellectual and even 
 the moral point of view. 
 
 Thus was I led to compose what is, in the strictest 
 sense, the Catechism of the Religion of Humanity ; 
 and the first point was to examine, on rational prin- 
 ciples, the form always adopted for such exposi- 
 tions, the dialogue. I soon found in it a fresh in- 
 stance of the happy instinct by which the practical 
 sagacity of man often anticipates the conclusions of 
 sound theory. Fresh from the work of constructing 
 the Positive theory of human language, I felt at 
 once that since expression must ever have the com- 
 munication of thought, as its object, its natural 
 form is the dialogue. 
 
 Further, as combinations are in every case, phy- 
 sical and still more logical, binary, the conversation 
 of the dialogue admits of only two persons, under 
 penalty of confusion if this rule is violated. The 
 monologue is in reality only adequate for concep- 
 tion. It limits itself to the giving expression to 
 conceptions as they arise. It is as if one were 
 thinking aloud, without reference to any hearer. 
 Whereas, when language is used not merely to assist 
 the investigations of the reason, but to communi- 
 cate the results, then it requires a new process. It 
 
 I 
 
tl\ 
 
 16 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 17 
 
 f 
 
 must be worked into a fresh shape, specially adapted 
 to the transfer of ideas from one person to another. 
 Then, we must take into account the peculiar state 
 of our listener, and foresee the modifications which 
 the natural course of such a mode of exposition 
 will demand. In a word, the simple statement 
 must become a real conversation. Nor can its essen- 
 tial conditions be met, unless you assume that the 
 second person in the dialogue is throughout the 
 same, and unless also it is clear who he is. But if 
 you choose the person successfully, he may stand as 
 a type, capable, in the ordinary use of the dialogue, 
 of adequately representing every reader. This is 
 necessary, as it is impossible to vary the mode of 
 exposition to meet the exigencies of each individual, 
 as may be done in actual conversation. 
 
 It would follow from this that there must be an 
 essential difierence between the exposition which 
 aims at being in the fullest sense didactic, and one 
 which is simply logical. In the latter, the thinker 
 follows the course of his own thought freely, paying 
 no attention to the natural conditions of communi- 
 cation ; and, with a view to avoid the great labour 
 of recasting one's thoughts, in general we limit our- 
 selves to laying them before others just as we 
 originally thought them. This rough method of 
 exposition contributes largely to the scanty efficiency 
 of most of our reading. The form of the dialogue, 
 the proper form for all real communication, is re- 
 served for the setting forth of such conceptions as 
 are important and ripe enough to justify it. This 
 
 is why, in all times, religious instruction is given 
 in the form of conversation, and not of mere state- 
 ment. This form is by no means a symptom of 
 negligence, excusable in cases of secondary impor- 
 tance. Quite the contrary. When the dialogue is 
 rit^htly conducted, it is the only mode of exposition 
 which is really adapted for teaching. It meets 
 the wants of all orders of intelligence. But the 
 new elaboration of our thought is necessarily a 
 difficult process, and hence, for ordinary commu- 
 nications, we are justified in not adopting it. It 
 would be childish to aim at such perfection when 
 the instruction to be conveyed was not of funda- 
 mental importance. On the other hand, this throw- 
 ing our thoughts into a fresh shape for the purposes 
 of teaching is only practicable where doctrines are 
 so thoroughly worked out that we can distinctly 
 compare the difierent modes of expounding them as 
 a whole, and easily foresee the objections to which 
 they will naturally give rise. 
 
 Were I bound in this place to point out all the 
 general principles applicable to the art of commu- 
 nication, I would dwell on the improvement it 
 admits in regard to style. The great object of 
 poets is to express feelings. They have always felt 
 the superiority of verse over prose, from the power 
 which verse has to make the artificial language of 
 man more beautiful by bringing it nearer to his 
 natural language. Now the same reasons would 
 equally apply to the communication of thoughts, if 
 we had to attach as much importance to such com- 
 
 o 
 

 I 
 
 'i' 
 
 « 
 
 18 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 munication. Compression of language, and tlie aid 
 of imagery, the essential characteristics of all real 
 versification, would be as appropriate for perfecting 
 the exposition of thought, as the exposition of feel- 
 in^. This second improvement, however, for the 
 pT^poses of teaching, must be still more of an ex- 
 ception than the first, on the ground of the addi- 
 tional labour it requires. It presupposes even a 
 greater maturity in regard to the conceptions to be 
 expressed, not only in him who is to interpret 
 them, but also in the audience. For the audience 
 must also exert itself, and at once fill up the gaps 
 left by the conciseness of the poet. This is why 
 several admirable poems are still only in prose. 
 The imperfection of the form was at the time ex- 
 cusable, as the range of ideas expressed was not one 
 generally familiar. An analogous motive deterred 
 men from putting into verse any religious catechism. 
 But the Positive faith is distinguished from others 
 by its being real and spontaneous. These two cha- 
 racteristics will enable it ultimately to attain this 
 last perfection of style in its popular exposition. 
 This will be, when it shall begin to be sufficiently 
 spread to admit of great conciseness and the free 
 use of imagery. Only provisionally then need we 
 feel limited to the substitution of the dialogue for 
 the monologue. 
 
 In accordance with this theory as to the peculiar 
 didactic form to be adopted, I was led not only to 
 justify the custom which had hitherto prevailed, 
 but even to improve upon it, so far as the second 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 19 
 
 person in the dialogue is concerned. By leaving 
 the hearer absolutely vague, the dialogue, or con- 
 versational method, also became necessarily vague, 
 not to say illusory. Experience led to the use of 
 the dialogue. After explaining the rational grounds 
 on which its use rests, I soon felt that it would 
 remain incomplete, and if incomplete, inadequate, 
 so long as it was not clear who the second person 
 was, at least to the author's mind. You must abso- 
 lutely suppose yourself really in communication 
 with some one, although that some one may be an 
 ideal personage, or you will fail in deriving the full 
 advantages of the form you adopt. So only can 
 you institute a true conversation, and not a state- 
 ment thrown into dialogue. 
 
 As soon as I came to apply this clear principle, 
 my instinct would naturally lead me to choose 
 Madame Clotilde de Vaux. Whilst she lived, I had 
 felt her angelic influence for one year only. She 
 has now for more than six years, since her death, 
 been associated with all my thoughts, and with all 
 my feelings. Through her I have at length become 
 for Humanity, in the strictest sense, a twofold organ, 
 as may any one who has reaped the full advantages 
 of woman's influence. My career had been that of 
 1 Aristotle— I should have wanted energy for that 
 of St. Paul, but for her. I had extracted sound 
 philosophy from real science ; I was enabled by her 
 to found on the basis of that philosophy the uni- 
 versal religion. The perfect purity of our con- 
 nexion, which circumstances made exceptional, and 
 
 c2 
 
 ^ 
 
 !i 
 
 
20 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 even tlie admii-able superiority of the angel who 
 never received her due recognition— on these I need 
 not dwell— they are already fully appreciated by 
 the nobler order of minds. Four years ago I re- 
 ' vealed the source of my inspiration, one beyond all 
 compare, by the publication of my Discourse on the 
 System of Positivism. At that time Madame de 
 Vaux could only be judged by the intellectual and 
 moral results of her inspiration, which that work 
 brought home to all sympathetic hearts as to all 
 synthetic minds. But last year, the three intro- 
 ductory pieces, which will ever be the distinctive 
 mark of the first volume of my System of Positive 
 Politics, allowed every one to form a direct appre- 
 ciation of her eminent natural superiority. Hence, 
 when recently I published the second volume of the 
 same treatise, I was already able openly to congra- 
 tulate myself on the touching imanimity of feeling 
 which undoubtedly animates both sexes towards 
 the new Beatrice. These three antecedent publica- 
 tions dispel at once all doubt as to my sainted 
 hearer. Where there is the due preparation, the 
 reader is sufficiently acquainted with her for our 
 conversations to possess an interest of their own, one 
 directly connected with the persons of the dialogue. 
 Such a catechumen meets perfectly all the condi- 
 tions of the dialogue. Superior as she was, Madame 
 Clotilde de Vaux was yet so early taken from me 
 as to render it impossible sufficiently to initiate her 
 in Positivism, naturally the object of all her wishes 
 and efforts. Even before death broke off finally 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 21 
 
 the work of affectionate instruction, pain and grief 
 had been very serious impediments. I was hardly 
 able to sketch out to her whilst alive the systematic 
 preparation which I now accomplish with her when 
 dead. My angelic disciple, then, brings with her 
 nothing beyond the dispositions essential to a dis- 
 ciple, dispositions to be found in most women, and 
 even in many proletaries. Positivism has not yet 
 reached them, but all I presuppose in them, as in 
 her, who is my eternal companion, is a profound 
 desire to know the religion which can overcome the 
 modern anarchy, and a sincere veneration for the 
 priest of that religion. I should even prefer for 
 my readers those who instinctively fulfilled these 
 two previous conditions, unchecked by any scholastic 
 
 training. 
 
 I have already explained in my Positive Politics 
 the general idea of the institution of real guardian 
 angels. Those who are familiar with that explana- 
 tion are aware that the principal type amongst 
 women becomes habitually inseparable from the 
 two others. This sweet connexion holds good even 
 in our exceptional case. For my pure and immortal 
 companion unites in her own person the subjective 
 mother my second life presupposes, and the objective 
 daughter who was destined for a time to add her 
 grace to my existence. Her invariable reserve after 
 some time purified my affection and raised it to 
 the level of her own. From that time all I aspired 
 to was an union which should need no concealment, 
 that of a legal adoption, the natural one, consider- 
 
 r 
 
 It 
 
 'if 
 
 I! 
 
\ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 23 
 
 W 
 
 
 22 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ing our disparity in age. When I publish our 
 noble correspondence, ray last letter will give a clear 
 proof of the holy project, the only one which, under 
 our respective destinies, was compatible with repose 
 and happiness. 
 
 It is thus perfectly natural for me to use in this 
 ciitechism the terms of father and daughter, the 
 habitual language of religious instruction. More 
 even than the priesthood of Catholicism, or of any 
 other form of theology, the priesthood of Positivism 
 requires in its priests complete maturity, if for no 
 other reason, yet by virtue of the immense encyclo- 
 pedic preparation which it prescribes. This was my 
 reason for fixing on forty-two as the age at which 
 the priests of Humanity should be consecrated. At 
 that age the development of the body and the brain 
 is complete, as is also the fii-st social life. These 
 names then, father and daughter, become peculiarly 
 appropriate to the teacher and catechumen, and 
 they are in conformity with the old etymology of 
 the term priest. By using them, I place myself 
 naturally in the relation in which I should have 
 stood to Madame de Vaux had it not been for our 
 fatal catastrophe. 
 
 Whilst however this concentration is necessary, 
 and it is only the presiding angel that takes part 
 directly in the holy conversation, it ought not to 
 escape either the reader or myself that my two other 
 patronesses take an appropriate though silent part 
 in it. Elsewhere I have spoken of the subjective 
 
 influence of my venerable mother, of the objective 
 action of my noble adopted daughter. In the 
 present work they will always be present to my 
 heart, when my intellect shall be duly feeling the 
 impulse of the principal angel. These three angels 
 are for the future inseparable, and inseparably con- 
 nected with me ; so much so, that their constant co- 
 operation has lately suggested to the eminent artist 
 whom Positivism now claims, an idea of admirable 
 beauty, by which a mere portrait becomes a picture 
 of profound meaning. 
 
 A didactic conversation oq this plan renders my 
 own labour easier as well as that of the reader. 
 For in many points such an exposition, meant for 
 the public, does not widely differ from the explana- 
 tions which I should have given in private to my 
 sainted companion in answer to her questions, had 
 our objective union lasted longer. This is clearly 
 seen from my philosophical letter on Mamage. 
 ' The very period of the year in which I am writing 
 this, to me, pleasant work of elaboration, recalls 
 with peculiar force the wishes she herself expressed 
 during that incomparable year, for a methodical 
 initiation. All I have to do, then, is to carry myself 
 back seven years. I can then conceive as actually 
 spoken to a living object that which I must now 
 develope subjectively, by placing myself m 1852 n 
 the situation of 1845. To carry myself back m 
 this way requires an effort ; but the effort is com- 
 pensated by the great advantage of being able to 
 
 n 
 
 II 
 
i 
 
 24 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 If: 
 
 give a better idea of her angelic ascendancy over 
 me. I know not how to convey a right im- 
 pression of its character, except by combining two 
 admirable verses, respectively meant for Beatrice 
 and Laura — 
 
 Quella che imparadisa la mia mente 
 Ogni basso pensier dal cor m'avulse. 
 
 I am late in bringing to its completion the initia- • 
 tion which my affection had led me to begin. But, 
 on the other hand, I bring it more easily into con- 
 formity with the sentiments which finally prevailed 
 towards her who will always be associated with me 
 as at once my disciple and colleague. Her age has 
 become fixed, by the general law of our subjective 
 existence. My own, relatively to hers, increases 
 daily, so as to sanction no other images but those 
 drawn from the filial relation. The existence of both 
 of us is thus brought into a more perfect continuity, 
 and the harmony of my whole nature is also carried 
 'to a higher perfection. At the same time then 
 that I thus explain the unity of man as constituted 
 by Positivism, I am developing and consolidating 
 the fundamental connexion between my private and 
 my public life. The philosophical influence of the 
 angel who inspires me, becomes from this point of 
 view as complete and as direct as it ever can be ; 
 consequently none any longer contest it. I ven- 
 ture then to hope, that to enable me to testify my 
 just gratitude, all nobler minds will lend me due 
 aid in supplying the deficiency of which I am pro- 
 
 "^V 25 
 
 \ PREFACE. 
 
 foLly conscious, ia the midst of my best daily 
 pLei-a cousciousuess such a^that expressed by 
 Ddkte towards his sweet patroness— 
 
 Non fe I'aifezion mia tanto profonda 
 Che basti a render voi grazia per grazia. 
 
 This expression of grateful feeling by the public 
 lu^ as'well a. my own, embrace the two othe 
 
 ..aardian angels who form the ^'""Pl^"^^^*;^ *^ 
 ;residing one. All three contribute to he xnfluenoe 
 of wom^n upon me. Far distant, alas is now the 
 inxposing memory of the perfect Cathohcsm wh^se 
 sway my noble and tender mother obeyed. But 
 distantthoughit be, it shall always make me a^ert 
 .,ore than I did in niy youth, that the constant 
 eultivation of the feelings must take precedence of 
 hat of the intellect, and even of that of a.tx^^ 
 On the other hand, I might be led, by my keen sen^ 
 of the necessity of basing all real public virtue on 
 the foundation of private excellence, to be too ex- 
 clusive, and to undervalue the importance of ciy c 
 . moramy, an importance inherent in it, and directly 
 its own ; but I should soon correct ^J-^'^'^^^l 
 right estimation of the admirable sociability of my 
 hid patroness. In undertaking this work, which 
 i. an episode in my larger one, I have, then, the 
 special assistance of all my three p-J^ J; 
 It is true, one alone actively participates, the other 
 two co-operate sUently; but this in no way di- 
 Linishes the claim of those two to the veneration 
 of all my followers. 
 
 i 
 
26 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 27 
 
 l!..| 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 ■ Looked at from a more general point of view, 
 the form of teaching I have adopted will be geen 
 to convey directly a strong impression of the cha- 
 racter of the religion to be taught. Spontaneously 
 it brings out the fundamental nature of the Positive 
 
 system of life. 1]\f r'^^- "im nf tihn* T'^tf"^ '" *" 
 BTi force a. s ,y°t»rin..t;>. dis cipline of all the powers of 
 man, and 't, |-f»t^. principallv on the constant con- 
 c urrence of feeling with reason in the regulation o f 
 our action. Tfnw *'■" f^^'"-^ ■"■■•' '^« "^ conversations 
 always puts for w ard the heart p n<i the intellect as 
 acting in concert under a religious impulse, ii ^ order 
 t o bring under the influence of morality the mater ial 
 
 jected. In that world the woman and the priest are, 
 — «s a fact, the two indispensable elements of the real 
 moderating power, which must be both domestic and 
 civic. This holy coalition in the interest of society 
 I here organize, and in doing so I allow each of its 
 constituents to proceed in conformity with its own 
 nature. The heart states the questions; the in- 
 tellect answers them. Thus the very form of this 
 Catechism points at once to the great central idea of 
 Positivism : man thinking under the inspiration of 
 woman, the object being to bring about a con- 
 currence of synthesis with sympathy, in order to 
 regularise the joint action of the two sexes. 
 
 The adoption of this method for the new religious 
 instruction shows that it is meant primarily for the 
 sex in which affection predominates. This prefer- 
 ence is in accordance with the true spii-it of the 
 
 I ■ -^c Tt is eaually clear that it is, in an 
 
 II regxim. I* ^^ equa y ^^^ 
 
 Lial manner, adapted to the need o 
 [od of the transitional state; for m this l^t 
 iod every influence which shall be recognised by 
 J "ormZtate must be working with even greater 
 Kh if with less regularity. It is for women, 
 K'af this small work is especially mea^t; 
 Iw all for those who have no literary education 
 Not b^ that the better proletaries will soon, as it 
 Ippears to me, welcome it, and look on it as deciding 
 ritter. Wll women only can fu^ -«^ 
 the preponderance that ought to be given to the 
 lalitU cultivation of the heart, borne down ^ it 
 t by the coarse activity, both in speculation and 
 * which prevails in the modern Western world, 
 itroijt Esanctuary of the female heart that, 
 \ L present day, we can find the noble submissive- 
 
 During the tet four years the reason of the people 
 rsuLed profoundly .om«ien..tu^^^ . 
 
 SlrrrLrp'XsVWp.^ervedfrom 
 a Honstitutional sophisms, and from l>-l-ment-y 
 intrigues The rich and the literary ola.ss had had 
 TlZZ^^ of them. A blind spirit of pride has 
 bl deviped in our proletaries, and they have 
 W led to' think they could -"le ^e Ingh^^ 
 social questions without any senous study. Ihe 
 ruThern populations of Western Europe have been 
 soutnerii P P w +hiq evil The resistance of 
 
 mucli less tainted by this evil, x 
 Catholicism has sheltered them against the meta 
 
28 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 physical influence of Protestantism or Deism. II 
 reading negative books begins to spread the spij 
 even there. Turn where I will, it is only wj 
 women that I can find support. This is the coni 
 quence of their wholesome exclusion from politic 
 action. With their support, I can secure the fife 
 ascendancy of the principles which shall in the end 
 qualify the proletaries to place their confidence 
 aright on points of theory as well as on points of 
 practice. 
 
 The deep-seated intellectual anarchy of our time 
 is another reason why Positive religion should appeal 
 more particularly to the female sex. For that 
 anarchy renders more necessary than ever the pre- 
 dominance of feeling, as it is feeling alone which 
 preserves Western society from a complete and irre- 
 parable dissolution. Since the close of the Middle 
 Ages, the influence of woman has been the sole, 
 though unacknowledged, check on the moral evils 
 naturally resulting from a state of mental alienation, 
 the state to which the West has been more and 
 more approximating — and in the West, especially its 
 centre — France. This chronic state of unreason is 
 now at its height, and since no maxim of social 
 experience can resist the corrosive efiects of discus- 
 sion as actually conducted, it is feeling alone that 
 maintains order in the West. And even feeling is 
 seriously impaired already, so fatal has been the 
 reaction on it of the sophisms of the intellect, 
 which are always favourable to our personal instincts, 
 in themselves naturally the stronger. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 29 
 
 Our true cerebral constitution offers us three 
 sympathetic tendencies. The first and last are 
 already much weakened, the second nearly extinct, 
 in the majority of those who take an active part in 
 the agitation of the Western world. Penetrate 
 beyond the mere exterior of existing families, and 
 you find attachment has but little strength left, 
 even in those relations of life which are its proper 
 sphere. As for the general kindness, so loudly 
 vaunted at present, it is far more an indication of 
 hatred towards the rich, than of love for the poor. 
 For modern philanthropy but too often gives ex- 
 pression to its pretended benevolence in forms that 
 are more appropriate to passion or envy. But the 
 third social instinct, which, as the immediate basis 
 of all true discipline of man, ought to be the most 
 habitual, has suffered even more than the two 
 others. The deterioration in this respect may be 
 more easily seen in the rich and the educated classes ; 
 but it reaches even the proletariate, except where a 
 wise indifference keeps them from mixing in any 
 political movement. 
 
 Still, veneration can continue to exist in the 
 midst of the wildest revolutionary aberrations. 
 Indeed, it is their best natural corrective. I myself 
 experienced this during the profoundly negative 
 phasis which necessarily preceded my systematic 
 development. At that time it \^as enthusiasm 
 alone that kept me from a sophistical demoralization; 
 though this enthusiasm laid me peculiarly open for 
 a time til the seductions of a shallow and depraved 
 
) 
 
 30 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 31 
 
 juggler. VeneratioD, at the present day, is the 
 decisive characteristic by which we may distinguish 
 in the ranks of the revohitionary party those who 
 — are susceptible of a real regeneration ; a remark 
 which is particularly applicable to the case of those 
 Communists who are not educated. In the immense 
 majority of those who are yet simply negative, we 
 may discover this valuable symptom. In the 
 majority of their chiefs, we cannot. The existing 
 state of anarchy everywhere gives a temporary 
 predominance to bad natures. These men are abso- 
 lutely unsusceptible of discipline. Yet, though few 
 in number, they wield a vast influence, and they 
 use that influence to infect with subversive ideas, 
 and to ferment the heads of all who are without 
 firm convictions. There is no remedy for this 
 plague of Western Europe, except the contempt of 
 the populations they address, or the severity of the 
 Governments. The doctrine which alone can secure 
 the regular action of these two safeguards, can at 
 the outset meet with no decided support, except 
 from the feeling of women, soon to be aided by the 
 intelligence of the proletariate. Unless we secured 
 the due intervention of woman, the discipline of 
 Positivism would never succeed in driving back 
 into obscurity the pretended thinkers, who speak 
 with decision on sociological questions, whilst igno- 
 rant of arithmetic. For the people shares, in many 
 respects, their worst faults, and so is, as yet. inca- 
 pable of seconding the new priesthood in its contest 
 with these dangerous talkers. At least I can, for 
 
 ^e moment, hope for no collective assistance from 
 Jny quarter, except from the proletaries, who have 
 hitherto taken no part in our political discussions. 
 They are not the less instinctively attached, as 
 even women are, to the social end proclaimed by 
 the great revolution. To these two classes, then, 
 women and proletaries, this Catechism appeals as 
 ready for its acceptance. 
 
 I have stated the general grounds which warrant 
 my directing my attention chiefly to women. But, 
 further, I have now for a long time thought, that 
 it is on them that depends for its acceptance finally 
 the solution which the whole of past history points 
 to as the right solution of our Western difficulties. 
 
 In the first place, there would be an absurdity 
 in expecting to end without them the most thorough 
 of all human revolutions. In all previous revolu- 
 tions they have had a large share. Were the 
 repugnance they instinctively feel for our modern 
 movement invincible, it would be quite enough to 
 insure its failure. That repugnance is the real 
 source of the fatal anomaly which places retrograde 
 chiefs at the head of progressive populations— as 
 though dulness and hypocrisy alone could furnish 
 official security for the maintenance of order m the 
 West Till Positive religion has overcome this 
 resistance on the part of women, it will never be 
 able in its treatment of the leading partisans of the 
 different retrograde systems, to give free scope to 
 its decided and just reprobation of their mental 
 and moral inferiority. 
 
32 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 1 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 33 
 
 If at the present day men deny the existence : 
 our nature of the disinterested affections, they Is ^ 
 themselves open to just suspicion. Their rejection 
 on this point of the demonstrations of modem 
 science, must be owing to the radical imperfection 
 of their own feelings. As they pursue no good, how- 
 ever trifling, but from the hope of an infinite re- 
 ward, or from the fear of an eternal punishment, 
 they prove their heart to be as degraded as their 
 intellect evidently is, considering the absurdity of 
 the belief they hold. And yet the direction of 
 Western Europe is still entrusted to such men. 
 And it is so in consequence of the tacit adhesion of 
 women. Such characters will be, and that wisely, a 
 sure ground of exclusion from all the higher func- 
 tions of society, when Positivism shall have duly 
 trained on systematic principles the reason of the 
 
 majority. 
 
 Meanwhile, the religion of Humanity will soon 
 strip the retrograde party of the august support which 
 is f'iven it, solely from a just horror of anarchy. 
 In spite of objections which seem wan-anted by 
 experience, women are well disposed to form a right 
 estimate of the only doctrine which in the present 
 day can thoroughly combine order with progress. 
 Above all, they will recognise the fact that this 
 final synthesis, while it comprehends every phase of 
 our existence, yet gives a greater preponderance to 
 feeling than was given by the provisional synthesis, 
 which sacrificed to feeling the intellect and action of 
 Positive Philosophy places morals at the 
 
 ) 
 
 man. 
 
 summit of its encyclopedic construction, and so is in 
 perfect agreement with the convictions of women. 
 For morals, at once a science and an art, are neces- 
 sarily the most important and the most diflicult 
 branch of study. In them are summed up all the 
 rest, and they rise above the rest. The senti- 
 ments of chivalry receive at length a full develop- 
 ment, and are no longer confined by the conflicting 
 tendencies of the prevalent theological beliefs. The 
 system of Positive worship looks on woman as the 
 moral providence of our species. In that system 
 every true woman, in daily life, is considered the 
 best representative of the real Great Being. The 
 svstem of life, or regime, which answers to the 
 worship, constitutes, on systematic principles, the 
 family as the normal basis of society. And by that 
 constitution, it leads to the due prevalence in the 
 family of woman's influence, for in her is vested 
 the supreme control, so far as that control can be 
 private, of the education of all. On all these 
 grounds, Positivism will soon be fully appreciated 
 by women, once let them be adequately instructed 
 in its more marked characteristics. Some might at 
 first regret the loss of the chimerical hopes they 
 had once cherished ; but even they would not be 
 slow to see the moral superiority of the subjective 
 immortality offered by Positivism. It is by its 
 nature thoroughly altruistic, or unselfish ; and 
 therefore, as I said, morally superior to the old ob- 
 jective immortality, which could never clear itself 
 of the egoistic, or selfish, character. The law of 
 
34 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 35 
 
 eternal widowhood, the characteristic of marriage 
 in the Positivist sense, would be enough, in this 
 respect, to decide the comparison. 
 
 From the revolution of Western Europe, women 
 must no longer stand aloof. In order to secure 
 their due incorporation into the movement, its last 
 phase must.be looked on as having for them a deep 
 and special interest, in direct relation with the true 
 object of women's existence. 
 
 Clear off all superficial adjuncts, and four great 
 classes constitute modern society. The four were 
 destined to experience in succession the shock which 
 "the final regeneration of that society rendered in- 
 evitable. The convulsion began in the last century 
 with the intellectual element. The class which 
 represented it rose in insun-ection against the 
 whole existing system based on the ideas of theology 
 and war. The political explosion which was the 
 natural result soon followed. It began with the 
 middle classes, who had long been eager to take the 
 place of the nobility. Throughout Europe th^ 
 nobility resisted, and its resistance could only be 
 overcome by calling in the French proletariate to 
 support their new political chiefs. Thus led to 
 mix in the great political struggle, the proletariate 
 of Western Europe put forward its claim — a claim 
 which there was no resisting, from its justice — to be 
 incorporated into the system of modern society. 
 It was put forward as soon as peace allowed the 
 proletariate to make its wishes sufficiently clear. 
 Still the revolutionary chain is incomplete, for it 
 
 / 
 
 does not embrace the most fundamental element of 
 the system of human order rightly viewed. The 
 revolution, in regard to women, must be the com- 
 plement of the revolution which took in the prole- 
 tariate, just as this last consolidated the revolution 
 of the middle classes, sprung in its turn originally 
 from the philosophical revolution. 
 
 Not till this last step has been taken will our 
 modern movement have really prepared all that is 
 essential for the basis of the final regeneration.— 
 Till it takes in women, it can have no other result 
 but to prolong the lamentable series of oscillations 
 between retrogression and anarchy. But this, its 
 final and decisive step to completion, follows as a 
 result of the whole of the antecedent phases, more 
 naturally than any one of those phases sprung from 
 its predecessor. In particular, it is connected with 
 the popular phase ; for the social incorporation of 
 the proletariate is necessarily dependent on the due 
 establishment of the principle that woman must be 
 set free from the necessity of all labour away from 
 her own home. Between the two questions there 
 evidently exists the closest mutual connexion j for 
 unless this exemption be universal, as the indis- - 
 pensable complement of the abolition of serfage, the 
 family of the proletary would be essentially defec- 
 tive in its constitution, since in it women wouhl 
 remain habitually exposed to the horrible alterna- 
 tive of misery or prostitution. 
 
 The best practical summary of the programme of 
 modem order will soon be this indisputable prin- 
 
 d2 
 
36 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 37 
 
 !i 
 
 ciple — man ougJd to support woma7i, in order that 
 woman may be enabled to fulfil properly her holy 
 social purpose. My Catechism will, I hope, set in 
 a clear light the close connexion of such a condition 
 with the whole of the great movement of renova- 
 tion, not merely in its moral, but in its mental, and 
 even its material aspect. Influenced by the holy 
 reaction of this revolution in the position of women, 
 the revolution in that of the proletariate will soon 
 clear itself of the subversive tendencies which have 
 hitherto neutralized it. Woman's object is every- 
 where the same, to secure the due supremacy of 
 moral force; so she is led to visit with especial 
 reprobation all collective violence. She is still 
 less ready to accept the yoke of numbers than that 
 of wealth. Her silent social influence will soon 
 modify the two remaining parts of the Western revo- 
 lution ; and the modifications, though not so directly 
 traceable to it, will be equally valuable with those 
 already mentioned. Her influence will facilitate 
 the advent to political power of the industrial 
 patriciate, and of the Positive priesthood; it will do 
 so by leading both to set themselves clear once for 
 all from the heterogeneous and ephemeral classes 
 who were at the head of the transition whilst it 
 was in its negative phase. So completed, so puri- 
 fied, the revolution of W estern Europe will proceed 
 in a free and systematic course towards its peaceful 
 termination, under the general direction of the true 
 servants of Humanity. Their guidance will have 
 an organic and progressive character which will 
 
 completely set aside all retrograde and anarchical 
 parties. They will look on any one who persists in 
 the theological or metaphysical state as disqualified 
 by weakness of the brain for government. 
 
 I have gone through the essential conditions, the 
 fulfilment of which shows that this Catechism is 
 fully adapted to discharge its most important 
 office, whether in the present or the future. When 
 Positive religion shall have gained sufficient exten- 
 sion, this work will be its best summary for con- 
 stant use. For the present it must serve to pre- 
 pare the way for the free adoption of Positivism. 
 It may stand as a general view of the subject, 
 suitable for the propagation of the religion, whereas 
 hitherto there was no systematic guidance ac- 
 cessible. 
 
 If we look to the form and the course of this 
 episode in my great construction, still more if we 
 view it as a whole, it expresses all the great intel- 
 lectual and moral attributes of the new faith. It 
 will be felt that I have constantly kept in sight the 
 due subordination of the reason of man to the feel- 
 inf' of woman. This is necessary, in order that the 
 heart may bring all the powers of the intellect to 
 bear on the most difficult and important province 
 of teaching. Ultimately it will react on another 
 point. . It will secure respect for, and even the ex- 
 tension to others of my own personal worship, of 
 the angel from whom I derive at once its chief 
 suggestions and the best mode of expounding them. 
 Such services will soon render my sainted hearer 
 
 1:1 
 
38 
 
 PKEFACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 39 
 
 .dear to all who shall have undergone a true regene- 
 ration. Henceforward her glorification is insepa- 
 rable from mine ; it will constitute my most valued 
 reward. She is for all time incoi-porated into the 
 true Supreme Being, of whom her tender image is 
 allowed to be for me the best representative. In 
 each of my three daily prayers I adore both toge- 
 ther, and I sum up all my wishes for personal per- 
 fection in the admirable form by which the sub- 
 limest of Mystics was led to prepare, in his own 
 manner, the moral motto of Positivism {Live for 
 
 otJiers). 
 
 Amen te plus quam me, nee me nisi propter te. 
 
 AUGUSTE COMTE, 
 
 Founder of the Eeligion of Humanity. 
 
 Paris, 25th Charlemagne 64, 
 Sunday, 14th July, 1852. 
 
 To increase the usefulness of this Catechism, I 
 add to its preface an improved edition of the short 
 catalogue of books which I published October 8th, 
 1851, with the view of guiding the more thoughtful 
 minds among the people in their choice for con- 
 stant use. No other priesthood could discharge 
 this office. The Positive priesthood is enabled to 
 do so by the encyclopedic character of its educa- 
 tion and teaching, which thus becomes more easily 
 appreciable. Both the intellect and the moml 
 character suffer grievously at the present time from 
 irregular reading. This fact is sufficient to indicate 
 the increasing value of this small work, conceived 
 
 in a synthetical spirit. The collection named has 
 not yet been formed, still each one can without 
 difficulty even now collect in one shape or another 
 its separate parts. 
 
 Fositivist Library for the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 150 Volumes. 
 
 I. POETRY. (Thirty Volumes.) 
 
 The Iliad and the Odyssey, in one volume, without notes. 
 JEschylus, The King (Edipus of Sophocles, and Aristophanes, 
 
 in one volume, without notes. 
 Pindar, Theocritus, Daphnis and Chloe, in one volume, with- 
 out notes. 
 Plautus and Terence, in one volume, without notes. 
 Virgil, selections from Horace, Lucan, in one volume, without 
 
 notes. 
 Ovid, Tibullus, Juvenal. 
 
 Fabliaux of the Middle Ages, by Legrand D' Aussy. 
 Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Petrarca, in one volume, in Italian. 
 Select Plays of Metastasio and Alfieri, also in Italian. 
 I Promessi Sposi, by Manzoni, in one volume, in Italian. 
 Don Quixote, and the Novels of Cervantes, in Spanish, m one 
 
 volume. 
 Select Spanish Dramas, a collection edited by Don Jos6 Segundo 
 
 Florez, in one volume, in Spanish. 
 The Romancero Espanol, a selection, with the poem of the Cid, 
 
 one volume, in Spanish. 
 Select Plays of P. Comeille. 
 
 Moliere. 
 
 Select Plays of Racine and Voltaire, in one volume. 
 
 La Fontaine's Fables, with some from Florian and Lamotte. 
 
 Gil Bias, by Lesage. 
 
 ? 
 
 U 
 
 ''lit 
 
 m 
 
 I if 
 
 iil:< 
 
40 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 41 
 
 m 
 
 The Princess of Cleves, Paul and Virginia, and the Last of 
 the Abencerrages, to be collected in one volume. 
 
 The Martyrs, by Chateaubriand. 
 
 Select Plays of Shakspeare. 
 
 Milton — Paradise Lost and Lyrical Poems. 
 
 Robinson Crusoe and the Vicar of Wakefield, in one volume. 
 
 Tom Jones, by Fielding, in English, or translated by Cheron. 
 
 The seven masterpieces of Walter Scott — Ivanhoe, Quentin 
 Durward, the Fair Maid of Perth, the Legend of Montrose, 
 Woodstock, the Heart of Midlothian, the Antiquary. 
 
 Select works of Byron, Don Juan in particular to be suppressed. 
 
 Select works of Goethe. 
 
 The Arabian Nights. 
 
 n. SCIENCE. (Thirty Volumes.) 
 
 Condorcet's Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry of Clairaut, 
 the Trigonometry of Lacroix or Legendre, the three to form 
 one volume. 
 
 The Analytical Geometry of Auguste Comte, preceded by the 
 Geometry of Descartes. 
 
 Statics, by Poinsot, with all his Memoirs on Mechanics. 
 
 The Course of Analysis given by Navier at the Ecole Polytech- 
 nique, followed by the Essay of Carnot on Equilibrium and 
 Motion. 
 
 The Theory of Functions, by Lagrange. 
 
 The Popular Astronomy of Auguste Comte, followed by the 
 Worlds of Fontenelle. 
 
 Fischer's Mechanical Physics, translated and annotated by 
 :Biot. 
 
 Alphabetical Manual of Practical Philosophy, by John Carr. 
 
 The Chemistry of Lavoisier. 
 
 Chemical Statics, by Berth oUet. 
 
 Elements of Chemistry, by James Graham. 
 
 Manual of Anatomy, by Meckel. 
 
 The General Anatomy of Bichat, preceded by his Treatise on 
 Life and Death. 
 
 The first volume of BlainviUe on the Organization of Animals. ' 
 
 The Physiology of Richerand, with Notes by Berard, and the 
 Physiology of Claude Bernard. 
 
 Systematic Essay on Biology, by Scgond, and his Treatise on 
 General Anatomy. 
 
 Nouveaux Elements de la Science de I'Homme, Barthez (2nd 
 edition, 1806). 
 
 Zoological Philosophy, by Lamarck. 
 
 Dumeril's Natural History. 
 
 Buffon— Discourses on the Nature of Animals. 
 
 The Art of Prolonging Human Life, by Hufeland, preceded 
 by Hippocrates ^n Air, Water, and Situation, and fol- 
 lowed by Cornaro's book on Sobriety, to form one volume. 
 
 The History of Chronic Inflammation, by Broussais, preceded 
 by his Propositions de M^decine. 
 
 The ^loges des Savans, by Fontenelle and Condorcet. 
 
 III. HISTORY. (Sixty Volumes.) 
 
 The Abr^g^ de Geographic Universelle, by Malte Brun. 
 
 Rienzi— Geographical Dictionary. 
 
 Cook's Voyages, and those of Chardm. 
 
 Mignet— History of the French Revolution. 
 
 Heeren— Manual of Modern History. 
 
 Voltaire— Siecle de Louis XIV. 
 
 Memoirs of Madame de Motteville. 
 
 The Political Testament of Richelieu, and the Life of Cromwell, 
 to form one volume. 
 
 Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, in Italian. 
 
 Memoirs of Commines. 
 
 The Abreg^ de I'Histoire de France, by Bossuet. 
 
 The Revolutions of Italy, by Denina. 
 
 The History of Spain, by Ascargorta. 
 
 Robertson— Charles V. 
 
 Hume— History of England. 
 
 * 
 
42 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Hallam — Middle Ages. 
 
 Fleury — Ecclesiastical History. 
 
 Gibbon — Decline and Fall. 
 
 Manual of Ancient History — Heeren. 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 Herodotus, Thucydides, in one volume. 
 
 Plutarch's Lives. 
 
 Cjesar's Commentaries, and Arrian's Alexander, in one volume. 
 
 The Voyage of Anacharsis, by Barthelemy. 
 
 The History of Art among the Ancients, by Winckelmann. 
 
 Treatise on Painting, by Leonardo da Vinci, in Italian. 
 
 Memoirs on Music, by Gr^try. 
 
 IV. SYNTHESIS. (Thirty Volumes.) 
 
 • 
 
 Aristotle's Ethics and Politics, in one volume. 
 
 The Bible. 
 
 The Goran. 
 
 The City of God, by St. Augustin. 
 
 The Confessions of St. Augustin, followed by St. Bernard on 
 the Love of God. 
 
 The Imitation of Jesus Christ, the original, and the French 
 translation by Corneille. 
 
 The Catechism of Montpellier, preceded by the Exposition of 
 Catholic Doctrine, by Bossuet, and followed by St. Augus- 
 tin's Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 History of Protestant Variations, by Bossuet. 
 
 Descartes — Discourse on Method, preceded by Bacon's Novum 
 Organum, and followed by the Interpretation of Nature, 
 by Diderot. 
 
 Pascal's Thoughts, followed by those of Vauvenargues, and 
 Madame de Lambert's Conseils d'une Mere. 
 
 Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History, followed by Condor- 
 cet's Esquisse Historique. 
 
 De Maistre's Treatise on the Pope, preceded by Bossuet's 
 Politique Sacree. 
 
 ^m 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 43 
 
 Hume's Philosophical Essays, preceded by the two Dissertations 
 on the Deaf and the Blind, by Diderot, and followed by 
 Adam Smith's Essay on the History of Astronomy. 
 
 Theory of the Beautiful, by Barthez, preceded by the Essay 
 on the Beautiful, by Diderot. 
 
 Cabanis— Les Rapports du Physique et du Moral de I'Homme. 
 
 Treatise on the Functions of the Brain, by Gall, preceded by 
 Georges Leroy's Letters on Animals. 
 
 Broussais— Treatise on Irritation and Madness. 
 
 The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (condensed by Miss 
 Martiueau), his Positive Politics, and Positivist Catechism. 
 
 Paris, 5th Dante 66 (Tuesday, 18th July, 1854). 
 
 i* 
 

 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 GENERAL THEORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 CONVERSATION I. 
 
 The Woman. — I have often asked myself this ques- 
 tion, my dear father. Your doctrine rejects every 
 form of belief in a supernatural power; why do 
 you persist in calling it a Religion ? But on reflec- 
 tion the fact struck me, that the term. Religion, is, 
 in common use, given to many systems, not merely 
 different, but even incompatible the one with the 
 other. Each of these systems claims exclusive 
 possession of it ; yet no one of them has at any time 
 been able, if you take the whole race into account, 
 to reckon up as many adherents as opponents. I 
 was hence led to think that this fundamental term 
 must have some one general acceptation, radically 
 independent of every special form of faith. Once ar- 
 rived at this point, I felt convinced that it was on 
 this essential meaning of the term that you fixed, 
 and that you were justified therefore in applying it 
 to Positivism, in spite of the greater contrast that 
 exists between it and the previous doctrines, which 
 
 / 
 
 lii 
 
? '! 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 46 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 openly avow that their mutual points of diflfereuce 
 are quite as serious as the points in which they 
 agree. Still, as this explanation seems to me yet 
 far from clear, would you begin your exposition by 
 explaining at once and in precise language the ra- 
 dical sense of the word Rdigion ? 
 
 Tlie Priest. — Looking to the etymology of the 
 term, my dear daughter, we find as a fact that it 
 has no necessary connexion with any opinions 
 whatever that may be considered useful for attain- 
 ing the end it sets before us. In itself it expresses 
 the state of perfect unity which is the distinctive 
 mark of man's existence, both as an individual and 
 in society, when all the constituent parts of his 
 nature, moral as well as physical, are made habitu- 
 ally to converge towards one common purpose. 
 Thus the term religion would be equivalent to 
 synthesis^ were it not that this last, not by force 
 of its composition, but by nearly universal custom, 
 is now limited entirely to the domain of the intel- 
 lect, whilst the other embraces all the attributes of 
 man. Religion, then, consists in regulating each 
 I one's individual nature, and forms the rallying point 
 \ for all the separate individuals. These are but two 
 distinct forms of one and the same problem ; for 
 every man, at difierent periods of his life, differs 
 from himself not less than at any one time he 
 differs from those around him ; so that for the in- 
 dividual, as for the community, the laws of perma- 
 nence and participation are identical. 
 
 The full attainDient of this harmony, for the in- 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 47 
 
 dividual or for the society, is never possible, so 
 complicated is our existence. This definition of 
 religion, consequently, is meant to convey an idea 
 of the unchanging type towards which, by a com- 
 bination of all our exertions, we gradually approxi- 
 mate. Man's happiness and merit consist in draw- 
 ing as near as possible to this unity. Its gradual 
 development is the best measure of our real pro- 
 gress towards perfection, as individuals, or as so- 
 cieties. As the various attributes of man come into / 
 freer play, it becomes more important that they / 
 should habitually act in concert. But, at the same 
 time, this would become more difiicult, were it not 
 that their evolution has of itself a tendency to make 
 us more susceptible of discipline. This I will ex- 
 plain soon. 
 
 Now, as a high value was always set on this 
 synthetical state, attention was naturally concen- 
 trated on the means of attaining it. Thus men 
 were led to take the means for the end, and to 
 transfer the name of religion to any of the systems 
 of opinions which it represented. At first sight, these 
 numerous forms of belief appear irreconcilable. 
 Positivism, however, can bring them into an es- 
 sential agreement, by viewing each in reference to 
 the purpose it answered in its own time and 
 country. There is, at bottom, but one religion, at 
 once universal and final. To it all the partial and 
 provisional religions more and more pointed, so far 
 as the whole state of things at the time allowed. 
 The various religions of man have been empirical. 
 
 11 
 
i 
 
 48 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 We substitute for them a systematic religion, deve- 
 loping the unity of man ; for it has at length be- 
 come possible to constitute such a religion imme- 
 diately and completely, by combining the results of 
 our previous unsystematic state. As a natural con- 
 sequence, then, of its principles. Positivism re- 
 moves the antagonism of the different religions 
 which have preceded it, for it claims as its own 
 peculiar domain that common ground on which 
 they all instinctively rested. Nor could the doc- 
 trine of Positivism ever be universally received, 
 were it not for its relative character. This secures 
 for it, in spite of its anti-theological principles, by 
 the nature of the case, strong affinities with every 
 form of belief that has been able for a time to form 
 the guidance of any part of the human race. 
 
 The Woman. — Your definition of religion will set 
 me completely at ease, my father, if you can succeed 
 in clearing up a serious difficulty, which seems to 
 be the consequence of its too great comprehensive- 
 ness. In stating your idea of man's unity, you take 
 in his physical as well as his moral nature. They 
 are, in fact, so bound up together, that no true har- 
 mony is possible if you separate them ; and yet I 
 find it difficult to accustom myself to look on health 
 as a part of religion, so as to make morality really 
 take in medicine. 
 
 The Priest. — And yet, my daughter, the arbitrary 
 separation of the two, which now exists, and which 
 you wish to perpetuate, would be directly contrary 
 to our unity. The origin of that separation is, in 
 
 I) 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 49 
 
 reality, the inadequacy of the last provisional reli- 
 gion, Catholicism, which found itself unable to dis- 
 cipline the soul, unless it gave into profane hands 
 the management of the body. In the ancient 
 theocracies, the most complete and most durable 
 form of the supernatural regime, this groundless 
 division did not exist. In them the art of preserv- 
 m» health and of curing diseases was always a mere 
 adjunct of the priestly functions. 
 
 Such is really the natural order of things. Posi- 
 tivism comes forward to restore it and to consoli- 
 date it ; and it does so by virtue of the complete- 
 ness which characterizes it. The art of man and 
 the science of man are each of them inseparable 
 from the other; they have a common destination, 
 though the object they have in view may present 
 itself under different aspects. - But it is not, there- 
 fore, divisible; on the contrary, all its parts are 
 intimately connected. No sound treatment of 
 either body or mind is possible, now that the phy- 
 sician and the priest make an exclusive study, the 
 one of the physical, the other of the moral nature 
 of man — not to speak of the philosopher, who, in 
 our modern anarchy, wrests from the priesthood the 
 domain of the intellect, leaving it only the heart. 
 
 The diseases of the brain, besides many others, 
 daily prove the powerlessness of all medical treat- 
 ment which limits itself to the lowest organs. It 
 is quite as easy to see the inadequacy of every 
 priesthood which aims at guiding the soul, and does 
 not take into account its subordination to the body. 
 
 £ 
 
 
 M 
 
50 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 51 
 
 I 
 
 Under both points of view the separation is anar- 
 chical. The domain of the priesthood ijaust be 
 reconstituted in its integrity ; medicine must again 
 become a part of it. This will be the case when 
 the clergy of Positive religion shall have adequately 
 fulfilled the encyclopedic conditions required of 
 them. As a matter of fact, the precepts of health 
 can secure active obedience only when they are 
 rested on moral grounds. This is true equally of 
 the individual and the society. It is easily verified 
 by the fruitlessness of the efforts made by our 
 physicians in Western Europe to regulate common 
 diet. They have been fruitless ever since the old 
 religious precepts lost their hold. Men will not 
 generally submit to any practical inconvenience on 
 the ground of their own mere personal health, — 
 each one is left, on this ground, to judge for himself. 
 And we are often more sensible of actual and 
 certain annoyance than of distant and doubtful 
 advantages. We must call in an authority supe- 
 rior to all individual judgment, to be able to pre- 
 scribe, even in unimportant points, rules which 
 shall have any real efficacy. Such rules will then 
 rest on a view of the needs of society, which shall 
 admit of no hesitation as to obedience. 
 
 The Woman. — Now that I have surveyed, in all 
 its extent, the natural province of religion, I should 
 be o^lad to know, my father, what are the general 
 conditions on which it depends. I have been often 
 told that it exclusively concerns the heart. But \ 
 have always thought that the intellect is also con- 
 
 cerned with it. Could I gain a clear idea of the 
 parts respectively assigned them ] 
 
 The Priest.— A right judgment on this point, 
 my daughter, folio «rs from a searching examination 
 of the word religion, the best, perhaps, in point of 
 composition, of all the terms used by man. It is so 
 constructed as to express a twofold connexion, 
 which, rf justly conceived, is sufficient as a resume 
 of the whole abstract theory of man's unity. To 
 constitute a complete and durable harmony, what 
 is wanted, is really, to hind together man's inner 
 nature by love, and then to hind the man to the 
 outer world by faith. Such, generally stated, is 
 the necessary participation of the heart and the 
 intellect respectively, in reference to the synthe- 
 tical state, or unity, of the individual or the so- 
 ciety. 
 
 Unity implies, above all, one feeling to which al l 
 r.^^r> r^ iffprmit. i n 0.1 i n atjor ^ nail be subordinated. .Foi-, 
 
 as OUT actions and our thou ^ Qjhts are a lwavs swayed 
 u^^^ ^ ^. pffi^ ^ timv ^-^--^^^l' ^^^^^^'^ ^^ unnttninnhln 
 Kv Tn:m if tl^^^f^ affection s were not no-ordinated 
 n yirlpr the pyftponderance of one instinct. ^ 
 
 This is the condition on wliich our internal unity 
 depends. But it would be inadequate, did not our 
 intelligence make us recognise, outside of us, a 
 superior power, to which our existence must always 
 be in subjection, even whilst we attempt to modify 
 it. To qualify us better for subjects of this ultimate 
 rule,— this is the primary reason why our moral 
 harmony, as individuals or as societies, is indispen- 
 
 e2 
 
 \ 
 
 ii 
 
52 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sable. And, reversing the process, this predomi- 
 nance of the external tends to regulate the internal, 
 by favouring the ascendancy of that instinct which 
 most easily accepts such a necessity. So there is a 
 natural connexion between the two general con- 
 ditions on which religion depends, especially when 
 the external order of things can become the object 
 on which the inward feeling can rest. 
 
 The Woman. — This abstract theory of our unity 
 l)resents, my father, one radical difficulty, viz., as 
 regards the question of moral influence. In your 
 consideration of the internal harmony, you seem to 
 me to forget that our personal instincts have, un- 
 fortunately, greater energy than our sympathetic 
 tendencies. Now the preponderance of these per- 
 sonal instincts, which seems a reason for their being 
 made the natural centre of our moral existence, 
 would, on the other hand, make our personal unity 
 almost incompatible with any social unity. Yet 
 the Jiarmony of the individual has been found not 
 irreconcilable with that of the society, so that I 
 need some fresh explanations to show that the two 
 nre in themselves entirely compatible. 
 
 The Priest. — You have touched, my daughter, on 
 the most difficult problem of man's existence. That 
 problem is, to secure the gradual predominance of 
 sociability over personality ; whereas, when left to 
 themselves, personality is predominant. The better 
 to understand how this may be done, we must begin 
 by comparing the two opposite forms which our 
 moral unity might naturally take, according as its 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 53 
 
 internal basis should be egoistic or altruistic (per- 
 sonal or relative). 
 
 You used the plural in speaking of our person- 
 ality, and you by so doing involuntarily bore witness 
 to the fact that personality is radically powerless to 
 constitute any real and lasting harmony, even in 
 the case of a being quite cut off from society. 
 
 The monstrous unity so formed would require 
 not merely the absence of every impulse of a sym- 
 pathetic character, but also the preponderance of 
 one single selfish instinct. Now this is only found 
 in the lowest animals. With them the instinct of 
 nutrition absorbs everything, especially when there 
 is no distinction of sex. But except in them, and 
 most particularly in man, this primary want once 
 supplied, there is scope left for the prevalence in 
 succession of several personal instincts. These are 
 nearly equal in point of energy, and so would 
 mutually neutralize the conflicting claims of each 
 to the entire command of our existence as moral 
 beings. Unless they were all brought into subor- 
 dination to affections resting on some outward 
 object, the heart would be for ever agitated by 
 internal conflicts between the impulses of the 
 senses and the stimulus of pride or of vanity, sup- 
 posing that avarice, strictly so called, should cease 
 to reign, together with the purely bodily wants. 
 Morar unity, then, is impossible, even in a solitary 
 existence, in the case of any being absolutely under 
 the dominion of personal affections, which prevent 
 his living for others. We find instances in several 
 
54 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ': 
 
 J! 
 
 of the wild animals. They are seen, putting aside 
 some teniporaiy congregation, to oscillate generally 
 between a disorderly activity and an ignoble 
 torpor, the result of their not finding outside of 
 themselves the principal motives for their conduct. 
 The Woman. — I understand now, my father, the 
 natural coincidence that exists between the condi- 
 tions on which the individual, and those on which 
 the harmony of society, depends. Still, however, I 
 find the same difficulty exists — that of conceiving 
 that the strongest instincts can be habitually set 
 
 aside. 
 
 The Priest — The difficulty, my daughter, is one 
 which will easily disappear. Only remark that 
 unity in the altruistic sense does not, as the egoistic 
 unity does, require the entire sacrifice to itself of the 
 inclinations which are contrary to it in principle. 
 All it asks is, that they shall be wisely subordinate 
 to the predominant affection. When it condenses 
 the whole of sound morality in its law of Live for 
 \others, Positivism allows and consecrates the con- 
 stant satisfaction of our several personal instincts. 
 '-It considers such satisfaction indispensable to our 
 natural existence, which is and always must be the 
 foundation for all our higher attributes. Allowing 
 this, it blames, however estimable the motives that 
 lead to them often may be, any austerities which, 
 by lessening our strength, make us less fit to serve 
 others. It recommends attention to ourselves in 
 the interest of society, and so at once raises and 
 regulates such attention. We avoid equally the 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 55 
 
 two extremes of excessive care and culpable neg- 
 
 liorence. . . 
 
 The Woonan—Bui, my father, as the egoistic 
 inclinations, in themselves stronger, are, further, 
 constantly excited by our bodily wants, it seems to 
 me that, even thus limited, the sanction of them is 
 incompatible with the habitual superiority of our 
 weak sympathetic impulses. 
 
 The Priest.— Yes, and therefore it is, my daugh- 
 ter, that our moral improvement wUl always form 
 the principal object on which man must exert his 
 art Our constant efforts, both as individuals and 
 societies, though they bring us nearer to it, never 
 enable us to realize it completely. The solution of 
 your difficulty is a proSies2i2SJ»f- "« possibility 
 rests entirely on the social existence of man, m 
 accordance with the natural law which develops or 
 restrains our functions and our organs m propor- 
 tion to their exercise or disuse. As a faxjt, our 
 domestic and civic relations have a tendency to 
 keep within due bounds our personal instmcts, as 
 the result of the struggles between individuals to 
 which these instincts give rise. On the other hand, 
 these same relations favour the growth of our 
 feelin<rs of benevolence, the only ones that admit of 
 a simultaneous development in all. And this 
 development is, by its nature, continuous, as the 
 mutual stimulus is continuous, although it finds 
 necessarily a limit in the aggregate of the material 
 conditions of our existence. 
 
 You have here the reason why a real moral 
 
 4? 
 
56 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 m 
 
 \i 1 
 
 '^J 
 
 unity could only come into existence in the case of 
 man. For social progress must be the exclusive 
 possession of the best organized of the races capable 
 of society, except so far as others may join it as 
 free atixiliaries. Still, though such a hamiony 
 cannot be developed elsewhere, it is easy to trace 
 its beginning in many of the higher animals. From 
 them were in fact drawn the first scientific proofs 
 of the natural existence of disinterested affection. 
 This great conception, of which, even previous to 
 all scientific proof, all had a presentiment, was long 
 in being placed on a systematic ground ; otherwise 
 no one would, at the present day, impute the cha- 
 racter of sentimental afiectation to a doctrine which 
 may be directly verified in so many of the inferior 
 species. 
 
 The Woman. — Your explanation meets my diffi- 
 culties. I have only, my father, to ask you to 
 clear up one last point of a general character — I 
 mean, the intellectual conditions of relierion. I see 
 the incoherence of the various special forms of belief; 
 but I do not see, beyond that incoherence, what is 
 the essential province of faith. And yet it must 
 be possible to say what faith is, independently of 
 all systems, and in a sense applicable to them all. 
 
 Tlie Priest. — Practically, my daughter, the faith 
 of man never had but one object, if you press to the 
 root of the matter. This was, to form a conception 
 of the order under which man lives, with the view 
 of determining our relation generally to that order. 
 Man might ascribe that order to fictitious causes. 
 
 or he might study its real laws ; in either case, his 
 object was to estimate that order which was inde- 
 pendent of him, with the view of submitting to it 
 better, and of attaining a greater power of modify- 
 ing it. Every system of religious doctrines neces- 
 sarily rests on some explanation, no matter what, 
 of the world and of man— the twofold object at 
 all times of our thoughts, whether directed to specu- 
 
 lation or to action. 
 
 Faith, in the Positive sense, has for its proper 
 ^ffi^. .y^ .r.,,'...rr fnvfli of th^ rP.al laws of the dif- 
 ^....r pT.Pr.nmP T... that are op^r. to observation, 
 r^^.|^^ |. jr^fr rnnl -" --^--^-^^ "Py the laws of phe - 
 T^nrnPna I mean, their unvarying relations of su c- 
 T ^sRJon and resemblance, by wbinh we are ablTto 
 f^esee some bv virtue of ou r l-r-'jrilrn nf "^^""" 
 "Such faith puts aside, as absolutely beyond our reach 
 and essentially conducive to no useful result, every 
 inquiry into the causes, properly so called, either 
 first causes or final, of any events whatever. In its 
 theoretical conceptions, it never explains why a thing 
 is; it limits itself to the question, how it is. But 
 when it is pointing out the means of guiding our 
 activity, it takes the contrary course, and puts for- 
 ward in constant prominence the end to be attained, 
 as in such cases the practical effect is certainly the 
 result of an intelligent will. 
 
 Yet though, in its direct results, vain, the search 
 after causes was, at the outset, indispensable and- 
 inevitable, as a substitute and preparation for the 
 knowledge of laws, a knowledge which pre-supposes 
 
 jfll 
 
58 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 a long previous introduction. This I will explain 
 more in detail. Men sought the wh^, and could 
 not find it ; in the search they discovered the how, 
 though they had not bent their studies immediately 
 in that direction. We need not blame them for 
 this, but we may blame the childishness of persist- 
 ing, as our literary men so commonly do, in the 
 attempt to penetrate to causes when the laws are 
 known. These last alone have any influence on 
 conduct, so that the search after the others becomes 
 as useless as it is chimerical. 
 
 The Universal religion, then, adopts, as its funda- 
 mental dogma, the fact of the existence of an 
 order, which admits of no variation, and to which 
 all events of every kind are subject. This order 
 is at once objective and subjective ; in other words, 
 it concerns equally the object contemplated and the 
 subject which contemplates. Physical laws, in fact, 
 imply logical laws, and vice versd. If our under- 
 standing did not of itself obey any rule, it would 
 never be able to appreciate the external harmony. 
 And as the world is simpler and more powerful than 
 man, the regular action of man would be still less 
 compatible with tjie absence of order in the world. 
 All Positive belief, then, rests on this twofold har- 
 mony between the object and the subject. 
 
 That there is such an order can be shown as a 
 fact, but it cannot be explained. So far from it, it 
 supplies the only possible source of any rational 
 explanation. Such explanation consists in bringing 
 under general laws each particular event, which 
 
 '« 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 59 
 
 thus comes within the sphere of prevision based on 
 systematic principles, the really distinctive end that 
 all true science proposes to itself. And therefore 
 the Universal order was not recognised so long as 
 the idea prevailed of an arbitrary will, to which 
 men naturally at first attributed all the most im- 
 portant phenomena. It was recognised at last m 
 reference to the simplest events, in defiance of the 
 contrary opinions^ on the evidence of experience 
 constantly recurring and never belied. From the 
 simpler, its recognition gradually extended to the 
 more complex events. Not till our own time was 
 its recognition complete, for it embraces now its last 
 domain ; it represents as subject to invariable laws 
 the highest phenomena^man's intelligence and his 
 social existence— a point still denied by many culti- 
 vated minds. This final discovery led to Positivism 
 as its natural immediate result. It was the com- 
 pletion of our long scientific initiation. As such it ne- 
 cessarily closed the preliminary era of human reason. 
 The Woman.— Thi^ first general view, my father, 
 leaves me with the impression that the Positive 
 faith is very satisfactory for the intellect, but 
 scarcely favourable enough to the action of man. 
 It seems to place this last under the control of an 
 inflexible destiny; and yet you often say that the 
 Positive spirit had its origin, in all cases, in the 
 practical part of man's life, so that it can hardly be 
 in contradiction with" that part. I would gladly 
 have a clear conception how the two are brought 
 into general agreement. 
 
 I J 
 
 1 
 
60 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I: 
 
 The PHest.—To get this conception, my daughter, 
 all you have to do is to rectify your judgment so 
 far as it led you to look on actual laws as not 
 susceptible of modification. Whilst phenomena 
 were attributed to the arbitrary will of some being, 
 an absolute fate was a conception necessary as the 
 correction of an hypothesis, the direct consequence 
 of which was the non-existence of any real order. 
 Later, the discovery of natural laws had the same 
 general tendency; for the laws first discovered 
 were those which regulated the events of astro- 
 nomical science— events entirely out of the reach 
 of man's interference. But as the knowledge of 
 the order of things gradually extended, men came to 
 regard that order as essentially admitting modifica- 
 tions, even by the agency of man. It becomes 
 more susceptible of modification as the phenomena 
 become more complicated, as I will explain to 
 you shortly. At the present day, we do not 
 consider even the order of the heavenly bodies 
 exempt from the idea of modification. Its superior 
 simplicity allows us more easily to conceive improve- 
 ments in it. The object of such conception would 
 be to correct the spirit of blind respect, though our 
 weakness in regard to physical means may for ever 
 debar us from realizing the improvements we con- 
 ceive. 
 
 All events equally, even the most complex, de- 
 pend on some fundamental conditions which admit 
 of no change. But in all cases, even the most 
 simple, it is also true that tlie secondary arrange- 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 61 
 
 ments may be modified, and very generally they 
 may be so by our intervention. The modifications 
 introduced in no way impair the validity of the 
 general principle, that the laws of nature are inva- 
 riable. For the modifications never can be arbitrary. 
 In their nature and degree they must obey appro- 
 priate rules which are the complement of the do- 
 main of science. An entire immutability would be 
 so contrary to the very idea of law, that this idea 
 in all cases expresses constancy perceived in the 
 midst of variety. 
 
 We find, then, that the order of nature always 
 answers to the idea of a necessity admitting modifi- 
 cations, and as such becomes the indispensable basis- 
 of the order which man introduces. Our life is 
 really destined to be a compound of resignation 
 and action. The two are not incompatible ; far 
 from it. Action rests directly on the foundation of 
 resignation. A sound judgment leads us to submit 
 to the fundamental laws which concern us, as the 
 only means of preventing all our purposes, of what- 
 ever nature, from becoming vague and uncertain; 
 the only means therefore of enabling us to practise 
 a wise interference in accordance with the secon- 
 dary rules. You thus see how the dogmatic system 
 of Positivism directly sanctions our action, whereas 
 no theological synthesis could comprehend it. We 
 even find that in Positivism, the free development 
 of our activity is the chief regulator of our scientific 
 labours in regard to the order of the world, and the 
 different modifications it admits. 
 
 u 
 
 fl 
 
62 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Urn* 
 
 The Woman. — After this explanation, I have 
 yet, my father, to learn how Positive faith and our 
 feelings can be brought into full harmony. They 
 seem to me by nature diametrically opposed to 
 one another. I can understand, however, that the 
 fimdamental dogma of that faith supplies us with a 
 strong basis for moral discipline, in two ways : first, 
 by bringing our personal inclinations under the con- 
 trol of an external power ; secondly, by awakening 
 our instincts of sympathy to make us more wisely 
 submit to or modify the necessity which presses on 
 us all in common. These are valuable attributes. 
 But still Positivism does not seem to offer enough 
 of direct stimulus to the holy affections, which seem 
 properly to constitute the most important province 
 of religion. 
 
 The Priest. — I am free to confess, my daughter, 
 that hitherto the Positive spirit has been tainted 
 with the two moral evils which peculiarly wait on 
 knowledge. It puffs up and it dries the heart, by 
 giving free scope to pride and by turning it from 
 love. These two tendencies will always be suffi- 
 ciently strong in it to make it necessary habitually 
 to adopt systematic precautions. Of them I will 
 speak later. Still in the main, on this point, your 
 reproaches are the result of an inadequate judgment 
 of Positivism, the consequence of your lookin^^ at 
 it solely as it exists in a state of incompleteness in 
 the greater number of its adherents. They limit 
 themselves to the philosophical conception which is 
 the offspring of the scientific preparation; they 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 63 
 
 will not go on to the religious conclusion in which 
 alone Positive Philosophy, as a whole, finds its ade- 
 quate expression. If we do not stop short at this 
 point, but complete the study of the real order of 
 nature, then we see the Positive system of dogmas 
 finally group itself around a synthetic conception, 
 as favourable to the heart as it is to the intellect. 
 
 The imaginary beings, whom religion provision- 
 ally introduced for its purposes, were able to inspire 
 lively affections in man: affections which were even 
 most powerful under the least elaborate of the 
 fictitious systems. The immense scientific prepara- 
 tion required as an introduction to Positivism, for 
 a long time seemed to deprive it of any such valu- 
 able aptitude. Whilst the philosophical initiation 
 only comprehended the order of the material world, 
 nay, even when it had extended to the order of 
 livino- beings, it could only reveal laws which were 
 indispensable for our action, it could not furnish 
 us with any direct object for an enduring and con- 
 stant affection. This is no longer the case since 
 the completion of our gradual preparation by the 
 introduction of the special study of the order of 
 man's existence, whether as an individual or as a 
 
 society. 
 
 This is the last step in the process. We are now 
 able to condense the whole of our Positive concep- 
 tions in the one single idea of an immense and 
 eternal Being, Humanity, destined by sociological 
 laws to constant development under the prepon- 
 derating influence of biological and cosmological 
 
 i;l) 
 
64 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 necessities. This, the real Great Being, on whom 
 all, whether individuals or societies, depend as the 
 prime mover of their existence, becomes the centre 
 of our affections. They rest in it by as spon- 
 taneous an impulse as do our thoughts and our 
 actions. This Being, by its very idea, suggests at 
 once the sacred formula of Positivism : — Love as our 
 \ principle; Order as our basis; and Progress as our 
 end. Its compound existence is ever founded on 
 the free concurrence of independent wills. All dis- 
 cord tends to dissolve that existence, which, by its 
 very notion, sanctions the constant predominance of 
 the heart over the intellect as the sole basis of our 
 true unity. So the whole order of things hence- 
 forth finds its expression in the being who studies 
 it and is ever perfecting it. The struggle of Hu- 
 manity against the combined influences of the 
 necessities it is obliged to obey, growing as it does 
 in energy and success, offers the heart no less than 
 the intellect a better object of contemplation than 
 the capricious omnipotence of its theological pre- 
 cursor, capricious by the very force of the term 
 omnipotence. Such a Supreme Being is more within 
 the reach of our feelings as well as of our conceptions, 
 for it is identical in nature with its servants, at the 
 same time that it is superior to them. As such it 
 more powerfully excites them to an activity, the aim 
 of which is its preservation and amelioration. 
 
 Tlie Woman. — Still, my father, the physical 
 labour necessitated by our bodily wants seems to 
 me directly in opposition with this tendency to 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 65 
 
 affection which you claim for Positive religion. 
 Surely such activity can never be free from a cha- 
 racter of egoism, extending even to the scientific 
 efforts it induces us to make. Now this alone 
 would be enough to prevent the actual predomi- 
 nance of love as an all-pervading influence. 
 
 The Priest. — I cherish the hope, my daughter, 
 that I shall shortly get you to allow that it is pos- 
 sible to effect a thorough transformation of the 
 spirit of selfishness originally inherent in human 
 labour. As man's action on matter becomes more 
 and more collective, it tends more and more to 
 assume an altruistic character, though the impulse 
 of egoism must ever be indispensable to set it in— 
 motion. For as each habitually labours for others, 
 he developes by such a conduct of his life the sym- 
 pathies of others, granting that such conduct meets 
 with sufficient appreciation. The toilsome servants 
 of Humanity stand in need of nothing but a com- 
 plete and familiar consciousness of the true nature 
 of their life. This consciousness is destined to be 
 the natural result of an adequate extension of Posi- 
 tive education. You would even now see that this 
 is the tendency of pacific activity, were the industrial 
 life, which is at present subject to no systematic 
 discipline, organized as the soldier's life is, the only 
 organization as yet in existence. But the great 
 moral results obtained formerly in the case of the 
 soldier, and of which there are still traces even in 
 his present degraded state, are a sufficient indica- 
 tion of what the industrial life will produce. The 
 
 
66 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 
 ..I 
 
 hJ 
 
 instinct of construction may even be expected to 
 react in the direction of sympathy with greater 
 directness and completeness than the instinct of 
 destruction. 
 
 Tlie Woman. — This last part of your explanations, 
 my father, makes me feel that I begin to master 
 the general harmony of Positivism. I see how in 
 it the activity of man, by its nature subordinate to 
 faith, can also be made subordinate to love, though 
 at first sight it seemed to reject its sway. And 
 seeing this, I seem at length to see that your doc- 
 trine fulfils all the essential conditions of Religion^ 
 according to your definition of the term. It is 
 adapted equally to the three great divisions of our 
 existence — loving, thinking, acting — which were 
 never before so perfectly combined. 
 
 The Priest. — The more you study the Positive 
 synthesis, the more you will feel, my daughter, how 
 by virtue of its reality it is more complete and 
 efficacious than any other. The habitual predomi- 
 nance of altruism over egoism, to secure which is 
 the great problem for man, is in Positivism the 
 direct result of the constant harmony between our 
 best inclinations and all our labours, theoretical 
 as well as practical. The life of action, represented 
 by Catholicism as hostile to our inward progress to 
 perfection, becomes in Positivism its most powerful 
 guarantee. You now find no difficulty in conceiv- 
 ing this striking contrast between two systems, the 
 one of which admits, whilst the other denies, the 
 existence in our nature of disinterested afiection. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 67 
 
 The bodily wants, which seemed destined to be a 
 perpetual cause of separation, may for the future 
 lead us to a closer union than if we were exempt 
 from them. For action developes love better than 
 wishes; and besides, what wishes could you form 
 for those who wanted nothing ? It is easy also to 
 see that the ideal yet real existence peculiar to 
 Positivists necessarily surpasses, even in regard to 
 the feelings, the chimerical life promised to the 
 disciples of theological systems. 
 
 The Woman. — This our introductory conversa- 
 tion needs one thing to complete it. I should be 
 glad, my father, if you would shortly explain your 
 general division of Keligion. Each essential con- 
 stituent will remain for future exposition. 
 
 The Priest. — Such a division, my daughter, re- 
 quires as its previous condition a just appreciation of 
 the whole of the existence which religion must 
 direct. The body of doctrine, the worship, and the 
 system of life, respectively concern our thoughts, 
 feelings, and our actions. The initiation in our 
 religion must begin by an elaboration of its theory, 
 so far as to make clear our conception of Humanity. 
 We then proceed to the worship, or, in other words, 
 to the system by which we cultivate the feelings 
 adapted to the mode of existence prescribed us. 
 After this, we resume our elaboration of the doctrine 
 of Positivism, and explain the order on which it 
 rests. Lastly, we proceed to the direct regulation of 
 all human conduct. So you see how Positive reli- 
 jrion embraces at once the three great continuous 
 
 f2 
 
68 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 constructions of man, Poetry, Philosophy, Politics. 
 But everything, in that religion, is subordinate to 
 morals, be it the free play of our feelings, the deve- 
 lopment of our knowledge, or the course of our 
 actions ; so that morality is our constant guide in 
 our threefold research after the beautiful, the true, 
 the good. 
 
 m 
 
 r 
 
 CONVERSATION II. 
 HUMANITY. 
 
 The Wo7nan.— Our first convei-sation, my father, 
 has left a sense of alarm, so deeply do I feel my 
 incompetence in presence of the " great argimient" 
 which you are going to set forth. The system of 
 doctrine in Positive religion is one and the same 
 thing as Positive Philosophy. Either from weakness 
 or want of preparation, my mind seems unable to 
 grasp the explanation of it, however simple you may 
 make it. I bring with me nothing beyond a full 
 confidence, a sincere respect, and an active sympathy 
 for the doctrine which seems calculated, after so 
 many failures, to overcome the prevaHing anarchy. 
 But I cannot but feel afraid lest something more 
 than these moral dispositions is needed for me to 
 enter with any chance of success on so difficult a 
 study. 
 
 TJie Priest.^Your uneasiness, my daughter, leads 
 to some introductory remarks which I hope will 
 soon reassure you. All we have to do, in the case 
 
 i 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 69 
 
 of the new religion, is to give a general exposition 
 which shall be the equivalent of that which formerly 
 taught you Catholicism. This second operation 
 ought to be even easier than the former, for your 
 reason is now mature, and the doctrine that is pre- 
 sented to it is, by its nature, demonstrable, and 
 thei-efore more easily understood. I would have 
 you also call to mind the admirable maxim which 
 our great Moliere puts into the mouth of the man 
 of taste in his last masterpiece — 
 
 .* 
 
 Je consens qu'une femme ait des clart^s de tout; 
 
 and remark further, that what was then "I consent," 
 would be now, " It is right." 
 
 In strict truth, the priesthood and the public had 
 always one and the same intellectual domain. The 
 difierence lay in the difierence of cultivation, which 
 was systematic in the case of the priesthood, left to 
 its natural course in the public. Without such an 
 essential agi-eement, no religious harmony would be 
 conceivable. In Positivism it becomes at once more 
 direct and more complete than it could ever be 
 under any theological system. The true philo- 
 sophical spirit has, in reality, equally with simple 
 good sense, to know what is, in order to foresee 
 what shall be, with a view of bettering it where 
 possible. One of our best Positive precepts even 
 teaches that every attempt to systematize is faulty, 
 or at any rate premature, if not preceded and pre- 
 
 * Femmes Savantes, act I. sc. ill. 
 
 i i 
 
70 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 pared by a sufficient progress attained by a man's 
 own efforts. This rule is an immediate consequence 
 of the dogmatical verse by which Positivism cha- 
 racterizes our existence as a whole — 
 
 To act from affection, and to think in order to act. 
 
 The first half answers to the natural and spontaneous 
 development; the second, to the systematic one 
 which follows upon it. Action, unguided by 
 reflection, may occasion many inconveniences ; but 
 nothing else can, as a general rule, supply the raw 
 material for effectual meditation, on which the 
 improvement of our action will depend. 
 
 Lastly, take into account this fact, that the intel- 
 lect cannot, in any case, abstain from forming some 
 opinion or other as to the general order of things, 
 whether in the outer world or in the world of man. 
 You are now aware that at all times this has been 
 the object of every dogmatic system of religion ; 
 and that it is now the object of such system, only 
 with this difference, that the knowledge of laws is 
 henceforth to take the place of the search after 
 causes. And surely illusory hypotheses as to causes 
 could never seem to you equally intelligible with 
 real notions upon laws. 
 
 My exposition is mainly meant for women and 
 proletaries. They cannot and they ought not to 
 become teachers, neither do they wish it. But 
 all should master to a certain extent the spirit 
 and the method of the Universal doctrine, other- 
 wise they cannot enforce on their spiritual chiefs 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 n 
 
 an adequate scientific and logical preparation, the 
 necessary foundation for the systematic exercise of 
 the priestly office. Now as this discipline of the 
 intellect is at the present day entirely contrary to 
 the habits resulting from our modern anarchy, it 
 never could prevail, unless enforced by the general 
 body of both sexes, on those who claim to be their 
 guides in matters of opinion. And as the discipline 
 depends on this condition socially, there will always 
 attach a great value to the general spread of reU- 
 gious instruction, over and above its proper object 
 of guiding the conduct of men, whether as individuals 
 or as societies. But the service rendered by reli- 
 gious instruction, at all times important, is at the 
 present day of capital importance. For we must 
 look to it to bring to a decided close the anarchy of 
 the Western world, the prominent characteristic of 
 which is the revolt of the intellect against all legi- 
 timate control. Could this Catechism but produce 
 in women and proletaries the conviction, that those 
 who claim to be their spiritual guides are radically 
 incompetent to deal with the high questions, the 
 solution of which is in blind confidence left them, 
 it would largely help to calm the West. The 
 conviction on this point should be unanimous. To 
 produce it we must depend on a sufficient appre- 
 ciation of the system of Positivism, the last of 
 the series of religious systems. That appreciation 
 must plaxje beyond all liability to dispute the 
 general conditions of its systematic cultivation. 
 As for the difficulties which now frighten you in 
 
 !:■ 
 
 i IM 
 
 I 
 
72 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 i 
 
 -this indispensable study, you attach too little weight 
 for overcoming them to your excellent moral dis- 
 position. No existing school would hesitate to pro- 
 nounce, ex cathedrd, that the intellect thinks in 
 complete independence of the heart. But women 
 and proletaries have never lost sight of the powerful 
 reaction of the feelings on the intellect— a reaction 
 explained at last by Positive PhHosophy. Your 
 sex in particular, which, in the unconscious exercise 
 of its gentle office, has handed down to us, as far as 
 was possible in the midst of our modern anarchy, 
 the admirable feelings of the Middle Ages, offer^ 
 daily proof of the error of that metaphysical heresy 
 which separates these two great attributes. The 
 beautiful maxim of Vauvenargues is right; the 
 J heart is necessary to the intellect for all its 'most 
 important inspirations. If so, it must aJso be of 
 use in appreciating their results. Its powerful 
 assistance is peculiarly needed in the case of moral 
 and social conceptions; for in them more than 
 elsewhere the sympathetic instinct can furnish large 
 aid to the spirit of synthesis. Without that aid its 
 greatest efforts could not overcome the inherent 
 difficulties of such questions. But the heart may 
 also lend its aid in the case of the less important 
 theories, by virtue of the necessary connexion that 
 exists between all the speculations of man so far as 
 they deal with realities. 
 
 There are two fundamental conditions of religion 
 —love and faith. Of these two, it is the first that 
 takes precedence. Paith may be weU adapted to 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 73 
 
 strengthen love ; but the inverse action, that of love 
 on faith, is stronger and more direct. Not3lxioe3 
 feelipg direc t- ^"^^ ff^ mights when left to their spon-. 
 ^nftous acti ^^ ^^ ^| ]^ «^'^ i r prpparRtorv to aPY 
 ^stematic ^AVPlnpmftTit, bnt it sanctions and pro- 
 ■motes this developmen t^ when it has once felt its ^ 
 importance. No woman with any experience but 
 is aware that too frequently our best affections offer 
 but a weak security, when not aided by firm con- 
 victions. The word " convince;' if we look to its 
 etymology, would remind us of the aptitude of 
 deep-seated belief to strengthen our internal union 
 by connecting it with the world without. 
 
 Lastly, your fear lest your intellect should be too 
 weak for the subject, rests on the general confusion 
 of instruction with intelligence. You are familiar 
 with and you admire the unrivalled Moliere ; yet 
 this has not freed you from the vulgar error on this 
 point— an error carefully kept up by our Trissotins 
 of all professions. And yet we ought to blush at . 
 being in the present time behind the Middle Ages. 
 Then, everybody saw clearly the profound intel- 
 lectual eminence of persons who were quite un- 
 lettered. Have you not sometimes found in such 
 people much more real capacity than in most of 
 our professors ? Now more than ever instruction 
 is only really necessary to construct and develop 
 science. Science must always be so arranged, as a 
 whole, that it may become directly within the 
 reach of all sound intellects, otherwise our best doc- 
 trines would soon degenerate into dangerous mystifi:^ 
 
 
 \ i i 
 
 i 
 
74 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 cations. AU theoricians are naturally incHned to 
 this deviation. The only effectual check on them is 
 in a due surveillance on the part of the large 
 majority of both sexes. 
 
 TU Wmncm.—l feel encouraged by this intro- 
 duction, my father, and I woiUd ask you now to 
 enter on a systematic exposition of Positive doc- 
 trine. Would you begin by explaining more directly 
 and fully that one doctrine on which it all rests ? I 
 already understand that the Great Being, in your 
 conception, is, by its very nature, the expression of 
 the whole order of things— not merely of the order 
 of man, but of the external world. As this is the 
 ca.se, I feel to want a clearer and more precise 
 definition a^ regards this Being, the fundamental 
 idea which gives unity to Positivism. 
 
 The PnesL—M a first step, my daughter, you must 
 define Humanity as the whole of human beings, past 
 present, and future. The wovdiwhole points out clearly 
 that you must not take in all men, but those only who 
 axe really capable of assimilation, in virtue of a real 
 co-operation on their part in furthering the common 
 good. All are necessarily born children of Hu- 
 manity, but aU do not become her servants. Many 
 remain in the parasitic state, which, excusable 
 dunng their education, becomes blameable when 
 that education is complete. Times of anarchy 
 bring forth in swarms such creatures— nay, even 
 enable them to flourish-though they are, "in sad 
 truth, but burdens on the true Great Being. Often 
 have you been reminded by them of the ener- 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 75 
 
 getic reprobation of Ariosto, borrowed from 
 Horace — 
 
 Venuto al mundo sol per far letame : 
 "Bom upon the earth merely to manure it ;" 
 
 and, still better, of 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 lived 
 
 Without or praise or blame '> 
 
 Heaven drove them forth 
 
 Not to impair his lustre ; nor the depth 
 
 Of Hell receives them, lest the accursed tribe 
 
 Should glory thence with exultation vain. 
 
 * * * * „ 
 
 Speak not of them, but look and pass them by." 
 
 Cart's Translation. 
 
 So you see that in this respect, as in all others, the 
 inspiration of the poet was far in advance of the 
 systematic view of the philosopher. Be this as it 
 may, these mere digesting machines are no real 
 part of Humanity. You may reject them, and to 
 make up for the loss associate with the new 
 Supreme Being all the animals who lend a noble 
 aid. Wherever we find habitual co-operation m 
 forwarding the destinies of man, and that co-ope- 
 
 
76 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 
 ration given voluntarily, there the being which 
 gives it becomes a real element of this compound 
 existence ; and the degree of importance it attains 
 is proportioned to the dignity of the species to 
 which it belongs, and to its own individual value. 
 --To form a right estimate of this indispensable com- 
 plement of human existence, let us imagine our- 
 selves without it. We should then be led without 
 hesitation to look on many horses, dogs, oxen, 
 &c., as more estimable than certain men. 
 
 Such is our primary conception of the combined 
 system of human action. In it naturally our 
 attention is directed on solidarity, rather than on 
 continuity. This last idea must, however, in the 
 end be the predominant one, though at first it 
 attracts less notice, as it requires a deeper exami- 
 nation to discover it ; for in a very short time the 
 progress of society comes to depend more on the 
 idea of time than on that of space. It is not a 
 feeling confined to the present day, by which each 
 man, as he exerts himself to estimate aright the 
 amount of his obligations to others, acknowledges 
 that his predecessors as a whole, in comparison 
 with his contemporaries as a whole, have much the 
 larger share in these obligations. We find the 
 same superiority clearly aUowed, though in a less 
 degree, in the most remote periods. We see an 
 indication of its recognition in the touching wor- 
 ship at all times paid to the dead, as was beautifully 
 remarked by Vico. 
 
 We find, then, that the social existence of man 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 77 
 
 really consists much more in the continuous suc- 
 cession of generations than in the solidarity of the 
 existing generation. The living are always, by the 
 necessity of the case — and the more so the more we 
 advance in time — under the government of the 
 dead. Such is the fundamental law of human 
 order. 
 
 To enable us to grasp it more fully, let us dis- 
 tinguish the two forms of existence which are the 
 portion of each true servant of Humanity. The 
 one is but for a time, but it is conscious. This 
 constitutes the life of man, properly so called. The 
 other, with no direct consciousoess on the part of 
 man, is yet permanent, and does not begin till 
 after death. The first involves the presence of the 
 body, and may be termed objective, to mark more 
 clearly its contrast with the second. That second 
 leaves each one to exist only in the heart and in- 
 tellect of others, and deserves the name of sub- 
 jective. This is the noble immortality, necessarily 
 disconnected with the body, which Positivism allows 
 the human soul. It preserves this valuable term — 
 soul — to stand for the whole of our intellectual and 
 moral functions, without involving any allusion to 
 some supposed entity answering to the name. 
 
 Following out this high conception, the human 
 race, in the true sense of the term, is composed of 
 two bodies, both of which are essential. Their 
 proportion is constantly varying ; and the tendency 
 of this variation is to secure a greater influence for 
 the dead over the living in every actual operation. 
 
 ^ ] 
 
 \ I 
 
78 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It 
 
 The action and its result are most dependent on the 
 objective element ; the impulse and the regulating 
 power are principally due to the subjective. We 
 have received large endowments from the liberality 
 of our predecessors; we hand on gratuitously to 
 our successors the whole domain in which man 
 lives and moves; and the addition made in each 
 successive generation becomes smaller and smaller 
 in proportion to the amount received. Our exer- 
 tions are necessarily gratuitous. They meet with 
 an adequate reward in oar subjective incorporation, 
 by which we are enabled to perpetuate our services 
 under an altered form. 
 
 A theory such as this seems at the present day to 
 be the last effort of the human intellect under 
 systematic guidance. And yet we can trace the 
 germ of it, anterior to all such guidance, in the 
 most remote periods of our race's progress, and can 
 see that it was felt even then by the most ancient 
 poets. The smallest tribe, nay, even every family 
 of any considerable size, soon comes to look on 
 itself as the essential stock of Humanity. It con- 
 siders itself the original source of that composite 
 and progi-essive existence, the only limits to which, 
 in time or in space, are the limits of its normal 
 state, as fixed by the constitution of the planet it 
 occupies. The Great Being is not yet fully formed • 
 yet no jar of its component parts was ever able to 
 keep out of sight its gradual progress towards 
 formation. This, its evolution, rightly judged and 
 rationally directed, is now the only possible basis of 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 79 
 
 unity, wliich is our final object. Even during the 
 prevalence of the egoistic doctrine of Christianity 
 — from which the stern St. Peter drew the charac- 
 teristic maxim of the system, "^5 strangers and pil- 
 grims^ — we see the admirable St. Paul even then 
 led by his feeling to anticipate the conception of 
 Humanity, in the figurative expression which 
 touches us, whilst we see the contradiction it ih- 
 volves, " We are every one members one of another" 
 The central principle of Positivism could alone dis- 
 close the one stem to which, by the law of their 
 being, these members belong. In the absence of 
 such a conception, they seemed to have a confused 
 existence. 
 
 The Woman. — I feel compelled, my father, to 
 admit this fundamental conception, though it is by 
 no means as yet clear of difficulty ; but when I 
 look on such an existence, the sense of my own 
 nothingness alarms me. Before its immensity, I 
 seem to be reduced to nothing, more completely 
 than I was before the majesty of a God with whom, 
 feeble as I am, I felt myself in some definite and 
 direct relation. Now that you have completely 
 mastered me by the ever-growing preponderance of 
 the new Supreme Being, I feel the need of your re- 
 awakening in me a just consciousness of my indi- 
 vidual existence. 
 
 The Priest. — The desired result will follow, my 
 daughter, from a more complete appreciation of the 
 dogmatic system of Positivism. Humanity, as a 
 whole, must ever constitute the principal motor of 
 
80 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I* 
 
 every operation we undertake, be it physical, in- 
 tellectual, or moral. At the same time, we must 
 never forget — and this is sufficient to meet your 
 wishes — that the Great Being cannot act except 
 through individual agents. This is the reason why 
 the objective part of the race, though brought more 
 and more into subordination to the subjective, must 
 - always be indispensable to the subjective for it to 
 exert any influence. The objective element col- 
 lectively shares in this agency. Analyse this col- 
 lective action, and we arrive at the fact that it is 
 the result of the free concurrence of the efforts of 
 simple individuals. Each of these individuals, if 
 worthy of his position, can assert himself in pre- 
 sence of the new Supreme Being more than he 
 could before its predecessor. In fact, God had no 
 real need of any service on our part, except to give 
 him vain praises, the childish eagerness for wliich 
 tended to degrade him in our eyes. Remember the 
 verse of the Imitatian, in which this is put out of 
 doubt : — 
 
 I am necessary to thee, thou art useless to me. 
 
 It is doubtless ti-ue that but few of us ai'e war- 
 . ranted in thinking ourselves indispensable to Hu- 
 manity. Such language is only applicable to those 
 to whom are really due the principal steps in our 
 progress. Still, every noble human being may, and 
 should habitually, feel that his personal assistance 
 in this immense work of the evolution of the race 
 is of use ; for that work would be ended at once if 
 
 I: 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 81 
 
 all its individual co-operators were at any one 
 time to disappear. The development, and of 
 course also the preservation, of the Great Being 
 must then depend, in any case, on the free services 
 of its different children, though the inactivity of 
 any one in particular is, generally speaking, not an 
 irreparable evil. 
 
 m 
 
 : ^ 
 
 i; 
 
/ 
 
 T 
 
 I 
 
 'Ui 
 
 Jfirst lari 
 
 EXPLANATION OF THE WORSHIP. 
 
 CONVERSATION III. 
 THE WORSHIP AS A WHOLE. 
 
 The Woman. — In our second introductory con- 
 versation, you have cleared up, my father, the diffi- 
 culties I originally felt as to the conception of 
 Humanity, the centre of the whole Positive system. 
 You have, in fact, revealed to me the goddess 
 whom I am, as a Positivist, to serve. You must 
 now teach me to love her more, that I may serve 
 her better. It is my hope that, in the end, I shall 
 be found worthy to be incorporated into her. Thus 
 accepting my position as a Positivist, even prior to 
 any more detailed explanations of the doctrine, I 
 naturally change my attitude, and our conferences 
 assume more completely the character of real con- 
 versations. I shall not in this part lay before you 
 doubts on important points, requiring long explana- 
 tions. I shall only interrupt you to clear up or set 
 forth more fully points on which you do not suffi- 
 ciently dwell. I even hope, in the case of the wor- 
 ship, to take an active part, and assist you by an- 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 83 
 
 t« 
 
 ticipating some of your explanations, so as to make 
 your exposition more rapid, without detracting 
 from its completeness. We are now entering on 
 the domain of feeling, and in this domain the in- 
 spiration of woman, though it keep its empirical 
 character, can really aid the priesthood in its con- 
 struction. 
 
 The Priest. — I look with great hope, my daughter, 
 to this spontaneous co-operation, as likely to shorten 
 this part of our Catechism. But, in order to make 
 as much use as possible of your present disposition, 
 this new conversation, which concerns merely the 
 worship in general, must begin by a systematic 
 account of the general plan of our religion, though 
 you are already familiar with it. 
 
 Combinations must in all cases be binary. This 
 is true of physical combinations ; it is still more 
 true of logical ones. This is pointed out clearly by 
 the etymology of the word. This rule is applicable, 
 necessarily, to any division whatever. In our funda- 
 mental division of religion we obey the rule instinc- 
 tively, by partitioning out the domain of religion 
 between the two, love and faith. In every case 
 where the evolution of the indi^ddual or of the 
 society follows its normal course, love comes first and 
 leads us to faith, so long as the growth is spon- 
 taneous ; but when it becomes systematic, then the 
 belief is constructed in order to regulate the action 
 of love. At the point we have reached in our 
 Catechism, you are in sufficient possession of the 
 faith for me to proceed to strengthen and develope 
 
 q2 
 
84 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 the love which always inspired you. This capital 
 division of religion is equivalent to the general 
 division between theory and practice, if rightly 
 viewed. As we have sufficiently for our purpose 
 studied the theoretic domain of Positive religion, 
 we may pass on to its practical domain. 
 
 Now, this practical domain necessarily breaks up 
 into two, as a consequence of the natural distinction 
 between feeling and action. The theoretical part 
 of religion meets the want of the intellect, the only 
 possible basis of belief; but the practical part em- 
 braces the whole remainder of our existence, quite 
 as much our feelings as even our acts. Universal 
 custom, prior to all theory — and such custom is the 
 best rule of language— gives a direct sanction to 
 this view ; for it applies the name religious jyrac- 
 twes to our habits of worship, and applies it quite 
 as much, if not more, to them, as to those habits 
 which more particularly concern the regime. There 
 is here an apparent confusion, but it rests on a 
 basis of profound though empirical wisdom. For it 
 was a wise instinct by which the mass of men, and 
 still more of women, early learnt, as the priesthood 
 had leamt, that to improve our feelings is a more 
 important and difficult task than the immediate im- 
 provement of our actions. As love in Positive 
 religion never becomes mystic. Positive woi-ship in 
 its normal condition is part of the practical domain 
 of true religion. We love more, in order to serve 
 better. But, on the other hand, from the true reli- 
 gious point of view, our acts always may have an 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 85 
 
 essentially altruistic character, since the main object 
 of religion is to dispose us and to teach us to live 
 for others. Our actions, then, are suggested by 
 love, and, in their turn, they tend to develope love. 
 In the case of our intellectual improvement, when 
 it is rightly guided, this capability of our action is 
 directly evident. It holds good also in the case of 
 our material progress, provided that such progress 
 proceed on right principles. You see, therefore, 
 how the regime, under its religious aspect, forms part 
 of the domain of love as much as the worship does. 
 These two principles, which make our worship 
 practical, our regime affective, and yet never con- 
 fuse the two, could not be discovered whilst religion 
 remained in its theological stage, for then the worship 
 and the regime were thoroughly heterogeneous. 
 The one had God for its object ; the other, man. 
 The worship stood higher than the regime, but it 
 did so only because the second of the two beings 
 was necessarily subordinate to the first. Both were 
 essentially egoistic in character, the result of the 
 very constitution, thoroughly and entirely individual 
 in its tendencies, of a faith which never could be 
 reconciled with the existence in our nature of the 
 instincts of benevolence — an existence allowed bv no 
 religion but the Positive. Under the older faith, 
 the division between the regime and the worship 
 was as broad as that which separates the worshij) 
 from the doctrine ; so that the general plan of reli- 
 gion became unintelligible, the result of our just 
 dislike to ternary combinations. 
 
 i! 
 
 *l 
 
 
 i 
 
 
S6 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 In religion, in its final stage, on the conti-aiy, the 
 divisions are as favourable to the reason as to the 
 feelings. The doctrine differs from the worship 
 and the regime much more than these last do from 
 one another. So the primary division is binary, 
 whilst the ordinary constitution is ternary. This 
 is attained simply by adding one subdivision as a 
 complement to the first primary division, whereas 
 previously such subdivision was absurdly placed on 
 ft level with it. These three parts together ulti- 
 mately form a regularly progressive series, by virtue 
 of the natural homogeneity of its different elements. 
 In this series we pass from love to faith, or from 
 faith to love, according as we take the subjective or 
 the objective course, respectively appropriate to 
 the two most important ages of our religious initia- 
 tion, the one of which is under the direction of 
 woman, the other under that of the priest. But 
 whichever of these two directions we take— and 
 both are equally in use— the worship always holds 
 the same place, as the result of the doctrine, or the 
 source of the regime. This alone is sufficient to 
 explain its capacity of standing, in daily life, as the 
 representative of the whole of religion. 
 
 The Wo7nan.—My very natural eagerness to 
 enter at once on the direct study of our worship 
 made me wish at the outset to leave out, my father, 
 the general preamble you have just set before me! 
 I now feel how necessary it was in order to gain a 
 clear conception of the plan of religion. I had not 
 previously co-ordinated its three parts. This valuable 
 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 87 
 
 explanation, however, seems to me now so far com- 
 plete that I hope to study immediately the general 
 system of the worship due to our divinity. 
 
 Tlie Priest. — We adore her, not as his worshippei-s 
 adored God, with vain compliments, my daughter, 
 but in order to serve her better by bettering our- 
 selves. It is important to remember that this is 
 the normal object of Positive worship; it is im- 
 portant, in order to anticipate, or correct in it, the 
 tendency to degenerate into mysticism. We are^ 
 liable to this whenever we pay too exclusive atten- 
 tion to the feelings, as we are then disposed to neg- 
 lect, or even to forget, the acts which those feelings 
 should control. I am naturally more prone than 
 you to such an error, by my greater tendency to 
 system. The evil results on your practice would soon 
 become clear to you by your own native good sense ; 
 nay, you would even know how to remedy them by 
 a fortunate inconsistency in your theory. It is of 
 particular importance for me to avoid this mistake 
 in the present conversation, for by its more abstract 
 and more general character it renders me more 
 liable to it, and the consequences would be more 
 serious. You would bring me back at last, I doubt 
 not, into the right path, by the suggestions of your 
 experience ; but it would often be too late, so that 
 I should have sometimes to make laborious efforts 
 *to repair the consequences of my error. 
 
 Keeping this precaution constantly in view, let 
 us look on the whole worship as having for its object 
 to form a systematic connexion between the doc- 
 
 »• 
 
 
 ' 
 
88 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 89 
 
 I 
 
 trine and the regiin^, by idealizing both the one and 
 the other. As the result of the doctrine, the wor- 
 ship completes that doctrine, and expresses it in a 
 short form. It places before us, in a more familiar 
 and more imposing point of view, the conception of 
 Humanity, by means of an ideal representation of 
 it. The worship also typifies the life, and so must 
 have a direct tendency to ameHorate our feelings. 
 For this, it must never lose sight of the modifications 
 they habitually undergo in the three difierent con- 
 ditions of human life— the personal, domestic, and 
 social. At first sight, these two ways of forming a 
 general conception of the worship and of instituting 
 It may seem irreconcileable ; yet they are naturally 
 m agreement, and such agreement is the result of 
 the aptitude inherent in any worthy idealization of 
 the Great Being to consolidate and develope the love 
 which is the basis of its whole existence. If so, the 
 original difierence has in no way a tendency to 
 break up the worship into two separate domains- 
 one belonging exclusively to the intellect, the other 
 to feeling. Such a division would be, as a general 
 rule, as impracticable as the distinction generaUy 
 drawn between algebiu and arithmetic. They can 
 really be separated only in very few cases, and 'these 
 mostly of our own making; and yet the two 
 methods, though constantly mixed, are never con- 
 fused. This comparison gives a right idea of the 
 closeness of the connexion which naturally binds 
 together the two aspects, intellectual and moral or 
 theoretical and practical, under which we are jiiti- 
 
 fied in viewing either the whole system of Positive 
 worship, or each of its parts. Still, in spite of the 
 fact that such a connexion is the spontaneous result 
 of the religious system, which both are concerned 
 with, to combine them wisely is really the chief 
 difficulty to be met in instituting our worship. For 
 this worship, quite as much, nay, even more than 
 the doctrine, is liable to degenerate into mysticism 
 or mere empiricism, according as generalization and 
 abstraction respectively are carried to excess or are 
 deficient. These two contrary tendencies to error 
 produce, in the moral point of view, equal evils ; for 
 the social efficiency of man's feelings is equally im- 
 paired by their becoming too refined or too coarse. 
 
 The Woman. — To enable me better to estimate 
 this general difficulty, I may, may I not, my father, 
 state it in another and less general form, as the 
 difficulty of rightly instituting the subjective life. 
 For it is on this subjective life that rests, of neces- 
 sity, the whole system of Positive worship, whether 
 we view it intellectually or morally. In the com- 
 position of our Great Being the dead occupy the 
 first place, then those who are yet to be bom. 
 The two together are far more numerous than the 
 living, most of whom too are only its servants, 
 without the power at present of becoming its 
 organs. There are but few men, and still fewer 
 women, who admit of being satisfactorily judged in 
 this respect before the completion of their objective 
 career. During the greater part of his actual life, 
 each one has it in his power to balance, and even 
 
 IfP 
 
90 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 fi ) 
 
 far to outbalance, the good he has done by the 
 evil he may do. So the human population is 
 made up in the main of two kinds of subjective 
 elements; the one determinate, the other indefi- 
 nite. These are brought into immediate and close 
 connexion solely by the objective element of that 
 population, the proportion of which to the others 
 is constantly becoming indefinitely small. If so, I 
 conceive that, in order to present to us the true 
 Great Being, Positive worship must freely develope 
 in each of us our subjective life. By so doing it will 
 further become eminently poetic in character. At 
 the same time, the exertion of our poetical powers, 
 where thought works chiefly by the aid of imagery, 
 has a natural fitness for the direct cultivation of 
 our best feelings. 
 
 It seems to me, then, quite possible to reconcile 
 the intellectual condition with the moral object of 
 this worship, on the principle which you have just 
 given me ; but in the means you declare necessary 
 to attain that object I seem to see a new general 
 difficulty. For I find it difficult to conceive how it 
 will be possible to institute, still more how it will 
 be possible to secure in universal practice, the daily 
 realization of the subjective life — its realization in 
 the individual and in the society ; and yet, to make 
 it an universal practice is indispensable for our 
 religion. I allow, of course, that in this respect, 
 t_the entire regeneration of education will procure 
 us immense resources, to an extent difficult to esti- 
 mate at the present time. Nevertheless, I fear that 
 
 1 f! 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 91 
 
 these resources will always leave us unable to sur- 
 mount this difficulty ; and when I look at the Past, 
 I seem to gain no direct ground for hope, as far as 
 the great body of men is concerned. 
 
 The Priest.— On the contrary, my daughter, I 
 hope soon to set you free from your uneasiness on 
 this point, natural though it be ; and I rely on a 
 judicious survey of the Past— the long initiation of 
 our race, now finally ended, as is clearly shown by 
 the very fact of my drawing up this Catechism. 
 Judge the past rightly, and it is impossible not 
 to see the natural capacity of our species for 
 living a subjective life. For in the past we see 
 such a life, under difi"erent forms, prevail during 
 forty centuries. All who are emancipated from the 
 older belief now know, that during this long pro- 
 bation, the minds of men habitually recognised the 
 sway of purely imaginary beings— we see them to 
 be imaginary, their worshippers believed in their 
 real and distinct existence. Nor is this the judg- 
 ment only of those who are emancipated. The 
 partisans of the different forms of theological belief 
 have nearly the same conviction in this respect ; for 
 they each judge all but their own on this principle. 
 And yet the supporters of the other forms, put 
 together, always outnumber, by an immense ma- 
 jority, the supporters of any one form, especially in 
 the present day, when no form of supernatural beUef 
 is common to large masses. Each one thinks illusion 
 the rule, his own fiction the solitary exception. 
 So prone are we to this subjective life, that we 
 
 . ^ 
 
 5 : 
 
 
 11 
 
 I I 
 
 |i 
 
 h 
 
92 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 find it more prevalent the nearer we ascend to the 
 naive age of a purely spontaneous belief, in the in- 
 dividual or in the society. The gi^eatest effort our 
 reason is required to make, is in the opposite di- 
 rection. It is to bring the subjective into sufficient 
 subordination to the objective ; it is to enable our 
 minds, in their inner workings, to represent the 
 external world with the clearness required by the 
 position we occupy. For the external world claims 
 an unvarying predominance over us, whether for 
 action or impression. This, the normal result, is 
 only attained, in the individual as in the species, 
 in^ the period of our complete maturity. It con- 
 stitutes the best sign of that maturity. The 
 tendency of this transformation is to a radical 
 change in the conduct of the human undei-standing. 
 But no such change will ever prevent our developing 
 the subjective life, even beyond the needs of Posi- 
 tive worship. We shall always requii-e a certain 
 amount of discipHne to keep within due limits our 
 natural disposition to substitute too completely the 
 inward for the outward. You need feel, then, on 
 this head no serious uneasiness, unless you judge 
 man as he will be, by the present tendency of special 
 scientific pursuits to crush the imagination and 
 to wither the heart. This, however, is really only 
 one of the natural symptoms of modem anarchy. 
 
 The only essential difference between subjectivity 
 in its later and in its primitive shape is this. In its 
 later shape we must be fully conscious of it, and 
 openly avow it, no one ever confusing it with 
 
 ' 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 93 
 
 objectivity. Our religious contemplations will con- 
 sciously be carried on internally. Our predecessors, 
 on the contrary, vainly endeavoured to see without 
 them what had no existence but within. Of course 
 it was imderstood that they might fall back on a 
 future life for the ultimate realization of their 
 visions. This general contrast between the two 
 may be summed up by a statement of the different 
 ways of conceiving the principal subdivision of the 
 intellect. In the normal state of existence contem- 
 plation, even when inward, is easier and less eminent 
 than meditation; for in contemplation our intel- 
 lect continues nearly passive. In one word, we 
 contemplate in order to meditate, because our 
 studies mainly regard the external world. On the 
 contrary, with men in the theological state, medita- 
 tion must always seem less difficult and far more 
 common than contemplation. In this last, therefore, 
 they placed the highest effort of our understanding. 
 They only meditated in order to contemplate, and 
 to contemplate beings which were always eluding 
 their grasp. A familiar sign will soon mark this 
 distinction as regards the greater part of private 
 worship. The Positivist shuts his eyes during his 
 private prayers, the better to see the internal 
 image; the believer in theology opened his, to 
 enable him to perceive outside an object which was 
 an illusion. 
 
 2%e Woman. — This explanation has set me quite 
 at ease where I was uneasy. Yet I continue, my 
 father, to look on the institution of the subjective 
 
 n 
 
 Hi J 
 
94 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 95 
 
 I 
 
 I. \l 
 
 \ii 
 
 life as the capital difficulty in Positive worship. 
 The new subjectivity appears to me, it is true, 
 always to admit of being reconciled with the 
 thoroughly real character which is the distinction 
 of our faith. But allowing this agreement, it seems 
 to me, it must always require special efforts. 
 
 Tlie Priest. — You have a right idea, my daughter, 
 as to the essential condition which I must now 
 fulfil. To compare the worship and the regime^ 
 the best way is to assign each its respective domain : 
 to the one, the subjective, to the other, the objec- 
 tive life. True, they ai-e simultaneously connected 
 with both j yet the subjective evidently is most 
 important in the worship, the objective in the 
 regime. No better characteristic of the higher 
 dignity of the worship could be selected. Such 
 superiority is the necessary consequence of the pre- 
 ponderance of subjectivity over objectivity through- 
 out the whole of man's existence, as seen even 
 in the individual, but still more clearly in so- 
 ciety. 
 
 The Woman. — Your systematic sanction of the 
 conclusion to which T had been led by the na- 
 tural process of my own thought induces me, my 
 father, now to ask you what is the true theory of 
 the subjective life. It is impossible here to do 
 more than give an outline of such a doctrine; but it 
 seems to me that to state the principle on which it 
 rests is indispensable. No Positivist can do with- 
 out a general explanation of this point; for his 
 worship, public or private, will require it almost 
 
 
 for everyday use, as a preventive against any de- 
 generation into mysticism or empiricism. 
 
 The Priest. — Your legitimate desire must be 
 satisfied, my daughter. Conceive then the funda- 
 mental law of the subjective life to be, the due sub- 
 ordination of that life to the objective. The world 
 within is essentially at all times under the regu- 
 lating power of the world without, from which 
 also it draws its nourishment and stimulus. This 
 is true of the life of the brain, as much as of our 
 more strictly bodily life. Let our conceptions be as 
 fantastical as they may, they must always bear the 
 stamp of the rule of the outer world ; a rule not 
 self-chosen, and one which becomes less simple, as 
 well as less complete, in proportion as it becomes 
 more indirect. All this is but the necessary con- 
 sequence of the indisputable principle on which I 
 rested our whole theory of the intellect, the dy- 
 namical as well as statical theory, thus brought 
 into connexion with the fundamental system of 
 biological conceptions. 
 
 The order which man produces can never be any- 
 thing but the improvement of the order of nature. 
 And the improvement mainly consists in develop- 
 ment. So we are led to feel here, as everywhere 
 else, and even more here than elsewhere, that the 
 true liberty of man is essentially the result of due 
 submission. But in order properly to apply to the 
 subjective life this general rule of the objective, we 
 must begin by examining, under this fresh aspect, 
 the constitution of the whole order of nature. For 
 
 ir:i 
 
 i.i 1 
 
 } 
 
 I 
 
/ 
 
 96 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 i 
 
 f 
 
 h 
 
 the laws which combine to form it are far from 
 being equally applicable to the subjective life. To 
 make your ideas more definite, I will specify but 
 one case, the simplest and the most common — viz., 
 when in our subjective worship we wish to call 
 back into existence one whom we have loved. Were 
 I not to specify some such case, in which the heart 
 aids the intellect, it would be easy to go astray in 
 the study of such a domain. But all the ideas 
 formed in this way, in a case taken from our most 
 private worship, and quite within our range, will 
 be easily applied, with the suitable modifications, to 
 the rest of sociolatry. 
 
 The Woman. — I feel grateful to you, my father, 
 for your consideration, which I feel to be indis- 
 pensable for me. The doctrine is no less novel than 
 difficult ; for the problem could not be stated even, 
 so long as belief in a supernatural power prevailed. 
 Such a belief forbade us to represent to ourselves 
 the dead otherwise than in a mysterious condition, 
 generally left utterly vague. This state allowed of 
 no analogy on essential points between us and them. 
 Supposing us free from all uneasiness as to their 
 ultimate fate, we were never allowed to form for 
 them a subjective life. To do so was an act of 
 impiety, for it gave the creature the afiection due to 
 the Creator. But if the power to state this afiecting 
 question is, by the necessity of the case, peculiar to 
 Positivism, not less peculiar to that system is the 
 general answer, as the only system which has 
 revealed the true laws of man's intellect. I can 
 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 97 
 
 then form a conception at once of the general 
 method of subjective worship, and of its normal 
 basis, which makes this ideal existence the simple 
 continuation of our real life. But would you 
 explain to me directly the modifications of which 
 our life, so continued, is susceptible? 
 
 The Priest. — These modifications consist, my 
 daughter, in the suppression, or at least in the 
 neglect of, all the lower laws, in order to give 
 greater predominance to the higher ones. During 
 the objective life, the dominion exercised by the 
 outer world over the world of man is as direct as 
 it is unbroken. But in the subjective life the out- 
 ward order becomes simply passive. It ceases to 
 have any but the indirect influence attaching to it 
 as the original source of the ideas we wish to cherish. 
 The dead we love are no longer under the dominion 
 of the rigorous laws of the material world, nor even 
 under the general laws of life. On the contrary, 
 the laws peculiar to man's existence, particularly to 
 his moral existence, though not excluding his social, 
 govern, with a firmer government than during life, 
 the existence which the dead retain in our brain. 
 This existence is by its very nature merely an intel- 
 lectual and affective existence. It is essentially 
 ideal ; and the ideas it raises bring back the feelings 
 with which the being we have lost inspired us, and 
 the thoughts to which he gave rise. Our subjective 
 worship aims, then, at nothing more than a species 
 of internal evolution, the gradual result of our 
 exercise of the brain according to the appropriate 
 
 H 
 
 I 
 
 
 :(» 
 
 
« 
 
 lit 
 
 ft 
 
 if 
 
 98 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 laws. The image we form always remains less 
 clear and less lively than the object it is to represent, 
 in obedience to the fundamental law of our intellect. 
 But since the contrary is often the case in diseases 
 of the brain, a successful cultivation of ourselves 
 may bring us, in our normal state, nearer to the 
 necessary limit, far nearer than could possibly be 
 believed hitherto, whilst this beautiful domain 
 remained vague- and dark. 
 
 With a view to getting a more exact conception 
 of this general subordination, observe that the sub- 
 jective evocation of the loved object should always 
 be connected with bur last objective impressions of 
 him. This is most evident as to age, for death 
 prevents any increase of that. If, then, we lose our 
 friends prematurely, the effect is to invest them with 
 eternal youth. This law, binding on the original 
 adorer, must of necessity be obeyed by his most 
 distant adherents. No one will ever be able to 
 represent to himself Beatrice, the gentle patroness 
 of Dante, otherwise than as Dante did, as twenty- 
 five years old. We may think of her as younger, 
 we cannot imagine her older. 
 
 The objective and the subjective life, then, differ 
 fundamentally in this : — The first is under the 
 direct control of physical laws ; the second under 
 that of moral laws. The laws of the intellect are 
 equally applicable to both. This distinction loses 
 something of its marked character, when we see that, 
 in both cases, the more general order always comes 
 before the more special. For so the difference is 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 99 
 
 limited simply to the mode in which we estimate 
 generality; we estimate it first in reference to 
 phenomena, in the second case in reference to our 
 conceptions. This remark will be explained when 
 we come to the doctrine. 
 
 Be this as it may, the necessary preponderance of 
 moral laws, in the case of the subjective life, is in 
 perfect conformity with our nature. So much so, 
 that not only was it involuntarily respected, but it 
 was known and appreciated, at the earliest stage of 
 man's intellectual growth. You know that, as a 
 fact, the great moral laws had been stated, though 
 empirically, in their leading features at least, long 
 previous to any real recognition of the lowest 
 physical laws. At a time when poets, in their 
 fictions, set aside without scruple the general con- 
 ditions of the order of the outer world, and even 
 those of life, they observed with admirable exact- 
 ness the leading ideas of social, and still more 
 moral order. Men found no difficulty in admitting 
 the existence of invulnerable heroes and of gods 
 who took any shape at pleasure. But the instinct 
 of the great mass, as well as the genius of the poet, 
 would at once have rejected any moral incoherence — 
 if, for example, a writer had ventured on attributing 
 to a miser or a coward libei*ality or courage. 
 
 Tlie Woman. — By the light of your explanations 
 I see, my father, that, in our subjective worship, 
 we may neglect physical laws, whilst we cling 
 more closely to moral laws ; for it is on the real 
 knowledge of these last that the new order of institu- 
 
 H 2 
 
 I 
 
 I ■ 
 
 !'( 
 
 W 
 
 i;ii 
 
 'iA 
 
 / 
 

 100 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 tions must depend for its advance. The imagination 
 easily frees itself from the most general conditions, 
 even those of space and time, provided that the 
 requirements of moral feeling are always respected. 
 But I should wish to know how we are to use the 
 liberty thus given us to facilitate our attainment of 
 the main end of subjective worship — I mean, our 
 mental evocation, by the agency of the brain, of the 
 objects of our affections. 
 
 The Priest. — So stated, my daughter, your ques- 
 tion is easily answered. It is a self-evident pro- 
 position, that the better to concentrate our strength 
 on this holy object, we must divert none of it on 
 superfluous modifications of the order of life, nor 
 even of the order of matter. Be careful then that 
 no change take place in the outer circumstances. 
 The person you adore should in this respect 
 be as he was in life. Use them even to reani- 
 mate more effectually his image. You will find, on 
 this [)oint, in my System of Positive Politics, an 
 important observation : — " Our recollection of our 
 friends becomes at once clearer and more lasting, if 
 we fix with precision the material environment, 
 before we place in it the living image." I would 
 even advise you, as a general rule, to break up this 
 arrangement of the outward circumstance into its 
 three essential parts, always proceeding from without 
 inwards, according to the principle of our hierarchy. 
 This rule of worship is obeyed, by first getting a 
 precise idea of the place, next of the seat or the 
 attitude, and lastly of the dress, appropriate to 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 101 
 
 each particular case. Our heart may feel impatient 
 at the delay thus caused ; but we soon come to feel 
 its efficacy when we see the loved image gradually 
 acquire by these means a \dvidness and a clearness 
 which at first seemed impossible. 
 
 These operations are essentially within the pro- 
 vince of esthetics. They become easier to under- 
 stand if we place them by the side of the operations 
 of science, as we may do by virtue of the necessary 
 identity of the chief laws of both. In strict truth, 
 science, when it points out beforehand a future often 
 distant, ventures on a still bolder effort than art does, 
 when it would call up some cherished memory. Our 
 brilliant success in the former case, though there 
 the intellect derives much less aid from the heart, 
 authorizes us to hope for more satisfactoiy results 
 in the other, where alone we have the certainty of 
 arriving at some solution or other. Tliis certainty 
 rests, to say the truth, entirely on the knowledge of 
 the laws of the brain, of which our conceptions are 
 still very confused. Our astronomical previsions, 
 on the other hand, depend more than anything on 
 the simplest and best known of external laws. 
 But whilst this distinction is adequate to explain 
 the inequality of our success in the two cases, it 
 shows us that such inequality is simply provisional. 
 When the higher laws shall be sufficiently known, 
 the Positive priesthood will draw from them results 
 more precious, and susceptible of greater regularity, 
 than those of astronomy, even when most successful. 
 For astronomy becomes uncertain in its previsions, 
 
 * .1 
 
 ni 
 
 
 .' 
 
i 11 
 
 102 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 103 
 
 
 and even fails altogether, as soon as the questions 
 become very complicated. This is generally the 
 case with comets. We need not justly incur any 
 charge of chimerical presumption when we say that 
 the providence of man can, and ought to, secure 
 more complete regularity in the order which is 
 most amenable to its action, than can prevail, as 
 regards the majority of events, in the order which 
 obeys simply a blind fotality. The greater compli- 
 cation of the phenomena will ultimately be over- 
 come, in these high cases, by the powerful sagacity 
 of man, the modifying agent. All that we need is 
 a sufficient knowledge of the order of man's 
 world. 
 
 The Woman.~l feel, my father, that to subordi- 
 nate the subjective to the objective, is at once the 
 constant obligation and the most important resource 
 of Positive w^orship. You have made me quite 
 understand that, far from wishing to withdraw our- 
 selves from this necessaiy yoke, we ought freely to 
 accept it, even when we might neglect it. For 
 such a complete submission makes our subjective 
 life much easier, at the same tim^ that it economizes 
 all our most valuable strength. But here I stop. 
 I do not see, from this point onwards, in what 
 properly consists our action in this internal exis- 
 tence ; and yet this existence ought, it seems to me, 
 in its own way to be less passive even than our 
 external one. 
 
 The Priest— Our action consists, my daughter, 
 in idealizing. This is almost always to be done by 
 
 
 subtraction, rarely by addition, even when, in add- 
 ing, we obser\^e all proper precautions. The ideal 
 must be an amelioration of the real, or it is inade- 
 quate for its moral purpose. This amelioration is, 
 for the ideal, the true normal compensation of its 
 inferiority tothe actual in clearness and liveliness. 
 But the ideal must be subordinate to the real, 
 otherwise the representation would be untrue, and 
 the worship would become mystical. A too servile 
 adherence to reality, again, would leave it empirical. 
 Our rule avoids equally these two contrary devia- 
 tions. We find a natural indication of its sound- 
 ness in our tendency to forget the defects of the 
 dead, whilst we only recall their good qualities. 
 
 From this point of view, I would have you see in 
 the rule nothing more than a particular deduction 
 from the dogmatic conception of Humanity. Our 
 Divinity only incorporates into hei-self the dead who 
 are really meritorious. But in doing so, she puts 
 away from each the iuiperfections which in all 
 cases dimmed their objective life. Dante had, in 
 his own manner, an anticipation of this law when 
 he formed that beautiful fiction, which makes the 
 preparation for blessedness consist in drinking first 
 of the river of oblivion, then of Eunoe, which calls 
 up only the memory of good. In ameliorating, 
 then, those whom you choose as representatives of 
 Humanity, add but very secondary improvements, 
 not such as impair the real impression even of their 
 outward form, much less that of their moral cha- 
 racter. But give free scope, always of course with 
 
 I 
 
 IP 
 
 Hi 
 
 !4 
 
 '■ 
 
i: 
 1 : 
 
 104 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 prudence, to your natural disposition to clear them 
 of their different faults. 
 
 Th^ Woman. — In the true theory then, my 
 father, of the subjective life, our worship ultimately 
 leaves the order of the outer world such as it actu- 
 ally is, with the view of concentrating with greater 
 effect on man's world our chief efforts for improve- 
 ment. The noble existence which thus perpetuates 
 us in others is the worthy continuation of the one 
 by which we deserved immortality; the moral pro- 
 gress of the individual and the race is ever the 
 most important destination of both lives. The dead 
 with us are set free from all necessity to obey the 
 laws of matter or the laws of life. We remember 
 that they were once subject to them, but we do so 
 only that we may be better able to recall them such 
 as we knew them. But they do not cease to love, 
 and even to think, in us and by us. The sweet 
 exchange of feelings and ideas that passed between 
 us and them, during their objective life, becomes 
 closer and more continuous when they are set free 
 from their bodily existence. And yet although, 
 imder these conditions, their life is deeply mixed 
 up with our own, they preserve unimpaired their 
 originality — their own distinct moral and mental 
 character, supposing that they ever had a really 
 distinct character. We may even say that their 
 more prominent characteristics become more marked 
 in proportion as this close intercourse becomes more 
 free. 
 
 This Positive conception of the future life is cer- 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 105 
 
 tainly nobler than that of any theological school, at 
 the same time that it alone is true. When I was 
 a Catholic, in the period of my most fervent belief, 
 I could not help being deeply shocked on studying 
 the childish conception of blessedness which we 
 find in a father of such high moral and intellectual 
 eminence as St. Augustin. I was almost angry when 
 I found him hoping some day to be free from the 
 laws of weight, and even from the need of taking 
 food. By a gi'oss contradiction, he kept the jjower 
 of eating what he liked, without any fear, it would 
 seem, of becoming inordinately fat. The contrast 
 is well adapted to make us feel how greatly Posi- 
 tivism improves immortality, at the same time that 
 it places it on a firmer footing, when it changes it 
 from objective to subjective. Still, clear as the 
 superiority is, I cannot but regret, in the old wor- 
 ship, its great institution — prayer. Prayer does 
 not seem to me to be compatible with the new 
 faith. 
 
 Tlhe Priest. — Were there really such an omission, 
 my daughter, it would be extremely serious; for 
 the regular practice of prayer, private or public, is 
 the capital condition of any worship whatever. 
 Far from failing to fulfil this condition, Positivism 
 satisfies it better than Catholicism; for it purifies 
 the institution of prayer, at the same time that it 
 developes it. Your mistake on this point is the 
 result of the low notion generally formed of prayer. 
 We make it consist in asking for something — too 
 often in asking for the supply of our bodily wants, 
 
106 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 in accordance with the profoundly egoistic character 
 of every form of theological worship. For us, on 
 the contrary, prayer is the ideal of life; for to pray 
 is at one and the same time to love, to think, and 
 even to act, since expression is always, in the true 
 sense of the word, an action. Never can the three 
 aspects of human life be united with so intimate an 
 union as in our admirable effusions of gratitude and 
 love towards our great Divinity, or her worthy 
 representatives and organs. No interested motive 
 is any longer allowed to stain the purity of our 
 prayers. 
 
 Still, as the practice of daily prayer greatly im- 
 proves the heart, and even the intellect, we are 
 warranted in keeping in sight this valuable result. 
 Nor need we fear that the intrusion in this degree 
 of our personality will ever degrade us. The Posi- ' 
 tivist prays in order to give expression to his best 
 affections. This is his main object. He may also 
 ask, but he asks only for a noble progress, which 
 he ensures almost by the veiy asking. The fervent 
 wish to become more tender, more reverential, more 
 courageous even, is itself in some degree a realiza- 
 tion of the desired improvement. At least it con- 
 tains the first step to any improvement — the sincere 
 confession of our actual imperfection. This holy 
 influence of prayer may extend to the intellect, were 
 it only by urging us to new efforts to improve our 
 thought. On the conti-ary, to ask for an increase 
 of riches or power would, in our worship, be as 
 absurd as it is ignoble. We do not envy the 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 107 
 
 believers in theology the unlimited command over 
 the external world which they hope to obtain by 
 prayer. All our subjective efforts are limited to 
 perfect, as far as is possible, the world of man, 
 which is nobler and also more susceptible of modifi- 
 cation. In a word, Positivist prayer takes com- 
 plete possession of the highest domain of all, that 
 once set apart for supernatural grace. The Positive 
 idea of sanctification systematizes moral progress. 
 Previously such progress had been looked on as 
 rejecting any idea of law, although its pre-eminence 
 was quite acknowledged. 
 
 Tlie Woman. — I accept your explanation as deci- 
 sive; and I now beg you, my father, to point out 
 to me the general course to be adopted in regard to 
 Positivist prayer. 
 
 The Priest. — For that purpose you must divide it, 
 my daughter, into two separate and successive parts 
 — the one passive, the other active. They concern 
 respectively the past and the future, with the pre- 
 sent for connecting link. Our worship must always 
 be the exj)ression of love, springing from and deve- 
 loping gratitude to the past, a gratitude ever on 
 the increase. All prayer, then, private or public, 
 ought to begin by commemoration as a prepara- 
 tion for effusion, this last occupying half the time 
 the former occupies. When a happy combination 
 of signs and ideas has sufficiently rekindled the 
 warmth of our feelings towards the object of our 
 adoration, we then pour them forth with real fer- 
 vour. Such fervour has a tendency still further to 
 
 ■M i 
 
 » 
 
I( 
 
 ! 
 
 108 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 strengthen the feelings, and so to make us more 
 ready for the evocation with which we conclude. 
 
 Tim Woman. — Satisfied with these hints, I would 
 ask you, my father, to complete your general view 
 of our worship, by directly explaining to me, in its 
 more important features, its influence on our im- 
 provement. I feel that I understand it thoroughly ; 
 yet I could not define it so as to state it to others 
 in a shape to secure a fair judgment. This is why 
 I ask you, on this point, for a systematic explana- 
 tion, as a guide for me — first, in my own practice ; 
 next, in my efforts to convert others. 
 
 The Priest. — Our worshij) improves the heart 
 and tlie intellect simultaneously ; yet it is important, 
 my daughter, to separate in our view its reaction 
 on our moral state, and its influence on our intel- 
 lect. 
 
 Its result, in the first case, is an immediate con- 
 sequence of the first law of animal life j for worship 
 is always a real exercise, and more truly so than 
 anything else. This is pointed out by ordinary 
 language, here, as elsewhere, the faithful picture of 
 human existence. Above all does such a view of it 
 admit of no dispute when prayer is complete — that 
 is to say, when it is oral as well as mental. We 
 actually bring into play in expression, whether by 
 sounds, or by gestures, or attitudes, the same muscles 
 that we do in action. So every expression of right 
 feelings has a tendency to strengthen them and 
 develope them, in the same way as the acts to which 
 they lead would do, if we performed them. 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 109 
 
 1 am bound, however, on this point, to guard 
 against a dangerous exaggeration, and I do so by 
 urging you never to confuse these two great moral 
 influences — the influence of our expressions, and the 
 influence of our actions. It is true that the laws 
 which govern them both are essentially similar ; 
 but in no case can they, therefore, be looked on as 
 of equal value. It is the result of universal expe- 
 rience, fully confirmed by our cerebral theory, that 
 action will always have more effect than prayer, 
 not merely on the external result, but also on the 
 amelioration of our nature. Still, second to the 
 practice of good actions, nothing is better adapted 
 to strengthen and develope our best sentiments 
 than their due expression, supjDosing it become as 
 habitual as it ought to be. Now, this general 
 means of amelioration is ordinarily more within 
 our reach than action ; for acting often requires 
 materials or circumstances beyond our reach, so as 
 at times to confine us to the mere barren wish. By 
 virtue of their being thus accessible, the practices 
 of our worship come to be, for our moral progress, 
 a valuable supplement to our active life ; and there 
 is no difficulty in reconciling the two, such is the 
 perfect homogeneity of Positive religion. 
 
 The Woman. — I now understand the moral influ- 
 ence of our worship. I need, my father, more full 
 explanations as to its influence on our intellect. I 
 am by no means so clear as to this. 
 
 The Priest. — You must keep distinct, my daughter, 
 its two main cases — the one, in which its efficiency 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 110 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 is limited to the sphere of aii:; the other, in which 
 it passes into that of science. 
 
 From the first point of view, the power of Posi- 
 tive worship on the mind is direct and striking — 
 first, as regards the most general art; next, as it 
 regards the two special arts, those of sound or form. 
 Poetry is the soul of our worsliij^, as science is of 
 the doctrine, and industry of the regime. Every 
 l^rayer, private as well as public, becomes in Posi- 
 tivism a real work of art, inasmuch as it is the 
 expression of our best feelings. In prayer, nothing 
 can free us from the obligation of constantly form- 
 iog our prayers ourselves ; so that every Positivist 
 must be, in some respects, as it were, a poet — at 
 least, for his own private worship. We must use 
 fixed forms of prayer, in order to secure more regu- 
 larity; but these forms must originally, in all cases, 
 be drawn up by him who uses them, or he will find 
 that they have no gi^eat efficiency. However, though 
 the form remains the same, the prayer admits of 
 some degree of variety, as it is the artificial signs 
 only that are fixed. Their uniformity only brings 
 into a stronger light the spontaneous variations of 
 natural language. Such language, whether musical 
 or mimic, is always more esthetical than the other. 
 
 This poetical faculty of originating our prayers 
 will be largely developed when the regeneration of 
 education shall have sufficiently trained all Posi- 
 tivists in the views it requires, and even in such 
 compositions. This I will point out to you in the 
 Third Part of this Catechism. When we have 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 Ill 
 
 reached that point, the general art will always derive 
 suitable assistance from the special arts. All will 
 then be familiar with singing, which is essentially 
 the basis of music. All will be familiar also with 
 drawing, the general source of the three arts of 
 form — painting, sculpture, and architecture. Lastly, 
 when we draw out our form of worship, we may 
 generally introduce special ornaments, chosen with 
 judgment from the accumulated stores of human 
 art, the esthetic treasures of Humanity. Additions 
 of this kind seem, at first sight, limited to public 
 "worship; but private worsliip is equally open to 
 them, and equally benefited by them, provided 
 it borrows with discretion and moderation. All 
 true poets have, at all times, given expression to the 
 leading feelings of our nature. As that nature 
 remains the same, their productions are always in 
 sufficient consonance with our own emotions. When 
 the agreement, without being entirely complete, is 
 nearly so, we may borrow from the poets, and find 
 in what we borrow more than the merely intellec- 
 tual merit of a more perfect expression — we find, 
 what is far more, the moral charm of a personal 
 sympathy. The older the source from which we 
 borrow our ornaments, the more suitable they are ; 
 for they lend a sanction to our afiections, seen thus 
 to be in spontaneous harmony, not merely with those 
 of the great poet, but also with those of all the 
 generations which, in succession, that poet has aided 
 in the expression of their feelings. To secure, how- 
 ever, the full efficiency of this valuable aid, it must 
 
 I 
 
112 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 
 never assume any other than a secondary place. It 
 must remain an addition, though the degree in 
 which it may be admitted must vary as the cases 
 vary, as I will shortly point out to you. 
 
 The Woman. — Before you explain to me the 
 influence of the Positive worship on our intellect, 
 would you, my father, clear up a serious difficulty, 
 naturally arising from the preceding exposition. 
 Worship and poetry seem, in our religion, to melt 
 so entirely one into the other, that the simultaneous 
 growth of the two would appear to require a priestly 
 class quite distinct from that which is to develope 
 and teach the doctrine. I feel that this separation 
 would have a very dangerous tendency. The rivalry 
 of the two bodies would be very difficult to deal 
 with. They would compete for the ultimate direc- 
 tion of the regi7ne, and their claim would be equal. 
 So serious does such a conflict seem, that you can- 
 not avoid meeting the difficulty. If you did, you 
 would compromise the very organization of our 
 priesthood ; for a divided priesthood would be in- 
 capable of presiding over private life, and still more 
 over public life. But then, again, I do not see how 
 we can completely avoid it. as the cultivation of the 
 ]X)etical faculty and the training of the philosophical 
 seem to require a treatment wholly diflerent. 
 
 The Priest. — Your error, my daughter, is one 
 which it is important to correct. One of the lead- 
 ing features of our modem anarchy is the general 
 tendency to a dispersive, special action. It is a 
 lamentable waste of strength. Such special action 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 113 
 
 is as absurd as it is immoral. In the normal state, 
 it is only in the sphere of practice that you have 
 special results. There it is necessary, as no one can 
 do everything. But as each one must embrace the 
 whole range of conception, the cultivation of the 
 intellect must, on the contrary, always remain in- 
 divisible. In the sphere of theory there must be no 
 specialty. If there is, we have in such division the 
 first sign of anarchy. So thought the ancients 
 under the theocratic regime, the only instance, as 
 yet, of a complete organization. The separation of 
 the poet from the priest was the sign of the decay 
 of theocracy. 
 
 Though the genius for philosophy and the genius 
 for poetry cannot ever, at one and the same time, 
 find a high destination, intellectually they are iden- 
 tical in nature. Aristotle might have been a great 
 poet, Dante an eminent philosopher, had the time 
 in which they lived been such as to call for less 
 scientific power in the one, or less esthetic power in 
 the other. All these scholastic distinctions were in- 
 vented and maintained by pedants, who, themselves 
 entirely destitute of genius, could not even appre- 
 ciate it in others. Whatever the career it chooses, <■ 
 mental superiority is always the same in kind. Th^ 
 choice of each is fixed for him by his position, espe- 
 cially his position in time ; for the race always 
 exerts a commanding influence over the individual. 
 
 The only real difference that exists in this re- 
 spect is this, that the services of philosophy are na- 
 turally uninterrupted, whereas the services rendered 
 
 ) . 
 
 ■ 
 
l( 
 
 114 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 by poets are necessarily intermittent. None but great 
 poets are of use, even for the intellect, but still more 
 from the moral point of view. All other poets do 
 much more harm than good ; whereas quite second- 
 rate philosophers can be made of real use, supposing 
 them to have honesty, good sense and courage. 
 Art is meant to develope in us the feeling of perfec- 
 tion; so it cannot tolerate mediocrity. True taste 
 implies lively distaste. From Homer to Walter Scott, 
 we have, in the Western world, only thirteen poets 
 really great, two in ancient times, eleven in modern. 
 In this number I include three prose writers. Of 
 all the rest there are not more than seven you could 
 name as fit for daily reading. The others will, 
 without doubt, be completely thrown aside, as 
 being equally hurtful to the intellect and the heart, 
 --^hen the regeneration of education shall have 
 allowed us to extract whatever useful materials 
 they contain, especially for the purposes of history. 
 Sociocracy, less even than theocracy, requires a 
 fixed class exclusively devoted to the cultivation of 
 poetry. The priests, whose habitual character is 
 the philosophical, will become, for the time, poets, 
 when our Divinity shall stand in need of fresh efiu- 
 sions for general use, sufficient for the wants of 
 several ages, both in public and private worship. 
 Compositions of secondary importance, which na- 
 turally are more frequent, will be generally left to 
 the spontaneous impulses of women or proletaries. 
 As for the two special arts, the long apprenticeship 
 they require, particularly the art of form, will com- 
 
 ^ 
 
 I 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 115 
 
 pel us to devote to them some select masters. The 
 choice will not be difficult, for the directing priest- 
 hood will have ample opportunities in the natural 
 course of Positive education. These masters will 
 become actual members of the priesthood, or will 
 merely receive pay from it, according as, by their 
 nature, they are more or less synthetical. 
 
 The Woinan. — After these remarks, you may pass 
 at once, my father, to your last general explanation 
 of the efficiency of the worship. Its adaptation to 
 esthetic purposes seems to me evident ; but I do not 
 see in what lies its influence on the intellect. 
 
 The Priest. — In this, my daughter, that it deve- 
 lopes more fully, in all its parts, the universal logic. 
 This logic always rests on a combination of signs, 
 images, and feeling, as assisting the mind in its work- 
 ing. The logic of feeling acts more directly an d ener- 
 getically than any other, but its method is deficient 
 in precision and pliancy. Artificial signs are very 
 accommodating, and can be increased at need. By 
 these two properties they make up for their inferi- 
 ority in logical power, the result of the weakness and 
 indirectness of their connexion with our thoughts. 
 The aggregate of intellectual aids which the two form 
 must receive its complement from images. These 
 alone can form it into a whole. They do so by their 
 nature as an intermedium. Now it is especially 
 in reference to this normal bond of true logic 
 that the worship is efficacious, though it also 
 developes its two other constituents. In this re- 
 spect, the child who prays rightly is exercising 
 
 i2 
 
I 
 
 116 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 THE WORSHIP. 
 
 117 
 
 Ml 
 
 more healthily his meditative organs than the 
 haughty algebrist who, from a deficiency of tender- 
 ness and imagination, is really only cultivating the 
 organ of language by the aid of a particular jargon, 
 which, rightly used, is of very limited application. 
 
 You may get a clear glimpse by this of the most 
 important intellectual result of Positive worship. It 
 is thus seen to touch only the method properly so 
 called ; to have very little to do with the doctrine. 
 We except, of course, the moral, nay, even the in- 
 tellectual notions, naturally arising from our reli- 
 gious practices. But the method will always have 
 more value than the doctrine, as feelings have more 
 value than acts, morals than politics. The scien- 
 tific labours hitherto accumulated have, to speak 
 generally, for the most part, merely a logical value. 
 What they teach is often useless, at times even worse 
 than useless. This provisional contrast between the 
 method and doctrine will necessarily not be so 
 strong when our encyclopedic discipline shall have 
 delivered us from all the rubbish of the schools. Yet 
 the true logic will always stand higher than 
 science properly so called. This will be most 
 true, of course, for the great mass, but in a degree 
 also for the priesthood. 
 
 The Woman. — All that remains, my father, is to 
 ask you what is the special object of the two other 
 conversations you promised me on the Positive 
 worship. However much I may feel that we have 
 not thoroughly explored its fair domain, I do not 
 see to what point we are now to direct our efibrts. 
 
 The Priest. — You will see this, my daughter, if 
 
 I 
 
 you consider that our worship must be, if it is to 
 succeed at all, first private, then public. These two 
 will be respectively treated in the two following 
 conversations. But first, you must attend to a 
 general point — you must bring your judgment to 
 bear directly on the important subordination of the 
 public worship to the private. For on this subor- 
 dination really depends, after all, the chief efficacy 
 of Positive religion. 
 
 The better to understand it, look on these two 
 branches of worship as addressed respectively, the 
 private to Woman, the public to Humanity. You 
 will then feel that our Divinity can be sincerely 
 honoured by those only who have prepared them- 
 selves for her august worship by the practice of 
 private prayer. That prayer consists in a noble 
 homage daily paid to her best organs. These organs 
 are for the most part subjective, but not to the 
 exclusion of the objective. In a word, the true 
 Church has for its original basis the simple Family. 
 This is even more true in reference to the moral 
 than to the purely social order. The heart can as 
 little avoid this first step, the Family — it can as little 
 avoid looking to it afterwards as an habitual stimu- 
 lus — as the intellect can disdain the lower steps in the 
 encyclopedic scale, in order to rise at once to the 
 highest. For these highest constantly enforce on it 
 the necessity of renewing its strength by recurring 
 to the original source. 
 
 It is the constant practice of private worship 
 that, more than anything else, will ultimately 
 distinguish true Positivists from the false brethren 
 
 I 
 
118 
 
 I 
 
 FIKST PART. 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 119 
 
 with whom we shall be burdened as soon as the 
 true religion shall gain ascendancy. Without this 
 mark, hypocrisy would be easy, and the hypocrite 
 would usurp the consideration due only to the sin- 
 cere worshippers of Humanity. Between Humanity 
 and the Family we must also develope the normal 
 intermediate step. We find this in the natural 
 feelings, at the present day vague and weak, which 
 bind us specially to our country properly so called. 
 These intermediate afiections require, for their ritrht 
 cultivation, an association of a limited size. This 
 requirement will be the best ground on which to 
 rest the reduction of tlie large kingdoms of the 
 present day to simple cities with their due adjuncts 
 — a process I shall explain later. 
 
 CONVEKSATION IV. 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 The Woman, — It seems to me, my father, that 
 private worship must fall into two parts, as private 
 life does, and those parts quite distinct — the one 
 personal, the other domestic. To keep them sepa- 
 rate seems necessary for our explanation. 
 
 The Priest. — Your division is the natural one. 
 I was bound not to mix it up with my main division 
 of the worship ; but it gives us, my daughter, the 
 plan of our present conversation. In it we shall 
 deal with two great institutions of sociolatry. The 
 one relates to the true guardian angels, the other to 
 the nine social sacraments. They will constitute 
 
 11 
 
 the respective characteristics, first of our personal, 
 next of our domestic worship. The reasons for 
 making the latter subordinate to the former are, 
 though in a less degree, essentially similar to those 
 which represent the whole of private worship as 
 the only solid basis of public. More our own than 
 any other, our personal worship alone can develope 
 in us the habits which can test our adoration 
 whether it be sincere or not. Without these habits, 
 our domestic ceremonies, and still more our public 
 solemnities, could have no moral efficacy. Thus 
 sociolatry forms for each one a natural progressive 
 series. Individual prayers are the right preparation 
 for the celebration of our social rites, by the regular 
 intermedium of the consecrations that concern us 
 as members of a Family. 
 
 The Woman. — Since our personal worship is thus 
 made the primary basis of all our religious practices, 
 I beg you, my father, to explain to me directly its 
 real nature. 
 
 The Priest. — It consists, my daughter, in the 
 daily adoration of the best types which we can 
 find to personify Humanity, taking into account the 
 whole of our private relations. 
 
 The existence of the Supreme Being is founded 
 entirely on love, for love alone unites in a voluntary 
 union its separable elements. Consequently the 
 affective sex is naturally the most perfect representa- 
 tive of Humanity, and at the same time her 
 principal minister. Never will art be able worthily 
 to embody Humanity except in the form of Woman. 
 
I 
 
 120 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 121 
 
 But the moral providence of our Divinity is not 
 exercised solely by the action of your sex collectively 
 upon mine. This its fundamental office is a conse- 
 quent of the personal influence that every true 
 woman constantly exerts in the bosom of her own 
 family. The domestic sanctuary is the continual 
 source of the holy impulse which can alone preserve 
 us from the moral corruption to which we are 
 exposed in active or speculative life. The collective 
 action of woman upon man must have its root in 
 private life, or it will be found to have no perma- 
 nent effect. It is within the family also that we 
 gain the means of rightly appreciating the affective 
 sex ; for no one can know more of that sex than 
 what he gains from the types of it with which he 
 is brought into daily contact. 
 
 You see then how, in the normal state, each 
 man finds in his family circle real guardian angels, 
 at once the ministers and representatives of Hu- 
 manity. The secret adoration of them strength- 
 ens and developes their continuous influence. It 
 thus tends directly to make us better and happier, 
 by ensuring the gradual predominance of altruism 
 over egoism ; by affording free scope to the former, 
 by controlling the latter. Our just gratitude for 
 benefits already received, thus becomes the natural 
 source of fresh progress. The happy ambiguity of 
 the French word, patron, marks sufficiently this 
 twofold efficacity of our personal worship. For in 
 it each angel must be equally invoked as a protector 
 and as a model. 
 
 I 
 
 The Woman. — This first general view leaves me, 
 my father, quite undecided as to what the personal 
 type is to be. It would seem that we might, 
 with equal reason, choose any one of the leading 
 relations of domestic life. 
 
 The Priest. — ^We must really, my daughter, duly 
 combine three of them, if we wish the worship of 
 angels to have its full effect. We find in the 
 theory of Positivism an indication of the necessity 
 of this plurality. For we there find that the sympa- 
 thetic instincts are three in number, and each of 
 the three finds a special female influence to corre- 
 spond with it. The mother, the wife, the daughter, 
 must in our worship, as in the existence of which 
 that worship is the ideal expression, develope in us, 
 respectively — the mother, veneration; the wife, at- 
 tachment; the daughter, kindness. As for the 
 sister, the influence she exercises has hardly a very 
 distinct character, and she may, in succession, be 
 connected with each of the three essential types. 
 The three together represent to us the thi-ee 
 natural modes of human continuity — the past, the 
 present, the future — as also the three degrees of soli- 
 darity which bind us to our superiors, our equals, 
 and our inferiors. But the spontaneous harmony of 
 the three can only be fully maintained by observing 
 their natural subordination. So the maternal angel 
 must habitually take the first place, yet so that her 
 gentle presidency never impair the force of the 
 other two. 
 
 This personal worship, as a general rule, has for its 
 
122 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 I 
 
 object to guide the maturity of each worshipper. At 
 that time one of the three feminine types has most 
 frequently become subjective, whilst another remains 
 objective. The two influences, subjective and ob- 
 jective, are normally mixed, and our homage is 
 more eflicacious for the mixture ; for it secures a 
 better combination of strength and clearness of 
 imagery with consistency and purity of feeling. 
 
 The Woman. — Your explanation seems to me 
 very satisfactory, yet I feel, my father, that it leaves 
 a great want as to my own sex. Our moral wants 
 appear neglected. True, tenderness is our special 
 distinction; yet we can hardly therefore be above 
 the need of some such habitual cultivation of ten- 
 derness as the institution of guardian angels implies. 
 
 The Priest. — You have, my daughter, an easy 
 solution of your difliculty in the plurality of our 
 angelic types. This is the proper way of meeting 
 it, otherwise it would be impossible to overcome it. 
 In fact, the principal angel alone must be common 
 to both sexes. Each sex must borrow from the 
 other the two angels that complete the institution. 
 For the mother has, for both sexes equally, a pre- 
 ponderance, not merely as the main source even of 
 our physical existence, but still more as normally 
 presiding over the whole of our education. The 
 mother, then, is the object of adoration to both 
 sexes. To her your sex must add the worship of 
 the husband and the son, on the same grounds as 
 I have assigned above for the man's worship of the 
 wife and daughter. We need not go further ; the 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 123 
 
 difference is enough to meet the wants of both 
 sexes. They require a patronage, in the case of 
 woman specially adapted to develope energy ; in the 
 case of man, tenderness. 
 
 The Woman. — I feel already the strong attrac- 
 tion of this great institution. But I find still in it, 
 my father, two general imperfections. First, why 
 does not it use all our private relations ? next, is 
 there sufficient allowance made for the too frequent 
 inadequacy of the types in actual life ? 
 
 The Priest. — These two difficulties disappear, my 
 daughter, if you take into account the several sub- 
 ordinate types which have a natural connexion with 
 each of our chief types, from their exciting similar 
 feelings and standing in a similar relation to us. 
 Around the mother we group naturally, first the 
 father, and sometimes the sister, then the master 
 and protector, over and above any similar relations 
 which may be largely increased in number both 
 within the family and without. Extend the same 
 method to the other two types, and we form a series 
 of objects of adoration, becoming constantly less 
 personal and more general. The result is, a gradual 
 transition, so gradual as to be almost insensible, 
 from private to public worship. This, the normal 
 development, enables us also to supply, as far as 
 possible, any exceptional deficiencies, by substi- 
 tuting, in case of need, in the room of one of the 
 primary types its most prominent subordinate. 
 So we are enabled, subjectively, to re-create the 
 family when it is formed of bad elements. 
 
 V 
 
124 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 125 
 
 The Wormn.—ThQQe remarks complete the subject. 
 It remains for me, my father, to ask you for some 
 more precise explanations as to the general system 
 of prayers adapted to this fundamental worship. 
 
 The FHest.— It requires, my daughter, three 
 daily prayers— on getting up, before going to sleep, 
 and in the midst of our daily occupations whatever 
 they be. The first prayer must be longer and more 
 efficacious than the other two. Each man should 
 begin his day by a due invocation of his angels. 
 This alone can dispose us to the right use habitually 
 of all oiu- powers. In the last prayer, we express 
 the gratitude we owe to them for their protection 
 during the day, and we hope thus to secure its con- 
 tinuance during our sleep. The mid-day prayer 
 must, for a time, disengage us from the various im- 
 pulses of thought and action, and must carry into 
 both that influence of afiection from which they 
 have a tendency to alienate us. 
 
 The object of these prayers of itself points out 
 their respective times and mode of perfoi-mance. The 
 first precedes the work of the day ; it takes place at 
 the domestic altar, arranged so as to revive our best 
 memories, and the attitude is kneeUng, the proper 
 attitude of veneration. The last prayer wHl be 
 said when in bed, and ought, as far as possible, to 
 contmue till we fall asleep, in order the better to 
 ensure a calm brain, at the time when we are least 
 protected from evH tendencies. The period for our 
 mid-day pi-ayer cannot be so accurately stated. It 
 must vary with individual convenience. It is, how- 
 
 ' 
 
 ever, important that each one should, in his own 
 way, fix it strictly. If he does so, he will find it 
 easier to ensure the frame of mind it requires. 
 
 The respective length of our three daily prayers 
 is also pointed out by their peculiar object. The 
 morning prayer should be, in general, twice as long 
 as the evening. That at mid-day should be half as 
 long. When our personal worship is completely 
 organized, the chief prayer naturally occupies the 
 first hour of each day. This length is required, 
 because we divide its opening part into two, each 
 as long as the conclusion. We begin with the 
 proper commemoration of the day ; then comes that 
 which is appointed for the week. The result is, 
 that we usually divide the morning prayer into 
 three parts of equal length, and in the three we 
 give precedence respectively, first to images, then 
 to signs, and last to feelings. The two other 
 prayers do not admit of the same proportion 
 between commemoration and efi"usion. In the 
 morning, efiusion in all lasts only half as long as 
 commemoration. You invert this proportion in 
 the evening, and you equalize the two at mid-day. 
 You will find no difficulty in these minor differences. 
 But I would call your attention to the fact that 
 the total length of our daily worship only reaches 
 two hours, even in the case of those who find it 
 useful during the night to repeat the prayer appro- 
 priate for mid-day. 
 
 Every Positivist then will devote to his daily 
 personal improvement less time than is now ab- 
 
 X ' 
 
126 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 sorbed by reading books of no value, or by useless 
 or even pernicious amusements. In prayer alone 
 can any decided progress of our subjective life take 
 place, for in prayer we identify ourselves more and 
 more with the Being we adore. The image of that 
 Being is gradually purified and becomes more clear 
 and vivid as we enter on each new year of our 
 worship. By these private practices we prepare 
 ourselves to feel aright the awakening of our sym- 
 pathies due to the publicity of our other sacred rites. 
 The moral qualities formed by such habits will, I 
 hope, when combined, enable the rules of sociolatry 
 to overcome, in the best of both sexes, the present 
 coarseness of manners. Men of ordinary and un- 
 cultivated mind still regard as lost, whatever time 
 is not occupied by work in the common sense. 
 Where there is cultivation, there we find a reco- 
 gnition of the inherent value of pure intellectual 
 exertion. But since the close of the Middle Ages, 
 there has been a general forgetfulness of the direct 
 higher value of moral cultivation properly so called. 
 We should be half inclined to blush were we to 
 devote to this moral cultivation as much time as 
 the great Alfred allotted it daily, without in any 
 way impairing his admirable activity. 
 
 To complete this special theory of our daily 
 prayers, I must point out to you that the orna- 
 ments we borrow for it from the esthetic treasures 
 of Humanity, must always be kept subordinate. 
 Nor are they equally divided between the three 
 prayers. By their nature, they are more adapted 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 127 
 
 to aid our efiusions than our commemoration. As 
 such, the aid they give us is more available in the 
 evening than in the morning. But the special 
 purpose of them is, to free us from the necessity of 
 making our mid-day prayer ourselves. We often 
 find this difficult to do; and in this case the 
 effusion with which we end may consist almost 
 entirely in a judicious choice of passages from the 
 poets. When singing and drawing shall have 
 become as familiar as speaking and writing, by the 
 aid of this help from w^ithout we shall be more 
 able to meet our internal wants at times when, as 
 is too frequently the case, our best emotions are 
 languid. 
 
 The Woman. — Now that I understand our per- 
 sonal worship, I am endeavouring, my father, to 
 anticipate your exposition by forming a conception 
 of the domestic woi'ship properly so called. But I 
 cannot of myself, as yet, get a satisfactory idea of it. 
 I quite see that the domestic, as well as the personal 
 worship, can institute a constant adoration of the 
 types common to the whole family. It can also in 
 this, the elementary society, avail itself of the col- 
 lective invocations which in public worship are 
 addressed directly to Humanity. 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. Still, something is want- 
 ing to stamp on our domestic worship a character 
 quite its own, so as to keep it distinct from the two 
 which it is to connect. 
 
 fi 
 
128 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 The Priest — We meet this, my daughter, by the 
 institution of the social sacraments. They distin- 
 guish the domestic worship from the two others. 
 They also form a natural transition. In these 
 sacraments we consecrate each of the successive 
 periods of our private life by connecting it with 
 public life. Hence our nine social sacraments — 
 Presentation, initiation, admission, destination, mar' 
 riage, maturity, retirement, transformation, and 
 lastly incorporation. They succeed one another in 
 an unbroken series, and form so many preparations 
 by which, during the whole of his objective life, the 
 worthy servant of Humanity proceeds, in a gradual 
 course, to the subjective eternity which is ulti- 
 mately to constitute him in the strictest sense an 
 organ of the Divinity we worship. 
 
 The Woman. — Within the normal limits of this 
 Catechism you cannot, my father, give me a really 
 complete explanation of all our sacraments. Still 
 I hope you will be able to give me some idea of 
 each. 
 
 The Priest. — In its first sacrament, my daughter, 
 our religion, the final one, gives a systematic 
 consecration to every birth. To this all previous 
 religions had been instinctively led. The mother 
 and the father of the new scion of Humanity come 
 to present it to the priesthood. The priesthood 
 receives from them a solemn engagement to fit the 
 child for the service of Humanity. This natural 
 guarantee is made more complete by two additional 
 institutions, the germ of which Positivism thinks 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 129 
 
 it an honour to borrow from Catholicism. It 
 developes that germ under the impulse of its social 
 principles. An artificial couple, chosen by the 
 parents, with the approbation of the priesthood, 
 ensures the new servant of the Supreme Being a 
 fresh protection. That protection is mainly spi- 
 ritual, but at need becomes temporal, and all the 
 special witnesses concur in it. He also receives 
 from his two families two particular patrons, one 
 chosen from among the theoretical, the other from 
 the practical, servants of Humanity. The names 
 he derives from these two he must complete by a 
 third ; for at the time of his emancipation he must 
 give himself a third name, selected, as the other 
 two, from among the consecrated representatives of 
 Humanity. 
 
 In the ancient civilization, this first sacrament 
 was often refused, especially to those who were 
 thought incapable of the destructive activity which 
 was then in especial request. But as the constitu- 
 tion of modern society more and more finds a use 
 for natures of every order, the presentation will be 
 almost invariably accepted by the priesthood, allow- 
 ing for certain cases which are too entirely excep- 
 tions to need prevision. 
 
 The second sacrament bears the name of Initiation, 
 as marking the first entrance into public life, when the 
 child passes, at the age of fourteen, from its unsys- 
 tematic training under the eye of its mother, to the 
 systematic education given by the priesthood. Till 
 that period, the advice of the priest is given solely to 
 
 i\ 
 
 .^ 
 
, 
 
 130 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 the parents, whether natural or artificial, to remind 
 them of their essential duties during the first period 
 of childhood. But now, the boy receives himself 
 the ad-^dce from the priest, and no longer through 
 his parents. The aim of that advice is especially, 
 to strengthen his heart against the injurious influ- 
 ences which too often accompany the intellectual 
 training which he is now to undergo. This second 
 sacrament may be put off, and sometimes refused, 
 though very seldom, if the home education has been 
 very unsuccessful. 
 
 Seven years later, the young disciple who has 
 been first presented, then initiated, receives, as the 
 consequence of his whole preparation, the sacrament 
 of admission. By it he is authorized freely to serve 
 Humanity, whereas hitherto he received everything 
 from Humanity and gave nothing in return. In 
 civil legislation we find a constant recognition of 
 the fact that it is necessary to put off, and even to 
 refuse, this emancipation, in the case of those whose 
 extremely defective organization, uncorrected by 
 education, condemns them to perpetual infancy. 
 The priesthood, as more qualified to form an accu- 
 rate judgment, will not shrink from having recourse 
 to measures of equal severity. But the direct con- 
 sequences of their severity must never extend be- 
 yond the spiritual domain. 
 
 By this third sacrament, the child becomes a 
 servant of Humanity. It does not, however, yet 
 mark out his special career. This will often be 
 different from that which it was supposed to be 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 131 
 
 whilst his practical apprenticeship, and the educa- 
 tion of his intellect, were proceeding together. He 
 alone is the proper judge on this point; and he 
 must judge on trial of himself for a sufficient length 
 of time. Hence a fourth social sacrament. At the 
 age of twenty-eight, allowing for a delay — a delay 
 which may be either at his own request or enjoined 
 — the sacrament of destination sanctions his choice 
 of a career. The old worship offered us the rudi- 
 ment, as it were, of this institution, confined to the 
 case of the highest functions, in the ordination of 
 priests and the coronation of kings. But Positive 
 religion must always consider every useful profes- 
 sion a fit subject for social institution, with no dis- 
 tinction of public and private. The humblest ser- 
 vants of Humanity will come to receive in her 
 temples, from the hands of her priests, this solemn 
 consecration of their entering on any co-operative 
 function whatsoever. This is the only sacrament 
 that admits of being really repeated, though such 
 repetition must be an exception. 
 
 TIis Woman. — I understand, my father, this series 
 of consecrations prior to marriage, itself to be 
 followed by our four other sacraments. As for 
 marriage, the most important of them all, and 
 which alone gives completeness to the whole series 
 of man's preparation, I already know the main 
 points of the Positivist doctrine. Above all, I 
 sympathize most deeply with the great institution 
 of eternal widowhood, long looked for by the hearts 
 of all true women. I recognise its importance for 
 
 k2 
 
 • <\ 
 
132 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 i 
 
 the family, and even for the city. But I see besides 
 this, that under no other condition can we suffi- 
 ciently develope our subjective life j under no otlier 
 condition can our minds rise to the familiar repre- 
 sentation of Humanity, by means of an adequate 
 personification. All these precious notions had I 
 made almost my own before I became your cate- 
 chumen. I know also that you will return to this 
 subject from another point of view, when explaining 
 the regime. We may then enter on the last series 
 of our consecrations. 
 
 The Priest— Fii^t however, my daughter, we 
 must settle what is the normal age for receivin<y 
 the chief social sacrament. As marriage is to 
 follow, and not precede, the choice of profession, 
 men can only be admitted to it so far as it is a 
 religious ordinance when they have accomplished 
 their twenty-eighth year. The priesthood will even 
 advise the Government to give the head of the 
 family a legal veto up to the age of thirty, in 
 order the better to guard against any precipitation 
 in the case of the most important of all our private 
 actions. ^ In the case of women, the sacrament 
 of destination necessarily coincides with that of 
 admission ; for their vocation is always known and 
 happily is uniform. They are therefore ready for 
 marriage at the age of twenty-one, the age best 
 fitted to secure the harmony of the marriage union. 
 These are the lower limits of age, and must not be 
 lowered for either sex, save on very exceptional 
 grounds, which the priesthood must thoroughly 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 133 
 
 I 
 
 weigh, and take the moral responsibility of sanc- 
 tioning. But in general, the higher limits should 
 not be fixed, though women should almost always 
 marry before twenty-eight, men before thirty-five. 
 This is the rule for married life under its best form. 
 
 Tlie Woman. — The first sacrament after marriage 
 seems to me, my father, sufficiently explained by 
 the mere explanation of the term. You had already 
 drawn my attention to the fact, that the full develop- 
 ment of the human organism coincides in time with 
 the completion of the man's social preparation, 
 nearly at the age of forty-two. I am now thinking 
 only of your sex, for mine is not concerned with 
 the sacrament of maturity. The social function of 
 women is at once too uniform and too fixed to re- 
 quire either of the two consecrations that precede 
 and follow marriage. 
 
 Tlw Priest. — You have succeeded, my daughter, 
 in forming, without any help from me, a right idea 
 of our sixth sacrament. Still you would hardly be 
 able, if you stopped at this point, to appreciate 
 rightly its peculiar importance. During the twenty- 
 one years which elapse between the sixth and the 
 seventh sacrament, the man is going through the 
 second period of his objective life, on which alone 
 depends his subjective immortality. Previously, 
 our life is simply a preparation. Naturally we are 
 liable to mistakes, and those sometimes of a serious 
 character, but never beyond reparation. From this 
 time forwards, on the contrary, the faults we commit 
 we can hardly ever repair, whether in reference to 
 
 » 
 
*(ll 
 
 ir 
 
 134 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 ourselves or to others. It is important, then, that 
 there should be a solemn ceremony when we impose 
 on the servant of Humanity the responsibility from 
 which he can now no longer shrink. In this cere- 
 mony we must never lose sight of his peculiar 
 function, now clearly determined. 
 
 The Woman. — The next sacrament, so far as I 
 see, my father, is simply destined to mark the 
 normal termination of that great period of complete 
 and direct action, of which the sixth consecration 
 marked the beginning. 
 
 The Priest. — On the contrary, my daughter, the 
 sacrament of retirement is one of the most august 
 and best determined of our sacraments. You will 
 see that this is so, if you consider the last funda- 
 mental duty which is then discharged by each true 
 servant of Humanity. It is an institution of Posi- 
 tivism, that every functionary, especially every tem- 
 poral functionaiy, names his successor, subject to the 
 sanction of his superior, and allowing for exceptional 
 cases of moral or mental unwoi*thiness, as I shall 
 shortly explain to you. You see at once that there 
 is no other means of adequately securing the con- 
 tinuity of man's work. When at sixty-three, the 
 citizen comes forward, of his own free will, to 
 renounce active life, as his active powers are 
 exhausted, and to have scope for the future for his 
 legitimate influence as an adviser, he then solemnly 
 exercises this last act of high authority, and by so 
 doing publicly places such under the control of the 
 priestly and popular elements of society. Their 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 135 
 
 influence may lead him to modify his own action 
 therein. The rich also transmit their office in 
 obedience to the same rules j and to make their 
 transmission complete, they hand over at the same 
 time that portion of the capital of the race which 
 forms the stock of the functionary, after he has 
 made provision for his own personal wants. 
 
 The Woman. — ^Now, my father, I see the full 
 social bearing of our seventh sacrament. I looked 
 on it at first as a kind of family festival. 
 
 As for the eighth, I am familiar enough with the 
 true religion to understand of myself in what it 
 consists. It is to be the substitute for the horrible 
 ceremony of the Catholic ritual. Catholicism, free 
 from all check on its anti-social character, openly 
 tore the dying person from all his human affections, 
 and made him stand quite alone before the judg- 
 ment-seat of God. In our transformation, the 
 priesthood mingles the regrets of society with the 
 tears of his family, and shows that it has a just 
 appreciation of the life that is ending. It first 
 secures, where possible, compensation for errors 
 committed, and then it generally holds out the hope 
 of subjective incorporation. It must not, how- 
 ever, compromise itself by a i)remature judgment. 
 
 The Priest. — Your appreciation, my daughter, of 
 the last objective sacrament is adequate. I will 
 now explain to you the final consecration. 
 
 Seven years after death, when the passions that 
 disturb the judgment are hushed, and yet the best 
 sources of information remain accessible, a solemn 
 
13(5 
 
 FIKST PART. 
 
 PRIVATE WORSHIP. 
 
 137 
 
 ft 
 
 judgment, an idea which, in its germ, sociocracy 
 borrows from theocracy, finally decides the lot of 
 each. If the priesthood pronounces for incorpora- 
 tion, it presides over the transfer, with due pomp, 
 of the sanctified remains. They had previously 
 been deposited in the burial-place of the city; they 
 now take their place for ever in the sacred wood 
 that surrounds the temple of Humanity. Every 
 tomb is ornamented with a simple inscription, a 
 bust, or a statue, according to the degree of honour 
 awarded. 
 
 As to the exceptional cases of marked unworthi- 
 ness, the sign of disgrace consists in transporting, 
 in the proper way, the ill-omened burden to the 
 waste place allotted to the reprobate, amongst those 
 who died by the hand of justice, by their own hand, 
 or in duel. 
 
 The Wo7nan.—J have a clear idea of the nine 
 social sacraments ; but I feel, my father, a regi-et as 
 regards my sex in general. It does not seem to me 
 that we are sufficiently considered. I make no 
 objection to our exclusion from three of these con- 
 secrations. Such exclusion is natural, and rests on 
 grounds which are in the highest degree honourable 
 to women. Their life is quieter, and requires there- 
 fore less attention on the part of religion. But I 
 cannot conceive why the subjective paradise should 
 be closed against those whom our religion proclaims 
 most qualified to merit admission. I do not, how- 
 ever, see how women should, as a general rule, have 
 this individual incorporation; for it must, in all cases, 
 
 I 
 
 it seems to me, be the result of a public life ; whereas 
 public life is wisely forbidden our sex, except in 
 very rare cases. 
 
 The Priest. — You will supply, my daughter, this 
 serious defect, when you consider that the incorpora- 
 tion of the man includes all the worthy auxiliaries 
 of every true servant of Humanity, not even 
 excepting the animals who have contributed their 
 aid. 
 
 The most important duty of woman is to form 
 and perfect man. It would be, then, as absurd as 
 it would be unjust to honour a good citizen, and 
 neglect to honour the mother, the wife, to whom 
 his success was mainly due. Around, and at times 
 within, each consecrated tomb, the priesthood will 
 be bound to collect, in the name of Humanity, all 
 the individuals who helped its inmate, while alive, 
 to perform the services she rewards. Your sex, by 
 its superior organization, can taste more keenly the 
 pure enjoyment that results from the mere growth 
 and exercise of good feelings; but it should not, 
 therefore, renounce its claim to just praise — much 
 less should it renounce the subjective immortality 
 whose value it so thoroughly appreciates. 
 
 Tlie Woman. — This explanation completes your 
 previous ones. It remains for me, my father, to 
 ask you, wherein lies the obligation for each to re- 
 ceive our difierent sacraments ? 
 
 TJie Priest. — They must always, my daughter, be 
 purely optional, so far as any legal obligation is 
 concerned. They bind a man; but they bind him 
 
138 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 with a simply moral obligation, the existence of 
 which is proved by our education and sanctioned 
 by opinion. 
 
 The better to preserve this their purely spiritual 
 character, on which more than anything else they 
 depend for their efficiency, our sacraments must not 
 be the only ones accessible. Side by side with 
 them there should be parallel institutions, esta- 
 blished and maintained by the temporal power, and 
 these last alone can be enforced in every case. The 
 judgment of the temporal power, less discrimi- 
 nating and less strict, will dispense with the reli- 
 gious rites in the case of those who may feel alarm 
 at them, and who yet can render society services 
 which it would be a pity to lose or impair. 
 
 For instance, we must not look on civil marriage 
 as an anarchical institution, though it is of revolu- 
 tionary origin. It is to be regarded as the neces- 
 sary preliminary for a religious marriage, and it 
 may dispense legally with this latter. The con- 
 trary custom was the result of an usurpation on the 
 part of Catholicism, which Positivism will never 
 imitate. Those who shrink from the law of widow- 
 hood, essential to the performance of a Positivist 
 marriage, must contract a civil union, to preserve 
 them from vice and secure the legal rights of their 
 children. The same holds good, though in a less 
 degree, for most of our social sacraments, especially 
 for admission and destination. The priesthood 
 ought, in case of need, to urge the Government to 
 institute legal rules with the object of moderating 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 139 
 
 the just strictness of our religious prescriptions. 
 The observance of our sacraments will never be en- 
 forced, nor will it ever have any other reward than 
 that of conscience and opinion. 
 
 CONVERSATION V. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 The Woman. — ^We are now entering on the direct 
 study of our public worship. I must, at the outset, 
 submit to you, my father, the answer which I have 
 wiven of myself to criticisms which I have heard 
 directed against the whole of our solemn adora- 
 tions. Superficial but honest, such critics urge that 
 each Positivist is in fact glorifying himself when 
 he is paying honour to a being which is of neces- 
 sity composed of its own worshippers. Our private 
 worship is in no way open to this reproach. It 
 can only apply to the direct worship of Humanity, 
 especially where that worship takes the shape of a 
 collective homage. We can meet it by stating the 
 true idea of the Supreme Being. Humanity is, in 
 the main, composed of subjective existences, of the 
 dead, not of the living. They who testify their 
 gratitude to her, are in no way certain, as a general 
 rule, of being finally incorporated into her. All 
 that they have is the hope of this reward. They 
 expect to deserve it by a worthy life, the judgment 
 on which, however, always rests with their suc- 
 cessors. 
 
 ' -] 
 
uo 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 141 
 
 ''■ I 
 
 III 
 
 The Priest— -In setting your objectors right, you 
 have kept close, my daughter, to the true sjnrit of 
 our public worship. In it, the present glorifies the 
 past, in order the better to prepare the future. The 
 present disappears naturally in presence of these 
 two immensities. Far from raising our pride, our 
 solemn prayers have a constant tendency to inspire 
 us with a true humility; for they make us pro- 
 foundly conscious to what a degree, spite of our best 
 collective efforts, we are incapable of ever paying to 
 Humanity any but the very smallest part of That 
 which she has given us. 
 
 The IVoman.— Before you explain the general 
 outline of our public worship, would you, my 
 father, give me an idea of the temples in which it is 
 to be performed ? As for the ministering priest- 
 hood, I am aware that the essential features of its 
 constitution will be clearly pointed out when we 
 come to the regime. 
 
 Th^ Priest— We cannot at present, my daughter, 
 form an adequate conception of the temj^Fes of 
 Positivism. Architecture is the most technical and 
 the least esthetic of all the fine arts; so that each 
 fresh synthesis finds its architectural expression 
 more difiScult than any other. Our religion must 
 be not only thoroughly worked out, but also widely 
 spread, before the public wants can show what 
 shape the edifices required must take. Provision- 
 aUy, then, we shall have to use the old churches, in 
 proportion as they fall into disuse. This prelimi- 
 nary period ought, in our case, not to be so long as 
 
 I ! 
 
 it was for Catholicism, which for many centuries 
 was confined to buildings of Polytheistic origin. 
 
 The only general points that can at present be 
 settled in this respect are, the situation and direc- 
 tion of the building. These are determined by the 
 nature of the Positive worship. Humanity is, in 
 the main, composed of such dead as are worthy of a 
 future life, so that her temples must be in the 
 centre of the tombs of the elect. On the other 
 hand, the chief attribute of Positive religion is its 
 necessary univei-sality. Everywhere, then, in all 
 parts of the earth, the temples of Humanity must 
 turn towards the general metropolis. This, for a 
 long time, as the result of past history, must be 
 Paris. In this manner Positivism turns to account 
 the idea, of which we find the rudiment in the 
 Kebla of Islamism. We institute, as the Mahome- 
 tans did, a common attitude for all true believers, 
 and so bring into fuller light the touching solidarity 
 of our free worship. 
 
 So far only can I go as to our sacred buildings. 
 As for their internal arrangement, all we need at 
 present attend to is the necessity of keeping the 
 chief sanctuary for women duly chosen. So may 
 the Priests of Humanity be always surrounded by 
 those who are her best representatives. 
 
 The Woman. — Your last remark leads me, my 
 father, to complete my former question, by askino- 
 you what are to be the symbols of our Divinity ? As 
 it is witliin the province of painting and sculpture 
 to give them a definite form, that shape may be 
 
142 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 143 
 
 I I 
 
 easier to aj)preciate than the construction of our 
 temples, as the two first arts of form are more rapid 
 in their progress than the third. 
 
 The Priest. — The nature of our Supreme Being 
 really leaves, my daughter, no opening even now 
 for hesitation as to the plastic representation of her. 
 In painting or in sculpture, equally, the symbol of 
 our Divinity will always be a woman of the age of 
 thirty, with her son in her arms. The pre-eminence, 
 religiously considered, of the affective sex, ought to 
 be the principal feature in our emblematic repre- 
 sentation, whilst the active sex must remain under 
 her holy guardianship. Groups with more figures 
 might render the symbolic representation more 
 complete, but in such groups it would lose too much 
 of its synthetic character to come into daily use. 
 
 Of the two modes wliich are adapted for the 
 expression of this normal symbol, sculpture is 
 suitable for the image fixed in each temple, in the 
 midst of the women chosen as above mentioned, 
 and behind the sacred desk. But painting is pre- 
 ferable for the moveable banners ,to be carried 
 before us in our solemn processions. On their 
 white side will be the holy image j on their green, 
 the sacred formula of Positivism. This green side 
 will be turned towards the procession. 
 
 The Woman. — As the last of my introductory 
 questions, would you, my father, explain the sign 
 which in ordinaiy use may represent the charac- 
 teristic formula of Positivism ? 
 
 TJie Priest. — We get this sign, my daughter, from 
 
 our cerebral theory, as I shall explain when we 
 study our doctrine. When we repeat our funda- 
 mental formula, we may place our hand in succes- 
 sion on the three chief organs — those of love, order, 
 and progress. The two first adjoin one another; 
 the last is only separated from the other two by 
 the organ of veneration, the natural cement of the 
 whole they together form ; so that the gesture 
 may be continuous. When the habit is formed, 
 we need not repeat the words — ^the gesture is enough. 
 In the end, as the order by the cerebral organs indi- 
 cates their functions, we may, in case of need, re- 
 duce the sign to the simple mention, one after the 
 other, of the numbers which represent those organs 
 in our synopsis (C). So, without any arbitrary in- 
 stitution. Positivism is already in possession of a 
 sign for common use, more expressive than any of 
 those adopted by Catholicism and Islamism. 
 
 The Woman. — Now, my father, I ought no longer 
 to delay your entering on the direct explanation of 
 the system of public woi*ship. 
 
 The Priest. — You will find it, my daughter, fully 
 expressed in the synopsis I here ofier you. (Table 
 A, at the end of vohime.) Our worship, like its 
 predecessors, has two objects : these two are — 
 to make us better understand, and better live 
 the life which it represents. We first, then, 
 idealize the fundamental ties which constitute our 
 existence ; secondly, the preparatory stages essential 
 to it ; lastly, the functions of its various organs in 
 the normal state. Such are to be respectively the 
 
Ill 
 
 144 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 145 
 
 I 
 
 objects of the three systems of monthly festivals 
 which fill up the Positivist year. That year is con- 
 sequently divided into thirteen months, of four 
 weeks each, with one complementary day set apart 
 as the Festival of the Dead. 
 
 You already know the four fundamental classes — 
 the affective, speculative, patrician, and plebeian 
 class — which are essential to society in its normal 
 form. As for the preparatory stages, we could not 
 without confusion condense them more than we 
 have done, so profound are the differences, both 
 intellectual and social, which must always distin- 
 guish fetichism, polytheism, and monotheism, even 
 in the spontaneous initiation of every Positivist. 
 With regard to the primary relations which are the 
 bonds of society, we must begin by celebrating the 
 most universal. We then honour, in turn, each of 
 the private affections which alone can ensure the 
 fii-st a real consistency. These elementary rela- 
 tions are really five in number — marriage, the rela- 
 tion of parent to child, of child to parent, that 
 of brothers, and the domestic relation, or that of 
 master and sei-vant — and we rank them, in obedience 
 to our hierarchical principle, by theii* increase in 
 point of generality, their decrease in intimacy. 
 
 The number of months in the Positivist year has 
 at first sight an appearance of paradox. It is sanc- 
 tioned by a correct estimate of the religious grounds 
 on which it rests. Repeated experience has, more- 
 over, shown that there will be no difficulty in intro- 
 ducing it simultaneously with the faith. Again, 
 
 the Universal religion alone can secure regularity in 
 point of time by its exact division of each month 
 into four periods of a week each. However great 
 the practical advantages of such an arrangement, it 
 would not be adopted, were it not that our worship 
 does not allow us to hesitate, as mere material reasons 
 would do. 
 
 The Woman. — On a first view, I see, my father, 
 no serious difficulty in your synopsis of sociolatry, 
 except as regards the domestic relation. You seem 
 to me to exaggerate its importance, when you place 
 it in that scheme as one of the fundamental bonds 
 of society. 
 
 The Priest. — Your objection reminds me, my 
 daughter, that you belong by birth to the north, 
 although happily preserved from Protestantism. 
 For the southern nations of Western Europe retain, 
 in this respect, more perfectly the true feelings of 
 the race, so nobly developed in the Middle Ages. 
 
 The domestic relation is not destined to pass 
 away. Far from it, it will become more and more 
 important, as it more completely clears itself of all 
 trace of its original form, slavery. When once it 
 has become completely voluntary, it will furnish 
 many families with the best means of rendering 
 worthy service to the Supreme Being. They may 
 serve Humanity by assisting her true servants, 
 whether philosophical or practical. Such assist- 
 ance is indispensable. Thus they indirectly share 
 in promoting the public good. Yet though indirect, 
 their participation is more complete and less uncer- 
 
146 
 
 FIEST PART. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 147 
 
 I; 
 
 tain than that of most whose co-operation is direct. 
 It may be made also more efficient in the cultiva- 
 tion of our best feelings. We restrict it within too 
 narrow limits when we confine it to certain classes. 
 In all ranks of society, above all in the proletariate, 
 every citizen passed through this condition, whilst his 
 practical education lasted. We must then idealize 
 the domestic relation as the complement of the family 
 relations, and the first step towards those of citizens. 
 The Woiium. — My heart wanted, my father, 
 nothing but this rational correction of an intellec- 
 tual error, to enable it to rise above my anarchical 
 prejudices. They prevented me from fraternizing, 
 as I should have done, with the nobler types of this 
 class. Such types are not uncommon, especially 
 among women, though they are not appreciated. 
 Your explanation will have a wholesome efiect on 
 me. I only wish one more and that a general one, 
 in respect to the other end of our sclieme of socio- 
 latry. I cannot but think you have inverted the 
 positions of the patriciate and proletariate. Political 
 considerations may ranji them in the order given, 
 on the principle of their material power. But re- 
 ligion classes men on the principle of moral worth, 
 and ought, it seems to me, to arrange them difierently. 
 The Priest. — You forget, my daughter, that in 
 Positive religion there must be an exact correspon- 
 dence between the worship and the regime. But 
 I easily excuse your mistake, by the nobleness of its 
 motive. At times I have thought as you do, from 
 allowing too much weight to the extremely imperfect 
 
 state of the actual patriciate, so often unworthy of 
 its high social destination. Real superiority of the 
 brain, moral superiority even more than intellec- 
 tual, is, at the present day, far more widely spread, in 
 proportion, among the working classes. For they have 
 escaped the degrading influences of education and 
 power. Still, though we must carefully take into ac- 
 count this exceptional state of things as a fact beyond 
 dispute, when we are arranging the transitional 
 organization of Western Europe, we must not the 
 less be able systematically to put it aside when we 
 are constructing the abstract worship of Humanity, 
 destined mainly for the use of the race in its 
 normal state. If we look too much to the present 
 and not enough to the future, we should certainly be 
 led to place even the priesthood below the prole- 
 tariate. For the priesthood is actually far more 
 imperfect than the patriciate, whether you choose 
 to judge it as it exists among the scattered ruins of 
 theological belief, or in its rudimentary state amid 
 the doctrines of metaphysics and science. 
 
 In the Positive worship, as in the normal ex- 
 istence of which it is the ideal expression, the 
 patrician worthy of his position is higher, as a 
 general rule, than the plebeian, as much in true 
 nobleness as in real power. As we rank the classes 
 of men by their aptitude to represent the Great 
 Being, the importance and difficulty of the peculiar 
 service rendered by the patrician class, as well 
 as the education required and the responsibility 
 involved, always place it above the proletariate. 
 
 L 2 
 
 J* 
 
1 
 
 148 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 149 
 
 ii 
 
 1 
 
 It is, in fact, in the name of this higher rank 
 that the wisdom of the priesthood, properly aided 
 by the sanction of women and the support of 
 the people, must remind the patricians, whether 
 singly or collectively, of their eternal social duties, 
 in cases of serious neglect. But these remonstrances 
 must be exceptions, and they would fail of their 
 main object, if the normal worship did not pay 
 sufficient honour to the necessary ministers of our 
 material providence. By placing the proletariate at 
 the lower extremity of the social scale, the worship 
 reminds the proletaries that their characteristic 
 aptitude to control and correct all the powers of 
 society is the result of their situation — a situation 
 essentially passive, and developing no marked ten- 
 dency. Our sacred synopsis, then, like the regime 
 which it represents, must place the two great powers, 
 the spiritual and the temporal, between women and 
 the proletaries — the two bodies which exercise a 
 constant influence on the sentiments and conduct 
 of those powers. If the patriciate were ))laced 
 lower, it would be a breach of the harmony of the 
 Positive system, quite as much in reference to 
 sociolatry as to sociocracy. 
 
 TJie Woman. — I am sufficiently familiar already 
 with the system of public worship for you to ex- 
 plain to me, my father, your weekly division of the 
 thirteen monthly festivals. This last development 
 gives each week its general festival. This must be a 
 great help to secure the moral object of our worship 
 of Humanity. For by this means Humanity is 
 
 
 , 
 
 constantly recurring under widely varied aspects, 
 but aspects which, though varied, are convergent. 
 
 The Priest. — Before I enter on this explanation, 
 my daughter, I should say that Positivism retains 
 unchanged the established names for the days of 
 the week. I had thought of substituting others ; 
 but I have given up the attempt, and there 
 will be no trace left of it except a beautiful series 
 of prayers by M. Joseph Lonchampt, for each day of 
 the week. The old names have the advantage of 
 recalling the whole of the past, in its three stages 
 of fetichism, polytheism, and monotheism.* 
 
 To make our worship completely regular, it was 
 necessary, my daughter, that each day of any week 
 whatever should always hold the same place in the 
 year. This invariability is obtained by affixing no 
 weekly name, first, to the complementary day which 
 always closes the Positivist year, then to the 
 additional day which follows it if it is leap-year, 
 according to the practice of Western Europe. Each 
 of these exceptional days is really sufficiently 
 marked by the festival appointed for it. With this 
 precaution, our calendar holds good for all years — a 
 point as important for the regime as for the worship. 
 
 Tlie Woman. — I can easily conceive, my father, 
 the moral efficacy of such invariability, by which 
 each day of our year might receive, as the last day 
 does, a name purely religious. Catholicism was 
 never able to secure this as a rule. 
 
 ♦ See Pol. Pos. vol. iv. pp. 135, 404. 
 
 ill 
 
150 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 151 
 
 It 
 
 I 
 
 kl 
 
 The Priest. — This preliminary settled, I may, my 
 daughter, begin to state directly in their order the 
 solemn ceremonies appointed for the seventh day in 
 each week. Your synopsis of sociolatry shows you 
 how the idea which each month commemorates is 
 divided between the four weekly festivals. All I 
 have to do is to state the groiinds of this division, 
 and to make it clear by some summary explanations. 
 
 Our first month, dedicated to Humanity, needs 
 little in this respect. We open the Positivist year 
 by the most august of all our festivals — a direct 
 homage to the Supreme Being. The four weekly 
 festivals are the complement of this main one. In 
 them we respectively do honour to the various 
 essential forms of the social union. They rank 
 according to the decrease of extension, and the in- 
 crease of intimacy, in the relations of the race. The 
 first festival honours the bond of religion, the only 
 one that admits of being universal ; the second 
 glorifies the connexion due to old political relations. 
 These have disappeared, but not without leaving 
 strong traces in a community of language and 
 poetry. In the third, we celebrate directly the 
 effective union springing from the free acceptance 
 of one and the same government. The fourth 
 honours the least extended but the most complete 
 of our civil relations. In it the habit of familiar 
 association brings us nearest to the family imion. 
 
 Passing to the month consecrated to marriage, 
 its first solemnity glorifies the conjugal union in its 
 completest form, when it is at once exclusive and 
 
 1 
 
 indissoluble, even by death. The priesthood must 
 take this occasion to bring home, both to our heart 
 and intellect, the general advance of this admirable 
 institution, the primary basis of the whole order of 
 man. It must enumerate and explain all its es- 
 sential phases, from the polygamy which originally 
 prevailed down to the strictest monogamy, the 
 Positivist maiTiage. 
 
 In the following festival we honour the voluntary 
 chastity which weighty moral or physical reasons 
 may prescribe, even in marriage. The capital 
 object of marriage, the mutual improvement of both 
 sexes, comes out more clearly in such an union. 
 Nor does this exceptional union oblige them, who 
 are bound by it, to renounce the affections that 
 concern the future. These may be secured by a 
 judicious adoption. The priesthood will bring out 
 into suitable relief the tendency of such an union to 
 control human procreation. It allows the benefits 
 of marriage where otherwise inherited disease would 
 
 forbid them. 
 
 The third week of marriage leads us to honour 
 the exceptional unions in which a disparity, not 
 without excuse, does not preclude the attainment 
 of the main object of marriage, especially when 
 in the final state opinion shall fix a limit to the 
 difference of age allowed. Lastly, the fourth fes- 
 tival honours the posthumous union, which will 
 often be the result of the normal constitution 
 of human marriage. The truest charm of mar- 
 riage is often strengthened and developed by the 
 
 \ I 
 
152 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 purity and constancy that distinguish subjective 
 love. 
 
 One explanation will suffice for the three follow- 
 ing months, for their weekly subdivisions are 
 naturally the same. For the first of them, the first 
 half is devoted to the paternal relation in its com- 
 plete form, first when involuntary, next in the case 
 of adoption ; the second half is reserved for the 
 same relation when incomplete, a relation such as 
 that which in every regular society results from 
 spiritual authority or temporal patronage. Hence 
 spring, in a descending order, the four normal de- 
 grees of paternal affection, respectively honoured 
 in the four weekly festivals of the third Positivist 
 month. Now the same distinctions and gradations 
 necessarily recur in the case of the relation of chil- 
 dren to their parents, or of brothers to one another. 
 So I may dispense with any first explanation for 
 the fourth and fifth months. 
 
 As for the sixth, it begins by honouring the 
 domestic relation when permanent. This will 
 always mark off a very numerous, but still a special 
 class. Next we honour the analogous position in 
 which each man, as a rule, finds himself during his 
 practical education. The first case requires for 
 clearness an important subdivision, the distinction 
 of which is residence. The domestic relation is 
 complete in the case of the servant proper, or in- 
 complete in that of the clerk who has simply to 
 perform a certain office. When the manners of the 
 normal state shall have made domestic service, espe- 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 153 
 
 
 
 cially that of women, consistent with the full 
 development of family affection. Positive worship 
 will show the real moral superiority of the first 
 position, for in it the spirit of devotion is purer 
 and more keen. The same distinction is applicable, 
 though in a less marked degree, to temporary ser- 
 vice, and is there again determined by residence. 
 Hence the two last festivals of the sixth month, 
 respectively devoted to pages and to apprentices, 
 according as the masters are rich or poor. 
 
 The Woman. — In all these details of the different 
 fundamental relations of society, I find, my father, 
 no difficulty. But I am afraid that my weakness 
 in history will prevent my fully understanding the 
 second series of social festivals ; for the preparatory 
 state of them, as a whole, is as yet only known to 
 me by the first law of evolution. 
 
 The Priest. — That law is enough, my daughter, 
 to enable you even now to understand, in outline, 
 the succession of the three preliminary states men- 
 tioned in our synopsis of sociolatry. As for the 
 weekly division of each of those states, you will, it 
 is true, hardly be able to enter into it till after the 
 historical conversation with which I shall end this 
 Catechism. I limit myself, therefore, to the co- 
 ordination of the chief divisions. I leave it to you 
 to complete it for yourself, when you shall have 
 gained the requisite knowledge. 
 
 The fictitious synthesis, in all cases resting on the 
 search after causes, may take two forms, according 
 as the will, to which events are attributed, is inhe- 
 
15i 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 rent in matter itself, or in beings external to 
 matter, but which are usually beyond the reach of 
 our senses. Now the first or direct form, which 
 is of more spontaneous growth than any other, is 
 the initial stage, or fetichism ; whereas the second 
 or indirect form marks the theological state which 
 follows. But this last state, less simple and less 
 lasting than the first, offers a succession of two dis- 
 tinct constitutions, according as the Gods are nume- 
 rous or are condensed into one. Theologism, which 
 is after all but an immense transition from Fetich- 
 ism to Positivism, takes its rise in Fetichism in 
 its polytheistic form, and leads to Positivism in its 
 monotheistic. Fill up this outline of the philoso- 
 phical advance of our race by the coiTesponding 
 social progress, and you have the whole initiation 
 of man adequately expressed, as you will soon feel. 
 
 You will then be able to see how well adapted is 
 our second series of social festivals to pay due 
 honour to all the essential phases of this long pre- 
 paration, from the first forward movement of the 
 smallest tribes down to the twofold development of 
 the modern stage of transition. This full celebra- 
 tion of the past of man, in twelve weekly festivals, 
 is the result of the historical condensation which 
 the abstract worship by its nature allows. 
 
 TIi£ Woinan. — We can now then, my father, enter 
 on the last series of our social festivals. The month 
 dedicated to women, or the moral providence of the 
 race, offers me no difficulty, for I see the clearly- 
 marked distinction between the types chosen from 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 155 
 
 women to represent its four weekly festivals. But 
 I am at a loss as yet as to the division of the 
 sacerdotal month. 
 
 The Priest. — Take for your guide, my daughter, 
 the different forms or degrees of the Positive priest- 
 hood, ranked according to their increasing complete- 
 ness. This great ministry calls for a rare union of 
 moral qualities, both those of action and of affection, 
 with intellectual ability, both for ai-t and science. 
 If this last alone is remarkable, its possessors, 
 after proper cultivation, must be, perhaps for ever, 
 mere pensionaries of the spiritual power ; they must 
 never aspire to be incorporated into it. In these 
 cases, which are fortunately exceptional, the finest 
 genius for poetry or philosophy cannot supply the 
 place of tenderness and energy in a functionary who 
 must habitually feel the warmest sympathy, and 
 who has often to engage in difficult struggles. This 
 incomplete form of priesthood allows for the due 
 cultivation of all true talent without endangering 
 the service of society. 
 
 As for the complete priesthood, the first requisite 
 is a preparatory stage, beyond which the candidate 
 will not proceed, if, in spite of his announcement of 
 his vocation, he does not successfully pass through 
 the proper novitiate. After this decisive trial, at 
 thirty-five he obtains directly and definitively the 
 priesthood. But during seven years he must remain 
 in the subordinate position which marks the vicar 
 or substitute. When he has duly gone through all 
 the steps of our encyclopedic teaching, and, within 
 
156 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 certain limits, performed the other functions of the 
 priest, he reaches, at the age of forty-two, the chief 
 degree ; he then becomes irrevocably a priest in the 
 fullest sense. Such are the four classes of the theo- 
 retical body, honoured respectively in the four 
 weekly festivals of the eleventh month. 
 
 The Woman. — The next month, my father, re- 
 quires no particular explanation. I am not familiar 
 with active life, but the definiteness which charac- 
 terizes it enables me fully to understand the normal 
 division of the patrician body into four essential 
 classes, ranked on the principle of the decreasing 
 generality of their functions and the increasing 
 number of functionaries. Perhaps even, in our 
 anarchical period, women are better qualified than 
 the proletaries, and still more than their teachers, 
 to appreciate rightly this natural hierarchy. For 
 they are more thoroughly preserved from the dis- 
 turbing influences of passion, and from sophistical 
 views. I am glad, then, that the four weekly 
 festivals of our twelfth month yearly honour, and, 
 by honouring, give a moral character to these four 
 different and necessary forms of the material power 
 on which rests the whole economy of society. But 
 I am not so clear as to the divisions of the last 
 month. 
 
 Tlie Priest. — That division depends, my daughter, 
 on the character of generality which attaches natu- 
 rally to the proletariate, in which all the great 
 attributes of Humanity require a distinct ideal 
 expression. This immense social body, the neces- 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 157 
 
 sary stock of all special classes — is mainly devoted 
 to active life, and active life is the direct object of 
 the first weekly festival of the plebeian month. 
 Next to the active proletariate, we must pay a 
 separate tribute to the affective proletariate, which 
 is its necessary accompaniment. Without this 
 special tribute to the women of the proletary class, 
 the general celebration of the types of women 
 remains incomplete; for in the tenth month we 
 considered them from a point of view which em- 
 braced all classes— here they are viewed in especial 
 reference to their popular action. 
 
 The third festival of our thirteenth month must 
 find fit means for duly honouring the contemplative 
 class of proletaries; especially those who are ar- 
 tistic, or even scientific. They have not been able 
 to gain admission into a priesthood whose numbers 
 must of course be limited, and yet they feel them- 
 selves more adapted to theory than practice. We 
 shall have at times to pity these exceptional types; 
 in all cases we must respect them : so only can we 
 make them properly useful by wisely guiding their 
 natural tendencies. From them principally must 
 come the general control exercised by the prole- 
 tariate over the special depositaries of power, 
 whereas the impulse which the same body ought to 
 give requires men of a more active nature. 
 
 Finally, the last festival of our popular month 
 honours mendicity, whether temporary or perma- 
 nent. Improve society to the utmost, still you 
 never reach the point where this, the extreme con- 
 
'it 
 
 158 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 sequence of the peculiar imperfections of practical 
 life, shall cease. So the ideal expression of our 
 social state would be incomplete unless the priest- 
 hood closed it by the just appreciation of this ex- 
 ceptional form of existence. Where there is ade- 
 quate justification and proper conduct, such an ex- 
 istence deserves the sympathy, at times even the 
 praise, of all honoumble minds. More fluctuating 
 than any other, this complementary class naturally 
 connects with all ranks of society. They must in 
 time draw from it and feed it. It thus becomes 
 well qualified to develop the general influence of 
 the proletariate on all the powers of society. It 
 would then be as great an act of improvidence as of 
 injustice not to give mendicants a sej^arate notice 
 in our idealization. 
 
 The IVoDian. — As for the complementary day, I 
 see, my father, why Positivism places at the end of 
 our year the collective festival of the dead happily 
 introduced by Catholicism. This touching com- 
 memoration would, if it had occurred in the midst 
 of our public woi*ship, have disturbed its normal 
 economy. Placed as it is, it is the proper comple- 
 ment of the whole, and the natural prej^aration for 
 the recurrence of the yearly order. It was fitting 
 that the festival peculiar to the Supreme Being 
 should be preceded by the glorification of all its 
 organs without exception. 
 
 The additional day in leap-year is equally easy. 
 My sex can scarcely ever deserve an individual 
 and public apotheosis. So the abstract system of 
 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 159 
 
 worship, without degenerating into a concrete wor- 
 ship, was bound to pay this honour, collectively, 
 to women who deserve an individual celebration. 
 The ideal expression of human existence is thus 
 completed, by the honour paid to the right use of 
 the various exceptional qualities that woman's na- 
 ture allows, when its more important characteristics 
 are kept unimpaired. 
 
 The Priest. — As you have of yourself, my daughter, 
 satisfactorily finished the explanation of our public 
 worship, we have reached the end of the first part 
 of our Catechism. We must now return to the study 
 of the doctrine, the central idea of which was given 
 in the Introduction. 
 
 In its worship, Positivism appears as the religion 
 of Love. Humanity, the highest object of that 
 love, it was necessary to explain before the worship. 
 In its doctrine, to which we now proceed. Positivism 
 will appear as the religion of order. In the subse- 
 quent treatment of the regime, we shall see that it 
 alone is tlie religion of progress, and, in particular, 
 of the moral progress of the human race. 
 
Btm)i |int 
 
 CONVERSATION VT. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 The Woman. — You have already explained to 
 me, my father, in the second conversation of our 
 Introduction, the Great Being whom we worship — 
 Humanity. In the three following conversations, 
 you have given an exposition of the worship we pay 
 her. I ask you now to show me how the whole 
 system of Positive doctrine may be systematically 
 grouped around Humanity, its central unity. 
 
 The Priest. — First of all, my daughter, you must 
 give up all idea of attaininpr to an absolute^ extern al, 
 or. in one word, an objective unity. Tl^isf -^ill Tia 
 easier fo|- ynn t]in,|^ fnr tl^ft IparnA^ ^\.^ .ir^oT. f,.j. 
 
 such an objective u nity was compatible with th ft 
 inqui ry into causes. It is in dire f^ frnitr' QrlipfiATi 
 with the study of laws : for bv laws we mean in - 
 variable relations traced in widelv varyingr phe - 
 nomena. These relations fldijnit of nn nnj^y \\\\\ ^ 
 p urely^ relative and human onej in one word, a 
 subjective unity. In fact, laws cannot be reduce d 
 to unity, cannot be spok en of in the si ngular. X v 
 virtue of the impossibility that notoriously exists of 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 161 
 
 fprji^fing iip^fir ^^*" ^^-^fir *>^^^ er of the two geneml 
 elements of all our conce ptions of thing^s, the worl d 
 and man. It is conceivable that we might succeed 
 in condensing each of these two great objects of 
 study around one single law of nature. Still, as 
 even then the two must remain separate, scientific 
 unity is unattainable. The knowledge of the world 
 presupposes man as the being who has that know- 
 ledge. But the world could exist without man, as 
 is perhaps the case with many stars which are not 
 fit for man to live in. So again, though man is 
 dependent on the world, he is in no sense its 
 necessary result. All the efforts of materialists to 
 do away with spontaneous vital action, by exagge- 
 rating the preponderating influence of the material 
 environment on organized beings, have ended in 
 nothing but the discrediting the inquiry. It is as 
 useless as it is idle; for the future it should be 
 abandoned to minds of an unscientific character. 
 
 Further than this, we are far from being able to 
 establish any objective unity even within the 
 limits of each general element of the dualism above 
 mentioned, the dualism of the world and man. 
 The various branches into which the study of the 
 world or of man is, for practical need, divided, 
 reveal to us an increasing number of different laws. 
 These laws will never be susceptible of reduction, 
 the one under the other, spite of the frivolous hopes 
 inspired at first by our discovery of the law of 
 planetary gravitation. These laws are for the 
 most part still unknown ; many must ever remain 
 
.II-J-J-^ ' J, .^ 
 
 162 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 SO. Still, we know enough to guamntee against all 
 danger the fundamental dogma of Positivism — the 
 subjection, viz., of all phenomena of whatever order 
 to invariable relations. The exist ing nrdp.r. the 
 result of the whole combination of the laws of 
 na ture, bears the ge T^pra.1 namp. nf i'-A.f^. nr olianfie -^ 
 fa^e, if the J«-«^« ^^^ TcTinwn to ua — chance. \f ^^^y 
 are unk nown. This distinction will always remain 
 of great practical importance, since the ignorance 
 of these laws is, for our action, equivalent to their 
 non-existence. For it precludes all rational pre- 
 vision, and as a consequence any regular inter- 
 ference. Still we may hope to discover, for each 
 of the more important cases, empirical rules which, 
 insufficient from the theoretic point of view, may 
 be sufficient to keep us from disorderly action. 
 
 In the midst of this growing divergence, the 
 dogma of Humanity gives unity to our conception s. 
 TiA nii]Y nnTfy t.lint. cRn bft ^v eu, the Only bo nd 
 that we rea lly need . To form a right conception 
 of the nature and formation of this unity, you 
 must distinguish three k i nds of laws, physical, in - 
 t ellectual, and moral. The first, by their nature, 
 belong to the sex adapted for action ; the last to 
 the sex in which affection is predominant. The 
 intermediate laws are the peculiar province of the 
 priesthood. Its task is, to reduce to a system the 
 joint action of the two sexes, and so it shares the 
 life of both. The priesthood is both active and 
 affective, though not so active as practical men, not 
 so affective as women. Hence it is that the physical 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 163 
 
 and moral laws have always been cultivated em- 
 pirically. The physical and moral wants of men 
 must be met. But the success attained was widely 
 different in the two cases. Physical laws are, in 
 reality, independent of moral laws. Within the 
 proviii(3(i, thtn, ol physical laws, 'men could arrive 
 at isolated convictions which, though incoherent, 
 were firm. On the contrary, as moral laws cannot 
 be independent of physical laws, women, in this 
 their peculiar province, could construct no system 
 of real stability. Their efforts were only valuable 
 for their influence on the affections. Naturally, 
 then, it was within the sphere of physical laws that 
 sound theoretical cultivation originated; and it 
 was attainable by keeping clear of the details of 
 action. As, however, moral laws are thp nlf.imafA 
 obj ect of all sound m ftfJitflt.io]], f^ ^^gi^i^ Mnfl inftiftn 
 tific unity was unattainable, unless some adequa te 
 connexion of physics ai;id morals c^uld be found. 
 The intermediate domain, natura lly connecte d 
 with each of the two, offers th e only bond_ of 
 con nexion/" So, ultimately, the construction of 
 a true theoretic unity depends on a sufficient 
 elaboration of the peculiar laws of man's under- 
 standing. 
 
 The Woman. — Your conclusion seems a difficult 
 one to get at ; yet I feel no difficulty, my father, in 
 at once admitting it. In meditating on moral sub- 
 jects, I have often been led to feel that a knowledge 
 of the laws of the intellect is indispensable. Con- 
 sistent action seems hopeless without it. For the 
 
 M 2 
 
■^■»w^««?*»- 
 
 
 164 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 peculiar laws of tlie function tliat judges are in- 
 separable from those of the function that is judged. 
 Men, however, would be less sensible of this con- 
 nexion in the case of the physical laws which form 
 the especial object of men's attention. As, then, I 
 admit your conclusion, you may pass on, without 
 further preamble, to the direct exposition of these 
 laws of the mind on which all systematic unity 
 depends. 
 
 The Friest. — These laws, my daughter, I must 
 at once, here as elsewhere, class under two heads. 
 They are s tatical and dynamical, according as the v 
 h ave reference to the invariable element in t he 
 object under consideration, or as they apply to i ts 
 nece ssaiy variation s. T'bese iwo correlative terms 
 •v^afe become indispensable to any really serious ex- 
 position of Positivism. It will soon bring them 
 into popular use. Not that they can ever have for 
 your sex the moral attraction, which you will soon 
 learn to feel towards the terms objective and sub- 
 jective, the ultimate destination of which is to ex- 
 press in all their shades our sweetest and best 
 emotions. But though purely intellectual, the two 
 former terms must be valued on account of their 
 scientific utility. For the rest, these two pairs of 
 philosophical expressions are the only ones that I 
 am necessitated to require you to accept. 
 
 The preceding explanation renders it easy for you 
 to see, that in the case of any department whatever 
 of human study, the statical question necessarily 
 precedes the dynamical. This last is impossible 
 
 THE DOCTlilNE. 
 
 165 
 
 witliout the other. It is absolutely necessary, in 
 fact, to have determined what are the fundamental 
 conditions of any existence, before you can pass to 
 the consideration of the different states in which 
 that existence successively appears. The ancients, 
 seeing as they did no tendency to change anywhere, 
 were completely without any dynamical concep- 
 tions, even in mathematics. Whereas Aristotle, the 
 eternal prince of all true philosophers, was able 
 even then to lay down the laws essential for the 
 study of all the highest branches of knowledge, life, 
 intellect, and society, so far as such study was 
 statical. Such is the necessary course of things — 
 the statical must precede the dynamical, but it is 
 incomplete without the dynamical. A merely sta- 
 tical appreciation can never be anything but pro- 
 visional, it cannot form a competent guide for 
 action. If it stood alone, it would lead us in action 
 into serious errors, especially in the more important 
 cases. 
 
 The atat jff^il 1<'^ c\i^ our understandin g is, in 
 Positivism, simply an application of that funda- 
 mental principle of the system which looks on man 
 as in all cases subordinate to the world. In fact, it 
 consists in the constant suboi 
 
 jective noriRf.rnnt.ions to the objqgtive ynat^inals (^f _ 
 
 tE 
 
 those constru ctions. The gen ius of Aristotle sketched 
 it in outline in his admirable general statement : — 
 ThpTP. i ff <n^ih/inrtg j^^ f.J)^. ^nr lfirstandinff that did no t 
 oriahwllu svrinn from sensation. The moderns often 
 
 pressed this axiom too far. They represented our 
 
166 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 intelligence as purely passive. This compelled the 
 great Leibnitz to add an essential restriction. The 
 object of that restriction was, definitely to express 
 the spontaneous character of our mental dispositions. 
 Leibnitz' addition, except the understanding ^ limited 
 in reality to the clearer development of Aristotle's 
 maxim, was completed by Kant. Kant intro- 
 duced the distinction, never to be' forgotten, between 
 objective and subjective reality, both equally appli- 
 cable to all man's conceptions. Still the principle 
 had not received its full systematic value. Josi- 
 tivism gave it that value by connecting it with the 
 general law which, in all vital phenomena, conside rs 
 e\ery oro ^anism ^g in a p^|igfo ,nt dependence on the 
 sum of ex ternal influences. With regard to our 
 highest spiritual functions, equally as with regard 
 to our most corporeal ones, the external worl d serves 
 US both for nourishment, stimulus, a nd con trol. So 
 viewed, the subordination of the subje ctive to the 
 o bjective no longer stands isolated^ and at the same 
 time Positive Philosophy supplies its necessary 
 complement, without which the study, from the 
 statical point of view, of our intellect, could not 
 have been brought into really close connexion with 
 the dynamical. The complement I mean, consists 
 in recognising the fact that, in the normal state, 
 our subjective conceptions are always less vivid and 
 less clear than the objective impressions from which 
 they rise. Were it otherwise, the world without 
 could exert no controlling influence over the world 
 within. 
 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 167 
 
 C/arry out these two statical principles, and you 
 see that all our conceptions whatever are the neces- 
 saj^y result of an uninterrupted intercourse between 
 the world and man, the world supplying the mate- 
 rials, man shaping them. They are deeply stamped 
 with the relative character, relative both to the 
 subject and the object. As these vary respectively, 
 so necessarily are the conceptions modified. Our 
 great merit, in the scientific point of view, consists 
 in bringing this natural subordination of man to 
 the world to the highest point of perfection. At 
 this point, the brain becomes the faithful mirror 
 of the actual order of outward things, and the 
 future consequences of that order then admit of 
 prevision, if the powers of the mind are rightly 
 exercised. But the representation of th e outward 
 nrrlpr ia not , and is n ot required to be. absolutely 
 exact. The degree in which it approximates _io 
 perfect exactness is' determined by our practic al 
 wants. They give us the standard of precision 
 desirable for our theoretical previsions. Within 
 this necessary limit, there is generally left for our 
 intellect a certain degree of liberty in speculation. 
 This liberty it should use to secure adequate satis- 
 faction for its own inclinations, whether in the 
 direction of science, or even of the fine arts. 
 This it may do by giving to our conceptions greater 
 regularity, greater beauty even, without in any 
 degree interfering with their truth. Such is, under 
 its mental aspect, Positivism. It is always occupied 
 with the pursuit_oflaffia— It holds its way between 
 
168 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 two paths of equal danger, that of mysticism, 
 which insists on arriving at causes ; that of empi- 
 ricism, which insists on a rigid adherence to these 
 facts. 
 
 7%6 Woman. — There seems to me, my father, 
 one serious omission in this statical theory of man's 
 intellect. It seems solely to have reference to the 
 state of reason properly so called. It does not 
 seem capable of embracing madness; and yet it 
 ought to explain this not less than the other. 
 Actual life, as we daily see it, offers us so many 
 nicely shaded degrees between these two states of 
 mind, that all the cases ought to obey the same 
 laws essentially. The only difference ought to be 
 one of degi-ee, as in the case of our bodily func- 
 tions. 
 
 The Priest. — A more attentive consideration of 
 the doctrine set forth will enable you, my daughter, 
 to see that it does really contain the true theonr 
 of madness and ofidiocy. These are two extremft 
 states of the mind , and pa ^h vinlfltfts fl|P JTTA 
 p ortion which the "finii"' "^-^^-^ -r rnirnn, rnquiron to, 
 e xist between the obiective impressions and the 
 subjective conceptions. Idiocy finnaiats in th^ 
 excess ot^ obiectivity. In it our brain is too passiv e. 
 Madness, properly so called, consists in the excpa a 
 o f subjectivity, and is the cons^giipy^cp nf ^ , n imd ue 
 a ctivity of the brain. The mean state itsplf, in whl^l. 
 reason consists, varies according to the regular 
 variations to which human existence in every form is 
 subject, whether it be the society or the individual. 
 
 
 i\ 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 169 
 
 To form a sound judgment on madness is a most 
 delicate operation, the more so as we must take 
 into account time and place, and generally difference 
 of situation, as is so clearly shown by the admirable 
 composition of the great Cervantes. It is in 
 reference to madness that we gain the clearest per- 
 ception of the extent to which the statical study of 
 the intellect remains incomplete, if it do not receive 
 the complement of the dynamical study. 
 
 The Woman, — I would follow up this striking 
 reflection, my father, and if you think proper, I 
 would at once enter on this dynamical study, as 
 the complement of the statical. For it appears, 
 that without it I cannot by my own meditations 
 form a proper conception of the whole of the great 
 spectacle offered me by the intellect. The opinions 
 of men may vary, but it can never in any case be 
 to the degree of becoming purely arbitrary, though. 
 I may not be able in any way to trace their general 
 line of march. 
 
 Tlie Priest. — Every theoretical conception passes 
 necessarily through three successive stages. The 
 first is the theological, or fictitious. The second, 
 metaphysical, or abstract. The third, positive, or 
 real. The first is always provisional. The second 
 simply transitional. The third alone is definitive. 
 The difference of this last from the two former is 
 characterized by its substitution of the relative for 
 the absolute, when at length the study of laws 
 has taken the place of the inquiry into causes. 
 There is, at bottom, no other difference between 
 
T 
 
 I ' 
 
 170 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 the two others, in point of theory, than this : that 
 the deities recognised by the first are reduced by 
 the second to mere entities, or abstractions. The 
 fictions of theology, in consequence of this trans- 
 formation, lose, together with their supernatural cha- 
 racter, their strength and consistency. They become 
 socially useless, and even mentally ; metaphysics 
 are at last nothing but simply a solvent of theology. 
 They can never organize even within their own 
 domain. Metaphysics are revolutionary in their 
 character, and solely adapted for modifying previous 
 systems. They have no other effect, in the original 
 evolution, whether of the individual or of society, 
 but to facilitate the gradual passage from theology 
 to Positivism. They are the better suited for this 
 transitional office, from the circumstance that their 
 equivocal conceptions can take one or other of two 
 shapes. They may become either the abstract 
 representatives of supernatural agents, or general 
 expressions for phenomena, according as the ficti- 
 tious, or the real stage in our progress, is the one 
 to which we are, for the time, the nearer. 
 
 The Woman. — This dynamical law finds already 
 sufficient confirmation in my own experience. Still, 
 my father, I desire to obtain as clear a \dew as pos- 
 sible of the intellectual principle on which this 
 evolution rests. 
 
 The Priest. — That principle, my daughter, is a 
 consequence of the statical law by which we are 
 obliged to draw upon ourselves for the means of 
 subjectively connecting our objective impressions. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 171 
 
 f 
 
 i 
 
 Without this subjective connexion, these last would 
 always be incoherent. The real relations of things 
 require, for their perception, a difficult and gradual 
 analysis, as I will explain to you; and therefore our 
 first hypotheses were such as naturally suggested 
 themselves, consequently they were of a fictitious 
 character. This general tendency, which would 
 now be an excess of subjectivity, was at first quite 
 in conformity with our mental state. For the 
 evolution could not begin unless some step of the 
 kind were taken. Long experience — an experience 
 which, however long, is even now not enough for 
 the more backward — could alone show ns the abso- 
 lute uselessness of the inquiry into causes. This 
 useless problem exercised for a long time an in- 
 vincible attraction, both in speculation and in 
 action. In the former, it tempted us by the 
 promise that we should always use the deductive 
 method without requiring any special induction. 
 In action, it held out to us the prospect of modify- 
 ing the world at pleasure. This shows us that the 
 two motives which originally impelled the thinker, 
 are essentially coincident with those which will 
 always guide us in our intellectual efforts. For the 
 whole of sound logic is reducible to this one rule : 
 always form the simplest hypothesis compatible 
 with the whole of the data. Now the thinkers of 
 the theological period, and even of the period of 
 fetichism, applied this rule better than the greater 
 part of our modern doctors. Their object being to 
 arrive at causes, they limited themselves to explain- 
 
 /k " 
 
■«>=-«= 
 
 172 
 
 SECOXD PART. 
 
 ing the world by man, the only possible source of 
 any theoretic unity. And their explanation con- 
 sisted in attributing all its phenomena to the action 
 of superhuman will. It was indifferent whether 
 that will resided in the phenomena or was external 
 to them. The problem they set themselves admits, 
 by its very nature, only this solution — a far superior 
 one to the misty fictions offered as solutions by our 
 atheists or pantheists, whose state of mind is far 
 nearer madness than the simplicity of the true 
 fetichist. The respective results of the two are 
 enough to prove the superiority of the earlier solu- 
 tion. German ontology is at the present day 
 throwing itself, by a retrograde movement, on its 
 Greek original. It has inspired no real and durable 
 thought. The primitive theology, on the contrary, 
 opened up to the human mind the only path which 
 it could take under the conditions of the primitive 
 state. True, it never could lead to any determina- 
 tion of causes, but its provisional colligation of 
 facts led, by a natural process, to the discovery of 
 laws. 
 
 The study of laws was at first looked on as of 
 quite secondary importance. It soon tended, how- 
 ever, to become the most important, owing to the 
 impulse derived from our practical wants. It was 
 seen to be more adapted for the prevision requisite 
 for action. In strictness, minds of real eminence 
 never sought for the cause except when they found 
 it impossible to find the law. In this case, no blame 
 can attach to the course they adopted— it was more 
 
 THE DOCTEINE. 
 
 173 
 
 
 / 
 
 J 
 
 suited, than any torpor of the intellect could have 
 been, to prepare the way for the ultimate discovery 
 of the law. Our intelligence has even such a strong 
 preference for Positive conceptions, especially on 
 the ground of their superior practical value, that it 
 often exerted itself to substitute them for the fictions 
 of theology, long before the preparation required 
 had been duly made. The opening period of our 
 mental evolution is clear. The end which it will 
 ultimately reach is still more free from doubt. 
 
 The Woman. — The explanation you have given 
 of your Law of the three states leaves me, my 
 father, on many points in a mist. For there are 
 cases of frequent occurrence, in which the human 
 mind seems to me at one and the same time to be 
 theological, metaphysical, and positive, according 
 to the nature of the question on which it is en- 
 gaged. Leave this co-existence of the three unex- 
 plained, and you compromise directly your dyna- 
 mical law, which however appears to admit of no 
 dispute. Would you set me free from this state of 
 per})lexity 1 
 
 The Priest. — It will disappear, my dtiughter, if 
 you will pay attention to the unvarying order 
 observed by our theoretical conceptions in their 
 simultaneous growth, according as the phenomena, 
 with which they are concerned, decrease in gene- 
 rality and increase in complication. Hence results 
 a complementary law, without which the dynamical 
 study of the mind of man would continue obscure, 
 and even of no value in application. It is easy for 
 
I 
 
 ; 
 
 174 
 
 SECOND PAKT. 
 
 you to see, that as phenomena are necessarily more 
 simple the more general they are, the speculations 
 which concern such general phenomena must be 
 easier, the progress in them naturally more rapid. 
 That there is a graduated scale of phenomena and 
 speculation is easily verified even in the difierent 
 phases of theologism. It is more especially true of 
 the positive stage, on account of the laborious pre- 
 paration that stage requires. So you see how cer- 
 tain theories remain in the metaphysical statue, 
 whilst others of a simpler nature have already 
 reached the positive stage ; others again, still more 
 complicated, remain in the theological stage. But 
 never do you find this process inverted, a sufficient 
 answer to the objection arising from their disparity 
 at any one time. 
 
 The order, which I have just shown to exist 
 between our different conceptions, is the natural 
 one. From it I shall shortly deduce the true ency- 
 clopedic scale. By its aid alone can we thoroughly 
 understand the general course of our conceptions. 
 It is the basis of logic, for it reveals to us the con- 
 nexion in which our different theoretical studies 
 must follow one another, if they are to lead to any 
 permanent construction. Each class of phenomena 
 has, it is true, its special laws, which presuppose 
 some particular inductions. Yet these inductions 
 could never be of any real value were it not for the 
 deductions previously supplied by the knowledf^e of 
 simpler laws. This subjective subordination is the 
 result of the objective dependence of the less 
 
 
 
 ( 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 175 
 
 general phenomena on those which are more 
 general. So the unbroken series of our studies, 
 beginning with the world and ending in man, rests 
 on two grounds. First, for our logical training it 
 is better to begin with the simplest speculations. 
 Secondly, in the order of science, the higher 
 theories are dependent on the lower, the conse- 
 quence of the subordination of the higher pheno- 
 mena to the lower. 
 
 The Woman. — You have now, my father, made 
 clear to me the laws of our intellect, dynamical as 
 well as statical. But as yet I do not see springing 
 from them the construction I had expected. I had 
 looked on them as forming the basis for the con- 
 struction of the whole system of Positive doctrine. 
 What I want then, is to be made to see directly 
 that Humanity, as an all-pervading idea, can bring 
 all our theories into real unity, by connecting moral 
 and physical laws through the intermedium of the 
 intellectual. 
 
 The Priest. — Your wish is a just one, my 
 daughter, and shall be satisfied. Place yourself at 
 a new point of view, and from it consider the com- 
 plementary law of the intellectual movement which 
 I have just stated. From this point of view, the 
 law is, in an especial degree, subjective, as must be 
 the law of which it is the complement. But you 
 are aware also, that the classification I adopt ad- 
 mits, by its own force, of an objective application. 
 For it determines the general interdependence of the 
 several phenomena. Judged from this new point 
 
I 
 
 176 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 of view, it receives a statical destination in the 
 main, and serves to characterize, not the co-existence 
 of different rates of progress in our theoretical con- 
 ceptions, but the order ultimately observed by all 
 events whatsoever. Thus the law of classification 
 is entirely distinct from that of filiation. The 
 simultaneous discovery of the two is sufficiently 
 explained by their close connexion. 
 
 Before I enter on my exposition of this great 
 theoretical hierarchy, I must draw out with suf- 
 ficient accuracy the general limits of its extent. 
 These limits are, in reality, fixed by the true philo- 
 sophical distinction between speculation and action. 
 Action must, of necessity, always be special ; true 
 theory is always general. But it never can acquire 
 this, its proper character of generality, except by 
 the aid of a previous abstraction, which always 
 more or less impairs the reality of its conceptions. 
 The fact that this is impaired may have great 
 danger in practice. We must resign ourselves 
 however to this evil, to secure the coherence wliich 
 can only be secured by our laws of theory keeping 
 this character of absolute universality. It is a 
 maxim of common sense, that every rule has its ex- 
 ception. Still, our intellect always stands in need 
 of universal rules, as the only means of avoiding an 
 indefinite vacillation. 
 
 The only way of attaining this is to break up, as 
 far as possible, the study of beings, which alone can 
 generally be objects of direct study, into several 
 separate studies. The object of these will then be 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 177 
 
 the various general events, which compose the ex- 
 istence of each being. By this method we obtain 
 abstract laws, which we can combine. And their 
 different combinations then explain each concrete 
 existence. These laws are very numerous, but 
 they admit of no reduction, and they are the only 
 accessible source of speculative wisdom. But nu- 
 merous as they are, they are much less numerous 
 than the special rules which depend on them. 
 These last, putting aside their nimiber, will from 
 their natural complication defy all our best efforts, 
 either for induction or deduction. But on the 
 other hand, to know them would be really useless, 
 except in the rare cases in which they influence our 
 destiny. For these exceptional cases the genius of 
 practical men, the only competent authority in such 
 matters, may always find empirical rules sufficient 
 for its guidance, by availing itself of the general 
 indications furnished by the philosophical class. 
 The compound events in question are really subject 
 to regular laws. This is a necessary consequence 
 of the position, that the general elements of which 
 they are compounded are subject to such laws. It 
 may not be so easy to see it in the former case as 
 in the latter, but it is a fact, as observation will 
 show, if directed on the point for a sufficient length 
 of time. 
 
 For instance, we shall never know the general 
 laws of the variations peculiar to the regular con- 
 stitution of the atmosphere. Yet the sailor and 
 the agriculturist can, from their observations of the 
 
 N 
 
 I 
 

 178 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 locality or tlie weather, draw special rules, which, 
 though empirical, supersede any necessity for the 
 so-called science of meteorology. The case is the 
 same with all the other concrete branches of study, 
 such as geology, zoology, and even sociology. What- 
 ever is inaccessible to the pi-actical genius of man 
 will always remain a matter of mere idle curiosity. 
 Science then, in its proper sense, is necessarily ab- 
 stract. The general laws it establishes for the few 
 categories under which all observable phenomena 
 may\e brought, are sufficient to demonstrate the 
 existence of concrete laws, though most of such laws 
 neither can nor need be known, except for practical 
 
 purposes. 
 
 The Woman.— I catch a glimpse, my father, of 
 the very great simplification allowed in your philo- 
 sophical construction by this fundamental analysis, 
 which recalls us from the study of beings to that of 
 events. But I feel frightened at the constant 
 abstraction required by such a scientific regime, 
 though fortunately I am exempt from it. It seems 
 to me beyond the power of man's intellect, if all 
 phenomena, of all ordei-s, are to be directly studied 
 in the Great Being in whom alone we find them all 
 
 combined. 
 
 The Friest.— For your comfort, my daughter, we 
 will consider, under a new aspect, the general prin- 
 ciple of the hierarchy of abstract science. Directly, 
 it establishes only the subordination of events ; in- 
 directly, it should lead to that of beings. For 
 phenomena are only more general by virtue of their 
 
 i 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 179 
 
 belonging to more numerous orders of existence. 
 The simplest of all are found everywhere, but we 
 must study them in beings, where they are the only 
 ones we can study, and where therefore their study 
 is more easy. In strict truth, the first step in 
 theory can never be taken distinct from the second. 
 This, more than the actual nature of the phenomena, 
 is especially the cause of the increase in complica- 
 tion. But whatever be the amount of the succes- 
 sive accumulations, each fresh category of events 
 may be studied in beings independent of all the 
 succeeding categories, though they are dependent 
 on the preceding. The previous knowledge of these 
 will enable us to concentrate our attention on the 
 new class brought under our notice. Even sup- 
 posing the beings indivisible, yet, if they exist in 
 difierent states, the Positive method will keep, in 
 greatest part, its efficiency, and this condition can- 
 not fail, by the very nature of the classification 
 adopted. Thus the theoi-etical hierarchy that I am 
 going to set forth, though its original purpose was 
 to furnish a scale of phenomena, necessarily consti- 
 tutes the true scale of beings, or, at any rate, of 
 existences. It becomes by turns abstract or con- 
 crete, according as its purpose is subjective or ob- 
 jective. This is the reason why the encyclopedic 
 subordination of the arts essentially coincides with 
 that of the sciences. 
 
 The Woman. — Before you proceed, my father, 
 to the exposition of this hierarchy, the general 
 principle of which I begin to see, would you explain 
 
 n2 
 
 I 
 
rf 
 
 ;|!i 
 
 I 
 
 180 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 to me tlie general outline of our course 1 To cement 
 the union wliich fundamentally exists between the 
 world and man, it would seem that it might take 
 either as its starting point, whilst the other should 
 be its end. The habitual use of such a method 
 seems even to require that it should be able, like 
 every other scale, to become indifferently an ascend- 
 ing or descending one. But perhaps this general 
 principle does not hold good in our construction. 
 
 The Priest. — The regular concurrence of these 
 two methods, the one objective, the other sub- 
 jective, is no less necessary, my daughter, in form- 
 ing, than in applying, the hierarchy of science. 
 The process of its spontaneous elaboration depended 
 on the first; its systematic institution requires the 
 second. The initiation of each individual must, in 
 this as in every other important point, be essentially 
 the reproduction of the evolution of the race, with 
 this exception, that for the future we shall do con- 
 sciously what was formerly done blindly. It is only 
 by combining these two methods, that we can se- 
 cure the advantages of both and neutralize their 
 dangers. To ascend from the world up to man, 
 without having previously descended from man to 
 the world — such a course renders you liable to the 
 excessive cultivation of the lower branches of study, 
 by putting out of sight their real scientific destina- 
 tion. Our scientific efforts are in this case wasted 
 on university follies, as adverse to the intellect as 
 to the heart. The right connexion of the whole, 
 and the proper estimation of the several parts, are 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 181 
 
 sacrificed to reality and clearness. Still, this was 
 the course necessarily adopted by abstract Positivism, 
 during the long scientific introduction which begins 
 with Thales and Pythagoras and ends with Bichat 
 and Gall. It was necessary, in order to elaborate 
 in succession the different sciences; the materials, 
 that is, for our ultimate systematization. During 
 that period, the higher wants of our intellect re- 
 ceived but an imi)erfect satisfaction, under its 
 heterogeneous guardians, theology and metaphysics. 
 But at the present day, when the principle of an 
 universal synthesis is definitively established, as the 
 result of this immense preparatory movement, the 
 subjective method, become at last as positive as the 
 objective, must itself take a direct initiative in our 
 encyclopedic construction. We must look to it to 
 originate the construction, the other must work it 
 out. And this rule is as applicable to each great 
 branch of scientific research, as it is to the whole 
 system of the sciences. 
 
 Tlw Woman. — You see me then ready, my father, 
 to follow you as you show how the doctrine of 
 Humanity gives a religious sanction to each of the 
 several essential branches of abstract science, as 
 they successively come forward ; and how, by bring- 
 ing them all into connexion, it gives strength to the 
 highest and ennobles the lowest. 
 
 Tfie Priest. — To get a more adequate conception 
 of this synthesis, you must, my daughter, remember 
 at the outset the constant end of human life. That 
 end is to preserve and to perfect the Great Being, 
 
»tmm 
 
 182 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 f' 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 whom we must at once know, love, and serve. 
 Each, of his own spontaneous action, accomplishes 
 these three offices. Religion systematizes them by 
 its doctrine, its worship, its life. The philosophical 
 construction is necessarily prior to the two others ; 
 it is, however, ultimately destined to consolidate 
 them and to develope them. In itself, the study of 
 Humanity is as liable to degenerate as the lower 
 sciences ai'e, if we forget that the only object of our 
 knowing her is that we may love her more and 
 serve her better. If we suffer ourselves to be 
 diverted by the means from a due appreciation of, 
 or care for, the end, our systematic gi'owth becomes 
 really of less value than the natural growth of 
 mankind in general. 
 
 Thus you see why, at the highest point of the 
 encyclopedic scale, I place Moral Science, or the 
 Science of the indi\4dual Man. The functions of 
 the Great Being require for their exercise, ulti- 
 mately, individual organs. These organs must be 
 studied, therefore, at the outset, in order that the 
 service they owe may be properly rendered during 
 the period of their objective existence. On the due 
 rendering of this service will depend their subjec- 
 tive influence. Under this form, Positivism adopts 
 and strengthens the primary precept of the primi- 
 tive theocracy : know thyself, to better thyself. In 
 Positivism, the intellectual principle and the social 
 motive act in concert. As a fact. Morals, the most 
 useful of all the sciences, is also the most complete, 
 or rather it is the only one which is complete, 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 183 
 
 since its phenomena subjectively embrace all the 
 other, though, by that very fact, they are objectively 
 subordinate to those others. The fundamental 
 principle of the scientific hierarchy gives a direct 
 predominance to the moral point of view as the 
 most complicated and special. 
 
 But at this point, the philosophical conformity of 
 Positivism with theology necessarily ceases. Theo- 
 logy, always occupied with the study of causes, 
 placed the study of morals under the immediate 
 control of the supernatural principles by which it 
 explained everything. 
 
 Moral observation became thus solely the obser- 
 vation of oneself. And a sanction was given to 
 our personality or selfishness. For we were brought 
 each of us into direct connexion with an infinite 
 power, and thus isolated entirely from our race. 
 Positivism^ on % f^ nthPT ^""^ noir^^r' ooaira f^^ a 
 law but as a guide f or action, is always in its vexv 
 essence social, and bases moral science far more on 
 the observation of nthrr-^ ^\li[\ nf nnnrolf, with thr 
 view of forming conceptions on moral subjects which 
 shall be at once re al n.nf\ nj^pfn^ - If so, we may feel 
 how impossible it is properly to enter on the study 
 of morals without a previous study of society. In 
 all respects, each of us depends entirely on Hu- 
 manity, especially with regard to our noblest func- 
 tions. These are always dependent on the time 
 and place in which we live, as you are reminded by 
 the fine verses in Zaire — 
 
184 SECOND PART. 
 
 J'eusse 4t6, pres du Gange, esclave des faux dieux, 
 Chretienne dans Paris, Musulmane en ces lieux. 
 
 I had been, by the Ganges, the slave of false gods, 
 Christian in Paris, Mussulman where I am. 
 
 Thus you see how it is that Morals, to which we 
 assign the highest rank, proceed at once to insti- 
 tute Sociology. The phenomena of the latter 
 science are both simpler and more general, as we 
 should expect, looking to the general spirit of the 
 Positive Hierarchy. 
 
 The Woman. — Allow me, my father, to stop you 
 a moment at this step. It seems to me to involve a 
 contradiction between the two conditions of your 
 classification, a contradiction I should wish solved. 
 The case before us seems to me an exception to our 
 rule ; the phenomena seem to become at once more 
 complicated and more general. I have always 
 thought the moral point of view simpler than the 
 social one. 
 
 The Priest. — That is solely, my daughter, because 
 you have hitherto proceeded on feeling rather than 
 on reason. For Morals must, for your sex, be 
 rather an art than a science. If we were to 
 compare the two sciences merely with reference to 
 the number of cases they respectively embrace, you 
 would see that the number of individuals is greater 
 than that of nations. It is this last, however, 
 which absorbs your attention. But, limiting our- 
 selves to the complication inherent in each science, 
 considered in itself, you forget that moral science 
 must take into account the same influences as social 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 185 
 
 
 science does, and that over and above these it must 
 appreciate impulses which social science may set 
 aside as inappreciable. I mean the influences of 
 the mutual action of the physical and moral nature 
 of man — an action which is constant, though its 
 laws are as yet too little known. They have great 
 influence on the individual, but sociology pays no 
 particular attention to them, and for this reason : 
 the opposite results produced in different indivi- 
 duals cancel one another when you come to con- 
 sider nations. But if, on the contrary, in our 
 moral judgment we should neglect such mutual 
 action, we should be liable to the most serious 
 mistakes; we might attribute to the soul what 
 proceeds from the body, or vice versd, a matter of 
 daily occurrence. 
 
 The Woman. — I now see, my father, what I did not 
 see, and therefore stopped you at the outset of your 
 hierarchical series. Would you now return to it 1 
 You need not fear any further interruption till the 
 end, for any interruption would prevent my master- 
 ing the general filiation. 
 
 TM Priest. — Your objection, my daughter, was 
 in itself a very natural one, and it answers the pur- 
 pose, in the present case, of bringing into greater 
 prominence our first step in the encyclopedic con- 
 struction. This first step is the type necessaiily 
 of all the others. We shall be able to get over those 
 others more easily, as is the case with any scale 
 whatever. I hope that you will find no difficulty 
 in descending from one science to the next. We 
 
r 
 
 ■A 
 
 
 186 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 take as our guide the principle which has just led 
 us from moral to social science j we look, that is, to 
 the natural subordination of the respective pheno- 
 mena of the two sciences under consideration. 
 
 This fundamental principle makes you feel at 
 once, that, for the systematic study of society, you 
 require a previous knowledge of the general laws of 
 life. As nations are beings gifted in an eminent 
 degi'ee with life, the natural result is, that the order 
 of life governs that of society. The statical con- 
 dition of society, and its dynamical progress, would 
 be deeply impaired, were the constitution of our 
 brain or even of our body to change in any notice- 
 able degree. In this case, the simultaneous increase 
 in point of generality and simplicity admits of no 
 doubt. Thus sociology, which was constituted by 
 moral science, constitutes in its turn Biology, 
 which has, moreover, direct relations with the 
 master science. Biology studies life only in so far 
 as it is common to all the beings which enjoy it. 
 Animals, therefore, and plants, form its proper 
 province, though it is ultimately destined for the 
 service of man. The true study of man, however, 
 it can only sketch in a rude outline. From this 
 point of view. Biology, if wisely pursued, is occu- 
 pied with the study of our bodily functions by the 
 light derived from the study of animals and plants. 
 In these, the bodily functions are seen cleared of all 
 higher complications. This direction given to 
 Biology for logical purposes, may at times tend to ex- 
 pose it to an academic degeneracy. It may be led 
 
 ' 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 187 
 
 to lay too much stress on insignificant beings or 
 acts. If so, philosophy must step in with its dis- 
 cipline to recall it to its true vocation. But it 
 must not fetter the inquiries indispensable to its 
 success. 
 
 These first three sciences are so closely connected 
 that I make the name of the middle one stand for 
 the whole, in the encyclopedic system, which I have 
 arranged in a tabular form {see Plate j5, at tlie 
 end of Catechism)^ to render it easy for you to 
 judge the general scheme of the Positive hier- 
 archy. For sociology may be easily looked on as 
 absorbing into itself biology, as its introduction; 
 morals, as its conclusion. When the word Anthro- 
 pdogy shall be in more common and sounder use, it 
 will be a better name for the three sciences which 
 collectively have man as their object, as its literal 
 meaning is the study of man. But for a long time 
 it will be necessary to use the word Sociology ^ in 
 order to mark the principal characteristic supe- 
 riority of the new intellectual reghnef which con- 
 sists most particularly in the introduction into our 
 encyclopedic construction of the social point of 
 view, regarded as absolutely alien by the earlier 
 synthesis. 
 
 Living beings are of necessity bodies, and as such, 
 spite of their greater complication, they always obey 
 the more general laws of matter. These laws exercise 
 an invariable predominance over all the peculiar 
 phenomena of living beings, leaving them, however, 
 their spontaneous action. A third step towards 
 
 !| 
 
188 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 ! 
 
 our encyclopedia, in perfect analogy witli the pre- 
 ceding ones, places biology, and consequently social 
 and moral science, in dependence on the great 
 science of inorganic matter to which I have given 
 the name of Cosmology. The real domain of this 
 science is the general study of the planet on which 
 man lives, the necessary sphere of all the higher 
 functions, vital, social, and moral. A better name 
 would then be Geology, for this conveys the required 
 meaning directly. But our academical anarchy has 
 so destroyed the natural sense of the word that Posi- 
 tivism must renounce its use, until, as will shortly 
 be the case, the pretended science to which it is 
 applied be got rid of off the list. When that is 
 the case, we shall be able to follow more closely the 
 laws of language, and apply to the whole study of 
 inorganic beings a more exact denomination, — one 
 which by its concrete nature is calculated better 
 to remind us that we ought to study each existence 
 in its least complicated form. 
 
 This should be the limit of my encyclopedic 
 operation, and there should be no decomposition of 
 cosmology, had I in view only the final state of 
 man's reason. In that final state the inferior 
 sciences must be kept in narrower bounds, the 
 higher have their bounds enlarged. But at present 
 I must provide for the special wants of the initia- 
 tion of the West. We shall find essentiallv similar 
 wants recur in the development of each individual. 
 For these two reasons, I feel bound to divide cosmo- 
 logy into two fundamental sciences. The first of 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 189 
 
 these, under the general name of Physics, has for 
 its object the direct study of the whole order of 
 matter. The other, simpler and more general, has 
 justly received the name of Mathematics. It is 
 the necessary basis of Physics, and, as such, of the 
 whole scientific edifice. It is so as it treats of the 
 most universal form of existence, viewed in relation 
 solely to the phenomena which are found every- 
 where. Without this division of cosmology, it 
 would be difficult to form a right conception of the 
 spontaneous development of Positive Philosophy. 
 This could only begin by such a study as that of 
 Mathematics, and the greater rapidity with which 
 it grew to perfection, caused it at first to be con- 
 sidered as the only science. Its name reminds us 
 too strongly of this privilege which it originally 
 enjoyed, but which it has long lost. Still the name 
 should be kept. It should not be changed till the 
 type of scientific and logical study which mathe- 
 matics give has exercised a due control over the 
 general difi'usion of our encyclopedic laws. When 
 they are generally admitted, then some less vague 
 and better constructed term may be introduced. 
 It should be so chosen £is to point out the true 
 domain of the science, and to act as a systematic 
 check on the blind scientific ambition of those who 
 cultivate it in too exclusive a spirit. Be this as it 
 inay> you must feel the necessity of descending as 
 far as mathematics to find a natural basis for the 
 encyclopedic scale — a basis which can make the 
 whole system appear but the gradual development 
 
K 
 
 190 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 of the good sense of mankind. Physics are far 
 simpler than the other sciences, but yet not simple 
 enough. The special inductions of physics cannot 
 be reduced to a system without the aid of more 
 general deductions. This is everywhere else the 
 case, only in physics this logical and scientific want 
 forces itself less on the attention. It is only in 
 mathematics that you can proceed to induction 
 without previous deduction. This is a consequence 
 of the extreme simplicity of the phenomena which 
 form the domain of mathematics. In it the pro- 
 cess of induction often escapes notice ; so much so, 
 that our academic geometricians look on them as 
 deductions. So viewed, they are unintelligible, as 
 there is no source to which you can refer them. 
 There is no possibility of forming convictions really 
 proof against attacks, excejjt they are based ulti- 
 mately on mathematics, the eternal foundation of 
 Positive Philosophy. Mathematics will always ne- 
 cessarily be the last link in the chain of the sciences ; 
 the last step of that subjective connexion, guided 
 by which every man of sound intellect and honest 
 heart will at any time be able, as I have just done, 
 to evolve the fundamental series, the five principal 
 steps of our encycledopic construction. 
 
 The Woman. — It is to the influence of feeling 
 upon the intellect to which you have just alluded 
 that I attribute, my father, the ease I find in 
 following you in your construction, so dreaded by 
 me at the outset. The attention of my sex is con- 
 stantly riveted on morality, as the only solid basis 
 
 THE 'DOCTRINE. 
 
 191 
 
 for the influence it claims as its due. We shall 
 always therefore set a high value on securing a 
 systematic foundation for morality, a foundation 
 capable of resisting the sophisms of bad passions. 
 Above all, at the present day, we are struck with 
 terror at the moral ravages attributable to the 
 intellectual anarchy. It threatens, at no distant 
 period, to dissolve all the bonds that bind men 
 together, unless some irresistible convictions step in 
 to prevent the further growth that seems naturally 
 to await it. The true philosopher may therefore 
 feel sure of the secret co-operation and heartfelt 
 gratitude of all women worthy of the name, when 
 he reconstructs morality on Positive foundations, as 
 a final substitute for its supernatural basis, too evi- 
 dently worn out. Women who shall feel, as I do 
 now, the necessity of descending with this object 
 to the most abstract sciences, will appreciate at its 
 proper value the unexpected help that reason at 
 length steps forward to give to love. I now under- 
 stand why your encyclopedic descriptive system, 
 which I mean to study, proceeds in the reverse 
 direction to that adopted in the exposition of which 
 it is the summary. For we must become most 
 familiar with this ascending order, as it is the 
 order which the several Positive conceptions will 
 always observe in their development. The mode 
 you have just adopted of instituting this order 
 obviates, in the main, the repugnance women 
 naturally feel for too abstract a course. For 
 hitherto they have seen it lead but too often to 
 
192 
 
 SECOND PAKT. 
 
 dryness and pride. Now that I can always keep 
 in Bight and recall the moral object of the whole 
 scientific elaboration, and the moral conditions 
 peculiar to each of its distinct essential phases, i 
 • shall have as much satisfaction in ascending as in 
 descending your encyclopedic scale. 
 
 The PnesL—lt will be easy for you, my daughter, 
 to adopt the two methods alternately. For you may 
 remark that, in both directions, the theoretical order 
 will rest on the same principle ; it will, that is, m 
 all cases follow the decrease of generality. All 
 that is required is to refer the fundamental series 
 at one time to the phenomena, at another to our 
 own conceptions, according as it is to be used ob- 
 iectively or subjectively. For in real tnith, moral 
 notions comprehend all the others. We arrive at 
 these others by a course of successive abstractions. 
 This it is which constitutes their greater comphca- 
 tion The science of morals, therefore, is more 
 ceneral from a subjective point of view than any of 
 the lower sciences. At the other end of the scale, 
 mathematics are the most general science, solely as 
 being the most simple. As a branch of study, then 
 they are more general from the objective point of 
 view, less general than any other from the sub- 
 iective. They are the only science applicable to 
 every form of existence within our knowledge, but 
 they also are the science which gives us least know- 
 ledge of the beings with which it deals, for it can 
 only reveal the commonest laws. All the interme- 
 diate sciences offer, though in a less degree, m both 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 193 
 
 respects, the same contrast which exists between 
 mathematics and morals. But whether you ascend 
 or descend, in both cases alike, morals, in the ency- 
 clopedic course, are the supreme science, as being at 
 once the most useful and the most complete. It 
 is in morals that science, having thrown off by 
 degrees the abstraction that originally characterized 
 it, forms a systematic union with practice. The 
 steps indispensable as preparations have all been 
 taken. 
 
 The wisdom of mankind, then, systematized by 
 Positivism, will retain the admirable, though equi- 
 vocal term, Morals. In morals alone, the art and 
 the science have one common name — an equivoca- 
 tion which pedants may regret, but which Posi- 
 tivism respects. In this apparent confusion moral 
 science happily finds an equivalent for that which 
 it cannot have. I allude to the discipline which, 
 in all the others, anticipates or corrects the ten- 
 dency to scientific aberrations, a tendency inherent 
 in our intellectual cultivation as we ascend the en- 
 cyclopedic scale. As a rule, we restrict each phase 
 of progress to the degree in which it is necessary 
 for the preparation of the next above it. We re- 
 serve for the skill of the practical man all the 
 details which may be required in any particular 
 case. Spite of the declamations of academicians, it 
 is allowed that a discipline of this nature sanctions 
 eveiy theory of real interest, excluding only such 
 scientific questions as are childish. At the present 
 day, the intellect and the heai-t alike demand the 
 
 o 
 
 \i\ 
 
 
194 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 suppression of all such. But the rule just stated 
 is not applicable to moral science. For all the 
 others it is most valuable ; but evidently it ceases 
 to apply in the case of the science which stands at 
 the head of the system. 
 
 Were moral theories as much cultivated as the 
 rest their greater complication, in the absence of 
 any special discipline, would expose them to more 
 frequent and more dangerous aberrations. But the 
 heart, in this case, comes forward to guide the 
 intellect. It recalls more forcibly here than else- 
 where the universal subordination of theory to 
 practice. It does this by means of the happy am- 
 biguity of the very name, morals. Philosophers 
 ought, in reality, to bring the same dispositions as 
 women to the study of morals; they ought to 
 study them, that is, in order to gain rules for con- 
 duct. Only the deductive science of the philoso- 
 pher should give generality and consistency to the 
 inductions of women. These qualities might other- 
 wise be wanting, and yet they are almost always 
 indispensable to secure the social, or even private, 
 efficacy of moral precepts. 
 
 The Woman. — We have, then, now constituted 
 the real scientific system. I should be glad, my 
 father, at the close of this long and difficult con- 
 versation, if you would state generally what are 
 the properties of your encyclopedic series, viewed 
 for the future as an ascending series. Under this 
 point of view I shall soon be familiar with it. I 
 can see, without your aid, the moral and intellectual 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 195 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 dangers inherent in this objective cultivation, so 
 long as it remained uncontrolled by the subjective 
 discipline just explained. So long as this was the 
 case, the fact that the different phases of the scien- 
 tific encyclopedia must be successive, compelled 
 men, in the cultivation of science, provisionally to 
 adopt a system of detail, and to disperse their 
 efforts, in a way which ran directly counter to the 
 essentially general character which theoretical views 
 ought to present. The result was, more especially 
 in the learned, but without the mass being exempt, 
 an increasing tendency, on the one hand, to mate- 
 rialism and atheism ; on the other, to a contempt 
 for the softer affections, and a neglect of the fine 
 arts. I have long been aware that under all thes^-^ 
 aspects. Positivism, rightly viewed, is perfectly/ 
 distinct from its scientific preamble, nay, is the best ' 
 corrective of its tendencies. But I cannot, by 
 myself alone, gain a satisfactory view of those \ 
 essential attributes of Positivism which I am now 
 to appreciate in the system of your theoretical 
 hierarchy. 
 
 TJie Priest. — You may be satisfied, my daughter, 
 with two very important attributes. They corre- 
 spond to the two general objects of the hierarchy 
 of science, the subjective object no less than the 
 objective. Perhaps in this place I had better say, 
 logical and scientific — logical, if the attention is 
 directed mainly on the method, or scientific, if on 
 the doctrine. ^„^ 
 
 Under its logical aspect, the encyclopedic serief? 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 I I 
 
 II I 
 
 points out the necessary course to be adopted by 
 our scientific education, and secondly, the gradual 
 formation of the true process of reasoning. Mainly 
 deductive in its cradle, that is, in mathematics, for 
 in mathematics the requisite inductions are almost 
 always made spontaneously, the Positive method 
 becomes more and more inductive in proportion as 
 the speculations on which it enters are of a higher 
 order. In this long elaboration, four principal 
 steps must be noticed, the steps at which the grow- 
 in f' complication of the phenomena makes us suc- 
 cessively develope observation, experiment, compa- 
 rison, and historical filiation. Take in the point 
 from which we start, mathematics, and then each of 
 these five logical phases naturally absorbs its pre- 
 decessors. This is but the consequence of the 
 natural subordination of the phenomena. Thus the 
 true logic becomes complete, and as complete, sys- 
 tematic, at the point where the rise of sociology 
 necessitates the introduction of the historical method, 
 just as biology had previously introduced the art of 
 
 . comparison, after that physics had sufficiently de- 
 
 \ veloped observation and experiment. 
 
 . Fortunately for your sex, its ignorance renders it 
 unnecessary, at the present day, to show by philo- 
 sophical demonstrations, that of which Positivism 
 labours to convince men,— that to learn reasoning, 
 the only way is to reason with certainty and precision 
 on clear and definite matter. Many who are quite 
 aware that to learn an ai-t. you must practise that art, 
 still listen to the sopliists who teach them to reason. 
 
 1 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 197 
 
 or even to speak, by reasoning on reasoning, or by 
 speaking about speech. You were taught grammar 
 and perhaps rhetoric, but at least you were spared 
 logic, the most pretentious of the three scholastic 
 studies ; and being spared it, your own reason, 
 judiciously trained in the school of your cherished 
 Moliere, was soon able to do justice to the two 
 other classical absurdities. Strengthened as you 
 now are by systematic convictions, you will have 
 no hesitation in treating with proper ridicule the 
 Trissotins who would teach you the art of deduction, 
 without having themselves ever applied deduction 
 in its proper province, mathematics. Each essential 
 branch of the Positive method must always be 
 studied in the particular department of science 
 which gave occasion to its introduction. 
 
 The Woman. — This first property fortunately 
 has no difficulty for me. I see in it the statement 
 of simple good sense. So I beg you, my father, to 
 pass on at once to the second general property of 
 your encyclopedic series. 
 
 Tlie Priest. — Its second property is, my daughter, 
 that it gives us a systematic conception of the whole 
 order of the world, as is indicated by the second 
 heading of my conspectus. From inorganic matter 
 up to morality, each term in the series rises on the 
 basis of its predecessor, in obedience to this funda- 
 mental law, the necessary consequence of the ' real 
 principle of our hierarchy : The noblest phenomena 
 are, in all causes, subordinate to the lowest. This is 
 the only rule of really universal application dis- 
 
I 
 
 198 
 
 SECOND PAET. 
 
 t 
 
 covered by the objective study of the world and 
 man. But as this law cannot supersede the neces- 
 sity of less general laws, it cannot by itself con- 
 stitute the barren external unity vainly sought by 
 all philosophers from Thales to Descartes. 
 
 We renounce then the stimulus of this frivolous 
 inquiry, and we find a more valuable substitute in 
 the moral purpose of all our scientific efforts. 
 Still we are glad to trace, for all our abstract doc- 
 trines, an objective bond of union inseparable from 
 theii' subjective co-ordination. Our practical social 
 experience above all must turn to account such a 
 view of the system of our destinies. Our depen- 
 dence and our dignity become thus connected one • 
 with the other, and we shall be better disposed to 
 feel the value of voluntary submission, for on sub- 
 mission depends mainly our moral, and even our 
 intellectual improvement. 
 
 I would call your attention to the fact, and this 
 must be considered as a complement of the great 
 law above mentioned, that from, the practical point 
 of view, it represents the order of the world as 
 increasingly susceptible of modification in propor- 
 tion to the increasing complication of its pheno- 
 mena. Improvement always implies imperfection, 
 and imperfection increases as complication in- 
 creases. But you see at the same time that man's 
 providence becomes more eflicient, and has more 
 varied agents at its command. The compensation 
 thus gained is still, doubtless, inadequate, so that 
 the simplest order generally remains the most per- 
 fect, though under a blind guidance. Still, this 
 
 i 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 199 
 
 general law of the liability to modification places 
 morals as the supreme art in two ways, first by 
 virtue of its superior importance, next because it 
 offers a larger field for wise action on our part. 
 Practice and theory, then, combine to justify the 
 predominance which Positivism systematically 
 allows to morals. 
 
 The Woman. — Since you have now explained to 
 me sufficiently the whole system of Positive doctrine, 
 I would wish, my father, before leaving you to-day, 
 to know beforehand the object of the two other con- 
 versations you promised me in this second part of 
 yom* Catechism. I do not see what is left for me 
 to know, as regards the systematic basis of the 
 Universal religion, nor why I may not pass at once 
 to the direct and special study of the system of 
 life. 
 
 The Priest. — Our conceptions hitherto, my 
 daughter, have been too abstract and too general 
 to make a sufficient impression on you. I must 
 complete them by some less general explanations, of 
 a more concrete and definite character, explana- 
 tions too of which I shall make further use. With- 
 out detaining you at each particular phase of the 
 encyclopedic construction, as will be the case in the 
 new education of the Western world, I shall 
 simply ask you to appreciate separately the two 
 unequal parts which, historically, make up the 
 whole of Positive Philosophy. 
 
 That philosophy embraces the whole order of the 
 world. It is a natural division to take separately 
 the order of the world external to man, and the 
 
 i; 
 I'll 
 
 <s- 
 
200 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 \ 
 
 social and moral order of man's world. The first 
 includes cosmology and biology. Under the name 
 of natural philosophy/, the term ordinarily used in 
 England, it constituted the scientific domain of the 
 ancients, and even of this domain they could only 
 give a static sketch. Besides that the true scienti- 
 fic spirit did not admit, at that time, of a more com- 
 plete freedom, the state of society was adverse to 
 a premature extension. The result of such exten- 
 sion could only be to compromise the existing order 
 without really aiding ulterior progress. In morals, 
 however, the exceptional genius of Aristotle, after 
 reducing to a system, as far as was possible, natural 
 philosophy, prepared the way for a sound philosophy, 
 by an adequate sketch of the two essential parts of 
 human statics, first the society, then the indi- 
 vidual. So much was he in advance of others, that 
 he was not really appreciated till the Middle Ages, 
 when the provisional separation of the two powers 
 gave a direct impulse to' the progress of our most 
 important speculations. But no social impulse, 
 however valuable, could dispense with the necessity 
 of a long scientific preamble. The separate sciences 
 must be worked out before true philosophy could 
 enter into possession of its highest domain. Hence 
 this provisional division of physics from morals 
 lasted on to our own day. By virtue of its still 
 existing, it is under its auspices that we enter the 
 last ti-ansitional stage of the reason of the Western 
 world, directed by Positivism. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 CONVERSATION VII. 
 
 201 
 
 THE ORDER OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD — INORGANIC 
 
 MATTER, LIFE. 
 
 Tlie Woman. — On studying the conspectus which 
 is the summary of our fundamental conversation, I 
 see, my father, we must have two others, as you 
 promised me at its close, on the subject of the 
 Positive doctrine. My heart must first make me 
 feel the need of each separate science as a means 
 towards the attainment of the end of this im- 
 mense scientific construction; that end being the 
 systematization of morals. My intellect must now 
 be brought to see how the separate stages of this 
 abstract edifice rise one above the other, from the 
 basis to the summit. I may be content with this. 
 I need not penetrate within. This systematic ascent 
 is the indispensable complement of the descent 
 which I made under your guidance — a descent 
 necessary as a foundation for the ascent. If the 
 mind of man can really mount by upward steps, 
 almost insensibly, from the lowest mathematical 
 notions to the sublimest moral conceptions, no sight 
 can be more worthy of my admiration. My sex 
 never can follow such a filiation in detail, but it 
 must see in outline that it is possible, in order to 
 be sure that systematic morals can be rested on 
 really safe foundations. Then, the opinion of women 
 will brand, as you wish it to do, the anarchical 
 sophists who, though faith in all theology is abso- 
 
 ;}■' 
 
 m 
 
 H 
 
I ■' 
 
 202 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 lutely decayed, oppose the substitution of Positive 
 faith. Their object is to secure an indefinite exten- 
 sion of the religious interregnum which they find 
 favourable to their moral unworthiness and their 
 intellectual incapacity. You may then without 
 fear detain me upon the mathematical step, as 
 mathematics, according to you, are the only solid 
 basis for our theory of the world. The marked 
 aversion felt for this study by all our metaphysical 
 make-mischiefs, predisposes me to see that mathe- 
 matics have the eflSciency for organization you attri- 
 bute to them. 
 
 The Priest. — To get a clear conception of math e- 
 matics, as the logical and scientific basis of the whole 
 edifice of abstract science, it is enough, my daughter, 
 to take an accurate survey of the domain assigned 
 to them in our encyclopedic table. Mathematic s 
 study directly u niversal existence, when red uced to 
 its simplest and consequently lowest phenomena, 
 the phenomena on which necessarily rest all othe r 
 real attributes o f that existence. These fundamental 
 properties o^ any b eing ' whatever are number, 
 extension, movement. Whatever cannot be con - 
 sidered under thes e thr ee points of v i ew can have 
 no ex istence except in our understanding. But 
 mture shows us many brings of wLom ' we can 
 
 Jmow nothing be yond the elementary attribute 
 Such are tk e stars, ihey are Irom their distance 
 only accessible to us by the sight. They admit , 
 therefore, only of mathematical study , quite suffi- 
 cient, it must be allowed, to form a proper guide as 
 
 A 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 203 
 
 to our true relations towards them. Therefore it 
 is that astronomy will always furnish the m ost 
 d irect and complete application of mathematic al 
 science. Still if the general laws of number, 
 extension, motion, could have been studied nowhere 
 but in the heavenly bodies, they never would have 
 been discovered, extremely simple though they be. 
 But as you find them everywhere, they were open 
 to discovery in more accessible cases. We had but 
 to put aside by a series of unconscious abstractions 
 the other attributes of matter which complicated 
 the question. 
 
 And here let me point out how, under the 
 auspices of our hierarchical principle, we may get 
 the true internal distribution of each great science 
 as naturally as the general co-ordination of the 
 sciences. JJajJifiaiatics cannot be reduc ed to less 
 than three constituent parts — ^the calculus, geometry, 
 mechanics. These three are a progressive series, 
 from the historical no less than the dogmatical point 
 of view, a series essentially analogous to that which 
 is seen on a larger scale in the whole of the abstract 
 system. The ideas of number are certainly more 
 universal and simpler than those even of extension, 
 and these on the same ground, in their turn, pre- 
 cede those of motion. 
 
 In the case of most of the stars, our real know- 
 ledge cannot extend beyond an accurate enumera- 
 tion. We cannot go so far even as to say what 
 
 I their shape or size is, nor are we concerned with it. 
 
 Phenomena as well as beings admit the numerical 
 
 r ' 
 
 \\ 
 
I! 
 
 204 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 205 
 
 I I' 
 
 I 
 
 point of view. It leaves all things indistinct, but 
 it is really the only one universally applicable, since 
 none of our thoughts but come under it. It is of 
 course but a rough view, but it may be put to a good 
 use. We may use number to perfect our ideas of 
 harmony and stability. In fact, the best types of 
 these are found in number. And so you see children 
 of themselves begin their initiation in abstract 
 science, by simple speculations in number, long 
 before they begin to think on the attributes of 
 space. 
 
 As for motion, you easily see the increase of 
 complication and the decrease of generality which 
 make this study the highest part of the domain of 
 mathematics. This is why the Greeks, forward as 
 they were in geometry, never could master even the 
 outline of mechanics, except for some cases of 
 equilibrium. They never had a glimpse of the 
 elementary laws of motion. 
 
 If we compare these three essential parts of 
 mathematics, we see that the calculus of which 
 algebra, rather than arithmetic, is the principal 
 development, has a logical destination in particular, 
 over and above its peculiar and direct use. Its 
 real essential adaptation is to enlarge to the utmost 
 our power of deduction. The study of extension 
 and of motion acquires, by the introduction of the 
 calculus, a character of generality and coherence, 
 which they could not have unless all their problems 
 were transformed into mere questions of number. 
 From the scientific point of view, on the other hand, 
 
 it is geometry and mechanics which mainly consti- 
 tute mathematics ; for they, and they alone, enable 
 us directly to form our theory of universal existence, 
 viewed as passive in geometry, in action in me- 
 chanics. 
 
 Mechanics, then, take an important encyclopedic 
 position, as the necessary transition between ma- 
 thematics and physics. The peculiar characteristics 
 of both are found in close combination in mechanics. 
 In them logic is seen to be no longer purely deduc- 
 tive, as it was supposed to be in geometry, owing 
 to the extreme facility of making the required in- 
 ductions. In mechanics we begin to feel distinctly 
 the need of an inductive basis; nor is it easy to 
 trace such a basis amongst our concrete observa- 
 tions. We require it, to allow free scope for the 
 abstract conceptions which are to connect with it 
 the general problem of the composition and com- 
 munication of motion. It was the want of this 
 external foundation which prevented mechanics, as 
 a science, from being developed till the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 Up to that time, mathematics had only established 
 subjective laws, the only laws which geometry and 
 the calculus reveal, where men do not as yet see 
 that subjective necessarily imply objective laws. 
 These last, however, became the objects of distinct 
 attention, from the great difficulty they presented 
 to the founders of mechanical science. The three 
 fundamental laws of motion are so important and 
 so universal that I must state them here, as the 
 
206 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 i 
 
 iB<i 
 
 i^ 
 
 i 
 
 best types of true laws of nature^ whinh are nothing 
 but general facts, allowing of no expl^r>a.|^^^Ti Vmf. 
 serving as the basis of all rational pyplanaiinng 
 The prevalence of metaphysics was a great hindrance 
 to their discovery, but the greatest was the inherent 
 difficulty of that discovery. For it was the first 
 capital effort of the genius of induction, enabled at 
 length to discern, in the midst of the commonest 
 events, general relations which had hitherto escaped 
 all the efforts of man's intellectual activity. 
 
 The fii-st law, discovered by Kepler, is this : all 
 motion is naturally rectilinear and uniform. Hence 
 curvilinear, or any movement which is not uniform, 
 can only be the result of a continuous combination 
 of successive impulses, which impulses may be either 
 active or passive. The second law, due to Galileo, 
 sets forth the independence of the movements of 
 the bodies that form parts of a system — the inde- 
 pendence, that is, in regard to their movement in 
 common as a system. But this community of move- 
 ment must be complete in velocity as well as in 
 direction. Only on this condition can the particu- 
 lar bodies that combine to form the whole remain 
 in the same state of relative rest or motion, as if 
 their whole were motionless. So this second law 
 is not applicable to rotatory movements. And it 
 was, therefore, fi'om the consideration of such move- 
 ments that came the faulty objections which it met 
 with on its discovery. Lastly, the third law of 
 motion, that of Newton, establishes that, in every 
 case of mechanical collision, action is always accom- 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 207 
 
 panied by equal and contrary reaction, provided 
 that, in measuring every change, proper regard be 
 paid to the mass of the bodies brought into contact, 
 as well as to their speed. This third law is the 
 basis of all notions relating to the communication 
 of motion, just as that of Galileo is of those that 
 concern its composition, whilst Kepler's law deter- 
 mines what each motion is separately by its own 
 nature. These three laws together are sufficient to 
 enable us to enter on a deductive solution of the 
 general problem of mechanics, by bringing the more 
 complicated cases under the more simple. In this 
 gi-adual process we avail ourselves of mathematical 
 artifices often difficult to invent. 
 
 These gene ral laws will be of use to you as giving 
 a direct explanation of numbers of phenomeufl. nf 
 daily^xperience, in the midst of which you live 
 without understanding or even perceiving them. 
 They are eminently fitted to make you feel what it 
 is which constitutes the true genius of science. 
 Finally, you should remark how each one of them 
 naturally ranges itself under a law common to all 
 phenomen a whateve r, to social and moral quite a s" 
 much as simply material phenomena. The fi rst law- 
 c onnects with the law of persistence which we trace 
 everywhere. The second connects with the law 
 which recognises the independence of the action of 
 the part as regards tlie conditions common to flip 
 
 whole. By this law, m social quesiions we imcT lt 
 p ossible to reconcile order with prog ress. ATfor 
 the third, it is at once universailv applina'hrp 
 
 i' 
 
208 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 f 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 p: 
 
 I' 
 
 a pplication v arying only so far as the infliienfift a 
 concer ned vary. This ptiilosophical connexion of 
 ^he tnree laws of motion completes our estimate of 
 the importance, in an encyclopedic point of view, 
 of mechanics, the last portion of the domain of 
 mathematics. 
 
 The Woman. — These considerations are so ab- 
 stract and novel, that they naturally, my father, are 
 beyond my grasp for to-day. But I feel that, if 
 allowed time for sufficient reflection, I shall be able 
 to master them. I beg you then to pass on at 
 once to the direct study of the external world. 
 
 The Priest. — To place this study on its proper 
 philosophical footing, I am compelled, my daughter, 
 to require of you one last efibrt relative to our 
 encyclopedic construction. I gave the name of 
 Physics to the whole of the second cosmolocrical 
 science. You must break up this whole into 
 three great sciences, really distinct one from the 
 other. They are, taken in their ascending order, 
 now becoming familiar to you — first. Astronomy ; 
 next. Physics properly so called, and which keeps 
 the common name ; lastly, Chemistry, as you may 
 find by consulting our synopsis. So the hierar chy 
 of sc ience finally ofiers to your vi ew seve i/clegrees^ 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 209 
 
 in "the place oi tne tive hitherto recognised. We 
 pass fr o m one form of it to the other, by simnlv 
 drawlhir out_into fuller detail the second of tli^ fi vA 
 fj^l-iorjpnl flpm-PP.., jn^f. as you lengthen a pocket tele- 
 scope by drawing out its tubes. It is only when 
 you come to apply them, that you will see in each 
 
 ca^e which of the two arrangements you should 
 adopt. 
 
 For in fact, our fundamental series allows of 
 several different arrangements, according as you 
 contract it or enlarge it, the better to satisfy our 
 different intellectual wants. Qn]£_vre_mustnever 
 invert the order of succession. The most condensed 
 form allowed is as clearly indicated in the synopsis 
 as the most expanded. At a further stage of your 
 advance you will often reduce the whole encyclopedic 
 bundle to the simply dual form of cosmology and 
 sociology. To do this at first would expose you to 
 vagueness. But beyond this you will never go so 
 evidently impossible is it to reduce objectively one 
 under the other the two primary groups. The 
 only union possible for them is subjective, attain- 
 able by placing oneself directly at the reli<rious 
 point of view. ° 
 
 By the help of very familiar language I have 
 pointed out to you this expansion of the ency- 
 clopedia. I must now give reasons for it. This I 
 do by explaining its nature. 
 
 The Woman.— I have but a slight knowledge 
 picked up in conversation, of the three sciences ymi 
 have just introduced. But I can guess, my father 
 your reason for intercalating them here. Your 
 doing so anticipates a wish I was on the point of 
 laying before you, as to the continuity of the ency- 
 clopedic series. When comparing in this respect 
 the higher and lower sciences, the primitive con- 
 struction on the scale of five degrees offered me a 
 
210 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 
 serious disparity. I find it easy, by the simple con- 
 nexion of tlie phenomena, to see how we rise in- 
 sensibly from biology to sociology, and from soci- 
 ology to moral science, though I still need on this 
 point your special explanations to give greater pre- 
 cision to my ideas. But on the other hand, I found 
 it difficult at first to see how we pass from mathe- 
 matics to the direct study of the order of inorganic 
 matter, still more difficult to see how we passed 
 from cosmology to biology. It is true that this 
 may arise from my more complete ignorance of the 
 lower conceptions. But I felt also that this want 
 of proportion must be connected with the very con- 
 stitution of our scale, as at first constructed, though 
 I could in no way see the remedy, nor even whether 
 there were a remedy or not. I shall find it easy 
 then to accustom myself to the seven encyclopedic 
 steps, if by this slight complication I feel my sense 
 of order gratified. Still I allow, that had you begun 
 with seven at first, I should have felt too great a 
 difficulty in conceiving your abstract hierarchy as a 
 whole. 
 
 The Priest. — You have rightly guessed the real 
 motive of my final modification. It remains 
 therefore only for me, my daughter, to complete the 
 work of your instinct, by pointing out in a sys- 
 tematic way the nature and object of the three 
 sciences I have introduced. 
 
 Positive religion defines astronomy as the study 
 of the Earth, as one of the heavenly bodies — that is 
 to say, astronomy is the knowledge of the geome- 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. ^11 
 
 trical and mechanical relations of the earth to the 
 other stars, so far as such relations can aflfect our 
 destmies by influencing the state of the earth We 
 subjectively, then, condense all astronomical theo- 
 ries round our globe as a centre ; and we absolutely 
 reject all theories which, as disconnected with our 
 globe, are by that fact at once mere idle questions 
 eve^ granting them to be within our reach. This 
 leads us finally to eliminate, not merely the 
 so-called sidereal astronomy, but also all planetary 
 studies which concern stars invisible to the naked 
 eye, and which have consequently no real influence 
 on the earth. The true domain of astronomy will 
 now as at the beginning of tilings, be limited to 
 the five planets which have always been known 
 together with the sun, equally the centre of their 
 movements as of the earth's, and the moon our 
 only satellite in the heavens. ' 
 
 The difi-erence between our doctrine and that of 
 the ancients, here, as elsewhere, consists essentially 
 m the substitution of the relative for the absolute 
 so that a centre which was long objective becomes 
 purely subjective. Hence the discovery, or rather 
 the proof, of the double movement of the earth is 
 the most important of all the revolutions in science 
 that took place whilst human reason wa.s yet in its 
 preliminary state. One of the most eminent pre- 
 cursors of Positivism, the sagacious Fontenelle 
 enabled your sex to see the philosophical bearinc: 
 of this revolution, so far as the time admitted, in a 
 charming little work, which, though ap^^rently 
 
 p 2 
 
 !!■ 
 
 K 
 
n 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 
 U: 
 
 212 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 frivolous, is justly entitled to the immortality it 
 
 has gained. 
 
 In fact, the earth's motion rendered the dogmas 
 of Positive science directly incompatible with those 
 of any theological system. For whereas our widest 
 speculations previously might wear a character of 
 absoluteness, they became henceforth essentially 
 relative. The discovery of our planetary gravita- 
 tion soon followed. It was the scientific conse- 
 quence of the former, and its philosophical comple- 
 ment. The influence of the two theories on the 
 whole encyclopedic system of science has been greatly 
 checked by the empirical views of our academicians. 
 Positivism finally establishes them as the primaiy 
 general basis for the direct study of the order of 
 the material world, which is thus brought into im- 
 mediate connexion with the mathematical founda- 
 tions of the whole doctrine. 
 
 In astronomy, the point of view from which we 
 regard the external world is simply that of geometry 
 and mechanics. We put aside all inquiries, as 
 absurd as they are idle, as to the temperature of 
 the stars or their internal constitution. But, when 
 we pass from astronomy to physics properly so 
 called, by an almost imperceptible transition through 
 the intermediate stage of planetary mechanics, we 
 penetrate more deeply into the .study of inert na- 
 ture. In order, however, to give a truer idea of 
 this new branch of science, we must first gain a con- 
 ception of the highest cosmological science. It has 
 a more decided character, and so enables us more 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 213 
 
 easily to grasp pure physics, which are somewhat 
 indefinite if you approach them directly. By adopt- 
 ing this course, our attention is called to one of the 
 most important logical precepts of Positivism, that, 
 viz., which bids us, in all cases, look first to the 
 two extrem es if wa wicl, fv. f^^^ .^ ^;^t,f ^^^^^^^ T 
 of the int ermediate step by which they are con - 
 ^f^^^' Chemistry was actually introduced as a 
 distinct science, in the East and in the West, several 
 centuries before physics. Galileo was led by his 
 instinct to create the science of physics, with a view 
 to establish a sound mode of transition from astro- 
 nomy to chemistry, in place of the previous chime- 
 rical connexion. 
 
 ^ At once to shorten and to simplify my explana- 
 tion of the two, consider Chemistry and Physics as 
 in the main subject to the same general influences. 
 The difierence really consists in the greater or less 
 intensity of the modifications which the constitu- 
 tion of matter receives from them. But though 
 this is the only difierence, there is never any room 
 for doubt as to the true nature of each case, spite 
 of the confusion introduced by the schools. At their 
 highest intensity, states of heat, of electricity, even 
 of light, modify the constitution of matter so far as 
 to change the internal composition of substances. 
 In this case, the event is within the department of 
 chemistry, that is, it comes under the general laws 
 of composition and decomposition. In both these 
 processes equally, we can, and ought to, look on the 
 combination as simply binary. The combination 
 
 111! 
 
 I 
 
 i. 
 
214 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 ,11 
 
 '"1 
 
 lit 
 
 may be repeated three times in succession. But we 
 can seldom exceed this limit, as the union becomes 
 more difficult and less stable in proportion as it 
 becomes more complicated. At a lower degree of 
 intensity the influences above-mentioned can only 
 modify the condition of bodies, they cannot alter 
 their substance. In this case, matter is studied 
 under the strictly physical aspect. The two sciences, 
 physics and chemistry, are equally universal, but 
 the decrease of generality is as sensible as the in- 
 crease of complication, when we pass from the one 
 to the other. For physics, as they study the whole 
 of the properties which make up every material ex- 
 istence, look on all bodies as in kind the same. 
 The only difierence is one of degree. The several 
 branches of physics must then correspond to the 
 different senses by which we gain a knowledge of 
 the external world. Chemistry, on the other hand, 
 looks on all substances as in their nature distinct, 
 and it chiefly addresses itself to the problem of de- 
 termining their radical differences. The phenomena 
 which it studies are always possible in any given 
 body. But they are practically never found in it, 
 except under special conditions. The concurrence 
 of these conditions is rare and difficult, so as often 
 to demand the intervention of man. 
 
 Of these two neighbour sciences, physics are logi- 
 cally the most important, chemistry scientifically. 
 Such is our judgment on their relative encyclopedic 
 value, when we have once allowed the indispensable 
 necessity of both, their theoretical and practical 
 
 ^^^■. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 215 
 
 necessity. It is in physics that the genius of in- 
 duction finds its free career, by the development of 
 observation, which was too spontaneous in astro- 
 nomy, and of experiment, which nowhere else leads 
 to such unequivocal results. But chemistry carries 
 the day as to the encyclopedic importance of the 
 notions we derive from it. Its extreme imperfec- 
 tion as a science, which can only cease under the 
 discipline of Positivism, has not prevented its 
 throwing a strong light and exercising a powerful 
 influence on the whole reason of Western Europe, 
 Its valuable efficiency in this respect is the result 
 of its general analysis of the inorganic matter in the 
 midst of which we live, gaseous, liquid and solid. 
 And as the complement of this it has performed 
 the equally indispensable analysis of vegetable and 
 animal substances. By this analysis we are enabled 
 to form a conception of the fundamental economy 
 of nature. This was previously unintelligible to 
 us, because we had not proved that the material 
 elements of which all real beings, lifeless as well as 
 living, are composed, are essentially identical. 
 
 So you may see how chemistry properly so called, 
 is alone competent to form the normal transition 
 between cosmology and biology, the need of which 
 transition you expressed by your wish for unbroken 
 continuity. You Vould set a still higher value on 
 this great encyclopedic condition, as favo.urable 
 ultimately to the heart as to the intellect, were I 
 to point out the true internal arrangement of astro- 
 nomy, physics, and chemistry, as I did in the case 
 
 II 
 
I 
 
 'll 
 
 ri 
 
 II 
 
 216 
 
 SECOXD PART. 
 
 of mathematics. But we must keep such develoj> 
 ments for more special conversations. They are 
 not immediately indispensable from the religious 
 point of view. Mathematics may serve as a type 
 of the rest. And you may learn from it the general 
 possibility of there being a really gradual ascent 
 from mathematics to morals, by the simple applica- 
 tion, with an ever increasing exactness and detail, 
 of the unchangeable principle of our hierarchy. 
 
 When you come, after this subjective or logical 
 appreciation, to add to it as a complement an equi- 
 valent objective or scientific appreciation, you can 
 trace in the general succession of the branches of 
 abstract study a real concrete scale, if not of beings, 
 yet of existences. In astronomy you have only the 
 simple mathematical existence. Almost a mere idea 
 previously, in astronomy it becomes a reality in the 
 case of bodies which we can only examine from 
 that point of view, and which are therefore natu- 
 rally the best type of such existence. In physics 
 we rise to phenomena which admit of a more accu- 
 rate and closer examination. We take a decided 
 step onwards towards man. Lastly, in chemistry 
 we deal with the noblest and most widely spread 
 form of merely natural existence. We never how- 
 ever lose sight of its subordination to the previous 
 sciences, as required by our Universal law. Though 
 the great objective conception, which is the result of 
 this progression, can only find an adequate develop- 
 ment in biology, it is important to notice its germ 
 in cosmology, in order thoroughly to master the 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 217 
 
 true principle of classification for beings of what- 
 ever order. 
 
 The Wmnan. — Looking at this admirable con- 
 tinuity, I see in their true light, my father, the 
 noisy disputes which from time to time break out 
 between the different departments of science. My 
 natural predilection, as a woman, for moral explana- 
 tions led me to look on these scientific discussions 
 as, in the main, attributable to the passions of 
 men. I now see a more legitimate origin for them. 
 I ascribe them to the profound uncertainty felt by 
 the difierent classes of scientific inquirers, as to 
 what are their respective provinces. They have no 
 encyclopedic principles to guide them. And the 
 sciences succeed one another, in such a way, that the 
 transition from one to the other is scarcely per- 
 ceptible. 
 
 The Priest. — The continuity you admire, my 
 daughter, is the most important philosophical result 
 we have attained by the combined efforts of modern 
 reason. The true object of philosophy is to connect 
 as closely a.s possible all phenomena and all beings. 
 Practical skill adds completeness to this general 
 result. For our artificial improvements always 
 end in the strengthening and developing the natural 
 connexions established by science. Thus you may 
 begin to see that the spirit of modem philosophy 
 is not exclusively critical, as it is accused of being, 
 and that it substitutes durable constructions for 
 the decrei)it remnants of the old doctrine. At the 
 same time, you may already see at this point the 
 
 i 
 
 1/ 
 
 !; 
 
» \ 
 
 218 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 «! I 
 
 tl 
 
 necessary incompatibility of Theology and Posi- 
 tivism. It is a consequence of the irreconcileable 
 opposition between laws and supernatural will. 
 What becomes of the wonderful order we have 
 traced, which, by a graduated series, connects our 
 noblest moral attributes with the lowest natural 
 phenomena, if we introduce an infinite power? 
 The capricious action of such a power would allow 
 of no prevision. It would threaten our order at any 
 moment with an entire subversion. 
 
 The Woman. — Before I attempt to master directly 
 this general continuity, there remains, my father, 
 one great gap to fill up. We have not treated of 
 life. You must now place that before me in a 
 systematic point of view. Whilst descending our 
 encyclopedic series, I saw the natural connexion of 
 the science of life with sociology. But I cannot 
 get to see, as yet, any natural connexion between it 
 and inorganic matter. An impassable abyss seems 
 to me to separate the domain of life from that of 
 death. 
 
 The Priest — That you feel this difficulty, my 
 daughter, is in full conformity with the historical 
 progress of the scientific initiation of the race. 
 Scarcely two generations ago, thinkers of real ability 
 were unable to form a clear conception of the con- 
 nexion between life and matter. And yet it is a 
 point of fundamental importance, the capital diffi- 
 culty of all natural philosophy. 
 
 In the first place, it was natural, on the rise of 
 chemistry, that cosmologists should push on their 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 219 
 
 study of matter as far as its noblest and most com- 
 plicated phenomena. The next step required was, 
 that biologists should descend to the lowest and 
 simplest functions of life, the only ones that could 
 admit of a direct connexion with the inorganic basis 
 laid by the cosmologist. Such was the most im- 
 portant result of the admirable conception due to 
 the true founder of the philosophy of biology, the 
 incomparable Bichat. By a profound analysis, the 
 most noble vital functions, even in man, were con- 
 sidered by philosophical biology as always resting 
 on the lowest, in obedience to the general law of 
 the order of nature. Animal life is in all cases 
 subordinate to vegetable life ; in other words, the 
 life of relation is subordinate to that of nutrition. 
 
 This luminous principle leads us to see that the 
 only phenomena, really common to all living beings, 
 are those of the decomposition and recomposition of 
 their substance, which they are constantly under- 
 going from the action upon them of external influ- 
 ences; in other words, of their 7nilim. So our 
 whole system of vital functions rests on acts which 
 have a strong analogy with chemical results. The 
 only real difierence lies in the greater instability of 
 combination. In the vital phenomena, the compli- 
 cations are also, it should be remembered, more com- 
 plicated. The simple and fundamental life — that 
 in which decomposition and recomposition are the 
 exclusive phenomena — is found only in the vegetable. 
 There it reaches its highest development. For 
 plants can directly assimilate inorganic materials^ 
 
 .'I : B' 
 
,1 
 
 
 220 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 and change them into organic substances. This is 
 never the case with higher beings. In fact the 
 general definition of animal life is, that it derives 
 its nourishment from living substances. On this 
 definition, follow, as necessaiy conditions, the capa- 
 city of discerning these substances and the power 
 of procuring them — consequently sensibility and 
 contractility. 
 
 To consolidate this, his fundamental analysis of 
 life, the great Bichat was soon compelled to con- 
 struct an anatomical conception which might be at 
 once its complement and its strictest expression. 
 The cellular tissue alone is universal and forms the 
 proper seat of vegetable life. Animal life resides 
 in tlie nervous and muscular tissues. This con- 
 ception completes the general idea of biology. It 
 establishes a suflicient agreement between its stati- 
 cal and dynamical point of view to enable us to 
 pass, with propriety, from the function to the organ, 
 or from the organ to the function. 
 
 In obedience to the ])recept of logic which bids 
 us study all phenomena in the beings where they 
 are most strongly marked and most free from any 
 complication with higher phenomena, the theory of 
 vegetable life becomes the normal basis of biology. 
 It establishes directly the general laws of nutrition 
 by a consideration of the case to which they apply 
 in their simplest and intensest forms. This is the 
 only part of biology which could be absolutely kept 
 separate from sociology, were we for a moment to 
 suppose that a subjective arrangement did not direct 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 221 
 
 all objective intellectual cultivation. The theory of 
 vegetable life is the natural transition from matter 
 to life. 
 
 The Woman. — I see by this, my father, that you 
 are able to establish a continuous series so as to 
 include the lower part of the scientific hierarchy. 
 But when the point of departure is a form of life so 
 low as the simple life of the vegetable, I do not see 
 how we can rise to the true type of life, man, 
 although I quite recognise that man is subject to 
 the laws of nutrition as he is to those of weight. 
 
 The Priest. — The difficulty which you feel, my 
 daughter, is precisely the one attempted to be met by 
 the most important artifice in biology. All biologists 
 from Aristotle to Blainville have, each in turn, 
 contributed to its formation. Their object has been 
 to form an immense scale, at once objective and 
 subjective, destined to connect man with the plant. 
 If the two extremes alone existed, a supposition 
 which in no way involves a contradiction, tJien our 
 scientific unity would become impossible, or at any 
 rate very imperfect, in consequence of the sudden 
 break in our construction. But the immense 
 variety of animal organisms enables us to establish 
 between the lowest form of life and the highest, as 
 gradual a transition as our intelligence can require. 
 
 Still this concrete series is necessarily not con- 
 tinuous, by virtue of the fundamental law which, 
 while it allows of secondary variations, yet keeps 
 each species permanently distinct. The old intel- 
 lectual system was a great obstacle to the free 
 
222 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 I 
 
 f- 
 
 I 
 
 growth of our great construction ; for it -vainly en- 
 deavoured to find in this permanence of species the 
 absolute result of objective relations. But the pre- 
 dominance in our encyclopedia of the subjective 
 method puts a final end to all such sterile and end- 
 less debates. In forming the animal series, it takes 
 as its continual guide the true object of that forma- 
 tion — a logical rather than a scientific object. As 
 we only study the animals to gain a sounder know- 
 ledge of man by tracing through them his con- 
 nexion with plants, we are fully authorized to ex- 
 clude from our hierarchy all the species which dis- 
 turb it. An analogous motive enables us, or rather 
 commands us, to introduce into the series, under 
 proper restrictions, some races jnirely of our own 
 creation, created for the special purpose of facili- 
 tating the more difficult transitions, without any 
 shock to the statical and dynamical laws of animal 
 life. A fuller study of certain animals is really a 
 question of practical utility, in the case of the few 
 species with which the human race finds itself, on 
 various grounds, more or less connected. All other 
 zoological details are but the result of an intellec- 
 tual degeneracy. Biology is, by its complication 
 and vast extent, more than most sciences exposed 
 to scholastic absurdities, so numerous even in 
 mathematics. 
 
 The animals, which are really links in our chain, 
 will, as a whole, always have for us profound 
 scientific interest. They tend to throw light on 
 the general study of all our lower functions, as we 
 
 THE DOCTRIXE. 
 
 223 
 
 can, in them, trace each function as it gradually 
 becomes more simple or more complicated. Man's 
 existence is really but the highest step in animal 
 life. So the highest notions of sociology and even 
 of moral science have their first germs in biology, 
 for the minds of really philosophical power which 
 are able to detect them. For instance, it becomes 
 easier for us to grasp our sublimest theoretic con- 
 ception, if we learn to look on each species of 
 animals as potentially a Great Being. Actually it 
 is more or less abortive, from the inferiority of its 
 organization, and the growing predominance of 
 man. For a collective or social existence is the 
 form to which the life of relation, which is the 
 characteristic feature of animality, necessarily 
 leads. But this result, which all aim at, cannot, on 
 one and the same planet, be attainable by more than 
 one of the sociable species. 
 
 The Woman. — From your explanations I see, my 
 father, how biology, when cultivated in a philoso- 
 phical spirit, fills up all the serious gaps in your 
 construction, by forming a gradual transition be- 
 tween the external world and man. This immense 
 progression, at once of beings and phenomena, in 
 constant conformity with the princii)le of the 
 Positive hierarchy, connects at its lower end with 
 the regular succession of the three essential forms 
 of the existence of matter. I see in it the full 
 realization of that admirable continuity which at 
 first seemed impossible. But before quitting the 
 domain of life properly so called, I should be glad 
 
I'l t 
 
 224 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 
 t' 
 
 y ■ 
 
 f 
 
 to know more clearly and precisely its two essential 
 parts, vegetable and animal life. 
 
 The Priest. — You can gratify this reasonable 
 wish, my daughter, by mastering the three great 
 laws which govern each of them. You must look 
 on these laws as so many general facts, subordinate 
 to one another but completely distinct. Taken 
 together, they explain both the continuous func- 
 tions of the life of nutrition and the intermittent 
 functions of the life of relation. 
 
 Jaw of vep ^etable lif^. the necessaiy basis 
 of all our study of life, without any exception for 
 the case of man, consists in the jjgjjewalofitssub- 
 stanc e which every living being constantly requires. 
 This fundamental law is followed by that of growth 
 and flf^fiflv ^yA\r.Q ir. A^^^^ Death is not hi itself 
 the necessary consequent of life, but it is every- 
 where the constant result of it. Lastly, this first 
 biological system is completed by the law of repr o- 
 duction , by which the preservation of the species 
 compensates the loss of the individual. 
 
 The most important property, common to all 
 living being s, is the aptitude each has to p roduce 
 
 j2l^jaWtt£L£ttUliaLiilU^^ ^ it in turn was pro- 
 duced by similar parents. Not merely is it true, 
 ^ that no organic ex><fence ever sprung from inor- 
 j • ^ J Jri^^anic nature ; but^further, no species of any kind 
 ^tl^^Ig^ ^^ spring from one of a difierent kind, either in- 
 ^^S^^ ferior or superiory The limits of the exceptions to 
 ■^ y^^ *^^^ ^"^® ^^® ^^^y narrow, and are as yet but little 
 <W known. There is then a really impassable gulf 
 
 1' ^s 
 
 » 1 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 225 
 
 ^ between the worlds of life and of matter, and even, 
 though less broad, between the different forms of 
 vitality. This view strengthens our position, that 
 any simply objective synthesis is impossible. But 
 it in no way impairs the true subjective synthesis, in 
 everycase, the result of a very gradual ascent towards 
 the type of man. 
 
 ^ As for the three laws of animal life, the first con- 
 sists in the need of alternate exercise and rest which 
 is felt throughout the whole life of relation, with 
 no exception for our noblest attributes. This in- 
 termittence, which is the chai-acteristic of the animal 
 functions, is naturally connected with the beautiful 
 observation of Bichat on the constant symmetry of 
 the organs answering to those functions. Half of 
 each organ can be in action whilst the other half 
 remains passive. The second law, which here, as 
 elsewhere, presupposes the preceding one, without 
 being a consequence from it, proclaims the tendency 
 of each of these intermittent functions to habitual 
 exercise— that is to say, the function has an inhe- 
 rent tendency to reproduce itself spontaneously 
 when the original impulse has ceased. This law, 
 the law of habit, finds its natural complement in 
 that of imitation, nor are the two really distinct. 
 According to the profound remark of Cabanis, the 
 aptitude to imitate others is but the result of the 
 aptitude to imitate oneself, at least in every species 
 capable of sympathy. Lastly, the third law of 
 animal life, in subordination to that of habit, con- 
 sists in the capability of improvement both in the 
 
226 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 II 
 
 statical and dynamical point of view, inherent in all 
 the phenomena of relation. In all alike, exercise 
 strengthens the functions and organs, prolonged 
 disuse tends to weaken them. This last law rests 
 on the two others, but is distinct from them. It 
 sums up the whole theory of animal life, as you 
 at once saw was the case with the last law of vege- 
 table life. 
 
 By a combination of these two great laws, each 
 the last of its respective series, you foi-m a seventh 
 law of life, that of hereditary transmission. This 
 deserves a distinct scientific appreciation, although 
 logically, it is only a necessary consequence of the 
 preceding laws. As every function or structure in 
 the animal world is perfectible up to a certain point, 
 it is clear that every living being's capability of 
 reproducing its like may fix in the species the mo- 
 difications which have taken place in the individual, 
 supposing those modifications to have taken suffi- 
 cient root. It follows that there is a power of im- 
 provement, limited but continuous, dynamical in 
 the main, but also statical, in every race whatever, 
 each generation in succession contributing its quota. 
 This important faculty, in which the two systems 
 of biological laws find a natural expression, is sus- 
 ceptible of greater development in proportion as 
 the race is higher. For by being higher it more 
 readily admits of modifications, as it is also more 
 active by virtue of its greater complication. 
 
 Although the general laws which regulate here- 
 ditary transmission are as yet too little known, the 
 
 u 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 227 
 
 above considerations indicate its high efficacy as re- 
 gards the direct amelioration of man's nature, his pliy- 
 sical, intellectual, and above all his moral nature. It is 
 an indisputable fact that hereditary transmission is as 
 applicable, or even more applicable, to our noblest 
 attributes as to our lowest. For phenomena become 
 more susceptible of modification, and consequently 
 of improvement, in proportion as they are by nature 
 higher and more special. The valuable results 
 obtained in the principal races of domestic animals 
 convey but a faint idea of the improvements 
 which are reserved for the most eminent species, 
 under the systematic guidance of its own provi- 
 dence. 
 
 The Woman.— This general conclusion of the 
 study of life makes me fully see its theoretical and 
 practical importance. I feel now ready to study 
 directly the order of man's world, resei-ved for our 
 last conversation on the doctrine of Positivism. 
 
 T/i€ Priest.— You may, my daughter, find it 
 useful to sum up, under its most important philo- 
 sophical aspect, our present conversation. You may 
 do it by merely contrasting, as you see is done ik 
 our synopsis, the two divisions of Positive Philo- 
 sophy, the historical and doctrinal divisions. In 
 the historical division, the one adapted for the 
 initiation alike of the individual or the society, we 
 place biology in close connexion with cosmology. 
 In the doctrinal, which represents our ultimate 
 state, on the contrary, we combine biologv with 
 ^sociology. The contrast brings out clearly the 
 
 Q 2 
 
 I 
 
228 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 most importaut characteristic of the order of life, as 
 the natural connecting link in the series between 
 the world of matter and the world of man. 
 
 CONVERSATION VIII. 
 
 MAN FIRST, AS A SOCIAL, SECONDLY, AS A 
 
 MORAL BEING. 
 
 TJce Woman. — Before we enter on the highest 
 province of science, I must draw your attention, my 
 father, to a general difficulty. It is the outcome 
 of the metaphysical objections I have often heard 
 ursred against the extension of the Positive doctrine 
 to this province, an extension on which its success 
 depends. To subject social and moral phenomena 
 to invariable laws of the same nature as the laws 
 to which the phenomena of life and matter are 
 subjected — this is represented by certain reasoners 
 as incompatible with the liberty of man. These 
 objections always seemed to me simply sophistical, 
 yet I never knew how to meet them. They influ- 
 ence far too many, and act as a check on their 
 natural inclination to adopt Positivism. 
 
 The Friest. — It is easy, my daughter, to over- 
 come this preliminary difficulty by a direct state- 
 ment of the nature of true liberty. 
 
 Liberty, in its true sense, is in^o_wayjncom - 
 patible with the order of things. On the contrary. 
 
 i n every case liberty con sistsun__obe^ng. without 
 nv hindrance, the lawg_^]iiclLJiL-each case are 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 229 
 
 applicable. 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 interference of a fluid modi- 
 fies its natural action. So in the denartmpTit of 
 life, every function, vegetable oL^JlilDal ^'^ ^^'^^ 
 
 Ifi. 
 
 be free, if it ftv^rfs itself according to the 1 
 WJj^^bletoit^^asej^w^ 
 
 irL 
 
 mQraLexiatani^a-n£man p.f1mif.« c^ f the application of 
 ^jj^am^jy^jjigyjjg. This is seen oirectl^ntn^case 
 of our action, but if true of our action it becomes 
 at once necessary for the motor of our action, that 
 is, our affection ; necessary also for that which guides 
 our action, our reason. 
 
 JLiibertv for man Cyi^Sjist ^d in \^ ^ ^ nhpyinry rtr. 
 
 jgAv^juchJiberty would be even more immoral than 
 absurd^Jor^ it would make every sysfenTonTf^if!? 
 possible for the individual or for the society. Our 
 
 intellect then most fully ftvif^p.nces its liberty when 
 
 jjjulfils that which is its vocation, in its normal 
 state — when it bft<v nTTp^Tfffif^y* Wnf'fgfWffffFB^ 
 
 )r 
 
 ofjbhe worid without, in apitp. of ^^|2ft_jiJ]jgir>^j_^i 
 moral^Jmpjjjspa whinTi mirr hf. TiavA t^^ ttfiUllfUiXJr 
 disturbit^jCtijyi,^ No one can refuse an intellectual 
 assent to demonstrations which he understands. Nay 
 more, no one can reject the opinions which are 
 generally received by tliose among whom he lives, 
 even though he do not know the foundation on 
 which they rest, granting that he have, no previous 
 belief of the contrary. For instance, we might 
 
230 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 1 
 
 challenge the proudest metaphysicians to deny the 
 earth's motion, or doctrines of still more recent 
 origin; and yet they have no knowledge whatever of 
 the scientific proofs of such doctrines. It is the same 
 in respect to moral order. It would be one mass 
 of contradictions, nay the very idea of it would be 
 contradictory, were it possible for every one, at his 
 own good pleasure, to hate when he ought to love, 
 or vice versd. Th^wj^^^/^^ij^jSj^J^^^^^^^i^^^jj^^j^l^ 
 
 totha^giJjjfijaieUfifiL^Bi^Sdi^&ifi^g^jK^ 
 
 [ood instinct s acqui^e^jigjj^agfigjidjyyjj^jjjatour 
 
 affection can do its ]M2]2£31l![fflJL-aiid«JaLita--im pulse, 
 enabl^jgJjjj^ljg^jgjjjg^jUjJiiadj^ 
 motore. Thus in every case equally, tr ue liberty is 
 inherent in, and subordinate to, tn^Tr^ey^Bffh 
 prevaila,_w:hether^tor man, or in the external^orl 
 But in proportion as the phenomena become more 
 complicated, they become more exposed to dis- 
 turbance. Hence the need of greater efforts to 
 maintain their normal state — efforts, however, for 
 which there is abundant scope, owing to their being 
 more open to systematic modifications. Our highe st 
 l iberty, then, consists in making, as far as possible, 
 o ur_^good,Jnclina|ifij^gj^rgdonajnate over our bad . 
 This^ too^ is the direction in which nirc_pQwfir-is 
 capable of ypnsf. pytf^nci-nT, prnvj^Pf] pl wavs that . 
 in our intervention, we act in constant oliftdie Tinft 
 
 t^2[^^^^Se^^jjaaia^fi£i«iii&jKM^uttd6^of 
 
 thinsE 
 
 The doctrine of metaphysics on the so-called moral 
 liberty must be considered, historically, as a tem- 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 231 
 
 porary result of modern anarchy. Its direct aim 
 is to sanction complete individualism, the ultimate 
 limit to which we have been approximating since 
 the close of the Middle Ages, and during the insur- 
 rectionary period which in Western Europe natu- 
 rally followed on that close. But this sophistical 
 protest against all sound discipline, whether private 
 or public, will never be able to fetter Positivism, 
 though successful as against Catholicism. It will 
 never be possible to represent as hostile to the 
 liberty and dignity of man, a doctrine which places 
 on a sure basis, and gives free scope to, the action, 
 the intellect, and the feelings of man. 
 
 The Woman. — By the aid of this preliminary 
 explanation, I shall be able, my father, henceforth 
 to meet sophisms which have yet great weight, 
 where there is deficient cultivation. Would you 
 now explain at once how Positivism evidences its 
 universal competence by a successful application of 
 its doctrine to the phenomena of society ] 
 
 T/ie Priest. — At the outset, my daughter, ^ou 
 
 mus^JookjUiJilj£,^3;£aL£fikS£gJ^^ 
 
 u poftwo^ essential narts ; tTip nnp. filafjj^ ^j^ ^^ tillfi 
 
 theory of order ; the other dYiiamicaLLiUL-thfiJJieQr 
 of promifisa.. It is the first that claims our special 
 
 attention in religious instruction, for there the fun- 
 damental nature of the Great Being is the direct 
 object of our study. But the dynamical portion 
 must complete the conception formed by the first, 
 by explaining the successive doctrines of Humanity, 
 in order to a right direction of our social action. 
 
 r\ 
 
232 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 These two halves of sociology are bound one to 
 another in closest union, by virtue of a general 
 principle laid down by Positivism, with a view to 
 connect throughout the study of movement with 
 that of existence. Progress is tlie development of 
 order. Such a law, applicable even in mathematics, 
 finds a larger application in proportion as the phe- 
 nomena become more complicated. The distinction 
 in this case becomes more marked between the sta- 
 tical and the dynamical state. At the same time 
 the simplification produced by this connexion of 
 our studies acquires a greater value. It is in soci- 
 ology, then, that this great principle finds its best 
 application, as it is to sociology that we trace its 
 systematic adoption. In this science it is as appli- 
 cable if you invert it, as if you take it as it origin- 
 ally stands. For the successive states in which man 
 has existed must in this way throw more and more 
 light on the essential constitution of the race. The 
 germs of that constitution must be traceable in its 
 first outline in the primeval state. But to explain 
 the theoretical and practical efficacy of dynamic 
 sociology is the special object of the conversation 
 with which we shall conclude this Catechism. For 
 the present, I must confine myself to an explana- 
 tion of the principal notions of social statics. 
 
 The Woman. — I may add that your doing so, my 
 father, suits my inadequate knowledge of history. 
 Though the conceptions of social statics must be 
 more abstract than those of social dynamics, I sliall 
 find it easier to grasp them, if I give the attention 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 233 
 
 which their importance and difficulty require. At 
 any rate, I shall be supported under the sense of 
 my ignorance by the certainty of finding in myself 
 the confirmation of a doctrine based on the direct 
 study of human nature. 
 
 The Priest.— Yon are right, my daughter; an 
 attentive examination of yourself will show you at 
 once the necessary constitution of society. For if 
 society is to represent, as it should do, the general 
 existence of Humanity, it must allow, unmistakeably, 
 a combination of all the essential attributes of man. 
 In your own existence you can trace these attri- 
 butes. If not very distinct, they are yet sufficiently 
 so for you to be able to conceive how they may 
 ultimately act in peifect harmony, when each of 
 them shall have a collective organ, and by means of 
 that organ shall be enabled to give full expression 
 to its peculiar characteristics. 
 
 Consider Humanity as being like yourself, only 
 in a more marked degree, impelled by feeling, 
 guided by intelligence, and supported by action. 
 At once you have the three essential elements of 
 society: the sex in which afiection prevails; the 
 contemplative class, that is, the priesthood ; and 
 the active class. I have arranged them according 
 to their decrease in dignity, but also according to 
 their increase in independence. JiU^afitiben is the 
 
 which you are now familiar, that the noblest attri- 
 butes are in all cases subordinate to the lowest. 
 
 I. 
 
234 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 In reality, the unintermitting wants, which are 
 the result of our bodily constitution, enforce on 
 Humanity an amount of action which constitutes 
 the most marked feature in her existence. For de- 
 veloping this activity the need of co-operation be- 
 comes constantly greater. So action, whilst it is 
 the most powerful stimulant of our intelligence, 
 supplies the strongest excitement to our sociability. 
 In reference to this last, it makes solidarity more 
 completely subordinate to continuity — for it is in 
 continuity that resides the most characteristic, as 
 well as the noblest, attribute of the Great Beinsr. 
 The material results of human co-operation depend 
 more on the combined action of a succession of 
 generations than on that of the families who at any 
 one time co-exist. It follows, that far from being 
 absolutely unfavourable to the free play of the 
 intellect and morality, this continuous prepon- 
 derance of active life ought to furnish the best 
 security for our unity, by providing the intellect 
 and the heart with a definite direction and a pro- 
 gressive object. Without this all-pervading im- 
 pulse, our best mental and even our best moral 
 dispositions would soon degenerate and become 
 mere vague and incoherent tendencies, resulting in 
 no progress either for the individual or the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Still, as such activity must always originate in a 
 pei-sonal impulse, such origin will at first stamp it 
 with a profoundly egoistical character. This can 
 only become altruistic by a gradual transforma- 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 235 
 
 
 tion due to the development of the social impulse. 
 This is the reason why, in order fully to undei-stand 
 the constitution of the society, we must break up 
 its active class into two constituent parts, always 
 distinct, and often in opposition the one to the 
 other. They have as their special object, the one, to 
 develope the practical impulse with the strong per- 
 sonality implied in its great energy, the other, the 
 reaction of society on the personal impulse, a reac- 
 tion which raises it more and more. 
 
 It is indispensable to break up the active class in 
 this way. All we have to do, is to divide the active 
 power of society, and consider it as concentrated or 
 dispersed, according as it is the result of wealth or 
 of number. 
 
 The power of wealth can only tell indirectly. 
 Still, it is generally the stronger, and it has a ten- 
 dency to become so more and more, representing, 
 as it does, the continuity of our race, whilst that of 
 numbers represents its solidarity. For the material 
 treasures which Humanity entrusts to the rich, 
 are the result of a long antecedent accumulation. 
 There is no objection to this statement in the feet 
 that their necessary consumption constitutes a per- 
 manent demand for partial renovation. Any strong 
 practical impulse, then, must come from tha patri- 
 ciate. In that body is vested the control of the 
 capital of the race, the great nutritive reservoirs, 
 the social efliciency of which mainly depends on 
 their being concentrated in few hands. Thus pro- 
 perty receives a direct sanction from Positive reli- 
 
 I 
 
236 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 gion, as being the essential condition of any con- 
 tinuous activity, and, as such, indirectly the basis 
 of our noblest progress. 
 
 The second pi-actical element, without which the 
 first would be worth nothing, is the proletariate, 
 which of necessity forms the great body of every 
 nation. Its only means of gaining social influence 
 is union. Hence it has a direct tendency to bring 
 into play our highest feelings. By the force of its 
 position, the attention of the proletariate is mainly 
 directed, at all times, on the moral regulation of an 
 economy, any disturbance of which falls most espe- 
 cially on it. Naturally free from the serious re- 
 spon8i})ility and the mental absorption which all 
 authority brings with it, be it theoretical or prac- 
 tical authority, the spontaneous action of the pro- 
 letariate is calculated to recall both the priesthood 
 and the patriciate to a sense of their social duty. 
 
 TJie Wonmn. — I believe, my father, that this con- 
 tinuous influence of the active class is also quite as 
 indispensable for women. It is needed to control 
 or to compensate the exaggeration of feeling. Not 
 mixing in active life, my sex is often disposed not 
 to see or not to allow for the rough conditions it 
 imposes. However, as we are under the sway of 
 feeling, we may always be brought to accept these 
 conditions, if, by accepting them, we can gain the 
 object of woman's natural aspirations. But the 
 necessities of active life must be the impulse to a 
 i-ight judgment on such points. 
 
 The Priest. — Your remark shows, my daughter, 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 237 
 
 that you completely understand the peculiar social 
 office of the proletariate. For if even the aflective sex 
 can forget its true influence, and be too exclusively 
 occupied with its own particular want, the speculative 
 and the active classes are naturally far more exposed 
 to this danger, as their attention is habitually taken 
 up with points of detail. The moral providence 
 exercised by women, the intellectual providence 
 vested in the priesthood, and the material provi- 
 dence of the patriciate — all equally require for their 
 completion the general providence of the proletariate. 
 With this complement we perfect the constitution 
 of the admirable system of human providence. 
 Thus all the powers of man, each according to its 
 nature, are made to conduce to the preservation and 
 improvement of Humanity. 
 
 We thus gain a general conception of the con- 
 stitution of human society, which enables us to 
 characterize its three essential elements. They 
 take their rank on the principle of their decreasing 
 aptitude to represent Humanity. Nor is the order 
 difierent, if we look to the predominant influence 
 which each exercises in its turn, on every one who 
 is completely educated. First comes the providence 
 of woman, the power which, through our whole life, 
 presides over our moral growth. Under its guidance, 
 we learn to feel continuity and solidarity ; for it 
 directs education during the period whilst it pro- 
 ceeds unsystematically in the bosom of the family. 
 As a next step, the providence of the priesthood 
 teaches us to systematize our conceptions of the 
 
 i 
 
238 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 nature and the destiny of the Great Being. This 
 it does by disclosing to us, step by step, the order 
 of the world, its material, social, and moral order. 
 Lastly, we come into direct contact with, and obe- 
 dience to, the i>ower of the material providence 
 
 the patriciate and proletariate. We are initiated by 
 it in practical life, and our preparation is completed 
 by the influence of active life on our afiections and 
 thoughts. 
 
 The full completion of our individual develop- 
 ment, the development of the brain as well as of 
 the body, coincides naturally, in point of time, with 
 the completion, as a general rule, of our initiation as 
 members of society. The combination of the two 
 constitutes our real maturity. We then enter on 
 our second life, a life essentially of action, succeed- 
 ing the system of preparations which have fitted us 
 for the service of Humanity. This fresh stage of 
 our objective existence, though generally shorter 
 than the first, is alone decisive. On it alone, that 
 is, depends whether each head of a family attains 
 or not the subjective existence which shall, accord- 
 ing to his merits, incorporate him into Humanity. 
 
 To get a better idea of this constitution of society, 
 we must consider, separately, its two most special 
 elements, the only classes properly so called, the 
 priesthood which counsels, the patriciate which 
 commands. These two classes respectively are to 
 preserve and increase the spiritual and material 
 treasures of Humanity. They also preside over the 
 proper distribution of these treasures amongst her 
 
 THE DOCTRlifE. 
 
 239 
 
 servants, in obedience to the laws which govern 
 each of the two. 
 
 We look to the theoretical class, in the first 
 place, for systematic education. Secondly, we give 
 it an influence over the whole of life, a consultative 
 influence, that is. We do so, that it may bring the 
 action of each individual into harmony with the 
 action of the rest, a point which in active life we 
 are too apt to neglect. The admirable institution 
 of human language is the special patrimony of the 
 priesthood, for language is the natural depositary of 
 religion, and the most important instrument in its 
 exercise. But whilst we assign language thus 
 specially to the priesthood, we must not forget that 
 it has never been the work of any special class, but 
 a result of the co-operation of the whole race. By 
 its very nature, spiritual wealth is imperishable, 
 and as such admits of being enjoyed simultaneously 
 by all without being exhausted. So that to preserve 
 it no distribution is needed, and its preservation is 
 but a simple adjunct of the priestly oflSce. Lan- 
 guage is eminently synthetical and social ; it con- 
 solidates and developes the natural subordination of 
 the world of man to the external world. It also 
 strengthens the union of man with man. This it 
 does above all by bringing into the closest connexion 
 the systematic wisdom of the philosopher and the 
 common sense of mankind. 
 
 Material products are destined for individual 
 use, and are, by their nature, perishable. Hence 
 the laws of their preservation and use are totally 
 
i 
 
 am' 
 
 240 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 different. Material products, tlien, form the province 
 of the patriciate, as a body, aided by the general 
 superintendence of society. But more than this, it is 
 necessary that they should be appropriated to indi- 
 viduals. If not so appropriated their concentra- 
 tion, and as a rule they must be concentrated, be- 
 comes illusoiy or rather impossible. This institu- 
 tion of property, the primary basis of the material 
 providence, must rest on the land, otherwise it will 
 not have the requisite degree of stability; for the 
 land is naturally the seat, as it is necessarily the 
 source, of all actual production. Thus by a natural 
 process are formed, in the course of generations, the 
 nutritive reservoirs of Humanity. Their permanent 
 destination is the constant renewal of man's exis- 
 tence. Those in whose hands the control of these 
 reservoirs is placed have to direct the labours re- 
 quired by this process. 
 
 This is the main office of the patriciate. It con- 
 sists in restoring to each man the materials which 
 he is constantly consuming in the service of society, 
 either as provisions for his subsistence, or as the 
 instruments by which he discharges his functions. 
 Wages, rightly viewed, have no other func- 
 tion whatever to the class that receives them. 
 The labour of man, that is to say, the successful 
 efforts man makes to modify his destiny, is really 
 never otherwise than gratuitous. It does not admit 
 o^ it does not require any payment in the strict 
 sense. The term equivalent is appropriate when 
 we are dealing with the materials of labour. It is 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 241 
 
 inapplicable, when we are considering the relation 
 of the labourer to his work. This is a truth which 
 has always been recognised in the case of the 
 affective sex and the contemplative class, nay even 
 in the case of that portion of the active class which 
 pays the wages of the rest. The inherently gra- 
 tuitous character of labour is disputed, then, only in 
 the case of the proletariate, in the case of those, 
 that is, who receive the least. The contradiction 
 such a result involves clearly indicates the source, 
 historically, of this anomaly. It is due essentially, 
 not to any inferiority in the labour of the class in 
 question, but to the long servitude of its members. 
 Positive religion alone can on this point overcome 
 modern anarchy. It does so by enforcing on all a 
 sense that individual services never admit of any 
 other reward than the satisfaction of renderin<y 
 them, and the grateful feeling they excite. 
 
 Ths Woman. — Vulgar minds may treat this view 
 as a mere sentimental exaggeration, but I venture 
 to promise you, my father, that it will soon meet 
 with a cordial reception among women. I have 
 often been shocked by the prevailing egoism. We 
 are in the habit of thinking that a paltry money pay- 
 ment supersedes all need of gratitude for important 
 and difficult services, services which compromise 
 the health, and sometimes the life, on each occasion, 
 of those who perform them. This Positivist prin- 
 ciple of the gratuitousness of labour gives a syste- 
 matic consistency to feelings universally felt. All 
 that such feelings need to secure their gradual pre- 
 
 B 
 
2^2 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 243 
 
 m 
 
 valence is, expression and method. This principle 
 is the last step in the process by which I have been 
 brought to see that it is possible to stamp on our 
 whole existence, even on its material part, an al- 
 truistic character. All that is requisite for this holy- 
 transformation is, that we all, without attaining to 
 a state of habitual enthusiasm, should have a deep 
 sense that we have each our share in the common 
 work. Now such a conviction can certainly be 
 produced by a system of wise education in which 
 all should participate — an education in which the 
 heart will dispose the intellect to grasp truth as a 
 whole, not in some details. 
 
 The Priest. — In order to complete this our fun- 
 damental view of the constitution of society, it 
 remains for me, my daughter, to explain the three 
 forms it may take, or the three associations which 
 rise one above the other. 
 
 Every collective organism, in other words every 
 association, necessarily contains the several elements 
 which I have just explained. But these consti- 
 tuent parts have more or less of a marked character, 
 and consequently are more or less distinct, accord- 
 ing to the nature and extent of the society under 
 consideration. Their respective predominance leads 
 us to recognise three different forms of human asso- 
 ciation. Their order is determined by the decreas- 
 ing closeness of the union, and their increasing 
 extent. The intermediate one rests on its pre- 
 decessor, and is the basis of the one that follows. 
 The only one where the natural foundation is love, 
 
 the Family, is the closest in point of union, the 
 narrowest in extent, and is the necessary element 
 of the two othera. Man's action next leads to the 
 formation of the CifT/. The bond in this case results 
 from an habitual co-operation, the sense of which 
 would be too weak if this political association were 
 to include too large a number of families. Lastly 
 comes the Church. Here the essential bond is 
 faith. The Church alone can be really universal 
 and its universality will be a necessary consequence 
 of Positive religion. These three forms of human 
 society have as their respective centres, the woman, 
 the patriciate, and the priesthood. 
 
 We all are members of a family, and that family 
 is always part of some city or other, and even of 
 some church or other. But the church tie is weaker, 
 I and therefore suscei)tible of greater variation, though 
 
 always within fixed limits. When it has attained 
 sufficient consistency, we can by its aid and by no 
 other means reduce the city to a proper size. The 
 city is the centre around which each man centres 
 his existence, by virtue of the natural preponderance 
 of action over intellect, and even over feeling. 
 For on no other condition can the social state be 
 really permanent but on that of reconciling inde- 
 pendence with joint action, both of which are 
 equally inherent in the true idea of Humanity. 
 Now this necessary agreement requires that political 
 societies shaU exist within limits much narrower 
 than those usual at the present day. 
 
 In the Middle Ages there existed in outline the 
 
 r2 
 
 I 
 
244 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 8K 
 
 D 
 
 separation between the religious and the civil 
 society. Hence it was possible, even then, to sub- 
 stitute the free incorporation of the nations of the 
 West, for the compulsory incorporation originally 
 enforced by the dominion of Rome. Western 
 Europe thus presented, during several centuries, 
 the admirable spectacle of an entirely voluntary 
 union, an union founded solely on a common faith, 
 and maintained by a common priesthood between 
 nations whose different governments had all the 
 independence that was requisite. But this great 
 political result could not survive the premature 
 emancipation of a power which Positive relicrion 
 alone can organize aright and finally enfranchise. 
 The necessary decline of Catholicism led to a fresh 
 concenti-ation of the temporal power. The step 
 was at the time indispensable to prevent the entire 
 ])olitical dissolution which seemed imminent, as the 
 consequence of the increasing disniption of all 
 religious bonds. Hence it was, that notwithstandins 
 tlie feelings and opinions of the Middle Ages, the 
 traces of which are yet visible, the nations of 
 Western Europe acquiesced in the formation every- 
 where of States on far too large a scale. 
 
 The political reasons for this exorbitant extension 
 are now no longer valid. And even in il>ance men 
 begin to feel the danger inherent in this '(inonialous 
 position, and to feel also that its end is approachin<y. 
 Positive religion will soon reduce these monster 
 associations to the normal size. There will then be 
 no need of force to maintain a temporal lipion 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 245 
 
 between nations, where a spiritual union alone is 
 admissible. Thus shall we shortly apply our statical 
 principle, which considers the single city the organ 
 politically of Humanity, including in the city, by 
 way of complement, the less condensed population 
 in natural connexion with it. The feeling of 
 patriotism is now vague and weak in consequence 
 of its excessive diffusion. It will in the new order 
 be able to develope fully all the energy allowed 
 by its concentration in the city. At the same time 
 the habitual union of the great cities will become 
 more real and more efficacious, for it will assume its 
 normal character, that of a voluntary concert. Posi- 
 tive faith will inspire a due sense of the solidarity 
 and even of the continuity which must finally prevail 
 between all portions of the earth without exception. 
 
 The Woman. — I feel now, my father, prepared, 
 by your explanations of the theory of society, to 
 take my seat at last at the highest point of the 
 encyclopedic edifice, the successive stages of which 
 you have brought under my notice. Moral science 
 must of course be the hardest of all. Yet so far as 
 concerns its empirical cultivation, my sex is too 
 familiar with it for me to feel the alarm I felt in 
 the case of the others. I am therefore glad to have 
 reached in due time the systematic study of man as 
 an individual. 
 
 The Priest— In truth, my daughter, this, the 
 necessary termination of the whole encyclopedic 
 preparation, is alone able to satisfy the intellect as 
 it does the heart. Moral science is more synthetical 
 
 \. 
 
246 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 than any other. Its direct connexion with prac- 
 tice gives strength to this its natural attribute. In 
 moral science alone do all the abstract points of 
 view meet spontaneously to take the general 
 guidance of concrete reason. From Thales to Pascal 
 every genuine thinker has cultivated simultaneously 
 geometry and morals, from a secret presentiment of 
 the great hierarchy in which they should be finally 
 combined. The term microcosm, or lesser world, 
 applied by the ancients to man, was even then an 
 indication of the feeling that in the study of man all 
 others might be condensed. Morals are naturally 
 the only science susceptible of real completeness. 
 No essential point need be put out of view, as must be 
 the case in each of the sciences which serve as their 
 basis. For when we look on these sciences as, each 
 in its proper sphere, deciding what are the laws 
 which man obeys, they only attain this end by pur- 
 posely neglecting all the higher properties which 
 their respective provinces might embrace, whilst 
 they incorporate only the inferior ones. By this 
 course of decreasing abstraction, the intellect is 
 finally prepared to enter on the only study in which 
 it is no longer compelled to abstract any essential 
 property from the common object of all our various 
 branches of human speculations. In no other way 
 can meditation, the characteristic of the masculine 
 intellect, be irrevocably united with contemplation, 
 
 the distinctive feature of woman's intelligence an 
 
 union which constitutes the final condition of 
 human reason. 
 
 THE-DOCTRINR 
 
 247 
 
 We begijijaaiJLiiQSBiQlQgiL.J^^ down the 
 
 law^o^ mfimjuai^i^^Dafii^^Mi ^^■^■m 
 
 biology coiistmck-ili£.llifiQixjiLli£ai»-J^asil^ 
 
 nlnp ry l ^fjjj^ya ffffTTJI^^ ^'^*^ study (^j^ tjjnfi collective or 
 sociaj^jiatyyi^^o^jaaya^Jn^^^^ 
 twofol^^jj23jjj^[^JiOTMaid. This last of the pre- 
 liminary sciences is more complete than its prede- 
 cessors. Still it does not yet embrace the whole of 
 human nature. For our most important attributes 
 find but an inadequate appreciation in sociology. 
 By its nature, sociology considers in man his intel- 
 ligence and his activity, in combination with all our 
 lower properties, but not in direct subordination to 
 the feelings which are highest of all. The develop- 
 ment of society places in the strongest light our 
 theoretical and practical progress. Even in the 
 statics of sociology, our feelings are only considered 
 in reference to the social impulses derived from them, 
 or to the modifications society introduces. Their 
 peculiar laws, to be properly studied, must be studied 
 in moral science. There they acquire the prepon- 
 derance due to their higher rank in the system of 
 human nature. This it is which leads minds of an 
 unsystematic order to underrate the fulness of the 
 synthetical character which distinguishes this final 
 science. They limit it too closely to this its most 
 important sphere, whereas that sphere is but the 
 centre around which the rest must be finally 
 grouped. 
 
 The Woman. — ^The theoretical connexion between 
 sociology and morals is not yet clear from mists. 
 
 Vv 
 
 i 
 
248 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 1 
 
 Would you, my father, scatter these mists before 
 you pass to the direct exposition of the Positive 
 conception of human nature 1 I have not forgotten 
 the indisputable reasons which in our fundamental 
 conversation made me recognise the objective sub- 
 ordination of morals to sociology, since man is 
 always subordinate to Humanity. But on the other 
 hand, it seems to me that the social science stands 
 in continual need of the more important notions 
 that morals are able to give it as to the true nature 
 of man. 
 
 The Priest. — Your very reasonable difficulty, my 
 daughter, will disappear, if you take into account 
 that we have always some previous knowledge, ac- 
 quired by our own efforts, which prepares the way 
 for systematic study. Science is ^^way g^ ^j^ply the 
 )ntimiation of flip cr^r^ eor.c|^ ^f - nnkind. It 
 
 :es_an3L.i^L-thfi^-more importanf. 
 
 the ffeneraliza- 
 
 human reason 
 
 ^esults_the_con sistengx,a]liLd£V£lQPment otherwi sft 
 Jjnattainable. Such a connexion is more peculiarly 
 appropriate'm the study of morals. They could not, 
 it is true, owing to their higher degree of complica- 
 tion, be systematized till the last, but at the same 
 time, by the force of their preponderant importance, 
 they always supplied the main food for our ordinary 
 meditations, especially those of women. From this 
 empirical culture we soon gained some notions, which, 
 in spite of their incoherence, were very valuable. 
 
 I 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 249 
 
 They have hitherto, it is true, been despised by 
 minds of systematic tendencies, but only because 
 such minds could find no place for them in their theo- 
 logical or metaphysical theories. Positivism alone is 
 capable of taking in the social point of view; there- 
 fore on it devolved the task of generalizing and 
 co-ordinating these empirical notions, after founding 
 the last of the preliminary sciences. Its ability to 
 systematize them enabled it to appreciate their value 
 in spite of philosophical prejudices ; and so it could 
 turn them to immediate account in the construction 
 of sociology. If you examine closely the way in 
 which we habitually avail ourselves in sociology of 
 the knowledge of human nature, you will soon see 
 that all that we really use are these spontaneous 
 notions, which have far more reality in them than 
 all the moral speculations of earlier philosophers. 
 This empirical sketch is sufficient for our concep- 
 tions, so far as they concern the collective existence 
 of man, before it has been reduced to the systematic 
 shape which the final science alone can determine. 
 
 Tfie Woman, — Your explanation, my father, en- 
 tirely does away with the confusion which I had 
 noticed by the way as existing between the two 
 essential aspects of the order of man, the social and 
 the moral. My ignorance had preserved me from 
 the classical theories of human nature. So I am 
 the better able to appreciate the real character of 
 the moral ideas which sociology employs, and to see 
 their coincidence with the results obtained by the 
 spontaneous action of human reason. 
 
250 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 The Priest. — As a direct foundation for the final 
 science, it is sufficient, my daughter, to put in proper 
 systematic form the division which the common 
 sense of man early recognised in the whole of man's 
 existence — the division into feeling, intellect, and 
 action. In the oldest poets we may trace this 
 analysis under different forms. They proceed from 
 it as their basis, and complete it, on empirical 
 grounds, by the general division of our inclinations 
 into personal and social. The theories of theology, 
 and still more of metaphysics, were, in a special 
 degree, unable to give its due prominence to this 
 last idea. But it is a conception which is so self- 
 evident as to overcome all philosophical sophisms, 
 where there has been no mental cultivation. Such 
 is the natural province of morals. To systematize 
 and develope it is the essential object of moral 
 science. Morals, as all the other branches of real 
 science, are occupied in the main with determiniuor 
 the general laws of the commonest phenomena ; as, 
 for instance, chemistry mainly studies the laws of 
 combustion and fermentation. Although moral 
 science was a subject which theology could not 
 adequately handle, we must not pass over without 
 its due notice the attempt made at the beginning of 
 Catholicism by its real founder. The object was to 
 meet the want of a system created by the new 
 religious teaching. The great St. Paul, in his general 
 doctrine of the permanent struggle between nature 
 and grace, stated, though in an imperfect form, and 
 solved in his own way, the whole moral problem, 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 251 
 
 not merely as far as regards its practical difficulty, 
 but also as a theoretic question. The value of the 
 solution he invented lay in its offering provisionally 
 a compensation for a radical defect in monotheism. 
 Monotheism is irreconcileable with the existence in 
 our nature of the instincts of benevolence, the 
 inclinations which lead all creatures to a mutual 
 union, instead of devoting themselves separately to 
 their Creator. In spite of all the flaws inherent in 
 such a theory, its development in the Middle Ages 
 is really the only great advance made by moral 
 science between the period of its rudimentary state 
 in the early theocratic times and its recent formation 
 into a Positive science. Its form in the Middle 
 Ages was at any rate a better embodiment of the 
 main results of the good sense of mankind than the 
 lamentable ontology which guided men in the gradual 
 dissolution of Catholicism. Hence the Mystics of 
 the fifteenth century, and above all, the admirable 
 author of the Imitation^ are the only thinkers in whom, 
 before Positivism, you can trace a really general 
 view of human nature. The metaphysical concep- 
 tion of that nature is in all cases extremely de- 
 fective. When I remind you of St. Paul's moral 
 doctrine, so justly dear to you in your youth, it is 
 not merely that I wish to honour an attempt which 
 is now too generally undervalued. It was a pro- 
 visional substitute for the Positive theory of human 
 nature, which could not be formed till after a long 
 period of objective preparation. But more than 
 this, it spontaneously prepared the way for the 
 
252 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 Positivetheory,bymarkingoiititssystematicdomain. 
 It was under its influence that, even prior to the 
 foundation of sociology, from the true scientific 
 point of view, a decisive attempt was made to con- 
 stitute moral science. The attempt was not suc- 
 cessful, but it was made immediately after the rise 
 of the philosophy of biology. 
 
 The first step was to establish, in this highest 
 province of theory, a general harmony between the 
 statical and dynamical points of view. It was 
 necessary for this to determine the seat of our chief 
 functions. The nietaphysical view was a mere con- 
 fusion. It made the intellect supreme, and assigned 
 It the brain. But the reason of mankind had 
 broken through the mists of philosophical specula- 
 tion. It held a different doctrine at any rate as 
 to our inclinations, especially as to our personal 
 inclinations. It was guided on this point by their 
 spontaneous energy. The philosophers of antiquity 
 sanctioned the distinction between them by placing 
 them, though vaguely, in the different viscera of our 
 nutritive system. Still, no organ was set apart for 
 oiir instincts of sympathy, and science, agreeing with 
 theology, always spoke of the passions as if we had 
 none but bad ones. Besides, the intellect remained 
 undivided, and its subordination to the feelings 
 found no expression in the theory. 
 
 I have given you this historical introduction, 
 that you may duly appreciate the admirable effort 
 of genius by which Gall founded the Positive theory 
 of human nature. He was unable however to con- 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 253 
 
 struct it in such a way as to secure its efficiency. 
 To do so required sociology. He gave a powerful 
 impulse however by laying down two general 
 principles, the one dynamical, the other statical. 
 They are closely connected, and will always be the 
 basis of the true study of the soul and the brain. 
 Gall showed that our higher functions, mental and 
 moral, were plural, and that they all had their seat 
 in the brain. The several regions of the brain 
 must, then, correspond to the real distinctness 
 between them. Gall fell into many important errors, 
 especially in regard to the intellect. They were the 
 result of a superficial analysis and an empirical 
 determination of the position of the different organs. 
 But he succeeded in giving an adequate idea of the 
 general method of analyzing our compound exis- 
 tence, and he even succeeded in establishing the fact 
 that we have benevolent inclinations. The imaginary 
 conflict between nature and grace— the conception 
 of St. Paul — is for the future abandoned. And we 
 replace it by the real opposition between the poste- 
 rior part of the brain, the seat of our personal in- 
 stincts, and its anterior region, the seat both of our 
 sympathetic impulses and our intellectual faculties, 
 which however have distinct positions. Such is the 
 indestructible basis on which, as the founder of Posi- 
 tive religion, I proceeded to construct my systematic 
 theory of the brain and the soul. I had previously 
 constituted sociology, from which alone could come 
 the inspiration I required. 
 
 The Woman.— 1 seem to get a glimpse, my father, 
 
254 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 of the wide philosophical importance of the two 
 principles laid down by Gall, the immediate pre- 
 cursor of Positivism. The constant mutual action 
 of onr feelings and our thoughts, as well as the 
 natural relations of our several instincts, could not 
 be adequately accounted for, so wide apart were 
 the positions respectively assigned them. On your 
 theory of the brain, we can at length form a con- 
 ception of these important relations, and by its aid 
 we can secure their greater constancy. Still, if we 
 deprive the nutritive organs of any moral character, 
 however alien such a character is to their merely 
 physical function, we have a great omission to 
 supply. How are we to account for the undisputed 
 connexion of these organs with our higher functions ? 
 The reciprocal influence of mans physical and moral 
 nature was exaggerated in the ancient hypothesis, 
 but it seems unduly neglected in the modern view. 
 The Priest. — Your reproach is only applicable, 
 my daughter, to the cerebral theory in its rudimen- 
 taiy state. It is not applicable to its final state. 
 In that final state these great relations are fully sys- 
 tematized. We retain the true notions whicli so 
 long accredited the old hypothesis, but w^e limit the 
 influence of our nutritive system to our instincts 
 properly so called. We do not allow that our in- 
 tellectual functions, or even our impulses to action, 
 have any direct participation in that influence. 
 The speculative and the active regions of the brain 
 communicate through the nerves only with the 
 senses and the muscles. That communication gives 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 255 
 
 
 us the perception of the outer world and the power 
 of modifying it. On the other hand, the affective 
 region, which forms the largest mass of the brain, 
 has no direct communication with the outer world. 
 It is only indirectly connected with it through its 
 relations with the intellectual and active regions. 
 But besides this connexion with the other parts of 
 the brain, special nerves bring the affective region 
 into the closest relation with the most important 
 organs of our nutritive system, in consequence of 
 the necessary subordination of our personal instincts 
 to the lowest type of life, that which we have in 
 common with the plant. If this general correspon- 
 dence shall admit, as there is reason for hoping, of 
 a sufficient specification in detail, it will furnish 
 powerful means for the reciprocal improvement of 
 man's moral and physical nature. 
 
 The Woman. — This Positive conception of human 
 nature seems to me, my father, quite in agreement 
 with the expenence of mankind, especially in that 
 it rests the unity of man on the constant subordina- 
 tion of the intellect to the heart. You had 
 already explained to me, that of the two modes in 
 which this preponderance of the affections might 
 exist, the altruistic alone can secure for man, even 
 as an individual, a complete and lasting unity, one 
 however which it is more difficult to constitute than 
 the egoistic unity. But in this theory of man's har- 
 mony there is yet a serious difficulty. How are we 
 to reconcile it with the fii'st law of animal life ? 
 That law asserts the intermittent character of the 
 
 % 
 
256 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 whole life of relation, without allowing any excep- 
 tion for the functions of the brain. True unity 
 cannot be intermittent. The intellect and the 
 activity can, and ought to, rest alternately, as ought 
 the senses and muscles, which they respectively bring 
 into play. But the functions of affection cannot be 
 suspended. Can we ever cease to feel love towards 
 ourselves and towards others 1 
 
 The Priest.— 'VhQ direct connexion between the 
 affective life and the nutritive life ought to lead 
 you, my daughter, to see that the fii-st is as con- 
 tinuous as the second. To hannonize this neces- 
 sary continuity with the intermittent character 
 common to the whole life of relation, all we 
 have to do, is to consider the double structure of 
 the brain. All the organs of the brain are, as the 
 senses and muscles are, composed of two symme- 
 trical portions, separate or contiguous, each of 
 which can function whilst the other rests. Such an 
 alternation allows the feelings a continuous exis- 
 tence, in spite of the general intermittence of the 
 brain. Sometimes the intellect functions in this way 
 dui'ing sleep, if not by its organs of contemplation, 
 the connexion of which with the senses is direct, at 
 any rate by those of meditation, where the dependence 
 on the senses is not immediate. This is the origin of 
 dreams, states of temporary mental alienation, in 
 which, as in madness, subjective impulses, without 
 our will, get the upper hand. This occasional per- 
 sistence of the intellectual functions during sleep 
 enables us to understand the regular persistence of 
 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 257 
 
 the affective functions. Nay more, it furnishes us 
 with an indirect evidence of such persistence. For 
 our dreams always bear the stamp of the dominant 
 instincts. Since the heart directs the intellect 
 when we are awake, in spite of impressions from 
 without, it must assert a greater power over it when 
 these impressions are no longer felt. We may 
 hope, then, that the cerebral theory will ulti- 
 mately lead us to a right interpretation of dreams 
 and even enable us to modify them, so realizing 
 the wish of antiquity, which at the time wa^ pre"^ 
 mature. ^ 
 
 The Woman.-.! should, my father, have an un- 
 satisfactory conception of the Positive theory of 
 human nature, unless, after explaining the general 
 relations of the heart, the intellect, and the cha- 
 racter, you show me the systematic division of each 
 of the three into their primary functions, beyond 
 which no further reduction is possible. 
 
 ThePriest.—Yon have this division, my daughter 
 m the descriptive system of the brain, which I lay 
 before you. {See Synopsis (7, at the end of the volume.) 
 You must become as familiar with it as with our 
 encyclopedic synopsis. Though longer than that it 
 will be less difficult. Any person of sufficient age, 
 especially a woman, must soon feel the reality of om- 
 analysis ; for by its very nature, it rests entirely on 
 observations within the reach of every one If 
 special and difficult contemplations were indispen- 
 sable for its verification, that would be enough to 
 prove it defective. It required great eff^orts to 
 
 s 
 
 r- 
 
\ 
 
 258 
 
 SECOND PAKT. 
 
 construct this synopsis. But that in no way affects 
 its use, especially for those who have escaped our 
 classical education. The difficulty of construction 
 depended less on the nature of the problem than 
 on the prevalence of false theories. It was the 
 earliest sphere of our intellectual exertions, and yet 
 it was destined to be the last subjected to the 
 gradual process of harmonizing the theoretical with 
 the practical reason. But at length it has under- 
 gone the process, and with such success that the 
 fundamental harmony of the two leads to greater 
 progress in this department than in any other. 
 
 My classification of the organs of the brain offers 
 vou throughout a fresh application of the universal 
 principle of decreasing generality, the principle which 
 you saw was the foundation of the whole encyclo- 
 pedic hierarchy. You may trace it most clearly in 
 the case of the instincts, as they are more numerous 
 and more marked in character. Their decrease in 
 generality, in proportion as they become nobler and 
 less energetic, is fully verified in the whole of the 
 animal series. In the lowest stage we find simply 
 the fundamental instinct of individual preservation. 
 There is as yet no complete separation of the sexes. 
 Then, in succession, we see the other instincts added, 
 first the personal, then the social, in the order indi- 
 cated by my system of the brain. Man is the limit 
 of the series. This verification from comparative 
 zoology is sufficient to prove the truth of my analy- 
 sis. It often aided me in working out that analysis. 
 Not that, however, I had recourse to any other 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 259 
 
 guidance than that of sociology. In the highest 
 animals in our series, the mammiferous animals and 
 birds, we certainly find a complete combination of all 
 our higher functions. The difference is merely one 
 of degree. See how the greatest of poets had a pre- 
 sentiment of this fundamental resemblance between 
 man and the animals. In the midst of his sublime 
 descriptions of Paradise, Dante introduces this ad- 
 mirable picture of the moral existence of a bird — 
 
 Come I'augello intra Tamate fronde 
 Posato 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, 
 Id che i gravi labor gli son aggrati, 
 
 Previene '1 tempo in su I'aperta frasca, 
 E con ardente affetto il sole aspetta 
 Piso guardando pur che I'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 descry 
 Their wished looks, and to bring home their food, 
 In the fond quest unconscious of her toil ; 
 She, of the time prevenient, on the spray, 
 That overhangs their couch, with wakeful gaze 
 Expects the sun, nor ever, till the dawn, 
 Removetli from the east her eager ken. 
 
 Gary's Translation. 
 
 In this charming description an animal very fiir 
 removed from man offers us, equally with man, the 
 normal concurrence of feeling, intelligence, and 
 activity. The feeling of brotherhood between man 
 and the other animals is more precious even for the 
 
 s2 
 
260 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 THE DOCTIUNE. 
 
 261 
 
 heart than for the intellect. For it extends onr 
 sympathies beyond our own species, and so acts as 
 a check on any disposition to cruelty in our too 
 frequent conflicts with the subordinate races. 
 
 The Wmnan. — I am fond of studying animals, 
 my father, with the view of tracing in them essen- 
 tially the same impulses as in man. But I suppose 
 that the synopsis of the brain is independent of any 
 such verification. There are minds which would 
 not accept it. 
 
 The Priest. — Even when confined to man, our 
 observations, my daughter, are really sufficient to 
 remove all uncertainty as to any part of the Positive 
 theory of the soul and brain. Even the analysis of 
 the intellect, more delicate than the two others, inas- 
 much as its divisions are less marked, may be veri- 
 fied V)y an appeal to facts of daily experience. It 
 is sufficient to compare the two sexes to see the 
 capital distinction, that between the organs of con- 
 templation and those of meditation. For the first 
 of these two functions is more developed in woman, 
 the second in man. Similarly we separate the two 
 organs of meditation, by remarking that your sex 
 is more adapted for connecting facts, mine for co- 
 ordinating them. Were our savans as sagacious 
 as most women, and as clear as women of erroneous 
 views, the strong evidence of comparative zoology 
 would be superfluous. 
 
 Tlie Woman. — My first inspection of the descrip- 
 tive system of the brain has given rise to some 
 doubts, my father. These I should like to have 
 
 , 
 
 cleared up before I begin its study. The instincts, 
 as a whole, seem placed in their right light, except 
 the maternal instinct. This I expected to find 
 under the head of altruism, not under that of 
 
 egoism. 
 
 The Priest. — You must distinguish, my daughter, 
 between the maternal instinct and the influence that 
 instinct may have on our sympathies. Such an 
 influence is not inherent in it, as is seen by the fact 
 that it is often wanting. The observation of animals 
 leaves us no doubt as to the necessity of this dis- 
 tinction, for we find instances of the maternal rela- 
 tion in animals, at too low a point in the scale to 
 have the sentiments connected with that relation in 
 the human species. But you can remove all uncer- 
 tainty on the point without going beyond your 
 own species. However valuable the improvement 
 efiected by civilization, particularly modern civiliza- 
 tion, in this instinct, as a consequence of the in- 
 creasing influence of society on the family, it is yet 
 possible, in daily experience, to detect its true 
 nature in women of weak sympathies, where it 
 stands out more distinctly. In such cases we see 
 that the child, for the mother no less than for the 
 father, is regarded directly in the light of a mere 
 personal possession, on which they may exercise 
 their love of power, or by which they may gratify 
 their avarice, far more than as the object of any 
 disinterested affection. Only, as the relations which 
 spring from the fact of maternity give a strong 
 stimulus to the instincts of benevolence, they spon- 
 
'\ 
 
 262 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 263 
 
 I 
 
 taneously aid in the development of those instincts 
 wherever the nature is kindly, but they never create 
 sympathy. In fact its previous existence is implied. 
 When we compare the different states of society, 
 either in the present or in the past, we see the true 
 character of an instinct, which, previous to its im- 
 provement by the providence of man, often leads 
 parents to sell, or even to kill their children, on 
 purely selfish grounds. Besides, look around you, 
 and see the principles on which professions are 
 habitually chosen, or marriages made, and ask your- 
 self whether it is not the egoism of the parents, 
 and not their love of their children, that is the 
 prevailing motive since the anarchy of modern 
 times has weakened the influence of society on 
 the family. 
 
 The sexual instinct was sometimes honoured with 
 a similar mistake, though not by your sex. Women 
 are in general not blind to its selfish character. 
 But men confused it, as they did the maternal, with 
 the sympathies of which, when under due control, it 
 stimulates the growth. All our personal instincts, 
 not excepting that of destruction, may exert a 
 similar influence. But this influence is not misun- 
 derstood in the other cases, as it is less direct and 
 less marked. This general relation makes it easier 
 to solve the great problem for man — viz., how to 
 subordinate egoism to altruism. For the greater 
 energy of the personal instincts may thus serve to 
 compensate the natural weakness of our instincts of 
 sympathy, by originating the impulse which they 
 
 • 
 
 I 
 
 stand in need of, but do not find in themselves. 
 Once set in motion, the benevolent affection per- 
 sists and grows by virtue of the immense superiority 
 of its attraction, after the coarser stimulant has 
 ceased to act. The moral superiority of woman 
 often supersedes in her case the need of such a pre- 
 paration. She is ready to love, as soon as she finds 
 objects to love, without seeking in love any selfish 
 gratification. The coarser nature of man can hardly 
 ever dispense with this indirect impulse. But par- 
 ticularly is this the case in regard to public life, 
 where we want a noble direction for pride and 
 vanity. 
 
 The Woman. — As for the intellectual functions, 
 I am surprised, my father, not to find in your 
 synopsis of the brain the faculties that have become 
 classical — memory, judgment, imagination, <fcc. &c. 
 
 The Priest. — They are secondary faculties, my 
 daughter. That is, they are results of our whole 
 mental organization, though long considered as 
 special functions. A comparison of individuals and 
 of sexes, completed, if it must be so, by a comparison 
 of species, gives direct proof of the groundlessness 
 of the old analysis of the intellect and the soundness 
 of the new. For such observation shows us marked 
 and permanent differences as regards contemplation 
 or meditation, but never leads to clear and sure 
 results in the case of the faculties acknowledged by 
 the schools. Every judgment, however unimportant, 
 requires an habitual concun*ence of the five intel- 
 lectual functions, to enable us to bring the world 
 
 i I 
 
 I' 
 
264: 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 within and the world without into that lasting and 
 perfect coincidence which is the characteiistic of 
 truth. So it is, even more strongly, with the efforts 
 of the memory or the imagination. They often re- 
 quire inductions or deductions in strict analogy 
 with the operations of science. As for the will, it 
 is directly a result of every affective impulse which 
 has the sanction of the intellect, in its capacity of 
 guide of our conduct. 
 
 The Woman. — I have a remark to make of a con- 
 trary tendency to my last. I am surprised, my 
 fathei', to see language have a distinct place assigned 
 it in your synopsis of the brain, instead of being 
 treated as a product of the whole of our intellectual 
 functions. 
 
 The Priest. — Your mistake depends on this, my 
 daughter. You confuse the special aptitude to 
 create artificial signs with the results that follow on 
 the due subordination of that aptitude to the other 
 mental functions. The intellectual analysis of Gall 
 was generally inadequate, but even he did not 
 hesitate to assign language a separate organ. Its 
 existence admits of no doubt, as is shown by the 
 observation of animals, of men, and of nations. 
 
 When left to itself, free, that is, from the control 
 of the brain, as is often the case in illness, and at 
 times even in health, the direct action of this organ 
 of language produces nothing but a mere flow of 
 words, requiring reason if they are to be discourse, 
 in the true sense of the term. In other cases, on 
 the contrary, the exceptional inaction of this organ 
 
 \\ 
 
 I 
 
 r 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 265 
 
 hinders the transmission of thoughts even when the 
 thoughts themselves are perfectly worked out. For 
 the rest, we must not confuse in animals the peculiar 
 function of language with the means of social ex- 
 pression. These do not always answer to the func- 
 tion. Every one of the higher species has its 
 natural language, undei-stood by the whole race, and 
 even by the races near it in the series, but the 
 physical means of communication are often very 
 imperfect. As for the actual language of civilized 
 nations, it is in reality a very complicated result of 
 the whole of man's development. Still, if traced to 
 its primary source, it will be traced to that organ of 
 the brain which leads us to create, by some means 
 or other, artificial signs, without any direct refer- 
 ence to the mental and moral communications of 
 which they may be the instrument. 
 
 T/ie Woman. — To complete this important appre- 
 ciation, would you, my father, point out to me the 
 general use I ought to make of the synopsis of the 
 brain when I have sufficiently studied it ? 
 
 The Priest. — You can only, my daughter, make 
 it your own by constantly applying it Women are 
 in the habit of tracing in our actions and language, 
 the feelings and thoughts from which they really 
 proceed. Consider the synopsis of the brain as 
 giving a general assistance to women in improving 
 themselves in this part of their work. You will 
 often find that the soul of man is not impenetrable. 
 The brain thus becomes a book, the truth of which 
 cannot be disputed, and which you can read spite 
 
266 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 of all the artifices of dissimulation. Complete your 
 observation of individuals by comparing one with 
 another nations in very difierent stages. Add even 
 the study of the animals within your reach. You 
 will then have finished your initiation in the Posi- 
 tive theory of human nature. 
 
 Bat as mistakes are but too easy, to avoid them 
 or to correct them, you must always remember that 
 most of the results which fall under your observa- 
 tion, intellectual as well as moral, spring from the 
 concurrent action of several functions of the brain. 
 These functions can seldom be observed alone. So 
 your inquiry will most frequently involve an 
 analysis. The requisites for such analysis you will 
 always find in your synopsis, and you must combine 
 them till your synthesis adequately represents the 
 case under notice. For instance, envy is the result 
 of a combination of the instinct of destruction with 
 some one or other of the six egoistic instincts; 
 there is besides the secret feeling of personal infe- 
 rioritv, mental as well as moral. There are then 
 six kinds of envy, according as the second element 
 in the combination is avarice or luxury, <fec. 
 
 The synopsis of the brain contains in a short form 
 all that, up to the present time, is demonstrated in 
 the Positive theory of human nature. Hence we 
 merely state the number and position of the intel- 
 lectual and moral organs, without any precise state- 
 ment as to their form or size. We must look to 
 an objective study, not as yet properly organized, 
 as the only means of completing our subjective 
 
 r 
 
 /! 
 
 II 
 
 / 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 267 
 
 theory of the brain, by determining the peculiar 
 constitution of each organ. But we must not set 
 too high a value on this complement. Without it 
 the cerebral theory is suflScient for its chief object, 
 as is proved by this Catechism. 
 
 The position of the organs is really the most 
 difficult point to determine, as it is the most im- 
 portant. It at once points out the mutual influ- 
 ence of the organs. This influence, without any 
 intervention of the nerves, depends on simple con- 
 tiguity. Hence we find it easy to explain the rela- 
 tion, which is otherwise unintelligible, and yet which 
 indisputably exists, between the sexual and the 
 destructive instinct. The order of the organs, espe- 
 cially of the aflfective ones, gives the measure of 
 their respective energy, in obedience to the law 
 which you see wiitten on the synopsis. For in- 
 stance, to take the case of two consecutive instincts. 
 We see that the destructive is naturally stronger 
 than the constructive instinct. We cannot doubt 
 that it is so, when we see the preference everywhere 
 given it, with no exception in the case of man, wheu 
 a being thinks it is free to choose its means. But 
 the noblest use of the cerebral synopsis consists in 
 stating in a better form the great problem of human 
 nature, — how to secure the ascendancy of sociability 
 over personality, as you already felt previous to my 
 thus directly explaining it. The three practical 
 qualities are, in themselves, indiflferent to good and 
 evil. They only directly lead to action. As for 
 the five intellectual functions, their true destination 
 
 I 
 
2Q8 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 is evidently to be the servants of the three social 
 instincts, rather than of the seven personal affections. 
 So only can they be developed on a large scale and 
 with permanent results. Still their intrinsic weak- 
 ness often hinders them from resisting the natural 
 energy of the selfish impulses. Hence arises our 
 chief difficulty. If the intellect is not false to its 
 holy mission, personality, in itself incoherent, is 
 easily made subordinate to a sociability, which never 
 refuses it due satisfaction. When harmony is thus 
 once established between the feeling and the intel- 
 lect, in our action we instinctively obey an impulse 
 which opens out an inexhaustible field for our 
 energy. Ultimately, then, all depends on a close 
 concert of the two contiguous organs which respec- 
 tively preside over the most important of our in- 
 stincts of sympathy and over the most synthetical 
 part of our intellect. By taking the j^redominant 
 organ as the representative of each of the three 
 regions of the brain, the sacred formula of Posi- 
 tivism is naturally graven on the brain of every 
 one. That formula enjoins the habitual harmony of 
 three adjacent organs. 
 
 TJi^ Woman. — By the whole of this and the pre- 
 ceding conversation, I am led to see, my father, that 
 the Positive doctrine is now competent to undertake 
 the spiritual government of Humanity. I had been 
 led by our first conversation on this subject to antici- 
 pate this result. The profoundly relative character of 
 our doctrine excludes the immutability which was 
 the characteristic of the absolute doctrines of theo- 
 
 
 
 THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 269 
 
 logy. This immutability which theology claimed 
 really ended in death. Whereas the gradual modi- 
 fications which Positivism introduces are the certain 
 symptoms of life, a life as lasting as the race. It 
 has an inexhaustible fund of improvements at its 
 command. But witliout waiting for these, I feel 
 that the system is already elaborated to the point at 
 which it can direct the reorganization of Western 
 Europe. 
 
 Tlie Priest. — As you have attained this convic- 
 tion, I may, my daughter, end here my exposition 
 of the doctrine of Positivism, and proceed to a con- 
 sideration of the system of life. 
 
 I 4- 
 
Cljirlr I art. 
 
 EXPLANATION OF THE REGLME, 
 
 OR MODE OF LIFE. 
 
 CONVERSATION IX. 
 THE REGIME AS A WHOLE. 
 
 The Woman. — In this last branch of our subject, 
 I am aware, my father, that I must be nearly as 
 passive as during the exposition of the doctrine, 
 though I expect the subject to be less difficult for 
 me. The regime is not so essentially within the 
 sphere of the affections as the worship, so that I 
 cannot here, as in the worship, at times, by my own 
 instinct, anticipate your explanations. We cannot 
 depend on the heart alone. A competent grasp of 
 this subject implies frequently the maturest expe- 
 rience and the deepest reflection — an experience 
 and reflection beyond my sex. The contemplations 
 of women can hardly pass with good result beyond 
 the sphere of private life. We are now about to 
 construct a system of general rules for all the ordi- 
 nary action of man. Nor will his exceptional 
 action be exempt from them. To determine these 
 
 , \ 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 271 
 
 rules demands an accurate survey of our whole ex- 
 istence, social as well as personal. Without this 
 we cannot judge what are really the results of each 
 particular line of conduct. In this survey we must 
 guard especially against the errors springing from 
 the feelings, the more so, as the influence of such 
 errors would here be dangerous, from their bearing 
 immediately on our practical social life. 
 
 The Priest. — You must not allow, my daughter, 
 any such proper feeling of reserve to conceal from 
 you the fundamental office of your sex, an office 
 assigned it by the whole regime. The study of the 
 Positive doctrine leads to the conclusion that ma^ 
 
 true unity ^^nsists in living for^othfira. Thfi^Eoai - 
 
 tive worship has for its maiii_obiect_thj 
 Q^he^eliag8_conducive to_sucb^_aHfs^ Resting 
 on the double basis of the worship and the doctrine, 
 the regime must aim at securing the direct predo- 
 minance, in practical life, of this the one sole prin- 
 ciple of universal harmony. Such is the end pro- 
 posed. Its attainment necessarily implies a close 
 and constant union of both sexes for joint action. 
 I say of both, for such joint action depends as much 
 on the heart as on the intellect. When we then 
 pass from the theory to the practice of morals, it is 
 the intellect alone that can say what habits should 
 be generally adopted, and what are the means of 
 securing their adoption. In the study of these two 
 questions, however, we should almost always fail, 
 unless we had the constant impulse of feeling 
 stimulating us to overcome the arduous difficulties 
 
 \ 
 
1. V 
 
 / 
 
 272 
 
 THIRD PAKT. 
 
 they present. Hence the respective parts of the 
 priesthood and the affective sex in our moral regime. 
 Ihe priest acts on the heart through the intellect 
 by his judgment of the conduct. Women should 
 act on the intellect by the heart, and they do so by 
 securing the spontaneous ascendancy of the nobler 
 dispositions. The necessaiyco-operation of the priest 
 and women is equally applicable in the period of pre- 
 paration^and in the life for whichit is the prepanition. 
 The Woman—Yox, encoumge me to ask you, my 
 fiither, in the first place what is the real province 
 of this third part of our religion. The regime 
 always concerns the life of action, as the doctrine 
 has reference to the life of thought, and the woi-ship 
 to that of aftection; yet I find a difficulty in con- 
 ceiving the religious precepts of the Positive regime 
 as embracmg all forms of action indifferently, and yet 
 I do not see on what you can base any distinction 
 
 The Pnest.—l^ practical life the province of re- 
 ligion IS limited, my daughter, to the dispositions 
 wkch all must have in common. It has nothin.^ 
 to do with the part^icular mode of dischargin-r each 
 special oflSce. It must, however, form an accurate 
 judgment on the different social functions, but only 
 with this object, that it may lay down in regard to 
 them such rules as may maintain and develope the 
 general harmony. The details of execution are 
 entirely a question for the various forms or decrees 
 of government properly so called, whether private 
 or public. They are never a question for the 
 priesthood. 
 
 THE LIFE. 273 
 
 To give a more accurate idea of this funda- 
 mental distinction, I will apply to progress the 
 general division you are already familiar with as 
 applied to order. Your study of the doctrine has 
 familiarized you with it. We divided order into 
 the order of the world external to man, and the 
 order of man's world. We must adopt the same 
 division for the improvements of which order 
 is susceptible. We then see that there are two 
 species of progress, progress external to man, and 
 human progress. Both ultimately have reference 
 to man, but the last alone concerns human nature in 
 itself, the first is limited to our external circum- 
 stances. These it improves by acting on all the 
 existences which have any influence on ours. 
 Hence we habitually apply the term material to this 
 external progress, notwithstanding the fact that it 
 embraces the phenomena of life properly so called. 
 But it does so only in regard to the species wliich 
 supply us with food or service. The point of view 
 of progress is necessarily more subjective than that 
 of order, consequently though the ideas in both 
 cases are the same, the language will not be always 
 equally uniform. 
 
 This distinction is a sufficient introduction to the 
 fundamental division between the respective pro- 
 vinces of the government and the priesthood. All 
 the forces of society are, in our view, equally devoted 
 to the work of improvement ; but we must distin- 
 guish them according as they improve the outward 
 order or the social and moral order. To this ele- 
 
li} 
 
 274: 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 ( 
 
 mentary distinction we trace the normal separation 
 of temporal and spiritual action. The higher i-ank 
 assigned the latter is a consequence of the naturally- 
 higher character of the progress it promotes. Thus 
 the practical sphere of religion is the improvement 
 of human order, its physical, intellectual, and moral 
 improvement. The last is far the most important. 
 Different as the three aspects are, their close con- 
 nexion forbids their ever being separated. This close 
 connexion must be attended to in action even more 
 than in speculation. As for the external order, its 
 direct and special improvement rests not with reli- 
 gion. It is the proper province of politics or of in- 
 dustry. Religion indirectly takes an important part 
 in the work, though quite a general one, by virtue of 
 the great influence which the state of the agent, man, 
 necessarily exerts on the efficiency of his action. All 
 practical work requires as the first condition of its 
 success that each one who co-operates should be 
 honest, intelligent, and courageous. Beyond this, 
 religion has no part in the constitution of each 
 special department of industry. 
 
 The Woman. — Morals, then, my father, as an art, 
 are distinguished from all others by being completely 
 general. They are the only art which all without 
 exception must learn, for they are the only one of 
 which all human beings equally stand in constant 
 need. All then must study morals, in proportion 
 to their natural ability and the light they derive 
 from experience. Their systematic cultivation must 
 however be left to the priesthood, as a consequence 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 275 
 
 of the priesthood's necessary connexion with the 
 whole body of theory. This is the way iu which, 
 as it seems to me, morals form the essential domain 
 of religion, primarily as a science, secondly as 
 an art. 
 
 The Priest.— To give completeness to your view, 
 my daughter, you must take into account that each 
 department of industry, as a whole, comes under 
 the influence of the Positive priesthood. For the 
 priesthood alone knows the whole system of the 
 laws of the external world. The theories of science 
 can never enable us to dispense with the results of 
 practical experience-it is a mere dream of scientific 
 pride to think they can— but they must always form 
 the basis and even the guide of practice. The 
 practical man begins by learning from the priest- 
 hood the more important laws of the phenomena 
 he has to modify. He connects with this know- 
 ledge the special developments to which the induc- 
 tions of his own experience lead him. Should he 
 in the course of his labours, feel the want of some 
 new general ideas, he must go again to the priest- 
 hood for them. He must not interrupt his indus- 
 trial action by a vain attempt at scientific culti- 
 vation. 
 
 Tlie fFomaw.— Taking your explanation as a 
 whole, my father, I look on the fundamental separa- 
 tion of the priesthood and the government as a 
 consequence of the necessary division of theory and 
 practice. But in what you have hitherto said, you 
 have attended only to progress, that is to say, to 
 
 t2 
 
/) 
 
 276 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 the activity of man. Xow to place so capital a 
 principle on a solid foundation, njore is wanted. 
 You must bring it into direct connexion with order 
 properly so called, that is to say, with conservation. 
 In the social harmony, the proletariate must natu- 
 rally, in the main, represent progress ; my sex holds 
 a passive position, and its principal function is to 
 conserve. 
 
 The Priest— Look, my daughter, at man's world 
 from the statical point of view, and you will be 
 satisfied. Study it not in motion, but as it exists. 
 You will soon arrive at the separation of the spi- 
 ritual and temporal powers, as the basis on which 
 all social order rests. Your starting point must be 
 simply the principle of co-operation, the principle on 
 which Aristotle built the true theory of the city 
 organization as the result of the combined action 
 of several families. For every servant of Humanity 
 must always be looked at from two points of view. 
 The two are distinct, but coexistent. We must 
 lirst consider his special office, then his position in re- 
 ference to the general harmony of society. The first 
 duty of every organ of society is, there can be no 
 doubt of it, the proper discharge of bis own function. 
 But good order also requires every one to assist, as 
 far as he can, all others in the discharge of theirs. 
 In fact, this second duty is the most important 
 characteristic of the collective organism, and the 
 obligation is a natural consequence of the fact that 
 the agents by which that oi-ganism, or society, works, 
 are in all cases beings endowed with iutellifrt^nce 
 
 t/ 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 277 
 
 and freedom of action. Now, by their very nature 
 these two functions of the individual, his special 
 function, and his function as a member of society, 
 are in opposition to each other. And that opposi- 
 tion has a tendency to become more and more 
 marked. For in proportion as co-operation is duly 
 developed, the special function becomes more special, 
 and the result is an intellectual frame and moral 
 tendencies, which make any general views at once 
 more difficult and more distasteful. Such is the 
 elementary point of view from which we must look 
 at the general theory of government, whether tem- 
 poral or spiritual. 
 
 All the functions of life, and still more all the 
 functions of society, require for their proper dis- 
 charge an appropriate organ. It follows that any 
 combined action of man, on however small a scale, 
 requires the existence of a power whose special 
 duty it shall be to bring back to general views and 
 feelings agents, whose constant tendency is in the 
 opposite direction. Such a power must check the 
 disorganizing and foster the converging tendencies of 
 these agents. From another point of view, the 
 formation of this indispensable power is a natural 
 result of the inequalities attendant on the pro^^ress 
 of man. 
 
 The simplest form of association, the family, 
 would seem exempt from the application of this prin- 
 ciple, so close is the tie which connects it. But it is 
 not so, even when the family is composed merely of 
 the original pair. It is in the family that we may 
 
I 
 
 'I 
 
 278 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 279 
 
 most distinctly appreciate the great axiom : There 
 is no society without a government. 
 
 In the larger association, the city, wherever there 
 is combined action on the part of several families to 
 attain a given end, such action throws up a leader. 
 The limit of his authority is naturally fixed by the 
 amount of the operations which either his ability 
 or his capital enables him really to conduct. In 
 such chiefs is vested the real temporal power, which 
 can impel or check as need directs. If we go 
 beyond this and require a power on a larger scale, 
 such new power must have a spiritual origin. The' 
 several practical leaders have however a tendency to 
 mutual co-ordination. And the principle of such 
 co-ordination is found in the natural hierarchy con- 
 sequent on the relations of their several depart- 
 ments. From this instinctive concert there arises 
 a more general government, exercising, however, a 
 purely material or temporal power, and qualified for 
 resistance rather than direction. The several mem- 
 bers in whom it is vested are, in general, unable to 
 master the whole system, though each may be com- 
 petent as regards one of the particular systems 
 which make up the whole. 
 
 The inadequacy then of the temporal power, and 
 the want of some spiritual power, are evident, even 
 if you confine yourself to solidarity, if the sphere of 
 such solidarity be not too limited. The spiritual 
 power must renounce all special action, its aim 
 must be to secure the constant harmony of the 
 several parts of society. But the want above men- 
 
 tioned is placed beyond all dispute, when we take in 
 the idea of continuity; and it is on continuity 
 that moral and social order depend with an ever- 
 increasing dependence. The powers which are the 
 result of, and are guided solely by, experience, 
 aspire to direct the present, whilst they know 
 neither the past which governs that present, nor 
 the future for which it is the preparation. Their 
 interference is therefore blind, and a source of dis- 
 turbance, whenever they do not act on the advice 
 of the philosophical class or priesthood. At the 
 same time, they cannot dispense with the assistance 
 of the priesthood, for its sanction is essential to 
 their temporal ascendancy, which is constantly 
 liable to be jealously disputed. Whenever the 
 priesthood sanctions a power, it represents the power 
 it sanctions as the minister of a higher power which 
 all respect. Under the provisional regime this was 
 God. In the final it is Humanity. This implies, 
 in every case, but more particularly with regard to 
 the final state, that the present is duly connected 
 with the past and with the future. The priesthood 
 alone can establish this connexion. It falls to us 
 therefore necessarily to consecrate all human powers. 
 Itself, it needs no consecration from any other 
 power external to itself, since it is the immediate 
 organ of the supreme authority. 
 
 Hence we get a second axiom : No society can 
 
 exist and be developed without a priesthood in some 
 
 form or other. All men equally stand in need of such 
 
 a power for education and for counsel. The priest- 
 
 A 
 
 
ji* I 
 
 280 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 hood alone can give a sanction to the governor and 
 protect the governed. It is the regular modei-ating 
 power in public life, as women are in private life, 
 not forgetting, however, that both public and private 
 life demand a continuous concurrence of moral 
 influence and intellectual power. You may express 
 all the social attributions of the priesthood by adopt- 
 ing the biblical name, Judge. It has a threefold 
 office, to advise, to consecrate, to regulate. It dis- 
 charges the three by judging, and its judgment is 
 the expression of an opinion which all respect. 
 
 The Tf owia/i.— Fortunately, Catholicism had pre- 
 pared me, my father, to grasp this fundamental 
 principle and to disregard the popular sophisms of 
 the Protestant and the Deist, sophisms aimed with 
 a blind fury against the most important con- 
 struction of the Middle Ages. But I do not quite 
 see why Positivism, whilst it presei-ves and con- 
 solidates the great idea of which the Middle Ages 
 left us the outline, adheres to expressions which, at 
 first sight, can only be referred to the theological 
 origin of that idea. Of course they can be used in 
 a sense perfectly alien to all theology. Over and 
 above the respect justly due to this nomenclature as 
 historical, I suppose it rests on dogmatical grounds, 
 though I do not see what these grounds are. 
 
 The Friest.—The ground for the retention of 
 these expressions, my daughter, is their want of 
 homogeneity. By their contrast they recaJl the 
 two principal characteristics of the great social 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 281 
 
 division. Were they homogeneous, they would only 
 recall one. When we call the theoretical power 
 spiritual, we make it clear that its opposite is 
 purely material. Thus, indirectly, we indicate the 
 best point of view from which to compare them 
 socially. We may look at them as disciplining, one 
 the wills of men, the other, their actions. Vice 
 versd, call the practical power temporal, and you 
 suggest the character which inherently belongs to 
 the theoretical power. By the aid of these dis- 
 tinctions, it is easy to define the respective pro- 
 vinces of the two powers. The one takes the 
 present, the other the past and future ; the one 
 specially looks to solidarity, the other to continuity ; 
 the one claims the objective, the other the sub- 
 jective life. These two essential attributes, simul- 
 taneously indicated by the very discordance of the 
 terms used, serve further, if combined, to recall the 
 last difierence between the two powers, viz., their 
 respective extent. For the theoretical powder, 
 whether as spiritual or as eternal, equally in both 
 cases, by its very nature admits of absolute uni- 
 versality. The practical power, on the other hand, as 
 being material and temporal, must always be local. 
 From this last point of contrast, if once drawn out 
 to its full consequences, we may see that the separa- 
 tion of the two is imperative. 
 
 The Woman. — My old Catholic associations lead 
 me, my father, to condense the essential attributes 
 of the spiritual power, and to make them consist in 
 
 h 
 
I) 
 
 282 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 283 
 
 the systematic direction of the common education. 
 In this province its exclusive competence admits 
 of no dispute. 
 
 The Priest. — Such is, in fact, my daughter, the 
 fundamental office of the priesthood. If it dis- 
 charges aright this its main duty, it necessarily 
 gains great influence over the whole of human life. 
 All its other social functions are related to this its 
 characteristic object, either as a natural consequence, 
 or as its necessary complement. To begin with 
 preaching. Preaching is but a continuation of edu- 
 cation, necessary to remind people of the principles 
 on which the harmony of the whole society rests ; 
 whereas our action, as individuals, inclines us to 
 forget them. Again, on education rests the claim 
 of the spiritual power to consecrate both functions 
 and organs, in the name of a doctrine which all 
 admit to be the proper regulator of human exis- 
 tence. On education again rests its consultative 
 influence on all the important acts of life, private 
 or public. For in life every man often feels the 
 need of having recourse to the enlightened and 
 kind advice of the sages who presided over his 
 systematic education. Lastly, by virtue of its edu- 
 cational functions, the priesthood by common con- 
 sent becomes the regular appeal in the conflicts of 
 life, as it inspires both the higher and the lower 
 classes with equal confidence. 
 
 The Woinan. — Naturally, my father, my next 
 question is, what, in the Positive regime, is the 
 educational function of the spiritual power — its pre- 
 
 dominant function, as you say ? Already I feel that 
 the main object of education is to lead us to live 
 for others, in order to live again in others by others, 
 whereas we are naturally inclined to live for our- 
 selves and in oui'selves. To effect the great change 
 in us which is to secure this result, women and 
 priests must act in close concert, exerting each 
 their peculiar influence on the heart and the intel- 
 lect. Still I need a more accurate conception of 
 their respective offices. 
 
 The Priest. — Begin, my daughter, by looking on 
 education, in its strict sense, as ended at the age of 
 emancipation. At that time every one receives the 
 third social sacrament, and becomes directly the 
 servant of Humanity. He was previously its ward. 
 Divide this preparatory period of twenty-one years 
 into two main parts, the one for unsystematic, the 
 other for systematic education. The first lasts four- 
 teen years. The second, seven. This done, you 
 have marked out periods during which the affective 
 sex and the theoretical power preside in succession 
 over the system of man's training. That training 
 begins with the heart, and ends with the intellect. 
 But in the process of initiation, the heart and intel- 
 lect are never separated. 
 
 The first division lasts till the age of puberty, 
 told must be subdivided into two periods of seven 
 years each. The cutting of the permanent teeth 
 separates the two. During the first seven years 
 the mother has the sole direction of education. It 
 must be entirely spontaneous, whether for the body. 
 
 I 'J 
 
 •*-— - 
 
284 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 I. 
 
 11 
 
 ] 
 
 W 
 
 the intellect, or the moral nature. The develop- 
 ment of the body is the most important. But the 
 heart must soon be a prominent consideration, so 
 much so that the effects of that early teaching shall 
 be traceable throughout life. The natural play of 
 home affections leads the child at this early stage of 
 his existence to the rudiments of Positive worship. 
 The object of his worship is necessarily his mother. 
 She is for him the representative of Humanity. 
 Even then, however, the institution of language 
 enables him to appreciate Humanity as a distinct 
 and all-controlling power. At the same time, the 
 intellect collects from experience notions of all 
 kinds, the materials for the systematic teaching of 
 a later period. The child naturally exerts his 
 senses and his muscles. If wisely guided in this 
 exertion, taking care always that it preserve its 
 spontaneous character, we have in germ a sound 
 beginning of the life of thought and the life of 
 action, in constant subordination to the life of affec- 
 tion. But it is only the mother who can rightly 
 combine the three. She will urge the child, espe- 
 cially if he be of patrician rank, as a habit, to 
 occupy himself with some manual labour. The 
 object of this is to make him feel how difficult it is 
 to attain in anything, however unimportant, the 
 result desired, and so to lead him to more active 
 sympathy with the classes whose occupation is this 
 manual labour. Such exercises will give accuracy 
 and clearness to his intellect, as well as tenderness 
 and humility to his heart. 
 
 II 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 2S5 
 
 In the period between dentition and puberty, we 
 bef'in to systematize the family education, by intro- 
 ducing gradually some regular studies. Still, it is 
 with the mother that the direction rests. She will 
 not find it difficult to guide her child in simply 
 artistic pursuits, for she herself will have received, 
 in the needful degree, the education which all are 
 to receive. Up to seven years, all study, properly 
 so called, should be carefully eschewed, even reading 
 and writing, allowing for what the child picks up 
 absolutely by himself But after seven we begin to 
 form the habit of intellectual exertion, by develop- 
 ing within due limits the faculties of expression, a 
 branch of cultivation peculiarly adapted to the 
 second period of childhood. In cultivating these 
 faculties we must keep clear of all rules. We 
 must limit ourselves to exercises in the arts. Read- 
 ing's in poetry must be wisely combined with sing- 
 ing and drawing. The moral growth of the child 
 goes on naturally, and the worship soon developes 
 itself, in proportion as the child gains fresh means 
 of t'iving expression to his affections. He should 
 practically sum up all his exercises in a song and a 
 portrait, a hymn to his mother and a portrait of 
 her. He at the same time is getting a more com- 
 plete conception of Humanity, as he becomes 
 familiar with the great masterpieces in every pro- 
 vince of art. Care must be taken that his taste 
 and his morality are not lowered by any admixture 
 of mediocre productions. 
 
 The ]Vo7)ian. — The only difficulty I feel, my father, 
 
 ! h 
 
 if 
 
(/) 
 
 II 
 
 286 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 as to these two periods of home education, is as to 
 religion. You may gain the child's heart and so 
 lead him towards religion, but you cannot teach him 
 any doctrines, for he has not the needful scientific 
 basis, nor can he have, till after his last preparatory 
 period. And yet you canuot prevent him from 
 questioning about religion. 
 
 The Priest. — You must remember, my daughter, 
 that in all cases the growth of the individual must, 
 in all essential features, be a reproduction of the 
 growth of the race. You may see, then, that on 
 this point the child must be allowed to obey, un- 
 checked, the general laws that regulate the growth 
 of man's intellect. The first seven years before 
 dentition, he will naturally be fetichist ; the next 
 seven till puberty, he will be polytheist. It will 
 be with him as it has been with the race. He will 
 be led by these two philosophical states to begin 
 with developing his powers of observation, then his 
 artistic faculties. 
 
 As for the questions he may ask his parents, and 
 as for his perceiving that they do not think as he 
 does, there will be no need of any hypocrisy in 
 their answei-s. This is owing to the relative nature 
 of Positivism. It will be enough, if they openly 
 tell him, that the opinions he has are natural at his 
 age, but that he will come to have others soon, as 
 his parents have done. They may call his attention 
 to the fact that he has already instinctively changed 
 from fetichism to polytheism. He will easily be 
 led to believe that he may change again. And 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 287 
 
 there is no need to hasten the change by artificial 
 means. His intellect thus escapes all tendency to 
 the absolute, and his heart is at the same time led 
 to a fuller sympathy with the populations which 
 are the representatives of these preliminary states. 
 
 The Woman. — This point clear, I may now, my 
 father, proceed to a survey of systematic educa- 
 tion. It must always be under the guidance of the 
 priesthood, but I can see even now that Positivism 
 will never remove the boy from his family. The 
 ascendancy of the heart over the intellect, to secure 
 which is its constant aim, will forbid this. The 
 daily influence of family ties over the boy becomes 
 even more needful when his scientific education is 
 proceeding, as there is a tendency in this educa- 
 tion to dry up his feelings and foster his pride. I 
 am well aware of your profound dislike to our 
 scholastic conventual establishments, as corrupting 
 the morals even more than they dull the intellect. 
 
 The Priest. — Yes, my daughter, it is under the 
 constant superintendence of his mother that the boy, 
 after receiving the sacrament of initiation, goes 
 each week to the school adjoining the temple of 
 Humanity, there to hear from the priesthood one 
 or perhaps two lectures on the doctrine of Posi- 
 tivism. Nor must it be forgotten, that even this 
 amount of instruction away from home must depend, 
 for its results, mainly on the work done at home. 
 If the teaching exercise its proper influence, it will 
 make the learner better able to think, not be a sub- 
 stitute for thought. 
 
 fi 
 
 y 11 
 
2S8 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 In its general outlines, the plan to be adopted in 
 the systematic study of the doctrine of Positivism 
 is pointed out by the encyclopedic hierarchy in 
 which the several parts of the univei*sal order find 
 their proper place. The novitiate lasts for seven 
 years, for there are seven primary degrees in the 
 hierarchy. A quarter of each year is to be devoted 
 to examination and rest. One lecture a week gives 
 forty lectures a year, a number sufficient for the 
 philosophical study of each science. Only in ma- 
 thematics the extent and difficulty of the subject, 
 which must always be in a theoretic point of view 
 the most important, will require two lectures a 
 week for the first two years ; on the other hand, in 
 these first two years the practical apprenticeship 
 occupies less time. Thus, from geometry up to 
 morals, every young man must in seven years sys- 
 tematically go through the objective ascent which it 
 took Humanity so many centuries to accomplish 
 when left to its own natural efforts. 
 
 During this scientific preparation, the learner 
 will be monotheistic. His monotheism will crradu- 
 ally become simpler and simpler. It will thus be 
 for him, as for the race, a general means of tran- 
 sition to Positivism. The perfect uniformity, in the 
 normal state, of the Western priesthood will make 
 it quite easy to combine such a plan of study 
 with the valuable custom our proletaries have of 
 travelling. During its course, the esthetic trainin<y 
 will naturally continue and help the mother's influ- 
 ence to prevent moral degradation, or to remedy 
 
 I 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 289 
 
 the evil which has arisen. The inhabitants of 
 Western Europe will at the outset limit their poetical 
 readings to living languages, but during the last 
 years of their education they will take in the writers 
 of Greece and Rome, as the sources of our intellec- 
 tual and moral development. For this, however, 
 they must never have special masters. 
 
 The future citizen, after developing his private 
 worship, learns to feel the charm of family worship. 
 The next step is, the direct adoration of Humanity, 
 for he is now qualified to appreciate the principal 
 benefits of which she is the author. As the result 
 of the whole preparatory period, the young Positivist 
 is fit for the sacrament of admission— -when his in- 
 tellect is at length competent to serve his Family, 
 his Country, and Humanity, as his Heart loves 
 them. 
 
 The Woman. --'Dunug her superintendence of 
 this last period of education, the mother, as it seems 
 to me, my father, will have serious matter for her 
 attention in the deviation from right conduct 
 to which his passions expose the young man at that 
 age. The language of physicians on this point has 
 often alarmed me. It has led me to fear that vice is 
 as a general rule, not to be avoided, such are the 
 natural laws in this respect of our bodily develop- 
 ment. I should be glad to be reassured and to feel 
 that the danger is not so great. Nor is the moral 
 evil the only one. It may compromise the intellec- 
 tual development. 
 
 The Priest. — You would attach less weight, my 
 
 u 
 
tl 
 
 290 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 daughter, to the confident assertions of medical men 
 on this point, if you knew how profoundly incom- 
 petent they are. They profess to study man; and 
 yet physicians, whether theoretical or practical, 
 especially in modern times, are far from having a 
 real knowledge of man's nature. They only know 
 that part of it which we have in common with the 
 animals. So that their proper name would be 
 veterinary surgeons, were it not that, in the best of 
 them, practical experience makes up, in some small 
 degree, for the defects of their scientific education. 
 Man is, of all living beings, the most emphatically a 
 whole. If then you study the parts of that whole 
 separately, whether it be body or mind, you can 
 gain nothing but false or superficial notions of man. 
 The materialism taught in our schools of medi- 
 cine cannot be allowed to set aside numerous and 
 decisive cases of experience, which we find fully 
 warranted by the true theory of human nature. 
 The alleged necessity for gratifying the sexual in- 
 stinct is disproved by the fact that, in most cases, 
 during the whole of the Middle Ages, those who 
 submitted to the discipline of Catholicism and 
 Chivalry overcame it. Even in the midst of our 
 modern anarchy, there are not wanting individual 
 instances to prove that it is possible to remain pure 
 until marriage. A life of labour, and still more 
 the constant influence of family afiection, are gene- 
 rally sufficient protection against such dangers. In 
 very rare cases they are insurmountable ; and these 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 291 
 
 rare cases have been made a standard by physicians 
 wholly unvei-sed in moral struggles. The young 
 disciples of Positivism will be trained to the control 
 of their sexual instinct, by an early struggle with 
 that of nutrition. The two, it must be remembered, 
 are closely connected, as is seen by the juxtaposition 
 of their respective organs. Lastly, you are aware 
 that a deep affection was always the best preserva- 
 tive against libertinage. The mother then, finally, 
 will secure her son against the vices you fear. For 
 she will lead him to choose a worthy object on 
 which to centre the personal affections which must 
 determine his home destiny. She will not wait till 
 such affection come upon him abruptly as the result 
 of some chance contact. 
 
 Tlw Woman. — I feel the full value of your ex- 
 planation, my father. One point remains, and then 
 the whole system of Positive education will be clear. 
 I refer to a question which concerns my own 
 sex in particular. I am aware, by what has been 
 already said, that if mothers are to direct the 
 education of their children at home, they must 
 themselves in due measure have received encyclo- 
 pedic instruction. Indeed, with an exception here 
 and there, none must be without it. Unless the 
 Positive faith become quite universal, it can never 
 gain the systematic ascendancy requisite for its 
 social mission. Besides, the mother will be unable 
 to retain her moral superintendence over education, 
 if her ignorance exposes her to the ill-concealed con- 
 
 u2 
 
 / 
 
i 
 
 -, ^ 
 
 292 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 293 
 
 tempt of a son puffed up with the pride of know- 
 ledge. Yet I can hardly think that women are to 
 follow the same course of study as men, and under 
 the same masters, though at separate times. 
 
 The Friest.^You have your answer already, my 
 daughter, in the great Moliere. He lays it down 
 that your sex should have clear ideas on all points.* 
 This in fact is the proper aim of our encyclopedic 
 instruction. It is quite free from the character of 
 detaU or specialty, which is so justly repugnant 
 to you m the existing education, and which is 
 a^ little suited, as a general rule, for men as 
 for women. Positive education will be general 
 and common to all. From this common stock 
 the theoretical or practical man may by him- 
 self draw the further consequences which his own 
 special object renders desirable. As a general rule 
 he will need no private instruction-granted that 
 he has duly gone through the training which all 
 equally are to undergo. 
 
 The general plan of our novitiate is common to 
 both sexes. In the case of your sex, it admits of 
 one reduction. The two weekly lectures, which 
 men must attend during their two first years may 
 for women, be reduced to one. W^s^^iiJm^ 
 t^^mix^j^^gjj^^^if^^^jj^W^^, 1^ rnn tr f +1 
 
 tJa" ni m\mmr tiriiimag' Fo7th^^ 
 
 ture a week will suffice, a^ in the rest of their 
 
 * See p. 69. 
 
 seven years' course. The only thing requisite will 
 be a greater philosophical effort on the part of the 
 professor. 
 
 As for the professors being the same for both 
 sfexes, to make them different would tend to throw 
 discredit equally on teacher and pupil ; not to say, 
 that it would be contrary to the synthetical spirit 
 which must be the characteristic of the Positive 
 priesthood. The more entirely to exclude all dis- 
 persive tendencies, it is important that each priest 
 should in succession teach each of the seven sciences. 
 The result must be this great social advantage, that 
 during their long education he is in unbroken rela- 
 tion with the same pupils, who will owe to him 
 the whole of their instruction in science. The 
 permanence of this relation will facilitate the after 
 influence of our priesthood on the whole of practical 
 Hfe. 
 
 Now, on similar grounds, both sexes must draw 
 their education from the same sources. If the 
 High Priest of Humanity allows the priests, as a 
 general rule, to reside permanently in the same 
 place, all family disputes will be more easily settled, 
 as all the members of the family will be personally 
 under the influence of the same masters. Priests 
 who could only address one sex would be incom- 
 petent for their social office, to say nothing of the 
 intellectual incompetence which such a state would 
 imply. 
 
 llie Woman. — I can now, my father, estimate the 
 social influence which the priesthood of Positivism 
 
 1 ' 
 
294 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 295 
 
 will derive from its fundamental office, if it ade- 
 quately discharge the duties of that office. Still I 
 am not clear that, on this basis alone, it can acquire 
 sufficient authority. Would you then give me a 
 direct statement of the various means it has at its 
 disposal to secure, as far as it is possible to do so, 
 the harmony of society ? 
 
 Tim Friest—The Positive priesthood has no 
 means, my daughter, but such as are the result of 
 the educational system. Eightly to estimate them, 
 we must remember that the last year of the Positive 
 novitiate is entirely devoted to moral science. This 
 last branch of instruction will be always divided 
 into two equal parts, a theoretic and a practical 
 part. In the first, all the essential laws of human 
 nature will be shown to rest on a solid foundation 
 —on the whole system, that is, of our conceptions 
 relative to the world, to life, and to society. This 
 basis laid, we shall be able to rest the general rules 
 of conduct applicable to the individual, the family, 
 and the state, on a definitive system of real demon- 
 stration. In that system, the duties of each of the 
 four powers which are necessary constituents of 
 human providence will be stated in detail. The 
 determining these duties, in which we finally sum 
 up the results of the Positive education, may have 
 a great effect, in consequence of the moral disposi- 
 tion of those whom we thus address at the close of 
 their initiation, and who are yet free from the errors 
 which active life involves. 
 
 The system of these practical rules answers two 
 
 
 purposes in each case. They are a guide for a 
 man's own action. They are a standard for his 
 judgment of others. This second use of them is 
 less exposed than the first to the disturbing action 
 of the passions. For our passions seldom prevent 
 us from appreciating the faults of others, however 
 blind they make us to our own. An egoist is the 
 last person to tolerate egoism in others. It leads to 
 a competition which he cannot get rid of. 
 
 We thus learn to distinguish the two modes in 
 which the spiritual discipline of Positivism may be 
 exercised, the direct and the indirect. The priest- 
 hood's main effort is directed to change the guilty 
 person, by acting first on his heart, then on his 
 intellect. This is at once the purest and most 
 efficacious method, though its results are less strik- 
 ing. It will always be the only method perfectly 
 consonant to the nature of the spiritual power. 
 For the spiritual power disciplines the will by per- 
 suasion and by conviction. It should have no in- 
 fluence at all for coercion. But this direct method 
 is often found inadequate, though wisely applied 
 and during a long time. In such cases the priest- 
 hood, not being able to correct the internal tenden- 
 cies, proceeds to attack them indirectly, by calling 
 in the opinion of others. 
 
 It does not convert the criminal, it controls him 
 by the judgment of others. That this its indirect 
 mode of action is perfectly legitimate, cannot be 
 denied. It rests in all cases on a simple judgment 
 of the conduct of the person who is judged. No 
 
 •\ 
 
296 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 one can bar such a judgment. For every one con- 
 curs in it, as directed against others, and it is based 
 on a system of doctrine which has the assent of all, 
 • and an assent freely given. However, the criminal 
 who does not allow that he is wrong, or whose will 
 has undergone no change, is thus made to feel the 
 pressure of a real coercive force. Nor can he object, 
 as the coercive force is simply a moral force. If 
 others were to abstain from judging, they would in 
 reality be the oppressed party, and that without 
 having in any way deserved to be so. Legitimate, 
 however, as such indirect method evidently is, we 
 must only have recourse to it when the direct method 
 has been tried and failed. 
 
 Supposing recourse to it inevitable, it admits of 
 three degi-ees. The priesthood begins, as a first 
 step, with a simple remonstrance within the family 
 circle, before the relations and friends called together 
 for the purpose. The second step is public, the 
 priesthood proclaims its condemnation in the temple 
 of Humanity. The third and last stage is, excom- 
 munication from society, either for a time or for 
 ever. Without outstepping the just limits of its 
 authority, the spiritual power may go so far as to 
 pronounce, in the name of Humanity, that a false 
 servant is absolutely unworthy, and, the sentence 
 once issued, the subject of it becomes incapable 
 of shai'ing in the duties and benefits of human 
 society. The priesthood may abuse this power, to 
 gratify unjust animosity, or from a blind or mistaken 
 zeal. Its abuse will bring a speedy punishment. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 297 
 
 Excommunication can have no force but such as it 
 derives from the free sanction of the public. If 
 then this public stand neutral, the blow will fail, 
 and those who aim it will naturally incur discredit 
 from the failure. When the general opinion strongly 
 supports the priesthood in its condemnation, then 
 this spiritual discipline will be efficacious to a 
 degree of which we can form no conception from 
 the past. For in the Positive regime the union 
 attained will be very far greater than was previously 
 possible in the absence of a Positive education. 
 
 There will be occasions when, however rich or 
 powerful he may be, the criminal will, without any 
 loss of property, see one by one his dependents, his 
 servants, his nearest relatives even, drop off from 
 him. In spite of his wealth, it may well be, in an 
 extreme 'case, that he will be reduced to provide 
 himself his own food, as no one will serve him. 
 He will be free, it is true, to leave his country. 
 But he will only escape the condemnation of the 
 Universal priesthood by taking refuge with popula- 
 tions which have not yet adopted the Positive faith. 
 Ultimately even this refuge will be closed, as the 
 faith will spread over the whole of the earth. For- 
 tunately, so extreme a case of religious discipline 
 will always be exceptional. It was necessary to 
 state it here as an indication of the efficiency of 
 the Positive system of life. 
 
 The Woman. — Allowing its full strength to this 
 moral power, it is hardly possible, my father, that 
 it should ever entirely supersede the necessity of 
 
298 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 recourse to temporal compression, whether directed 
 against property or life. 
 
 The Priest.— In truth, my daughter, legislation 
 properly so called will always be necessary, to make 
 up for the inadequacy of mere moral force in cases 
 of ui-gent social need. Conscience and opinion will 
 be often powerless to prevent daily violations of 
 right. In such cases the temporal power must step 
 in with some physical repression. Besides these 
 common and slight deviations, the result in the 
 main of the inaction of our good instincts, we shall 
 be obliged to have recoui-se to the temporal power 
 for the repression of the more serious evils result- 
 ing from the active predominance of our bad in- 
 stincts. In the human species, as in the other 
 animal species, we have instances of thoroughly 
 vicious individuals, for whom correctives are as 
 useless as they are undeserved. In the case of such 
 exceptional organizations, society in its own defence 
 will not stop short of the destruction, by a solemn 
 act, of every such vicious organ, when once its com- 
 plete unworthiness has been sufficiently proved by 
 decisive acts. It is only a false philanthropy that 
 can lead us to lavish on scoundrels a pity and a 
 care which would find much better objects in so 
 many honest victims of the imperfect arrangements 
 of society. Capital punishment, therefore, and ct 
 foHiori, the total or partial confiscation of property, 
 will never entirely be given up. Still such remedies 
 naturally become of less frequent use as humanity 
 
 THE LIFR 
 
 299 
 
 advances. Our constant advance in feeling, intelli- 
 gence, and activity, has a tendency to make spiritual 
 discipline more and more efficacious, as compared 
 with temporal repression, though we can never 
 wholly dispense with this last. 
 
 The Woman. — In this general view of the regime 
 of man, you seem, my father, to omit the cases in 
 which the moral evil should have its source in the 
 priesthood itself. 
 
 Tlie Priest. — In such a case, my daughter, the 
 spiritual discipline follows the course we have 
 marked out, though somewhat irregularly. For 
 moral science is of universal application, and points 
 out the duties of the priesthood as much as those of 
 any other class. Nay, it even gives them greater 
 prominence, as is natural from their greater impor- 
 tance. There is moreover a natural tendency in the 
 public to blame more freely the priests as the judges 
 of the rest. They are the object of the secret hatred 
 of the patrician body, of a cold esteem on the part 
 of the proletariate, and of no deep sympathy, as a 
 general rule, on the part of any but women. 
 Finally, the Positive faith is, by its nature, always 
 open to discussion, and so prevents the rise of any 
 prestige sufficient to bar criticisms when really 
 
 necessary. 
 
 However great the veneration usually paid to the 
 priests of Humanity, it can but be the result of their 
 due discharge of an office, the duties of which are 
 well defined. And the intellectual and moral con- 
 
300 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 ditions, to which the spiritual power requires all 
 others to conform, may be urged against it, in its 
 turn, m case of its failure. 
 
 If. as we suppose will be the commonest case, the 
 pervei^ion is partial, the priesthood is competent to 
 meet it by its own internal discipline. In case 
 of Its neglecting to do so, then every believer is 
 competent to urge a reparation of the error. Tor 
 by the fulness and accuracy which are the chaiac- 
 tenstics of the Positive faith, each individual can 
 exercise for himself, on his own responsibility, a 
 spec.es of irregular priesthood in such cases, which 
 will be efficient if sanctioned by opinion. Lastly 
 supposing the corruption of our priesthood genei^ 
 then It would not be long before a new one would 
 arise to meet the want of society, one which would 
 better fulfil the conditions required by a doctrine 
 which IS not exposed to adulteration, and which 
 IS always superior to its organs, whoever they 
 may be. ^ 
 
 m rom»._This leads me naturally, my father 
 to ask you to end this geneml survey by pointing 
 W '^ constitution of the Positive priest 
 
 m Prust.-You will at once feel, my daughter, 
 that the first condition required by its fundamental 
 object 1.S, that it should entirely renounce all tem- 
 poral power, and even all property. Every one 
 who aspires to the priesthood must, at the outset 
 solemnly contract an engagement to this efiect, at 
 the age of twenty-eight, when he receives the sacm- 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 301 
 
 ment of destination. The priests of Positivism 
 must not even inherit property from their families. 
 The object is that they may keep clear of all 
 temptation, also that they may leave capital in the 
 hands of those who can employ it to good purpose. 
 The contemplative class must, as a body, be main- 
 tained by the active. At first, they will look to 
 the free contributions of believers, afterwards to 
 assistance from the public treasury, when the faith 
 is universally adopted. The priesthood must have 
 nothing of its own, land, houses, nor revenues. All 
 that is allowed is its annual budget, the amount of 
 which must depend on the temporal power. 
 
 The generality of views and the generosity of 
 feeling, which must always be the distinctive marks 
 of the priesthood, are absolutely incompatible with 
 the ideas of detail and the disposition to pride in- 
 herent in all practical power. If you would restrict 
 yourself to giving counsel, you must put it out of 
 your power to command, even by your wealth. 
 Otherwise, so poor is man's nature, we are often 
 inclined to make force take the place of demonstra- 
 tion. This condition for the priestly office was felt 
 and carried to its sublimest exaggeration by the 
 admirable saint who, in the thirteenth century, 
 endeavoured, but in vain, to regenerate Catholicism, 
 which was already exhausted. But St. Francis of 
 Assisi forgot that, in prescribing to his disciples 
 absolute poverty, he was distracting them from their 
 proper office, by the needful daily care for their 
 subsistence. 
 
 \ 
 
 «v 
 

 302 
 
 THIKD PART. 
 
 There must be some limit to poverty, and to 
 assign the proper limits, I will name the yearly 
 payments for each of the several degrees of the 
 priesthood, adapting them to the actual rate of ex- 
 pense usual in France, which is a mean on this 
 point between the different nations of Western 
 Europe. This summary statement will serve at 
 the same time, to describe the internal organization 
 of the Positive clergy, an outline of which I .^ave 
 whilst explaining the worship. ^ 
 
 Generally stated, the organization of the Posi- 
 tive clergy requires three successive orders • the 
 aspirants, admitted at twenty-eight ; the vicars, or 
 substitutes, at thirty-five; and the priests proper 
 at forty-two. ' 
 
 The first of these, the aspirants, with no natural 
 limit to their numbers, are considered to have a 
 real spiritual calling; but they do not as yet belong 
 to the spiritual power, and they exercise none of itt 
 functions. Their free renunciation, therefore, of any 
 inheritance must be simply provisional, as is their 
 stipend, fixed at 3000 francs, or 120^. They do 
 not live with the priests, but are under regular 
 surveillance as to their work and conduct. 
 
 The vicars are iiTevocably members of the 
 priestly body, though limited to the functions of 
 teaching and preaching, except in cases of urgency 
 where other powers may be delegated. They 
 must definitively renounce all property, and they 
 must, besides, be married before admission. They 
 live with their families, but apart from the priests 
 
 / 
 
 "X 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 303 
 
 m the phHosophical presbytery which adjoins each 
 temple of Humanity, parallel to the Positive school 
 The class which is to guide all other classes in 
 influencing the intellect by the heart, must itself 
 furnish the best type that man can furnish of moral 
 development. It must therefore give full play to 
 the home affections, without which the love of the 
 race is an illusion. Marriage then, which other 
 citizens may or may not contract, is obligatory on 
 the priests. For the priestly office cannot be duly 
 performed unless the man be, constantly under the 
 influence of woman. Of cour'se that influence may 
 be objective or subjective. The better to test its 
 priestly body on this point. Positive religion re- 
 quires even its vicai-s to fulfil this obligation. This 
 second rank, which, with exceptions for failure 
 always leads to the third, secures a yearly stipend 
 
 Dui-ing the seven years which elapse before he is 
 full priest, every vicar must teach all the seven 
 encyclopedic sciences, and exercise his powers of 
 preaching. After that he becomes a true priest, 
 and may discharge, in famHies or in cities, his three 
 offices, of advising, consecrating, and regulating, 
 which are the social characteristics of the Positive' 
 clergy. In this final state, his annual stipend is 
 raised to 4801., besides tlie expenses of visiting his 
 diocese. 
 
 Every philosophical presbytery has seven priests 
 and three vicars. Their residences may be changed 
 by the High Priest. But such change must always 
 
 ♦! 
 
304 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 305 
 
 > 
 
 have some really serious ground to justify it. The 
 number of these priestly colleges will be two 
 thousand for the whole Western world. This gives 
 a functionaiy for every six thousand inhabitants, 
 or one hundred thousand for the whole earth. The 
 rate may appear too low ; but it is really adequate 
 for all the service required. For it must be re- 
 membered, that the doctrine of Positivism seldom 
 demands systematic explanations : for these we 
 substitute the free intervention of women and prole- 
 taries. It is important to limit very strictly the 
 priestly corporation, both to avoid superfluous ex- 
 pense and to secure a better composition of the 
 clerical body. 
 
 The Woman.— In your statement, I do not see, 
 my father, the head which directs this vast body. 
 
 The FHesL— The doctrine and the office of the 
 priesthood are such, my, daughter, that it might 
 function of itself, with the aid of public opinion. 
 Still it really does require one supreme head. The 
 supreme power is vested in the High Priest of 
 Humanity, whose natural residence will be Paris 
 as the metropolis of the regenerated West. His 
 stipend is five times that of ordinary priests, 2400/. 
 and he must have besides an allowance for the 
 expense necessai*ily involved by his vast labours. 
 
 He is the sole governor of the Positive clergy. 
 He ordains its members, he changes their residence 
 he revokes their commission, all on his own moral 
 responsibility. The main object of his care is to 
 maintain the priestly character in its integi-ity 
 
 against all temporal seductions. Every servile or 
 seditious priest, who aims at temporal power by 
 flattering the patriciate or the proletariate, will be 
 absolutely banished from the priesthood. Such an 
 one may, in certain cases, find a place amongst its 
 pensioners, supposing him to have scientific merits 
 to justify the exception. 
 
 To assist him in the discharge of his functions 
 the supreme head of Western Positivism is to have 
 the aid of four national superiors, each of whom has 
 a stipend of half the amount of his, 1200/. Under 
 his direction, they guide their four respective 
 churches, the Italian, the Spanish, the English, and 
 the German. As for Prance, the High Priest is 
 the national superior, though he need not necessarily 
 be a Frenchman, but may come from any one of the 
 populations that are Positivist. The regular mode 
 of replacing him is, as in the temporal order by a 
 successor whom he is to name himself. But in this 
 case, such nomination must have the unanimous 
 assent of the four national superiors. Supposing 
 them divided in opinion, then the nomination must 
 nieet the wishes of the senior priests of the two 
 thousand presbyteries. 
 
 'i 
 
306 
 
 THIKD PART. 
 
 CONVEKSATION X. 
 
 PRIVATE LIFE. 
 
 The Woman. — At the close of our last conversa- 
 tion, I omitted to ask you, my father, what would 
 be respectively the subjects of the two remaining 
 conference? on the Positive system of life. I felt 
 that the two halves of the practical domain of our 
 religion must have essentially the same subdivisions, 
 corresponding to the existence of which the worship 
 is to be the ideal representation, the regime, the 
 guide. My study of the worship, then, indicated 
 the plan on which the regime is to be studied. We 
 must begin with private life, and then proceed to 
 public. The former is our subject for to-day, and 
 I feel that you will here, as in the worship, 
 separate our individual existence from our family 
 life. 
 
 The Priest— The life of the individual is nor- 
 mally the basis of all man's conduct. Its regenera- 
 tion by Positivism consists, my daughter, in placing 
 it on a social footing, and insisting on its social 
 character. No theological system, and monotheism 
 less than any, could effect so radical a change. Yet 
 men have always had an instinctive presentiment 
 that such a change was necessary, and have looked 
 for its introduction. Positivism can effect it, and 
 that without recurring to any sentimental exaggera- 
 tion. It rests the change solely on an accurate 
 appreciation of the real state of the case. Such an 
 
 THE LIFE. 307 
 
 appreciation leads us to see that in reference to 
 man and the order of man's world, by its being 
 more synthetical than any other, you must treat 
 the whole before the parts, you must consider 
 society as prior to the individual. 
 
 It is true that every one of man's functions 
 necessarily requires an individual organ. But it is 
 no less true that it is by its nature a social function, 
 since the share of the individual agent is always 
 subordinate to that of his contemporaries and pre- 
 decessors. The degree of concurrence of the two 
 cannot be distinguished. Everything we have be- 
 longs to Humanity. For everything we have comes 
 from her-~life, fortune, talents, information, ten- 
 derness, energy, &c. Metastasio, a poet never sus- 
 pected of subversive tendencies, puts into the mouth 
 of Titus this decisive sentence, a sentence worthy 
 of an emperor — 
 
 So che tutto h di tutti; e che ne pure 
 Di nascer merito chi d'esser iiato 
 Crede solo per se. 
 
 Clem, de Tito, act II. sc. x. 
 
 I know that all is from all; and that he deserved not to be 
 born, who thinks that he is born for himself alone. 
 
 Similar anticipations might be found in the oldest 
 wi'itings. Thus we see that Positivism, when it 
 condenses all human morality into living for others, 
 is, in reality, only giving a systematic forui to the 
 universal instinct. As a previous step, it places the 
 scientific spirit at the social point of view, which 
 
 x2 
 
 ■v... 
 
1 
 
 ' 
 
 / 
 
 308 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 was unattainable by the synthesis of either theolocry 
 or metaphysics. ^ 
 
 The whole system of Positive education, its edu- 
 cation of the intellect as well as that of the affec- 
 tions, will familiarize us thoroughly with the idea 
 of our complete dependence on Humanity. We 
 shall thus be led duly to feel that we are all neces- 
 sarily destined to serve her constantly. In the 
 preparatory period of life, when incapable of useful 
 action, every one owns his inability to supply his 
 own chief wants. He sees and acknowledges that 
 he depends on others for their habitual gratifica- 
 tion. At the beginning, he looks on himself as in- 
 debted for their supply to his own family only. That 
 feeds him, takes care of him, instructs him, <fec. But 
 It IS not long before he cornea to form a distinct 
 conception of a higher providence, of which he sees 
 in his motlier merely the special minister and the 
 best representative. The institution of language 
 alone would be enough to disclose to hinf this 
 higher providence. For to construct language is 
 wholly beyond the power of an individual. It^can 
 only be the result of the combined efforts of all the 
 successive generations of men— combined in sjjite of 
 the diversity of idioms. And putting language out 
 of the question, the least gifted man has a constant 
 sense that he is indebted to Humanity for quanti- 
 ties of other accumulations, material, intellectual 
 social, and even moral. ' 
 
 Our aim should be during the period of prepara- 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 309 
 
 tion, to give clearness and vividness to this feelinor, 
 so as to enable it, at a later period, to resist the 
 sophisms of the passions to which our intellect and 
 our practice are exposed in real life. At that 
 time the exertions we habitually make have a ten- 
 dency to make us underrate the true providence, 
 and to overrate our own individual value. Ou^ 
 illusion leads us to be ungrateful. We can free 
 ourselves from it by reflection, and we can set 
 others free if they have been properly brought up. 
 Simply point out to them that, whatever their work 
 and whatever their success in that work, such suc- 
 cess depends in the main on the co-operation of 
 others, the immense extent of which in their blind 
 pride they would keep out of sight. The most 
 skilful man with the best directed activity can 
 never pay back to Humanity but a very slight 
 portion of that which he receives. As in his chSd- 
 hood, so in his later life, he continues to depend on 
 Humanity for food, protection, and growth, &c. 
 The only change is in the agents employed. They 
 no longer stand out distinct to his view. Originally 
 he received her gifts through his parents. He now 
 receives her benefits through the indirect agency of 
 large numbei-s, most of whom he will never know. 
 To live for others is seen to be, then, for all of us, 
 a constant duty, the rigorous logical consequence 
 of an^ndisputable fact, the fact, viz., that we live 
 by others. Such is the necessary conclusion drawn 
 from an accurate appreciation of our real state, when 
 
 ^•Tt 
 
i I 
 
 I ■ 11 ■ . . jg=jy.-._- 
 
 i i i iii ^ ' i i «a»^*Myi 
 
 310 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 11 
 
 / 
 
 we view it philosophically a^ a whole. It is a con- 
 clusion free from all tinge of an exaggeration of 
 sympathy. 
 
 The Woitmn.— It is a great pleasure, my father, 
 to find that our reason thus systematicaUy sanc- 
 tions a disposition for which at times I re- 
 proached myself, attributing it to an exaggerated 
 feeling. Before I became Positivist, I used often 
 to say : " What pleasures can he greater than those 
 of devotedness to otiiers r Now I shall be able to 
 defend this holy principle against the sneers of 
 egoists, and perhaps raise in them feelings which 
 will prevent their doubting its reality. 
 
 TIi£ Priest.— Your instinct, my daughter, has led 
 you to anticipate the most important characteristic 
 of PositiAdsm. Positivism finally sums up in one 
 formula, the law of duty and the law of happiness, 
 hitherto asserted by all systems to be irrecon- 
 cilable, although the instinct of men always aimed 
 at reconciling them. That the two are necessarily 
 in harmony, is a direct consequence of the existence 
 in our nature of the feelings of benevolence ; a fact 
 demonstrated by science, in the last century, on a 
 correct view of the animal world. In the else of 
 animals the respective action of the heart and the 
 inteUect admits of a more distinct appreciation. 
 
 Our harmony as moral beings is impossible on 
 any other foundation but altruism. Kay more, altru- 
 ism alone can enable us to live, in the highest and 
 tiniest sense. The degraded beings who Tt present 
 exist only ^0 live, would be tempted to give up their 
 
 311 
 
 brutal selfishness, had they but once had a real 
 taste of what you so well call the pleasures of 
 devotedness. They would then understand that, to 
 live for others is the only means of freely develop- 
 ing the whole existence of man. For we extend it 
 by one simultaneous efibi-t so as to comprise the 
 present in the largest sense, the remotest past, and 
 even the most distant future. None but the sym- 
 pathetic instincts can have free scope without any 
 check, for in giving them play each individual is 
 aided by all others, whereas his personal instincts, on 
 the contrary, find a constant check from others. 
 
 In this way you see how happiness and duty will 
 necessarily coincide. Of course there is no doubt 
 but that the fine definition of virtue given by a 
 moralist of the eighteenth century, Sisan effort over 
 oneself in favour of others, will always remain 
 applicable. We are so imperfect by nature that we 
 shall always need a real effort to subordinate our 
 personal to our social tendencies. The conditions 
 imder which we live are a constant stimulus to our 
 selfishness. But the triumph once gained, our 
 social instincts have a natural tendency, putting 
 aside the power of habit, to gain strength and to 
 grow, by virtue of the incomparable charm in- 
 herent in sympathy, whether of feeling or in 
 action. 
 
 In this state, we feel that true happiness is, in an 
 especial degree, the result of due submission, the 
 only sure basis of a large and noble activity. The 
 conditions under which we are fated to live no 
 
 ! 
 
tfa-'- -r iwd 
 
 312 
 
 THIED PART. 
 
 longer inspire regret. Far from it. We exert our- 
 selves to strengthen the order yrhich they form by 
 a voluntary obedience to rules of our own creation, 
 which enable us more successfully to contend with 
 our egoism the main source of man's unhappiness. 
 ^here such rules are established by free consent. 
 we soon see, according to the admirable precept of 
 Descartes, that they deserve quite as much respect 
 as the laws imposed on us from without, which 
 have less moral efficiency. 
 
 Th. ironu.n.-Snch a view of human nature 
 enables me at length to see, my father, that it is 
 possible to give an essentially alti-uistic chamcter 
 even to the i-ules which concern our own individual 
 existence, hitherto always placed on an egoist 
 ^und, on an appeal to our prudence. The wisdom 
 ^antiquity summed up morality in this precept : 
 JJo to others as you loould he done unto. This 
 general rule had at the time very great value, but 
 an It did was to regulate a mere personal calcula- 
 
 It, fiee from the same chai-acter : Lo^e your neigl^ 
 Ixyuras yourself. It does not compress egoism, but 
 saactious it. And if we look to the ^ouni on 
 which the rule rests, the love o/6od,we find a direct 
 stimulus to egoism. There is here no sympathy 
 with man, not to say that love was generallj but 
 another expression for fear. Still when we com- 
 pare the two precepts, we see that the Catholic is a 
 great step in advance. The other only bore upon 
 action, whereas it goes further and touches the 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 313 
 
 feelings wliich guide action. This moral improve- 
 ment remains, however, very incomplete, so long as 
 love in the theological sense retains its stain of 
 selfishness. 
 
 Positivism alone holds at once both a noble and 
 true language when it urges us to live fm- others. 
 This, the definitive formula of human morality, 
 gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts 
 of benevolence, the common source of happiness and 
 of duty. Implicitly and indirectly it sanctions our 
 personal instincts, as the necessary conditions of our 
 existence, with the proviso that they must be sub- 
 ordinate to those of altruism. With this limitation, 
 we are even ordered to gratify our personal instincts, 
 with the view of fitting oui-selves to be better ser- 
 vants of Humanity, whose we are entirely. 
 
 Now, too, I understand the strong reprobation 
 with which I always saw you looked on suicide, 
 hitherto, as it seemed to me, only condemned by 
 Catholicism. Our life is less even than our fortune 
 or any of our talents at our arbitrary disposal. It 
 is still more valuable than they are to Humanity, 
 and it is of Humanity that we hold it. In obe- 
 dience to the same principle. Positive religion also 
 condemns, however respectable the motives from 
 which it often proceeds, that kind of chronic 
 suicide, suicide at least for all social purposes, 
 which the Catholic system too often encouraged. I 
 remember that the daily abuse of bodily discipline 
 had so completely reduced the hermits of the 
 Thebaid, that their abbots were at length obliged 
 
 
3U 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 to authorize them to pray sitting, or even lying 
 down, because they were unable to remain lon^ 
 enough on their knees. " 
 
 Th^PHest—l would call your attention, my 
 daughter, to the fact, that not only do we -ive a 
 nobler character to our gratification of our personal 
 instmcts, within the limits allowed by their sub- 
 ordination to their social purpose, but that on this 
 necessary subordination, as the only possible basis 
 we rest the authority of our prescriptions relative 
 to such gratification. Suppress this, the only true 
 prmciple, and the simplest rules for the regulation 
 of our individual existence lose their hold on us 
 unless they are brought into an arbitmiy connexion 
 with supernatural ordinances, ordinances which were 
 valid for certain times and pkces, but which are 
 now no longer so. 
 
 If our control over our eating is a mere question 
 ot personal prudence, we are liable to be influenced 
 by the sophisms of greediness. And there are cases 
 m which these cannot be refuted, for some men can 
 commit excesses for a long time without any evil 
 consequences to their health. But if you adopt the 
 social point of view, all hesitation disappea,^ at 
 once, and you prescribe for all alike an amount of 
 food almost always less than that which they might 
 take without risk. For if we exceed the very mode- 
 rate limits set by the requirements of the service 
 we owe to our Family, our Countty, and Humanity 
 we are consuming provisions which in moral fairnes^ 
 belonged to others. At the same time, a greater 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 315 
 
 amount of food reacts on our brain, and has a 
 weakening effect on our feeble intelligence, whether 
 in science, the fine arts, or industry. The images 
 become habitually less clear, induction and deduction 
 harder and slower : everything is weakened, even 
 our faculties of expression. 
 
 But it is the moral influence of the slightest daily 
 intemperance that is the chief danger, as being at 
 once more difficult to avoid and more corrupting. 
 Eating is the most entirely personal of all our acts. 
 When we exceed the amount required for our siip- 
 port, we are cultivating, as far as possible, egoism 
 at the expense of altruism. For we overcome the 
 sympathy we involuntarily feel for those who, at the 
 time, are in want of food. Besides, so closely con- 
 nected in the brain are the several egoistic instincts, 
 that the strong excitement of one soon spreads to the 
 rest, even though the excitement be but for a time. 
 The admirable painter of human nature to whom 
 we owe that unrivalled poem, the Imitation, had a 
 profound sense of this moral connexion, when he 
 tells us (book I. chap. xix. § 4), Frena gulam et 
 omnem carnis inclinationem indius frenohis. Bridle 
 thy appetite, and thou slialt the easier bridle aU 
 fleshly desires. Bead daily this inexhaustible treasure 
 of true wisdom. Substitute Humanity for God, 
 and you will soon feel that this, the last change re- 
 quired, gives great strength to such a precept, as it 
 does to most others. 
 
 The restraint upon the instinct of nutrition re- 
 quired by health, is far less than it will be when it 
 
 
316 
 
 THIRD PAKT. 
 
 shall have received a gradual and systematic exten- 
 sion from Positive religion. In our sensuality we 
 reason sophistically and treat as essential wants 
 what are the results of stimulants which are rather 
 hurtful than beneficial. This is especially true of 
 the use of wine, which was forbidden by Mahomet- 
 anism. The prohibition was generally and sincerely 
 obeyed during the centuries in which Islamism dis- 
 played the precise kind of activity for which we 
 think wine indispensable. When we properly ex- 
 amine the admirable designs of the great Mahomet, 
 we soon see that what he aimed at in this prohibition 
 was, to inti'oduce a thorough improvement of the 
 whole nature of man, beginning with the individual, 
 but extending afterwards to the race, by the law of 
 hereditary transmission. His noble attempt has 
 not been really more a failure than the other dis- 
 tinct efforts of the monotheism of the Middle Ages, 
 Eastern no less than Western monotheism, to im- 
 prove man's nature. It wants what they want. 
 It requires to be systematized by Positivism. When 
 systematized, it will be strengthened and developed 
 without any risk to the progress of industry. Even 
 at the present day the judicious abstinence from 
 wine, so common with your sex, at least in the 
 South, may gradually extend to all the advanced 
 organs of human progress. As Positivism spreads, 
 women and priests will of their own free will, 
 throughout the West, allowing for exceptions, re- 
 nounce the habitual use of this stimulant, the more 
 fatal inasmuch as it often leads to other excesses. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 317 
 
 The Woman.— 1 see, my father, why you lay so 
 much stress on the Positive discipline of the nutri- 
 tive instinct. Besides its predominance directly 
 and its influence indirectly, you take it as a type of 
 the control that we must regularly exert over all 
 our personal instincts. The rules of this control, 
 when formed into a system, represent in both sexes 
 purity in the true sense, the first basis of firm 
 morality. For we must not limit purity to the 
 two adjacent organs, on which depend the preserva- 
 tion of the species and of the individual. It must 
 include the whole of our seven personal instincts, 
 which we always have to purify to a considerable 
 extent, in furtherance of their normal subordination 
 to the service of Humanity. 
 
 ^ The Priest.— Thi^ great principle of subordina- 
 tion, my daughter, will always be able to overcome 
 all honest doubts on the point, and even to solve 
 the most captious sophisms. The heart of the true 
 Positivist must, within itself, reject any arbitrary 
 will, just as his intellect rejects it in the world 
 without. Our humble Divinity is, in truth, exempt 
 from the various caprices appropriate in the case 
 of her omnipotent precursor. In all her actions 
 she follows intelligible laws, made more and more 
 clear to us by the Positive study of her nature and 
 her destinies. By subordinating ourselves as much 
 as possible to these laws, we shall never cease taking 
 fresh steps in our endless progress towards peace, 
 happiness, and dignity. 
 
 The Woman.— On combining the indications you 
 
 li 
 
 i 
 
318 
 
 THIKD PART. 
 
 have given me, I seem, my father, to see clearly what 
 is the system of individual life in Positivism. With 
 our synopsis of the cerebral fimctions in our hand, we 
 might take each of the egoistic instincts in turn, 
 and study it from the moral point of view as we 
 have done the most important of them, in order to 
 determine what is the suitable method for its re- 
 pression. As for the means of developing our 
 several sympathetic instincts, our system of worship 
 points these out, all, that is, that are distinct from 
 the direct action of the instincts themselves. To 
 explain all these points in detail would be beyond 
 the limits of our present exposition. We should 
 even lose sight of our main object were we to 
 attempt it. When Positive religion shall be gene- 
 rally accepted, it will be time to compose a new 
 Catechism, more closely resembling those used by 
 the Catholics, and these practical rules may then be 
 given in detail. The general principles on which 
 they rest will then be familiar to all true believers. 
 This Catechism is, on the contrary, a beginning, and 
 its object is to state these general principles, so essen- 
 tial as a foundation. Any applications of them it 
 takes into account only so far as they are indis- 
 pensable to the establishment of the principles. 
 Without dwelling, then, any longer on personal 
 morality, would you pass on to the second part 
 of our private life, and give me a clear idea 
 of the regeneration of family life in the Positive 
 regime ? 
 
 The PnesL — The regeneration of the family 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 319 
 
 depends essentially on marriage, my daughter, on 
 our giving marriage an altruistic character. Origi- 
 nally the institution rested on a purely egoistic 
 basis, that is, marriage was regarded as the legitimate 
 satisfaction of the sexual instinct, wliich had for 
 its object the reproduction of the species. This 
 coarser view was naturally adopted on system so 
 long as the prevalent theory denied the existence 
 of the benevolent instincts. The general feeling 
 of mankind was, however, always against this view. 
 Hence a constant series of efforts, each stronger 
 than the last, though based on purely empirical 
 grounds, to introduce improvements into the ori- 
 ginal institution. Positivism alone can show that, on 
 this fundamental point, theory and practice, rightly 
 viewed, are in harmony; and to show this, it relies 
 on the most important discovery of modern science, 
 the existence in our nature of altruistic instincts. 
 
 This great conception, the importance of which 
 is as yet so imperfectly understood, involves 
 directly the regeneration of marriage. For we look 
 on marriage henceforth, as having for its especial 
 object the mutual improvement of both sexes, 
 putting aside any sensual idea. It shows by direct 
 proof the woman's affective superiority. It does 
 this by establishing two points : first, tlie selfish 
 instincts are less intense in woman, especially the 
 lower ones ; secondly, the sympathetic are much 
 more energetic. On this demonstration we rest the 
 Positive theory of marriage. By that theory your 
 sex improves mine, by disciplining the mere animal 
 
 Ml 
 
 h 
 
320 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 desire whicli is necessary for man. Such is his 
 moral inferiority, that he would without this 
 impulse want sufficient tenderness. Such is the 
 essential relation of the two sexes in marriage. 
 The other points of difference which the cerebral 
 organization of the two sexes offers, fortunately 
 lend their aid in the same direction. The man is 
 indisputably the superior in all that regards the 
 character properly so called. And it is the cha- 
 racter on which, in the main, depends command. 
 As for the intellect, in the man it is stronger and 
 of wider grasp ; in the woman it is more accurate 
 and penetrating. Everything then combines to 
 show the mutual efficacy of the marriage union, 
 which constitutes the highest form of friendship, 
 with the additional charm of mutual possession. 
 In aU other human ties, there is a possible, 
 if not actual rivalry, checkiug the full confidence 
 which can only exist between those of different sex. 
 In this view, the real object of the sexual appetite 
 is to originate or to sustain, more particularly in 
 the man, the feelings which lead him to give full 
 scope to his tenderness. But if so, that appetite 
 must be gratified very moderately. Otherwise it 
 is, by its nature, so profoundly egoistic tliat it tends 
 to stimulate our selfishness almost as much as 
 excess in food does, and often with even more serious 
 results, as the woman is odiously sacrificed to the 
 brute passions of the man. When my sex is suffi- 
 ciently pure (yours is so as a general rule) to dis- 
 pense with this coarse stimulant of tenderness, 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 321 
 
 marriage is much more certain to produce its 
 highest results. 
 
 Such will be the case in one form of the marria^^e 
 union — an union, viz., on the principle of chastity. 
 Positive worship sanctions this form for those who 
 ought not to aid in the propagation of the species. 
 Many diseases are transmitted hereditarily, and 
 not unfrequently in an aggravated form. So that 
 thousands of poor children are bom merely 
 to die early. Their life is never anything but a 
 burden. As in modern civilization all births 
 equally are recognised, the sad results of hereditary 
 disease are far more frequent than they were in 
 ancient times. For the ancients destroyed as a 
 general rule their offspring when weak. A tho- 
 rough sifting of this important question would per- 
 haps show that a fourth of the population in 
 Western Europe would be wise to abstain from 
 having children, and that such a function should 
 be exercised only by those who are properly qua- 
 lified. When we shall pay the same attention to 
 the propagation of the human species as we do to 
 that of the more important domestic animals, it will 
 be seen to be necessary to regulate it. But the 
 only method of regulation is the voluntary adoption 
 of the institution of chaste marriages, in accordance 
 with the Positive theory of the marriage union, by 
 which sexual intercourse is not a necessary con- 
 dition of marriage. To forbid marriage by law in 
 the case of hereditary disease, as physicians have 
 often wished, would be a remedy as odious as it. 
 
322 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 would be illusory. The influence of Positive re- 
 li^on on private and public life can alone induce 
 people to form resolutions which, if not absolutely 
 voluntary, lose their efficiency, and trench upon our 
 ditmity. In these exceptional unions the true 
 nature of marriage will be better appreciated, if the 
 minds of both parties are properly disciplined. By 
 an extension of the practice of adoption we shall 
 tnve the family affections free scope, and at the 
 same time relieve those who can have children. 
 
 The Woman.— Yowr theory, my father, is ade- 
 quate as an expression of the true idea of marriage, 
 when viewed independently of its bodily results, 
 which are at times not attained. The amelioration 
 of man's moral nature is then the principal function 
 of woman, in this unrivalled union, which is insti- 
 tuted for the mutual improvement of both sexes. 
 The mother's functions you have already deter- 
 mined to consist especially in directing the whole of 
 education, and you assign her this province in order 
 that the heart may in education prevail over the 
 intellect. So, as these two offices of woman suc- 
 ceed one another with a regular succession, your 
 sex is under the constant care of the affective pro- 
 vidence of woman. If such are the objects of the 
 marriage union, it is clear it must be monogamic; 
 there must be no second marriage, and it must 
 be indissoluble. So only can the family relations 
 attain the completeness and stability required for 
 their moral efficiency. These two conditions are so 
 consonant to human nature that illicit unions in- 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 323 
 
 stinctively aim at fulfilling them. Still I believe 
 divorce ought not to be absolutely prohibited. 
 
 TJie Priest. — You are aware, my daughter, that 
 St. Augustin, overcoming by his own unaided 
 reason the necessarily absolute character of his 
 theological belief, opens his chief work by remark- 
 ing that murder may often be excusable, and, at 
 times, even praiseworthy. The same may be said 
 of falsehood, and of everything else that generally 
 deserves reprobation. Divorce is no exception to 
 this general rule. But whilst we allow this, we 
 must never impair the fundamental indissolubility 
 of the marriage tie. There is in reality but one 
 case in which marriage may be dissolved by law, 
 the case where one or other of the parties has been 
 condemned to any such degrading punishment as to 
 be socially dead. In all other cases of disturbance, 
 a long continuance of unworthy conduct on the 
 part of husband or wife may lead to a moral dis- 
 ruption of the union, the result of which is a sepa- 
 ration, but without allowing a second marriage. 
 Positive religion imposes on the innocent in such 
 cases the observance of chastity, but the recognition 
 of that obligation is compatible with the deepest affec- 
 tion. If the condition is felt to be hard, it must be 
 submitted to, primarily in the interest of social 
 order; then, as the just consequence of the original 
 error. 
 
 The Woman. — I am already acquainted, my 
 father, with the holy law of eternal widowhood, 
 the law which forbids any second marriage. By it 
 
 y2 
 
324 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 Positivism gives at length its full completeness to 
 the great institution of marriage. No objection 
 will come from women ; and you have taught me 
 how to refute the various sophisms, even when they 
 wear the form of scientific conclusions, which may 
 be originated by men. Unless so completed, mono- 
 gamy is an illusion. For a second marriage must 
 always involve a subjective polygamy, unless the 
 first wife is forgotten, a prospect of small comfort 
 to the second. The mere thought of such a change 
 is enough greatly to impair the existing union, as it 
 is never absolutely impossible. Unless you make the 
 family ties unchangeable and eternal, you cannot 
 ensure them the consistency and completeness 
 which are indispensable if they are to have their 
 due moral effect. None of the sects sprung from 
 the anarchy of modern times seem to me so con- 
 temptible as that which wishes to make inconstancy 
 a condition of happiness, just as it would make the 
 frequent change of occupations a means of improve- 
 ment. I saw in the Politique Positive a remark on 
 this point which struck me greatly: "When two 
 beings are of so complex a nature and so difierent 
 as man and woman, the whole of life is far from 
 being too long for them to learn to know each other 
 fully, and to love each other perfectly." Far from 
 considering as an illusion the high estimate which 
 in a true marriage the husband and wife have of 
 one another, I have almost always attributed it to 
 the deeper insight which can only be gained by 
 complete intimacy. In such intimacy, it must be 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 325 
 
 remembered, qualities are developed which escape 
 the indifierent. Nay, if we think of it, it is very 
 honourable to our species, that its members inspire 
 one another with such strong mutual esteem when 
 they study each other carefully. Hatred and indifier- 
 ence alone really deserve the reproach of blindness, 
 which a superficial view attributes to love. We 
 must consider then the institution which prolongs 
 after death the union of husband and wife as quite 
 in keeping with human nature. No intimacy can 
 stand a comparison with theirs. In the case of the 
 mother and the son, the disparity of age, and even 
 a just veneration, are always a bar to entire har- 
 mony. 
 
 The Priest. — Besides, my daughter, our law of 
 widowhood can alone secure for woman's influence 
 its main efficacy. During her objective life, the 
 sexual relation impau's to a great degree the sympa- 
 thetic influence of the wife, by giving it something 
 of a coarse and personal tinge. Therefore it is that 
 during our objective life the mother is the principal 
 guardian angel. Angels have no sex, as they are 
 eternal. 
 
 In her subjective existence the relation of the wife 
 to the husband is purified. By virtue then of her 
 closer union, the wife then definitively becomes our 
 highest guardian angel. One single year of a noble 
 marriage is enough to constitute, during the longest 
 life of man, an inexhaustible source of happiness 
 and improvement. Time is constantly increasing 
 its efiects, for time purifies it as imperfections sink 
 
 
 » 
 
326 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 into the shade, and good qualities come into fuller 
 light. Thus, without the subjective union which 
 is the consequence of our law of widowhood, the 
 moral influence of the woman on the man would 
 end at the very moment when its main action ought 
 to begin, perfected as it is and purified by death. 
 Once let this complement of marriage be adequately 
 appreciated, and it will furnish one of the best 
 practical distinctions of Positive religion. For such 
 an institution is evidently incompatible with the 
 principles of theological belief. 
 
 The Woman. — To complete my view of the con- 
 stitution of the family, my father, I need but an 
 explanation of one point. What are its material 
 conditions — in other words, the arrangements as to 
 
 property 1 
 
 The Priest. — They are the natural consequences, 
 my daughter, of the social and moral purposes the 
 family is meant to answer. Woman, in her two- 
 fold character of mother and wife, discharges in the 
 family an office equivalent to that of the spiritual 
 power in the State. It requires then the same 
 exemption from the duties of active life, and the 
 same renunciation of all command. To stand aloof 
 from both is still more indispensable for the woman 
 than for the priest, if she is to preserve that supe- 
 riority of affection in which woman's real merit 
 consists, and which is less qualified than superiority 
 of intellect to resist the pressure of practical life. 
 Women therefore must never have work away 
 from their homes. This rule must be carefully 
 
 U 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 327 
 
 observed, as on its observance depends the due 
 accomplishment of their holy mission. Confined by 
 her own will to the sanctuary of her home, the 
 woman freely devotes herself to the moral improve- 
 ment of her husband and children, and gracefully 
 receives her just meed of homage. 
 
 Our constitution of the family, from the material 
 point of view, rests on a fundamental principle 
 never systematically adopted but by Positivism. 
 The general instinct, however, has always had a 
 presentiment of it. It is this : The man must sup- 
 port the woman. The obligation is equivalent to 
 that of the active class towards the contemplative 
 class. There is of course an essential difference 
 in the mode of discharging it. The maintenance 
 of the priesthood is an obligation for the society ; 
 it becomes an obligation for individuals only in very 
 exceptional cases. Precisely the reverse is the case 
 with women, in consequence of the difference in the 
 moral influence of the two bodies. The influence 
 of women acts on the family, that of the priesthood 
 on the whole society. At first the woman is main- 
 tained by her father or brothers ; then by her hus- 
 band or sons. If all special support of this kind 
 fail, then comes in the general obligation of the 
 active sex towards the affective, and the government 
 must provide for her support on the representations 
 of the priesthood. Such is the first material basis on 
 which the true constitution of the family rests. 
 
 The fulfilment of this condition necessitates at 
 once another institution, the renunciation by women 
 
;l 
 
 n 
 
 328 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 of all claim to inherit. This renunciation must be 
 free, and the grounds for it are as valid as those on 
 which it rested in the case of the priesthood. The 
 object is first to prevent the corrupting influence of 
 wealth, secondly to concentrate capital and place 
 it in the hands which direct its employment. 
 Wealth is even more dangerous to women than to 
 priests. For it weakens moral superiority even more 
 than it does intellectual. Lastly, the renunciation 
 of property by women is the only means of putting 
 an end to the custom of giving dowries — a custom 
 which is very injurious in many cases, and directly 
 contrary to the time objects of marriage. When 
 women have no property, marriages will be a matter 
 of free choice, wisely exercised. And there will 
 be no restriction as to classes, for a common 
 education will produce a general uniformity, in 
 spite of the necessary inequalities of power and 
 wealth. But to give all these reasons their full 
 validity, the woman's renunciation must in all cases 
 be absolutely voluntary, never the result of a legal 
 enactment. 
 
 The Woman. — The Positive religion will have 
 little difficulty, my father, in getting women to 
 adopt this resolution, if you guarantee them their 
 existence. The obligation to support them must be 
 made bindinoj on individuals, and its fulfilment 
 must be secured by the general convictions of society. 
 People often lament the caprices which idleness and 
 wealth lead women to indulge when they prefer 
 power to love. But it seems to me the moral 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 329 
 
 degradation of women is far greater when they gain 
 their wealth by their own labour. There is a harsh- 
 ness produced by the constant pursuit of gain which 
 robs such women even of the instinctive kindness 
 which the others keep in the midst of their dissipa- 
 tion. There are no worse industrial chiefs than 
 women. 
 
 The Priest. — In order to complete our general 
 view of the family constitution peculiar to Posi- 
 tivism, it remains for me, my daughter, to point 
 out an institution which is indispensable if the 
 veneration we advocate is to have its full effect. 
 We must give perfect freedom of devising, perfect 
 freedom also of adopting. There must be no check 
 on the head of the family, beyond his moral responsi- 
 bility. His conduct will of course be open to the 
 examination of the priesthood and the public. Our 
 next conversation will show you the importance to 
 society of these two institutions. They are the 
 remedies, as far as there is any remedy, for the main 
 inconveniences attending the hereditary transmis- 
 sion of property. But for the present I only men- 
 tion them that you may see their aptitude to j^urify 
 and strengthen all the family relations by clearing 
 them from the meanness of aim which at present 
 stains them. By no other means can we make the 
 aflfection sons feel for their fathers, if not as tender, 
 yet at least as noble as that of the wife for her 
 husband. The affection of brothers for one another 
 will also be more secure than it is under the revo- 
 lutionary system of equal division, or than it was 
 
330 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 under the feudal system, when the younger were 
 dependent on the elder. Amongst the rich no one 
 will expect anything from his family beyond the 
 assistance required for his education and his esta- 
 blishment in society. Under such a system there 
 will be no check on the full cultivation of all our 
 best affections. If the sons are unworthy, the 
 father will supply their place by a wise adoption. 
 
 Such is the family in the Positive regime. And it 
 is in a society composed of such families that its 
 priests will labour. Objects of the free veneration of 
 all, they will exert themselves to guard against, or to 
 repair, the evil results of the contests occasioned by 
 bad passions. Most especially will the priesthood 
 endeavour to make women feel the merit of sub- 
 mission. It will draw out to its full consequences 
 the admirable maxim of Aristotle : The greatest 
 strength of woman lies in her overcoming the dif- 
 ficulty of obeying. By their education women will 
 be led to see that all power, far from raising 
 them, necessarily degrades them. It vitiates the 
 very basis of their claim, for it makes them seek 
 to gain by force that ascendancy which is due 
 only to love. At the same time, the priesthood 
 will protect them against the tyranny of their hus- 
 bands, and the ingratitude of their sons. It will 
 judiciously remind the husband and the son of the 
 precepts of Positive religion as to the moral supe- 
 riority and social office of the affective sex. In 
 the reaction of public on private life we have 
 hitherto found the principal means of improving 
 
 — .x' -" 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 331 
 
 > il 
 
 the latter. This preponderating influence is, in the 
 Positive system, placed under the direction of the 
 priests of Humanity. They alofie are qualified to 
 enter the family circle in order to raise and 
 strengthen all the family affections by subordi- 
 nating them constantly to their social destination. 
 
 CON VERS A.TION XI. 
 PUBLIC LIFE. 
 
 The Woman. — Before we enter on the higher 
 part of Positive morals, there are three points, my 
 father, which I wish to have cleared up. 
 
 The first is the metaphysical objection often made 
 to Positivism that it admits no kind of rights. If 
 it is so, I am much more inclined to congratulate 
 you on it than to regret it. For it seems to me 
 that rights are almost invariably introduced to su- 
 persede reason or affection. Women are fortunately 
 not allowed to call in the idea, and they are the 
 better for it. You know nfy favourite maxim : 
 Man, more than other anhtialsj needs diUies to produce 
 feelings. 
 
 Tlie Priest. — It is true, my daughter, that Posi- 
 tivism recognises no right in anybody but the right 
 to do his duty. To speak more accurately, our re- 
 ligion imposes on all the obligation to help every 
 one to discharge his peculiar function. In politics 
 we must eliminate Rights, as in philosophy we 
 eliminate causes. Both rights and causes involve 
 the idea of a will admitting of no discussion. Thus 
 
 ■' 
 
332 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 rights, of whatever order, imply of necessity a super- 
 natural source, for no other can place them above 
 discussion. Divine right, in its concentrated form, 
 the divine right of the governor, that is, was really 
 efficacious for social purposes. For it was the 
 normal guarantee of obedience, and obedience was 
 indispensable during the preparatory regime, based 
 on theology and war. But divine right, in its dis- 
 persive form, the divine right, that is, of the go- 
 verned — and this is the form in which, more or less 
 distinctly, it has been put forward since the decay 
 of monotheism — is as anarchical, as it is retrograde 
 in the other form. Under both forms equally, it 
 can lead to nothing but simply to prolong the 
 disorder attendant on the revolution. All honest 
 and sensible men, of whatever party, should agree, 
 by a common consent, to eliminate the doctrine of 
 rights. 
 
 Positivism only recognises duties, duties of all to 
 all. Placing itself, as it does, at the social point of 
 view, it cannot tolerate the notion of rights^ for such 
 notion rests on individualism. We are born under 
 a load of obligations of every kind, obligations to 
 our predecessors, to our successors, to our contem- 
 poraries. After our birth these obligations increase 
 or accumulate, for it is some time before we can re- 
 turn any service. Where then, in the case of man, 
 is the foundation on which we are to rest the idea 
 of rights ? That idea, properly viewed, implies 
 some previous efficiency. However great our effi)rts, 
 the longest life, well employed, will never enable us 
 
 f:fl 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 333 
 
 to pay back more than a scarcely perceptible part 
 of what we received. And yet only on the con- 
 dition of complete payment could we be authorized 
 to require reciprocity of services. Rights, then, in 
 the case of man, are as absurd as they are immoral. 
 Divine right is abandoned. The whole notion, then, 
 must be completely put away. It had a value in 
 reference to the preliminary state, it is perfectly 
 incompatible with the final state of our race. In 
 this final state we only recognise duties as the con- 
 sequence of functions. 
 
 The Woman. — My second question, my father, is 
 this : over and above the general relation that exists 
 between public and private life, does not private 
 life call into existence dispositions calculated to fit 
 us individually for public life 1 
 
 The Priest. — So far as our private and individual 
 life calls out such dispositions, my daughter, it is as 
 the consequence of our private worship. That 
 woi'ship is not merely adapted to strengthen and 
 develope all private virtues. It finds its most im- 
 portant application in our public life, for in it our 
 three guardian angels must turn us from evil and 
 urge us to good. For this purpose we must address 
 short special prayers to them, prayers suited to 
 each important case as it arises. 
 
 The powerful efficacy of this assistance was felt 
 in the Middle Ages. The noble feeling of the 
 knights of chivalry led them to attempt even then 
 to institute the worship of woman. So thoroughly 
 had they brought into harmony their private and 
 
 m 
 
-«■" 
 
 "i 
 
 334 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 public life that the image of the lady of their love 
 often animated and embellished their warlike ex- 
 istence, giving rise as it did to the tenderest emo- 
 tions in the very midst of scenes of desolation or 
 terror. If the softer affections could be familiarly 
 combined with the destructive activity of man, it 
 will not be difficult, nay, it will be far easier, to com- 
 bine them with labours the direct object of which 
 is the happiness of man, free from any alloy of pain 
 to any one. The holy canticle, with which the most 
 beautiful of all poems concludes, is still more suit- 
 able in the new than in the old worship — 
 
 Donna, se' tanto grande e tanto vali 
 Che qual vuol grazia e a te non ricon-e 
 Sua disianza vuol volar senz' ali. 
 
 La tua benignity non pur soccorre 
 A chi dimanda, ma raolte fiate 
 Liberamente al dimandar precorre. 
 
 In te misericordia, in te pietate, 
 In te magnificenza, in te s'aduna, 
 Quantunque in creatura 6 di bontate. 
 
 Dante, Parad. xxxiii. 13 — 21. 
 
 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. 
 
 Relenting mercy, large munificence, 
 
 Are all combined in thee. 
 
 Cart's Translation. 
 
 More than any other class must the priesthood of 
 Humanity derive advantage from this assistance. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 335 
 
 Its conflict with social evils will largely develope 
 courage, perseverance, and even prudence. But at 
 the same time there will be a tendency to impair 
 lis moral purity by the seductions of ambition, and 
 these will be the more formidable as they will seem 
 to spring from a holy zeal. Our priests then will 
 frequently find it necessary to repair the inroad 
 made and to temper afresh their true character, by 
 a noble intercourse with women, an intercourse 
 primarily subjective, but also objective. 
 
 As for the dispositions called out by the second 
 form of private life, by our family life, that is, the 
 family will be always our best apprenticeship for 
 practising the rule which we must all freely adopt, 
 as the primary basis of our public life : Live with- 
 out concealment. To hide their moral baseness, our 
 metaphysicians secured the adoption of the shameful 
 legislation, by which we are forbidden to scrutinize 
 the private life of public men. Positivism, on the 
 contrary, openly sanctions the common instinct of 
 men, and courts a carefiil inquiry into tlie life of 
 the individual and the family, as the best security 
 for public conduct. We should not wish for the 
 esteem of any but those for whom we feel it. No 
 one then is bound to give to every one without dis- 
 tinction a constant account of all his actions. But 
 however limited, in certain cases, may be the num- 
 ber of our judges, it is enough that we have judges 
 to secui-e the law of living openly from losing its 
 moral efficacy, as it impels us constantly to do 
 nothing but what we can at any time own. The 
 
 1 
 
 'I 
 
i 
 
 336 
 
 THIKD PART. 
 
 adoption of this principle involves an undeviating 
 respect for truth and a scrupulous adherence to 
 every engagement. In these two general duties, 
 the introduction of which we owe to the Middle 
 Ages, we sum up the whole of public morality. 
 They show the thorough soundness of the admirable 
 judgment given by Dante, the unconscious repre- 
 sentative of the spirit of chivalry, which places 
 traitors in the lowest depth of hell. Even in the 
 midst of modern anarchy, Ariosto, the best poet 
 of chivalry, nobly proclaimed the grand maxim of 
 our heroic ancestors — 
 
 La fede unqua non deve esser corrotta, 
 O data a un solo, o data insieme a mille. 
 
 * * « * 
 Seiiza giurare, o segno altro piu espresso, 
 Basti una volta che s'abbia promesso. 
 
 Orlando Fiwioso, xxi. 2. 
 
 Faith never must be broken, 
 
 Be it given to one, or to a thousand. 
 
 * * « * 
 
 No oath is needed, nor other distinct sign; 
 Enough that once the promise be given. 
 
 Such presentiments of the morals of sociocratic 
 times are systematically incorporated into the Posi- 
 tive religion. It represents falsehood and treason 
 as directly incompatible with any co-operation. 
 
 The Woman. — My third and last question is this, 
 my father. May we not divide public life as we 
 divided private life, taking as our guide the inequa- 
 lity in point of extent of the ties which each of the 
 parts of our division represents? The interval be- 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 337 
 
 WeQn the Family and Humanity is too wide for the 
 heart, or even for the intellect. To rise from one 
 to the other they require the intermediate step, the 
 Country. If so, public life seems to me necessarily 
 to fall into two very marked divisions, and we 
 deal, first with our relations as citizens, then with 
 our relations as men. 
 
 The Priest. — You are right, my daughter, and on 
 this distinction rests the general plan of our actual 
 conversation. But before we apply it, we must see 
 that it have the requisite accuracy and consistency. 
 For this we must limit the sacred idea of Country, 
 which has in modern times become too vague, and 
 oc>nsequently almost without influence, as a result 
 oi" the exorbitant extension of the States of the 
 Western world. We must follow up the indication 
 which we threw out in the study of the doctrine, 
 and look on the republics of the future as much 
 smaller than the revolutionary prejudices of the 
 present day seem to consider probable. The gradual 
 break-up of the colonial system since the indepen- 
 dence of America is, in reality, only the fii-st step 
 towards a final disruption of all the overgrown 
 kingdoms which arose on the dissolution of the 
 Catholic bond of union. 
 
 Ultimately, the normal extent of the States of 
 the Western world will be much the same as that 
 of Tuscany, Belgium, and Holland, at the present 
 time. Sicily, Sardinia, &c., will soon follow. A 
 population of one to three millions, at the average 
 rate of one hundred per square mile, is the best 
 
I 
 
 
 338 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 limit for States which are really free. For the term 
 free is only applicable to States, the parts of which 
 coalesce of their own free will, without any violence, 
 from the instinctive sense of a real genuine com- 
 munity of interest. The continuance of peace in 
 Western Europe will dispel all serious fear of fo- 
 reign invasion, and even of a coalition for retro- 
 grade purposes. As a consequence, there will soon 
 be a general feeling that it is desirable by peaceful 
 means to bring about the dissolution of all facti- 
 tious aggregates, for there will be for the future no 
 real justification for them. Before the end of the 
 nineteenth century, the French Republic will, of its 
 own free will, break up into seventeen independent 
 republics, each comprising five of the existing de- 
 partments. Ireland will ere long separate from 
 England. This will lead to the rupture of the arti- 
 ficial bonds which now unite Scotland, and even 
 Wales, with England proper. All the States which 
 are now too large will undergo a similar process, so 
 that, at the opening of next century, Portugal and 
 Ireland, granting they remain entire, will be the 
 largest republics of the West. It is to a State within 
 these limits that we can apply the term Country, 
 and this is the sense in which we use the term 
 in our survey of public life in the normal state. 
 In such a country the national feeling can really 
 occupy an intermediate position between family 
 afiection and the love of our race. 
 
 Tlie Waman. — Accepting this valuable simplifi- 
 cation, due to Positivism as a political system, I 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 339 
 
 hope that I shall find, my father, no serious diffi- 
 culty in your direct explanation of public life. 
 
 TJw Priest. — Public life, my daughter, consists 
 wholly in the due realization of these two maxims — 
 Devotion of the strong to the weak; veneration of the 
 weak for the strong. No society can last if the infe- 
 riors do not respect their superiors. The strongest 
 confirmation of this law is seen in the actual degra- 
 da-tion, when, in default of love, every one obeys 
 mere force. And yet our revolutionary pride laments 
 the so-called servility of our ancestors, though they 
 could love the chiefs they obeyed. The second 
 then of our social maxims is common to all times 
 eQ[ually. The first really dates from the Middle 
 Ages. Antiquity almost universally thought other- 
 wise, with here and there a happy exception. Its 
 favourite aphorism is sufficient evidence — Mankind 
 is born for the few. We find then that the social 
 harmony rests on the combined activity of our two 
 b(ist altruistic instincts, respectively adapted to the 
 iDferiors and superiors in their relations with one 
 another. This concurrence, however, can only exist 
 and be permanent where men are prepared for it 
 by the habitual exercise of the most energetic, 
 though the lowest, of our three sympathetic in- 
 stincts, an habitual exercise which depends on 
 the legitimate development of our home afiections. 
 The primary condition foi" the attainment of this 
 result, the harmony, viz., of society, is the sepa- 
 ration of the spiritual and temporal powers. To 
 s(icure the devotion of the strong to the weak, 
 
 z2 
 
 m 
 
I 
 
 340 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 we must amongst the strong have a class whose 
 social ascendancy depends entirely on their devoting 
 themselves to the weak, as a return for the venera- 
 tion freely given by the weak. Thus it is that the 
 priesthood becomes the soul of true sociocracy. 
 It is of course implied that the priesthood limit 
 itself to counsel, and never exercise command. 
 
 This is why I laid such stress on complete renun- 
 ciation by the priesthood of power and even of 
 wealth. The better to secure this, the priests must 
 also abstain from deriving any material profit from 
 their work, whether it take the shape of lectures or 
 books; they must subsist solely on their annual 
 stipends. The central budget of the priesthood will, 
 with certain exceptions, provide for the printing of 
 all their works. All that will be required is the sig- 
 nature of the author. He will have the control of 
 their distribution, as being the best judge in the 
 case, and thus he will be constantly responsible. 
 The priest who sells his books or his lectures will 
 be severely punished, even with the loss of his posi- 
 tion on the third offence. 
 
 Still more to purify the priesthood, it must have 
 no power to crush- any opinions contrary to its own. 
 For this reason the Positivist regime will always 
 require full liberty»of exposition and even of dis- 
 cussion. This is but reasonable where the doctrines 
 are throughout demonsti-able. The only admissible 
 restriction of this liberty is public opinion. As a 
 consequence of a sound education, which is common 
 to all, men will, of themselves, reject doctrines 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 341 
 
 wklch are contrary to any of their convictions. 
 We may see to what an extent this will be the case 
 by the discipline already unconsciously exercised by 
 the Positive faith. It has no power to constrain 
 men, and yet exerts a control in the case of the 
 lea«iing doctrines of modern science. If there is no 
 legal hindrance to any opposition, then no one can 
 complain reasonably if the public rejects his teach- 
 ino;. Such are the conditions of the priesthood. 
 And under these conditions it will be compelled to 
 pei-suade or convince, if it wish to exercise any real 
 influence on great and small equally. 
 
 The TTomaTi.— The interference of the priesthood 
 in civil life must mainly be directed to regulate the 
 habitual relations of the patriciate and proletariate. 
 I would wish you, my father, to explain in detail 
 its office on this essential point. 
 
 The Priest.— 1 must begin, my daughter, by a 
 more detailed exposition of the constitution of 
 modern industry in the normal state. Its organiza- 
 tion depends on two general conditions. We can 
 trace their existence even at the close of the Middle 
 Ages, and they have been in constant growth ever 
 since. The first is— the distinction of masters and 
 workmen; the second is— the hierarchy of the 
 pfitriciate, and, as a consequence, that of the pro- 
 letariate. Add the subordination of the country 
 districts to the towns, and the organization is 
 
 complete. 
 
 On the abolition of serfage, industry became suffi- 
 ciently strong to dispense with the system of work- 
 
f 
 
 342 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 ing to order. It anticipated the public demand. 
 This of itself involved a separation of the masters 
 {entrepreneurs) from the simple workmen. The pro- 
 gress of the two classes was distinct. Gradually, in 
 its course, there arose the normal hierarchy already 
 indicated in our woi-ship. First comes the agricul- 
 turist; then the manufacturer; next the merchant; 
 the last step is the banker. Each of the four rests 
 on the class that precedes it. Where the operations 
 are more indirect and the agents more carefully 
 selected and in smaller numbers, a greater breadth 
 of view and power of abstraction are required, and 
 the responsibility is greater. The classification 
 above given was spontaneously adopted ; it is sys- 
 tematized by Positivism in accordance with the 
 principle of its hierarchy. Thus the normal co-ordi- 
 nation of indiLstry is a continuation of the same 
 process which was found applicable in the first place 
 to science, then to art. 
 
 If this industrial hierarchy is to have a powerful 
 influence on society, the patriciate must be concen- 
 trated as far as is consistent with each patrician's 
 himself administering his afiairs within the limits 
 of his personal superintendence. This secures two 
 objects : it lessens the expenses of management, and 
 it ensures responsibility. In this point the true 
 interest of the workmen entirely coincides with 
 the natural tendencies of their superiors. For 
 great duties require great means. The existing 
 disorder is greatly aggravated by the jealous ambi- 
 tion of the smaller capitalists, and their blind con- 
 
 il 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 343 
 
 tempt of the people. When they are regenerated, 
 under the joint stimulus of circumstances and con- 
 victions, the higher members will be absorbed into 
 the patriciate, the great body into the proletariate, 
 so as to put an end to the middle classes properly 
 
 so called. 
 
 The IFbmaTi.— This necessary concentration of 
 riches is even now, my father, desired by the pro- 
 letaries of our large towns, as a real social benefit. 
 The country population still clings to an almost 
 indefinite dispersion of property. But the attain- 
 ment of this concentration must largely depend on 
 the hereditary transmission of property. Would 
 you now complete the remarks on this point which 
 you made when explaining the worship 1 They do 
 not appear to me adequate. 
 
 The Priest— We must, my daughter, connect 
 the hereditary transmission with a more general 
 piinciple, with the principle which is to regulate, 
 in the normal state, the succession of all function- 
 aiies whatever. The method of election was only 
 iiLtroduced as a protest, and, for a long time, a ne- 
 cessary protest, against the caste system, which had 
 finally become oppressive. In itself the choice of 
 the superior by the inferior is, in all cases, tho- 
 roughly anarchical. It has never been of use ex- 
 cept as a means of breaking up a defective social 
 order. The final state must, in this respect, differ 
 from the primitive state of mankind only so far, 
 that it substitutes for the hereditary succession of 
 theocracy, which was founded on birth, the heredi- 
 
 * I 
 
i^ 
 
 I 
 
 344 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 tary succession of sociocracy, which is, in all cases, 
 the result of the free initiative of each func- 
 tionary. 
 
 The whole system of checks and complications, to 
 which distrust gives rise, ends after all in irrespon- 
 sibility. Perfect confidence and complete respon- 
 sibility, such are the two characteristics of the 
 Positive system. He who worthily discharges any 
 function whatever is always the best judge of his 
 successor. He names him, but submits his nomi- 
 nation to his own superior. In the spiritual order 
 alone, the choice is vested in the supreme head, 
 with the view of obtaining the requisite concentra- 
 tion in an oflfice of such difficulty. 
 
 For the highest temporal functions, there can of 
 course be no control of a superior. Its natural 
 substitute is the examination of the appointment 
 by the priesthood and the public. This is the 
 ground on which the chief must solemnly nominate 
 his successor, at the time when he receives, as you 
 are aware, the sacrament of retirement, at an age 
 that is when his choice need not be final, but 
 may be modified on suitable advice. In excep- 
 tional cases, the priesthood may refuse this sacra- 
 ment, and so prevent a man who was morally 
 or intellectually unworthy exercising this last act 
 of power. 
 
 From the social point of view we look on wealth 
 as a power. It must pass then by the same general 
 rules as all other powers. The free choice of an 
 heir, involved in the full liberty of devising and 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 345 
 
 adopting, offers the best remedy against ordinary 
 abuses. Indeed each one in this way becomes re- 
 spmsible if his successor is bad, whereas under the 
 French law it can be no reproach to him. We 
 need not fear that the inheritance will generally 
 fall to one of the sons, supposing them all to be 
 really incapable. The industrial chiefs aim at per- 
 petuating their houses in proper hands, and this 
 lefids them often to choose their successors out of 
 their own family. This, at the present day, they 
 can only do by sacrificing their daughters. Thus, 
 the hereditary succession of sociocraxjy, so far from 
 lessening the power of wealth, is more favourable 
 to it than that of theocracy, at the same time that 
 it largely increases its moral responsibility. 
 
 The Woman.— After this explanation, my father, 
 I feel sufficiently to understand the temporal con- 
 stitution of the Positive regiTne. You may proceed 
 to the direct consideration of the manner in which 
 the priesthood of Humanity will, as a general 
 rule, interfere in civil conflicts. 
 
 The Priest. — ^With a view to the clearer appre- 
 ciation of this, the highest attribute of the priest- 
 hood, it will be as well, my daughter, to begin by 
 giving you the statistics of the patriciate when it is 
 regularly organized throughout the West. Two 
 thousand bankers, a hundred thousand merchants, 
 two hundred thousand manufacturers, four hundred 
 tliousand agriculturists,— such are the numbers 
 sufficient, in my judgment, to provide industrial 
 chiefs for the hundred and twenty millions who 
 
 J 
 
346 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 inhabit Western Europe. In the Lands of this 
 small number of patricians will be concentrated the 
 capital of the West. Their task is to direct its 
 employment. They are subject to no control, and 
 must act on their owd moral responsibility, and 
 in the interest of a proletai-iate of thirty-three 
 times their number. 
 
 In each separate republic, the government pro- 
 perly so called, that is to say, the supreme temporal 
 power, will be vested exclusively in three bankers. 
 The three will have their separate departments ; 
 they will represent commerce, manufactures, agri- 
 culture. Before these two hundred triumvirs the 
 Western priesthood, acting under the direction of 
 the High Priest of Humanity, will lay in proper 
 form the legitimate claims of an immense prole- 
 tariate. The exceptional class, which is in the 
 habit of habitually studying the future and the 
 past, concentrates its care on the present. It speaks 
 to the living in the name of those who have lived, 
 and in the interest of those who are to live. 
 
 The Woman. — Your language, my father, seems 
 to me never to depart from a sound estimate of 
 human existence in its manifold forms. By making 
 all citizens social functionaries, on the ground that 
 all their respective offices are really useful. Positiv- 
 ism ennobles obedience and strengthens power. 
 Every form of active life has its due honour, as par- 
 ticipating in the promotion of the public welfare, 
 and as no longer limited to a purely private purpose. 
 Now to effect this wholesome change, the priesthood 
 
 I 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 347 
 
 never need appeal to an enthusiasm which can only 
 be exceptional. Enough if it can lead men gene- 
 rally to form an accurate judgment of what is really 
 habitually the case. 
 
 Tlie Priest, — It is a primary principle of Posi- 
 tivism, that man's labour is necessarily gratuitous. 
 Tliis gives us, my daughter, a powerful means of 
 developing the feelings and convictions which are 
 suited to each class of society. When wages are no 
 longer viewed as paying the value of the func- 
 tionary, but simply as replacing the materials he 
 consumes, the merit of each individual stands out 
 more clearly in the eyes of all. The priesthood 
 finds it easier to accomplish its most important 
 social duty. This duty is to put forward openly 
 its abstract classification founded on its intellectual 
 and moral appreciation of the individual, and so to 
 counterbalance the concrete classification necessi- 
 tated by social subordination. If properly drawn 
 out, the contrast between the two views will recall 
 the superiors to a better disposition towards their 
 inferiors; for it will lead them to see that their 
 own elevation depends more on their position than 
 on their deserts. True, it is the subjective life alone 
 tliat can really ensure the preponderance of the 
 classification by merit, without involving any sub- 
 versive tendency. Still this contrast, emanating 
 from the religious body, will place in a truer light 
 the official classification, whilst it in no degree 
 lessens the respect due to it. 
 
 But, at the same time, the priesthood will make 
 
 i' 
 
 H 
 
i 
 
 t? 
 
 « 
 
 ^ 
 
 348 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 the proletary body deeply conscious of the real 
 advantages of their social condition. Their minds 
 will be prepared by a wise education, and they will 
 be under the constant influence of home affections. 
 To them then there will be no difficulty in proving 
 the perfect soundness of the admirable maxim of 
 the great Comeille : — 
 
 On va d'un pas plus ferme ^ suivre qu'^ conduire. 
 Our step is finner when we follow than when we lead. 
 
 The happiness that springs from a noble submis- 
 sion and from the legitimate absence of respon- 
 sibility will be appreciated by the proletaries, when 
 family life shall have been properly organized in 
 the class which is best qualified thoroughly to enjoy 
 it. The proletariate will feel that the main office 
 of the patriciate is to secure to all the peaceable 
 enjoyment of the satisfactions of home, on which our 
 true happiness chiefly depends. There will be less 
 scope for such satisfactions in the case of the spi- 
 ritual or temporal rulers of society. And the vast 
 responsibility which prevents their enjoying them, 
 will make their exalted position more an object of 
 pity than of envy. For the only compensation for 
 this responsibility is in their more largely con- 
 ducing to the public welfare. This noble reward 
 requires, for its thorough enjoyment, a high order of 
 mind, rare at all times in the patrician body, and 
 not common even in the priesthood. Within due 
 limits, then, we must acquiesce in the vulgar grati- 
 fications of pride or vanity. They are generally 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 349 
 
 the only stimulants of sufficient strength to call out 
 the zeal requisite for command and coimsel. 
 
 The Woman. — I should be glad, my father, to 
 have a more accurate idea of this essential function 
 of those who freely administer the capital of the 
 race. I should like, that is, to see how the patri- 
 cijins are to secure the proletary the Mr develop* 
 ment of his home existence, the first guarantee of 
 order in the normal state. 
 
 The Priest. — All you have to do, my daughter, 
 is to look on every one in the first place as possess- 
 ing property, then as receiving wages. Every pro- 
 letary must possess as his own all the materials 
 wMch are in constant use, and the use of which 
 cannot be common, whether they be required 
 by himself or his family. It is clear that we may 
 g(jt so far as a rule, and in no other way can we 
 ensure order in practical life. But we are as yet 
 far from this point. Many estimable men are not 
 owners of the furniture they daily use, some not 
 even of the clothes they wear. As for their dwell- 
 ings, you well know that most proletaries are rather 
 in the position of soldiers under tents, than of 
 citizens with houses, in our anarchical towns. All, 
 however, that would be required would be, not to 
 sell entire houses as is now usually done, but to sell 
 them in apartments, as we see done in some towns. 
 Every family of the people would then be the abso- 
 bite proprietor of its dwelling, on payment of a 
 slightly increased rent for some years. 
 
 Our private worship and our private life fix the 
 
 i 
 
350 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 i 
 
 I; 
 
 111 
 
 limits of the dwelling. And they also show how 
 important it is that it should be permanent. For 
 without permanence, we may say that the first 
 revolution in man's existence, that by which he 
 passed from the life of the nomad to a sedentary life, 
 is incomplete. The permanence of the dwelling 
 naturally will influence the stability of all indus- 
 trial relations, by suppressing a fatal tendency to a 
 vagabond life. Positive religion sanctions the full 
 liberty of man to give or withhold his co-operation, 
 but not the less does it make it a duty for every 
 one not to change his inferiors or superioi-s without 
 serious grounds. Even to change capriciously the 
 shops we deal with is blameable, tending as it does 
 to disturb the economy of their operations, which 
 presupposes some degree of steadiness in their cus- 
 tomers. 
 
 As for wages paid at fixed periods, they must be 
 regularly divided into two unequal parts. The first 
 pai-t, independent of the actual results of the labour, 
 must pay the discharge of a given duty. The second 
 must depend on the results obtained. Otherwise you 
 cannot secure the workmen against the effects of 
 inten-uptions for which they are in no way respon- 
 sible, whilst at the same time you give their chiefs 
 free scope for the various industrial improvements, 
 especially improvements in machinery. Machinery, 
 which raises the moral dignity of the workman and 
 gives him increased efficiency, may then spread 
 freely, and be open to no objection on social 
 grounds. The proportion of the fixed salary to 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 351 
 
 that which varies must differ in different branches 
 of industry, in obedience to laws which it rests with 
 the patriciate to discover and apply. 
 
 The Woman. — I do not doubt the healthful in- 
 fluence of this normal order, and yet, my father, I 
 fee], that the instinct of destruction, stimulating the 
 other egoistic tendencies, will always occasion some 
 conflicts amongst the Western nations, even when 
 regenerated. I must ask you, then, how is the 
 priijsthood to interfere in these inevitable discus- 
 sions 'i 
 
 Tlie Priest. — In the first place, it will endeavour, 
 my daughter, to prevent them as far as possible, by 
 the wise use of its spiritual discipline. The differ- 
 ence between this discipline and the temporal is 
 mainly this. The spiritual brings into play our 
 good instincts, whilst the temporal contends with 
 the bad. It is positive rather than negative in its 
 action; it corrects by comparison rather than by 
 corapression ; it rewards the good rather than 
 punishes the bad. And yet, at need it can be 
 severe, as I have already explained. 
 
 By the use of all the means at its disposal, as a 
 spiritual power, it will often prevent, or if not, will 
 soon repair, the civil conflicts which result from the 
 practical activity of man, under the natural play of 
 egoistic passions. The whole of Positive religion 
 tends to inculcate the truth, that, as society only 
 exists by virtue of free co-operation, no lasting com- 
 promise is possible, nor any legitimate modification, 
 unless as the result of the voluntary assent of the 
 
 m 
 
 
^ 
 
 <^' 
 
 352 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 different classes wHch co-operate. The greatest of 
 all social revolutions, the gradual abolition of 
 slavery in Europe, was effected in the Middle Ages, 
 without a single insurrection. Still, as from the 
 imperfection of our mental organization the priest* 
 hood will not always be able to secure due respect 
 for the will of man, it must ultimately exert itself 
 to moderate when it cannot prevent the struggle. 
 Its general rule, in accordance with the nature of 
 modern civilization, is this. It must brand as 
 radically wrong, as equally anarchical and retro- 
 grade, all recourse to arms either on the one side or 
 the other. In the industrial society, material con- 
 tests, when inevitable, must be decided by wealth, 
 whether in the hands of the few or of the many, 
 never by personal violence. This must be reserved 
 for criminals in the strict sense. We never 
 ought to use force except against acts which are 
 unanimously disapproved, disapproved even by those 
 who commit them. 
 
 The destructive instinct is always susceptible of 
 this change. In fact, the change has already taken 
 place, for the most part, in the case of chronic 
 violations of order, such as strikes, even where lar^e 
 masses are concerned. It remains to introduce it 
 systematically, and to extend it to acute distur- 
 bances of the social system. Persecution formerly 
 attacked life, it now habitually respects even per- 
 sonal liberty; it attacks property, so that it is 
 easier to avoid it and to remedy it. So in crime 
 murder has given way to theft. There is ground 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 353 
 
 for hope, then, that Positive religion will bring men 
 to decide their most vehement disputes without any 
 war properly so called, even between citizens. This 
 fimd change will be rendered much easier by the 
 normal restriction of the several republics, as the 
 po^7er of the patriciate will increase side by side 
 with the increase of independence in the proletariate. 
 
 The Woman. — Great as is the value of this 
 change in the character of material contests, it seems 
 to me, my father, more advantageous to the supe- 
 riors than to the inferiors. The workmen are to 
 renounce, you say, all use of force, and to limit 
 themselves to a struggle of purses. If they do so, 
 they seem to me to do an act of great generosity in 
 the interest of society, not but that there is ample 
 reason for their so acting. 
 
 ]But I am afraid that by joining issue on the 
 ground where the masters are the strongest, they 
 will often be victims to the selfishness of the rich, 
 even supposing that they have everywhere obtained 
 what is but simply just, viz., the liberty to form coali- 
 tions at their pleasure, so that there be no violence. 
 Th<3 social power which the plebeians derive from 
 their just refusal as a body to co-operate in industrial 
 operations will be inadequate. The immense capital 
 of the rich will enable them ultimately to triumph 
 over the most legitimate resistance. The priest- 
 hood will, of course, give great strength to the com- 
 binations of workmen by its sanction. I still, 
 ho\v^ever, fear that the predominance of wealth will 
 be abused. 
 
 A A 
 

 354 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 The Priest. — You may take courage, my daughter, 
 by considering first of all the habitual influence of 
 the priesthood on the patriciate, resulting from 
 close personal relations. According to our statis- 
 tical survey, the regular number of bankers, in the 
 West, is the same as that of the Positivist temples. 
 Each temple will be naturally under the temporal 
 protectorate of the adjacent banker, who will be 
 commissioned by the triumvirate of the State to 
 transmit the priests their stipends. There will be 
 frequent intercourse between the priests and the 
 principal industrial chiefs, so as to revive in an 
 especial degree in these last the feelings of venera- 
 tion which resulted from their own education, and 
 which have been continued by the education of 
 their children. 
 
 TJie Woinan. — Allow me to interrupt you a 
 minute, my father, on the subject of this last source 
 of influence. Our encyclopedic instruction is never 
 to be compulsory. The rich then will refuse, from 
 a foolish pride, to let their sons share in it, and still 
 more their daughters. They renounce, of course, 
 the sacraments which follow on the education and 
 the social weight it will carry. If so, the personal 
 influence you speak of would be essentially nothing 
 more than the involuntary deference everywhere 
 paid to ability and virtue. 
 
 The Priest. — Your incidental objection has more 
 force in it, my daughter, than you think. Still I 
 shall find it not difficult to remove it. Attendance 
 on Positivist schools is not necessaiy for admission 
 
 % 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 355 
 
 to the social sacraments, or even to our public ex- 
 aminations. The only question asked will be, is 
 the instruction real and adequate 1 — not, where does 
 it come from 1 Only, where the instruction has not 
 been given by the priesthood, the priests will have 
 to ta.ke greater pains in getting their information 
 as to the moral character of the candidate. Such 
 information will always be as indispensable as the 
 judgment on intellectual ability. 
 
 Notwithstanding this full liberty of instruction, 
 which will have the further result of increasing the 
 zeal of our professors, the official schools will never 
 be deserted by the rich, unless the priesthood dege- 
 nerate. For the rich will not wish their children 
 to have less instruction than the mass of the people, 
 and yet they will not be able to get them so good 
 an education, even at a great cost, in private. In- 
 deed the priesthood will naturally absorb the best 
 professors, and their functions will prevent them 
 giving private instruction, to say nothing of its 
 being, as you are aware, strictly forbidden. The 
 pri\'ate masters must recruit their members from 
 these who are incapable of becoming priests or even 
 vica,rs. The result will be that their lectures will 
 be in permanent disrepute. 
 
 The Woman. — Your explanation quite sets me at 
 easfj, my father, as to any aristocratic dislike of a 
 common education. So I beg you to resume your 
 imptortant appreciation of the peculiar influence 
 which the priesthood of Positivism exerts over the 
 industrial chiefs to prevent, or, if that is not 
 
 aa2 
 
356 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 possible, to remedy the more serious practical dis- 
 putes. 
 
 TJie Priest, — Over and above its personal rela- 
 tions with the highest patrician class, whose influ- 
 ence will be great on the rest, the priesthood will 
 everywhere find, my daughter, special allies. This 
 it will do by a suitable reorganization of a volun- 
 tary protectorate. The institution of knighthood 
 is in no way exclusively adapted to the military 
 form of existence. On the contrary, the principle 
 of brute force, the essential principle of the military 
 regime, shackled the admirable development of 
 chivalry in the Middle Ages. Positivism adopts 
 the institution of knighthood, and gives it a better 
 form. Properly modified, it is still more adapted 
 to the Positive regime than to the Catholic-feudal. 
 The protection emanating from the order of knight- 
 hood in Positivism must in the main be given in 
 the form of money, but it will often call forth a 
 devotion which, though less striking than that seen 
 in feudal times, will be more efiectual, and also 
 more susceptible of due regulation. Many indus- 
 trial chiefs, especially amongst the bankers, will in 
 early life enrol themselves as members of a free 
 association, which shall have at its disposal enormous 
 wealth, and either on its own impulse, or on an appeal 
 from the priesthood, shall generously interfere in 
 the more important contests. The noble protection 
 of this society will not be limited to oppressed 
 proletaries. It will also secure priests against all 
 tyranny of the temporal power. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 357 
 
 TJ^e Womcm. — ^With this valuable institution, it 
 seems to me, my father, that the sum of the means 
 at the disposal of the priests of Humanity is com- 
 plete — the means by which they are enabled duly 
 to regulate the mutual relations of the citizens. 
 You may proceed to explain to me the normal mode 
 of the priesthood's intervention in international 
 questions. 
 
 Tlie Priest. — Such questions must fall into dis- 
 tinct classes, my daughter. We must first take the 
 case of Positivist populations ; secondly, that of the 
 populations which have not yet adopted the true 
 religion. The first case simply requires us to 
 enlarge the views already stated, and may therefore 
 be soon settled. Nay, it is even true that the in- 
 fluence of the priesthood in the sphere of inter- 
 national relations is at once more easily brought to 
 bear, and with more decisive results. The existing 
 States will soon be broken up, and the great Western 
 Republic will be divided into sixty independent 
 Republics, which will have nothing in common but 
 theii- spiritual organization. There never will arise 
 within the limits of this Western Republic any 
 temjioral power with universal dominion, answering 
 to the phantom emperor of the Middle Ages, who 
 was for Catholicism nothing but an element of dis- 
 turbance, empirically introduced from the Roman 
 system. In the new order, all collective action 
 will be temporary, and as such will be directed by 
 the national triumvirates acting for the time in con- 
 cert. Any practical institutions which are meant to 
 
358 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 v: 
 
 
 be really universal, are, by that very fact, reserved 
 for the priesthood, for no other power can override 
 national rivalries sufficiently to secure the adoption 
 of such institutions. The particular governments 
 only interfere to aid in their foundation by finding 
 the requisite money. This is the way in which an 
 uniform system of moneys, weights, and measures 
 may readily and peaceably meet with universal 
 acceptance. 
 
 The sixty republics of the regenerated West 
 will, in the normal state, have no other habitual 
 bond of union but their common education, their 
 community of manners and customs, and their 
 common festivals. In a word, their union will be 
 religious, not political. Allowance must be made 
 for the historical relations resulting from previous 
 aggregations. But these will soon be forgotten in 
 the new connexion, unless they rest on community 
 of language. The High Priest of Humanity will 
 be, more truly than any medieval Pope, the only 
 real head of the Western world. He will have it 
 in his power, if it be necessary, to concentrate the 
 action of the whole priesthood so as to repress any 
 tyrannical triumvirate. He will be able also to 
 call on the neighbouring knights for aid, and on all 
 neutral governments for their peaceful mediation. 
 If industrial contests are inevitable, he can, if he 
 sees proper, secure for the combinations of the 
 workmen an extension which must decide the issue, 
 for he can bring to their aid all their fellow- 
 workmen in the West, even when they do not 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 359 
 
 belong to the branch of industry which is actually 
 threatened. And conversely, if the priesthood in 
 any case blame the conduct of the workmen, or 
 even simply refuse its approval, the masters will find 
 it easy to overcome any unwarranted resistance. 
 
 The Woman.— AW that is left, my father, is to 
 determine what are the systematic relations of the 
 population that has embraced Positivism with the 
 nations that have not yet done so. 
 
 The Priest. — Looking at the close connexion 
 formed by the Catholic-feudal system, which 
 throughout Western Europe followed on the Roman 
 incorporation, you may see, my daughter, that the 
 new faith will prevail simultaneously in the whole 
 of Western Europe, including in this term its 
 vari.ous colonial appendages, and especially Ame- 
 rica. The progress of the Positive spirit in science, 
 in art, and in industry leads to convergence far 
 more powerfully than the disruption of Catho- 
 licism, and even an undue nationality, lead to 
 divergence. But the vast spiritual repubHc thus 
 formed scarcely comprises the fifth part of our race. 
 It is important then to consider in outline the 
 method by which the West, when regenerate, 
 must gradually bring into communion with it all 
 the inhabitants of our planet. 
 
 Once let the reorganization of the West be fairly 
 secure, and a noble proselytism will become the 
 principal collective occupation of the Positive 
 priesthood. No claim of the temporal power is 
 valid against the evidently exclusive claim of the 
 
 
t 
 
 I 
 
 360 
 
 THIRD PABT. 
 
 
 pnesthood to this function. If that priesthood alone 
 IS competent to regukte properly the mutual inter- 
 course of the several nations of the West, there is 
 still stronger reason for allowing that it can hare 
 no competitor in regulating still wider international 
 relations. There have been many ephemeral and 
 disastrous attempts at domination, but it is after 
 aU to the improvements in science or industrv that 
 IS really due any beneficial and permanent inter- 
 course of the West with the other portions of the 
 globe. Positivism alone, by virtue of its relative 
 character, can organise missions worthy of the name. 
 By these missions it wiU gradually unite all na- 
 tions with the unity which is its characteristic, the 
 only uu^y which is worthy of universal extension. 
 The W_This immense conversion, without 
 which the organization of Humanity would be in- 
 complete will, my father, follow some natur^ 
 course. What that course will be, I should like to 
 have explamed, in its essential features at least. 
 
 „.if5 K TT^*' "°"^'' ""^ ^''"g''*^^' i^ deter- 
 mined by the decreasing affinity of Positivism with 
 
 the several populations outside its pale. They are 
 the monotheistic, polytheistic, and lastly the fetich- 
 ist natrons. But the cases that seem most un- 
 favourable, from the smaller amount of spontaneous 
 preparation, allow on the other hand a more com- 
 plete systematic interference, if we rightly apply the 
 general theory of man's transitions. The wholl 
 conversion may be efi-ected in three generations, 
 that IS, Its outline n.ay be traced,-a generation for 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 361 
 
 each of the main phases. It will be for the next 
 century to develope the various bases of uniformity, 
 which a numerous and zealous priesthood may with 
 proper assistance lay down. 
 
 We have, first, the monotheists of the East, the 
 Christian monotheists, and the Mussulman; or, 
 Russia, Turkey and Persia. In both cases, these 
 populations may be raised to the level finally 
 attained by the West, without requiring a servile 
 and hazardous imitation of the stormy and difficult 
 course necessitated by the original evolution. Even 
 at the present day, the historical theory of Posi- 
 tivism ofiers a valuable assistance to the noble 
 governments which are exerting themselves to 
 dire(;t this ascending process by keeping it clear of 
 disturbance from the West. Russia in the last cen- 
 tury put herself under the guidance of France. In 
 the present she sees that it is advisable to hold 
 aloof from France. The change is a very wise one. 
 To follow the old policy of imitation would hence- 
 forth render the Sclavonian nations liable to vio- 
 lent disturbance, whilst it would bring with it no 
 real progress, intellectual or social. 
 
 But when Paris, in its regenerate state, shall 
 have lost its revolutionary character, the Czars will 
 look to it for the ideas and for the assistance they 
 need in their great work. Their noble instinct 
 leads them to be zealous in peaceably ameliorating 
 the internal condition of their vast empire. They 
 will wish for aid in systematically acting on that 
 instinct. Positivism will not urge them to imitate 
 
362 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 363 
 
 fi 
 
 i 
 
 
 a past which can never return. But it will urge 
 them to form a sounder estimate of their pecu- 
 liar advantages. For instance, it was necessary 
 in France to break up the great feudal fortunes as 
 a step to the advent of a new patriciate, to be fos- 
 tered under the ephemeral ascendancy of the middle 
 classes. In Russia, on the contrary, it is im- 
 portant at the present day to maintain the concen- 
 tration of wealth which is desirable in the final 
 state, and which we shall have great difficulty in 
 returning to in France. A wise autoci^t will 
 limit his efforts to the substitution of the industrial 
 lor the military character. The basis for this 
 change is already laid in the permanence of general 
 peace, on which we may calculate for the future 
 
 The Woman—The influence of Positivist sug- 
 gestions, my father, may powerfully afi-ect Russia 
 for Russia resembles the West in point of religion' 
 Turkey and Persia have not yet reached the mono- 
 gamic state. They afford less scope, then, for in- 
 tervention. 
 
 The Priest.^ At the present moment, my 
 daughter, polygamy is of more common occurrence 
 at Paris than at Constantinople. Islamism has in 
 lact, undergone the same dissolving process as Catho- 
 licism. Besides, we form in general very ex- 
 aggerated ideas of the difference of manners and 
 opimons in the Eastern and Western nations. 
 That we do so is clear from the instinctive tendency 
 of the Mussulman nations to put themselves under 
 our guidance. 
 
 The incomparable Mahomet rejected the separa- 
 tion of the spiritual and temporal power. He did 
 so the more easily to constitute his military theo- 
 cracy. He had at the same time a feeling that 
 this great improvement of the social order was 
 premature, as being incompatible with the theolo- 
 trical principle. It was natural at that time that 
 he should look on such an attempt as confined to 
 the West. Even in the West its ultimate failure 
 would long be a source of serious danger. If then 
 Islamism deprived the Eastern nations of the 
 admirable progress effected under the impulse of 
 Catholicism in the Middle Ages, it has preserved 
 them, since that time, from the transitional anarchy 
 from which we have suffered these five last cen- 
 turies, and which even now is the origin of so many 
 obstacles. Thanks to their regime, Mussulmans are, 
 in the main, exempt from metaphysicians and even 
 from lawyers. Positivism will dissuade them from a 
 disastrous imitation, and will enable them fully to 
 appreciate this capital advantage, which may be a 
 powerful aid in their final regeneration. 
 
 fJie Woman.— I understand, my father, our re- 
 lation to Islamism, though I had missed the prin- 
 ciple on which it rests, from want of a competent 
 knowledge of your theory of history. But for the 
 polytheists, and they are nearly half the human 
 race, it would surprise me much if our faith were 
 shown to be equally susceptible of an immediate 
 efficacy. The distance between us and them is too 
 great. 
 
 it,." 
 
364 
 
 THIKD PART. 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 365 
 
 1 
 
 U 
 
 
 k: 
 
 Z^onl rr """^ *° ^''^ p^'y*"^-* *ha; ^ 
 
 , "'onotteist, for we may spare the polytheist a 
 longer and harder transition. If left to\h ir otn 
 course, the polytheistic nations would be"n Z 
 ^su^g hro„g, „„„„,,^.^^.^ »^2 
 
 i^y they are indisposed to this, when they see 
 th coniplete discredit which ha« attached ZZ 
 nothe^m, for the last century at lea.t, in the W^st 
 and even jn the East. But the Pos tive reljl 
 W.U enable them to dispense with any sue W 
 pncaJ cou..e. It will take special nJasures f!r 
 ^abhng them to pass directly to the final religion 
 Monotheism is absolutely indispensable only in the 
 2Th "'T ''^^ •'°y^ -" unconsc out 
 
 ^.e. iestho^rririin;:!^^^^ 
 
 Jor their leadmg doctrines may be tmnsformed into 
 Positive conceptions, with a species of theolo^ 
 colouring, which might soon be removed. ^ 
 
 few """7"-^^" f^*^''!''^*^ ^e. it is true, but 
 few n number, but their state seems to me my 
 father, so far removed from ours that J cannol 
 conceive it possible to raise them rapidly tothe 
 level of the West, which is the final stal ' ' 
 
 The i'm.i-Though few in number, my daughter 
 they occupy m the centre of Africa a vast rSon' 
 " ye wholly out of the reach of our civili^Son 
 For It to i^h them, it will require a sustained effort 
 
 on the part of the priesthood of Positivism. The 
 noble missionaries of our faith will find in Africa 
 the greatest stimulus to exert their intellect, and 
 the fairest field for their active zeal. They will set 
 themselves the task of spreading among the simple 
 African populations the Universal religion. There 
 will be no intermediate step, they will not be re- 
 quired to pass through either monotheism or even 
 polytheism. That the success of the efibrt is pos- 
 sible, is the consequence of the profound affinity 
 between Positivism and Fetichism. The difierence 
 in doctrine is that fetichism confuses activity and 
 life, the difference in worship is that fetichism 
 woL'ships materials instead of products. 
 
 In the initiation of man, whether it be sponta- 
 neous or systematic, fetichism is the only form of 
 the theological or fictitious regime which cannot be 
 avoided. This is because both for the race and the 
 individual it comes at a period when we are inca- 
 pable of reflection. The other two preliminary 
 phases, polytheism and monotheism, may be spared 
 where the evolution is completely systematic. If 
 we thought it an object to preserve our children 
 from polytheism, we could do so by prolonging the 
 fetichist state, till by gradual modifications it issued 
 in Positivism. But in our children's case the 
 efi'ort would be uncalled for, not to speak of its 
 tendency to disturb the natural development of 
 the human imagination. The case is quite difierent 
 with the evolution of the nations of central Africa. 
 There the direct transformation of fetichism 
 
 k « ^ • •• 
 
ll 
 
 f 
 
 If 
 
 366 
 
 THIRD PART. 
 
 into Positivism would lead to most sound and 
 valuable results, not merely for the African tribes, 
 but for the whole of mankind. 
 
 The Woman.— Ohq last remark, my father, you 
 must allow me on these vast intellectual and social 
 metamorphoses, which give such an interest to the 
 most extended relations of men, which have hitherto 
 been always stained by selfishness and empiricism. 
 I in no way share the barbarous prejudices of the 
 white race against the black, yet I scarcely venture 
 to hope that the universaHty of the Positive faith 
 wiU not be hampered to an indefinite extent by the 
 difiference of race. 
 
 The Priest.— The true biological theory of the 
 races of men, my daughter, is a consequence of the 
 conception of Blainville. He represents their dif- 
 ferences as varieties, which had their origin in the 
 aggregate of circumstances, but which subsequently 
 became fixed and hereditary when they had reached 
 their greatest intensity. Adopting this ^dew, we 
 may subjectively construct a theory which shall 
 meet the only diflTerences which the objective study of 
 the question establishes. In reality, there are but 
 three cUstinct races, the white, the yellow, and the 
 black. 
 
 Indeed, no essential and permanent diflferences 
 could be developed, except as regards the relative 
 preponderance of the three essential constituents of 
 the brain, its speculative, active, and aflTective 
 organs. We have then, of necessity, three races to 
 correspond with these difl-erences. Each of the 
 
 THE LIFE. 
 
 367 
 
 three has its point of superiority. It is superior 
 either in intellect, or in activity, or in feeling. 
 This conclusion is confirmed by all sound observa- 
 tion. This final judgment must put an en j^ all 
 mutual contempt. It must also make thSi see 
 how efficacious their concert might be to complete 
 the constitution of the real Great Being. 
 
 W^hen by our labours we shall have made our 
 planet uniformly healthy, these organic distinctions 
 will have a tendency to disappear, as a result partly 
 of their natural origin, but especially of inter- 
 marriage. The increasing fusion of the races will, 
 under the systematic direction of the Universal 
 priesthood, procure us the most precious of all im- 
 provements, one which bears on the whole of our 
 cerebral constitution, which will become by this 
 means more adapted for thought, for action, and 
 even for love. 
 

 I 
 
 ; ■^•- 
 
 ^ 
 
 THE GEXEEAL HISTORY OF EELIGIOK 
 
 CONVERSATION XII. 
 
 TU Wmrnn.-'^^ two last convemtions have 
 a strong attraction for me, my father. Durina your 
 explanation of the worship, the doctrine, and the 
 hfe, I have often felt the want of historical know- 
 ledge as a complement of that explanation. Even 
 
 final state, the state in which the religion of Hu 
 
 2^4""^ "^ *" '"P'"'"^'' '"^^''^'^ "^ ^" <^- long 
 and difficult preparation, and that such preparation 
 
 was above all necessary in evexy case of origina" 
 
 evolution But partial gUmpses such as thes^ ex- 
 
 cite, rather than satisfy, my desire to know the 
 
 outlines of the historical theory by which you are 
 
 able so to appreciate the past as to determine the 
 
 fut^ in order to form a clear Judgment on thl 
 
 The Pna,^ The main foundation of this theory 
 my dear daughter, is the double law of mentS 
 evolu ion with which you are now familiar. You al 
 readyknowhow there follows fromit the generaldivi- 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 369 
 
 sion of the preparatory period of man's existence. 
 The first step was fetichism. The preparation was 
 can-ied on by polytheism, it was completed under 
 monotheism. It will be as well, however, before 
 we proceed further, for you to concentrate your 
 attention for a short time on this fundamental 
 principle, to convince yourself that the course which 
 at first seemed simply inevitable was really indis- 
 pensable. 
 
 Attend particularly to the necessity for the 
 intellect of such a preparation ; this is a point less 
 clearly seen than any other. If every real theory 
 necessarily rests on observation of facts, it is not 
 less certain that any connected observation of facts 
 is impossible without some theory or other. Origi- 
 nally then the human mind could find no other outlet 
 but a purely subjective method ; it must draw, that 
 is, ui)on itself for the connexion which it could not 
 set from without till after a long course of study. 
 In s\ich a case, feelhig supplies the weakness of our 
 intelligence, and finds it a principle on which to 
 explain every theory. It supposes all beings what- 
 ever actuated by certain feelings, and instinctively 
 it assimilates them to the type of man. This pri- 
 mitive philosophy is necessarily fictitious, and as 
 such merely provisional. It gives rise to a con- 
 stant antagonism between theory and practice— an 
 antagonism which undergoes gradual modifications 
 from the increasing influence of our action on our 
 intellect, but which continues during the whole of 
 the prepai-atory period. Positivism alone can end 
 
 B B 
 
 4* 
 
t 
 
 370 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 it. At the same time that man, in his speculation, 
 was attributing everything to arbitrary will, he 
 was acting on the assumption of invariable laws. 
 The knowledge of these laws, at first empirical, 
 became less and less so ; it became more and more 
 extensive, till at length it reorganized our whole 
 intellectual system. 
 
 T/ie Woman. — Previous to this explanation, my 
 father, I had not understood what purpose, philo- 
 sophically, was answered by fetichism. I had felt its 
 aptitude in regard to art. How it met our moral 
 wants seems to require no explanation. Every one 
 who has studied children to any purpose, or who 
 has even been able to see through the accounts of 
 travellers and form a true idea of savages, must 
 look on the external support which the fetichist 
 theory gives, as indispensable to us in our original 
 weakness. The fictitious regiTne is still more adapted 
 to develope in us tenderness. In this respect, it 
 is only when Positivism has reached its full matu- 
 rity that it can ofier us an equivalent for the 
 nurture of fetichism. Thus suited to our nature 
 as individuals in its threefold aspect, the primeval 
 religion must be no less adapted to our social ex- 
 istence. There was, in the earliest stage of society, 
 no other source from which it could draw the 
 community of opinion or the authority which it 
 requires. 
 
 The Priest. — To complete our theory of this 
 primary stage of our evolution, all I have to do, 
 my daughter, is to point out the law which governs 
 
 I ^ 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 371 
 
 our temporal progress. In it, as in the spiritual, 
 and for similar reasons, we see three distinct states 
 succeed one another with a necessary succession. 
 The first is simply provisional ; the second simply 
 transitional ; the third alone is definitive. Each 
 corresponds to a particular form of our activity. 
 Man's existence is in fact originally warlike. It 
 becomes ultimately completely industrial. But it 
 passes through an intermediate stage in which con- 
 quest ceases and defensive war takes its place. 
 Such clearly are the respective characteristics of 
 the civilizations of antiquity, of modem society, and 
 of the Middle Ages, which form the transition be- 
 tween the two. 
 
 In our action, as for our intellect, the course 
 taken was the only one possible. For society to be 
 strong and to develope itself, there must be labour. 
 On the other hand, the development of labour im- 
 plies the previous existence of society, just as much 
 as the development of observation implies the exis- 
 tence of some theory to give the impulse. We are in 
 a circle then. And again we escape from our 
 difficulty by a spontaneous evolution, which super- 
 sedes the necessity of any complicated preparations. 
 War is the only branch of action which fulfils this 
 condition, from the natural preponderance of the 
 instinct of destruction over that of construction. 
 To produce great results, war requires the collec- 
 tive action of large bodies. Hence it is peculiarly 
 adapted to form strongly cemented and permanent 
 associations, in wHch the sympathy is intense 
 
 bb2 
 
 r n. 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 I'l 
 
 
iil 
 
 372 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 though limited in extent. In war the sense of 
 solidarity, of a common interest, is very strong. 
 Lastly, it is only by war that can be effected the 
 formation of large States by a gradual process of 
 incorporation. The result of incorporation is to 
 confine military activity to the ruling people, and 
 to give it a higher character by giving it a noble 
 destination. There is no other method generally 
 applicable by which the aversion man at first feels 
 for all regular labour can be overcome. 
 
 When the empire acquired by war has reached a 
 certain limit, an instinctive change of policy takes 
 place. Defence becomes a more important consi- 
 deration than conquest. Thus we enter on the 
 intermediate stage, on which, whilst war keeps its 
 predominance, the foundations of industrial exis- 
 tence are laid. And the industrial form of society is 
 soon seen to be the only one susceptible of unin- 
 terrupted progress. 
 
 The Woimin.^l find, my father, man's progress 
 in the sphere of action easier to master than his 
 intellectual growth. But I am surprised at your 
 thinking that the two combined afl^ord a sufficient 
 ba^is for your theory of history. True, there is a 
 natural correspondence between them. The fic- 
 titious synthesis harmonizes with war, as Positive 
 religion harmonizes with industry. I can even see 
 that metaphysics would naturally prevail whilst 
 war was in the main defensive. Sfcill, this dyna- 
 mical conception of Humanity seems to me hardly * 
 m consonance with the statical conception of our 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 373 
 
 nature, for this places feeling above both the 
 intellect and our action. After the two laws of 
 our spiritual evolution, and after the law which 
 governs our temporal evolution, I expected a state- 
 ment of the laws which govern our affective Hfe. 
 Without it, motion and existence are to me equally 
 
 unintelligible. 
 
 The Priest— Yovi forget, my daughter, that the 
 affective region of the brain is not, as the two 
 others are, in direct communication with the outer 
 world. So that the outer world cannot act on feel- 
 ing, except through the medium of the intellect or 
 action. It is true, that the organs of affection are im- 
 mediately connected with the viscera of organic life. 
 But the moral influence of these last, to say nothing 
 of its depending on laws imperfectly known, is 
 only of importance within the range of our private 
 existence. When we come to consider society, we 
 may neglect it. And on this ground : its action is 
 neutralized as the spontaneous result of the opposite 
 forms it takes, either in any one generation, or in 
 the succession of generations. 
 
 Our opinions then and our situations constitute 
 the only normal sources of the variation in our 
 feelings which we experience in the different phases 
 of man's evolution, especially of his social evolu- 
 tion. But the general course of these variations, 
 indirect though they be, harmonizes, it must be re- 
 membered, with that of the direct changes on which 
 * they depend. To sum up the result of the evolu- 
 tion of our intellect and of our activity, we may 
 
 I 
 
 1 1 
 
 M 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
374 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 consider that they make us intellectually more syn- 
 thetical, in action more disposed to co-operation. 
 Similarly, with regard to the evolution of our affec- 
 tions, it chiefly consists in our becoming more sym- 
 pathetic. As the essential characteristic of human 
 existence is unity, the prevailing direction of our 
 progress must be towards developing the harmony 
 of the race. Thus the whole history of Humanity 
 IS necessarily condensed in the history of religion 
 The general law of man's progress, whatever the 
 point of view chosen, consists in this, that man 
 becomes more and more religious. Such is the 
 ultimate result of dynamical conceptions, which are 
 thus seen to be in perfect consonance with statical. 
 The education of the race, as that of the individual 
 is the gradual training of man to live for others. 
 
 The Wonmn. — By this last explanation, my 
 father, I am clear from all serious diflSculty as to 
 the theory of evolution, which is the ba^is of 
 the true philosophy of histoiy. You may proceed 
 then at once to explain in outline the principal 
 phases in the existence of Humanity. 
 
 TIis FriesL^To make the study easier, I would 
 urge you, my daughter, to consult frequently the 
 two tables I subjoin. {See Tables D D, at t1^ end of 
 the volume, taken from tJie '^Appeal to Conservatives " 
 Paris, 1855.) 
 
 The first point that will strike you will be the 
 entire absence of any notice of fetichism. And yet 
 this was the primeval state, and it still exists in 
 vast populations. The omission is inevitable in 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 375 
 
 consequence of the concrete character of our sy- 
 noptical view. As such it cannot include a phasis 
 of our history in which no one arose who has left 
 a name. The fetichist state can only receive its 
 due honour in our abstract system of worship. You 
 are aware how fully we shall discharge the debt 
 The chief intellectual value of fetichism is this, it 
 spontaneously originates the subjective method 
 That method, in its primary absolute form, presided 
 over the whole of the preparatory period. In its 
 relative form it will exercise increasing influence 
 over man in his normal state. The true logic, that 
 in which feelings take precedence of images and 
 signs, is of fetichist origin. There are times when 
 some strong emotion impels us to seek for the 
 causes of phenomena, the laws of which we know 
 not in order first to foresee and then to modify the 
 phenomena. At such times we attribute directly 
 to the beings with which we are concerned human 
 afi:ections; we do not look on them as subject to the 
 action of some external will. We see then that 
 fetichism is a more natural state than polytheism. 
 
 The great moral efficacy of fetichism is beyond 
 dispute. Everywhere it instinctively puts forward 
 man as the type. It inspires us with a deep sym- 
 pathy for all forms of existence, even where there is 
 the leaBt action, for it represents all forms as essen- 
 tially analogous to our own. And therefore it is 
 that this primal state of humanity is the object 
 of a keener regret than any other in those who 
 have been rudely torn from it. This is a fa^t 
 
 (II 
 
 
r 
 
 if 
 
 II 
 
 376 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 which we may verify by daily experience in the 
 unhappy Africans, who are carried to a distance 
 from their homes by the cruelty of Western nations. 
 Even from the social point of view, and this is 
 less favourable to fetichism, it ha. rendered im- 
 portant services, which the Positive worship wiU 
 duly honour. In the nomad period of man's ex- 
 •stence, its tendency to the worship of external 
 nature exerts a wholesome moderating influence on 
 the desti-uctive instinct. That instinct works 
 bhndly, and leads the hunter or the pastoral tribes 
 to destroy on a vast scale the animals or vegetables 
 m order to prepare the ground for man's action 
 Such destruction is necessary, but should not be 
 without check. But the highest service rendered 
 by fetichism is, its unconscious guidance of the race 
 through the first social revolution, the revoluZ 
 which is the basis of all subsequent ones, our tj. 
 sition from the nomad to settled life. This great 
 change, of which we but little see either the dj! 
 ficulty or the importance, certainly belongs to 
 fetichism and is the consequence of the deep attach- 
 ment It fosters for our native land 
 
 tilU Ltf ^ i-Perfection of fetichism is, that not 
 till a late period does it allow the rise of a priest 
 hood qualified to direct man's futm-e progress The 
 worship of fetichism, even when hig^ drriopeA 
 requires at first no priest. For it isf b^ its Zr ^ 
 essentially a private worship; each one may Tor- 
 ship without a mediator beings which are almost 
 always within his reach. Ultimately, howevri 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 377 
 
 priesthood arises. This is when the stars, which 
 are long without honour, come to be the principal 
 fetiches, and, as such, common to vast populations. 
 They are seen to be beyond our reach. Hence a 
 special class is formed whose duties are to transmit 
 the homage of men, and to interpret the will of the 
 fetiches. In this its last stage, fetichism borders 
 on polytheism, the origin of which in aU cases was 
 astrolatry. This is clear from the names of the 
 greater gods, which are always borrowed from the 
 stars most adapted to perpetuate the fictitious 
 
 synthesis. 
 
 The Woman.— Although the passage from one 
 system to the other cost no effort, it seems to me, 
 my father, the most difficult change for man's in- 
 tellect in the preparatory period. It requires us 
 to pass by an abrupt transition from activity to 
 inertia in our general conception of matter, otherwise 
 there would be no motive for the exertion of divine 
 
 power. 
 
 The Friest.— It is however, my daughter, a na- 
 tural step to introduce the agency of beings external 
 to matter. The mind takes this step spontaneously 
 when it reaches the second period of childhood and 
 passes from the contemplation of beings to that of 
 events, the only basis for scientific meditations. 
 Proceeding onwards, on the method originally 
 adopted, we consider phenomena as existing simul- 
 taneously in many bodies, and we still attribute 
 them to a will. But we do not identify each body 
 with a separate wUl, rather we consider that one 
 
 \ 
 
378 
 
 COXCLUSION. 
 
 II 
 
 i 
 
 will directs many bodies. Such a will must of 
 necessity be external. We must familiarize our- 
 selves with this intellectual change. Nor is this 
 difficult, as we have frequent opportunities of 
 observing it at the corresponding period in the 
 growth of each individual mind. 
 
 Be this as it may, polytheism has been the prin- 
 cipal agent in the whole preparation of man. This 
 IS true of his mental evolution, but especially true 
 of his social. In the fii^t place polytheism alone 
 gives completeness to the primitive philosophy by 
 extendmg it to our highest functions. These func- 
 tions shortly become the favourite occupation of the 
 gods. For fetichism in the main had reference to 
 the external worid, and could not distinctly com- 
 prehcnd our intellectual and moml nature. On the 
 «)ntrar7, these were the soun;e from which it drew 
 lis explanations of physical facts. But when we 
 introduce supernatural beings we can adapt them 
 to this new sphere, and it soon becomes the chief 
 one. At the same time polytheism necessitates a 
 priesthood m the .strict sense, or rather it consoli- 
 dates and developes the priesthood which astrolatry 
 had originated. ^ 
 
 Polytheism offer, a variety of forms, but in all 
 Its forms ahke we can trace two institutions, which 
 have a close connexion with one another. These 
 are : the complete union of the spiritual and tem- 
 
 Sati™' ^"' ^"^ '^^^"^ °^ "'^ ^"^-*^^' 
 The fii^t is easily explained. It was the sponta- 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OP RELIGION. 379 
 
 neous result of all the requirements of the intellect, 
 and all the wants of society. In the first place, it 
 is impossible to limit yourself to giving advice if 
 you speak in the name of a power that has no 
 limits. The suggestions of such a power naturally 
 become commands. In the second place, the ap- 
 pointed task of the preliminary rigime was to 
 develope all man's powers ; it was reserved for the 
 final state wisely to regulate them when developed, 
 on a comprehensive view of this long apprentice- 
 ship. In the preparatory period then, there must 
 be a concentration of all the powers of society, in 
 order to overcome the indiscipline natural to man 
 in his primitive state. Had the spiritual and 
 temporal powers been separated, such separation 
 would have been a great hindrance to the attain- 
 ment of the object of polytheism, by thwarting 
 the progress of conquest. For the function of 
 polytheism was active. Lastly, the scientific concep- 
 tions of men were so alien to their practical views, 
 that to neutralize the defects of both, it was 
 requisite that both should equally influence the 
 intellect of all. On the other hand, this indispen- 
 sable concentration was effected quite instinctively. 
 This is shown by the inability to conceive a real 
 separation of counsel from command which we can 
 trace even in the philosophers who were most pre- 
 pared to atlmit such an idea. 
 
 A similar remark is applicable to slavery in the 
 ancient world. It was always considered necessary 
 to society, till a period just previous to the final 
 
 f 
 
 r 
 
 n 
 
i 
 
 ft 
 
 380 
 
 CONCH trsioK 
 
 emancipation. The slave, as we are reminded by 
 prnto?'' "' ''': ''^'■'^ "^'"«' -^ «* first a 
 
 couu'wtT-'' ' '=°°'="-*'"7 system, and the slave 
 dition of the slave tn ll f n "* '°*"^' "'"'■ 
 
 liable b, the 1::^??::^ zz aurv^^^^ 
 
 The institution of slavery was in two wavs th. 
 basis of ancient civilization. Without! ? ! 
 on a large scale was impossible. 'te^Tr 
 
 ."ad ble^lhl ^'7/""''' '>^**- his position, a" 
 
 given hi Lfe TT . 7," ^ "'''"'' ^« ^'^'^ ^een 
 ^bZ. f'" *" *''^^^ ^^P^^t^ it is impos- 
 
 sible to compare the slavery of antiquity with tt 
 
 ephemeral and monstrous form of'it Ch^h is ! 
 consequence of modern colonization. " 
 
 o^thepHn^ forms inrh-S^-r~'> 
 
 ten2:, ^r-'y ZT ^^ ■»-* ^'^-e- 
 perly so Sled Th ' "' " *''°'"^''^ P'"" 
 to which we "ithf """^.^'^^'-^ polytheism 
 
 organization Sb,e in Te '^ ^'^ ""'^ "'"^'^^'^ 
 possiDie in the preparatory period of 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 381 
 
 man's existence. All the other phases of poly- 
 theism are but modifications of this primitive 
 system ; from it they draw such partial consistency 
 as they have, though their tendency is to break it up. 
 Theocracy rests on two institutions which are 
 closely connected with each other. All professions 
 equally are hereditary ; this is the first ; the uni- 
 versal supremacy of the priestly caste is the second. 
 Without the first, the progi-ess made would soon be 
 lost. Nor is there any other system which could 
 allow the slow introduction of secondary modifica- 
 tions; so long, that is, as education was given rather 
 by means of imitation than by direct instruction, 
 from there being no separation between theory and 
 practice. Hereditary professions then were neces- 
 sary; but the whole population would have been 
 broken up into castes completely independent one of 
 another, had not the supremacy of the priesthood 
 been there to organize the state. It bound all castes 
 too-ether with a bond which they revered, one 
 which was naturally susceptible of a wide extension. 
 This primitive theocratic constitution is so com- 
 iJetely in accordance with our nature, that it is 
 still the organization of the largest existing popu- 
 lations, though it has been subjected to disturbing 
 influences of the greatest magnitude. It was uni- 
 versally adopted. But it could only attain such 
 durability in countries where the development of 
 intelligence and industry had preceded that of the 
 warlike spirit. Systematic military activity acts in 
 all cases as a spontaneous solvent of theocracy, for 
 
 li;' 
 
 S.): 
 
Iw 
 
 m 
 
 n 
 
 II 
 
 382 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 it places the soldier above the priest. The priests 
 made great efforts to avert this result by directing 
 the military energy on distant expeditions, the 
 invariable consequent of which was a permanent 
 colonization. Still, notwithstanding this policy, 
 the theocracy in all cases succumbed to the dominion 
 of a military patriciate, but in succumbing it 
 preserved the old manners and customs. That it 
 could do this is convincing evidence of the 
 tenacious character of the regime, and by virtue of 
 it we have at the present day actual theocracies to 
 study. And the study of them in China and India 
 even though far advanced in decay, enables us to 
 have a better understanding of ancient Egypt, the 
 venerable mother of the civilization of Western 
 Europe. We are enabled to appreciate, on a lar-e 
 scale, the social office of the priesthood in ite 
 manifold forms, as called upon to counsel, to con- 
 secrate, to modei-ate, and to judge. And we may 
 also see at the same time to what an extent the 
 exercise of these its fundamental attributes was 
 vitiated by command and wealth, though the 
 assumption of power and the possession of wealth 
 were necessary accompaniments of the first inter- 
 ference of the intellect in the domain of feeling 
 and action. ° 
 
 It will naturally surprise you that the theocratic 
 system finds so small a place in the synopsis I have 
 given you. The chief reason, as in the case of 
 fetichism, IS the concrete character of this histo- 
 rical composition it is more within the province of 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 383 
 
 art than of science. Still, when dealing with a 
 system which has left so many memorials of all 
 kinds, a more detailed explanation is required. I 
 would call your attention, then, to one of the 
 noblest characteristics of the true theocracy. It is a 
 system in which the government is vested in a vast 
 and permanent corporation ; so that the services it 
 renders society are not connected with the names of 
 individuals. Had there not been this tendency to 
 absorb the individual, the various priestly colleges 
 would often have been disturbed by the natural 
 rivalries of the gods of polytheism. In one case, 
 happily a solitary exception, theocracy is based on 
 monotheism. In this case, that of the Jews, an 
 extreme concentration throws forward into full 
 light the names of the more eminent leaders. Thus 
 it was that the concrete character of my synopsis 
 forced me to choose Moses as the individual type 
 of the theocratic regi^ne, though but a very im- 
 perfect representative of an organization which is 
 essentially polytheistic. 
 
 The Woman.— Your thoughtful and dispassionate 
 admiration for theocracy shows me more clearly, my 
 father, how profoundly unfair are the blind re- 
 proaches it yet meets with from men who claim to 
 be advanced thinkers. Listen to them, and you 
 would think the primeval organization from which 
 all others spring, and which has outlasted all others, 
 was in all its stages an oppressive and degrading 
 system. If so, it would be difficult to see to what 
 we are to trace the progress which has been made. 
 
 11 
 
II 
 
 II 
 
 II 
 
 384 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The Priest. — You may treat all such criticisms of 
 theocracy, my daughter, as frivolous. They are as 
 groundless as the reproaches levelled by St. Augustin 
 against the whole system of polytheism, or the 
 attacks of Yoltaire on Catholicism. No system 
 ever deserved such blame except in its decay. For 
 a system to rise and be generally adopted, it must 
 during the greater part of the period of its supre- 
 macy be to a considerable extent in agreement 
 with our nature, and far from unfavourable to our 
 progress. 
 
 The tendency of theocracy to become oppressive, 
 from its aversion to all change, is one which is only 
 developed in its latest stage, as the consequence of 
 the inevitable degradation of the priestly character 
 resulting from their power and wealth. But after 
 all, the aversion to change in theocracy has been 
 considerably exaggerated. Theocracy has been 
 judged by the contrast in this respect offered by 
 the gi-eater rapidity of the Western movement. 
 Quite apart from any external interference, there 
 are many decisive indications of a spontaneous 
 movement in the theocratic civilizations. For in- 
 stance, Bouddhism, though crushed in Hindostan, 
 in Thibet led to very great modifications of the 
 theocratic system. These were developed in China 
 by the adoption of a system of examinations. 
 
 When Positivism reaches in due course these 
 immense populations, then will be the time carefully 
 to investigate the question : what would naturally 
 have been the series of advances by which, if left 
 
 I 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 385 
 
 to themselves, they would have ultimately risen to 
 the level of the West] Such a progression would 
 have been distinct from, but substantially identical 
 with, that of the West. It will be necessary to 
 examine their instinctive tendencies, for it is with 
 them that, if we are wise, we must connect any 
 attempt at a systematic acceleration of their pro- 
 gress. And we must carefully eliminate from our 
 inquiry all the elements of disturbance forcibly in- 
 troduced by the Mussulman monotheism in the first 
 place, and at a later period by the Christian. This 
 important question, then, is left for future consi- 
 deration. For the present we must concentrate our 
 historical studies on the immediate ancestors of 
 Western civilization, and we are naturally led to 
 select for examination the populations in whicli the 
 establishment of theocracy was anticipated by a 
 precocious development of military activity. 
 
 Polytheism, in its progressive period, appears 
 under two very different forms, the one mainly 
 intellectual, the other eminently social. Polytheism 
 takes an intellectual character when, owing to local 
 and political circumstances, war, although very 
 general, leads to no system of conquest. In such a 
 case, it exerts a secret influence on all the higher 
 minds which leads them to cultivate their intellects. 
 This is also the direction which the attention of 
 men generally has taken, and thus the cultivation 
 is free from all priestly sacerdotal discipUne. When, 
 on the contrary, there is no check on war, and it is 
 free to follow out its tendency to universal empire, 
 
 c c 
 
 )h 
 
Ii»ii 
 
 I I 
 
 w 
 
 31 I 
 
 386 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the intellect becomes subordinate to action, and the 
 citizen, as a rule, is absorbed in social questions 
 relative to his own state or to foreign policy. 
 These two forms of progressive polytheism were, 
 each according to its nature and each in its own 
 time, equally indispensable to the great movement 
 in the Western world, which followed on the spon- 
 taneous throwing off the yoke of theocracy. 
 
 Ultimately, in every theocracy, the priestly caste 
 becomes socially subordinate to the warrior caste. 
 Even in Judea, spite of its exceptional concentra- 
 tion of power, theocracy had to submit to this 
 change. The kings took the place of the judges, 
 six centuries from the organization of the theocracy. 
 But we must carefully distinguish the cases, in 
 which this change is not effected till after the theo- 
 cratic spirit has gained a firm hold, from those in 
 which the change is effected sooner, and the theo- 
 cracy is consequently never really strong. The 
 evolution of Western Europe took place mainly 
 under this latter condition ; the soldier antici- 
 pated the priest ; it required, however, for its suc- 
 cess a judicious introduction of ideas borrowed 
 from pure theocracies. 
 
 The times sung by Homer mark distinctly the 
 beginning of the series of movements which have 
 resulted in Western civilization. Two generations, 
 at the most, had elapsed since the warrior caste had 
 begun to take precedence of the priests among our 
 Grecian ancestors. The primeval theocracy can 
 yet be traced in the numerous oracles, respect for 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 387 
 
 which, though they were dispersed, lasted longer in 
 Greece than anywhere else. 
 
 The TfomaTi.— Dating from this era in the West, 
 you told me, my father, that our progress has been, 
 in reality, but an immense transition, during which 
 any real organization was impracticable. It is easy 
 to see the accuracy of such a view. We have but to 
 contrast the short duration of the several states of 
 society, which henceforth follow in rapid succession 
 one on the other, with the persistence of their pre- 
 decessor, the theocracy which arose out of fetichism ; 
 or on the other hand, with the magnificent future 
 that awaits Positivism. Still I should like now 
 to follow the general outline of this transition. 
 
 The Friest.—Tlio transitional, or preparatory 
 period, accurately represented by our concrete sy- 
 nopsis, must be viewed, my daughter, as must the 
 system of human nature, in reference first to the 
 intellect, then to the action, finally to the feeling 
 of man. In the primitive theocracy these three 
 phases of our existence were cultivated simultane- 
 ously, and the existence was thus brought under 
 a complete system of rules. But however com- 
 plete, such a system was not favourable to progress. 
 And yet so true is it that this discipline was the only 
 one admissible under the theological regime, that 
 it was impossible to find any durable substitute for 
 it so long as the fictitious synthesis lasted. To 
 quicken the rate of progress, it was necessary to 
 break up the harmony, in order to develope in suc- 
 cession each part of man's nature at the expense of 
 
 cc2 
 
 % 
 
w 
 
 V r 
 
 m 
 
 388 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the two others. Hence the marked character of 
 incompleteness, traceable equally in the intellectual 
 evolution of Greece, in the social action of Rome, 
 in the affective discipline of the Catliolic-feudal 
 period. These three partial evolutions succeed one 
 another in an order which is at once seen to be a 
 consequence of their common destination. The first 
 object was to develope all the powers of our nature. 
 Any attempt at their discipline was premature, ex- 
 cept so far as discipline was a consequence of their 
 spontaneous antagonism. And the only effect of such 
 a premature attempt would have been a return to 
 theocracy. For theocracy was always imminent, 
 and to return to it was to prevent the partial 
 development desired. You see then how it was, 
 that feeling, the chief source of human discipline, 
 was for a long time neglected, and how its supre- 
 macy could not be recognised till science and action 
 should have made sufficient advance. For the free 
 play of all our powers, it was necessary that intel- 
 ligence should precede action. The tendency of action 
 was to unite all the progressive polytheists in one 
 empire. Such an union would have been incom- 
 patible with the full liberty required for our intel- 
 lectual growth. That growth then must precede, 
 as was actually the case, the development of our 
 activity. 
 
 It 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 389 
 
 CONVERSATION XIII. 
 GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION— CCm^mweC?. 
 
 The Woman.— Omv last conversation has shown 
 me, my father, the three great periods of transition 
 through which we have necessarily passed since the 
 Homeric times. I understand also their order of 
 succession. But I still need a clearer understanding 
 of the course of each and the connexion of the three, 
 beginning with the Greek evolution. 
 
 Tlie Friest— The Greek period is one of im- 
 perishable brilliancy. But, my daughter, if you 
 place Greece and Rome side by side, and judge them 
 by the standard of the influence each civilization 
 had on its respective nation, you will regret that 
 the contrast is unfavourable to Greece. In Roman 
 history we are in contact with a constructive 
 system, the work of the nation, in which all the 
 citizens must take an active part, or the failure 
 would be complete. In Greece the people is, in 
 the main, passive. It forms a kind of pedestal for 
 some few thinkers of real eminence. Their number 
 is not above one hundred, in art, in philosophy, in 
 science, from Homer and Hesiod to Ptolemy and 
 Galen. In Rome a high degree of common action 
 stamps the whole nation with a character of nobility, 
 and the traces of that character are yet distm- 
 guishable. In Greece the monstrous predommance 
 of speculation over action led to the degradation of 
 the people, which was sacrificed to it. And here 
 
 ri 
 
 M 
 
 i 
 
390 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 again the effects are yet quite traceable. In tlieir 
 last stage, the Greeks considered the faculties of 
 expression as the paramount object. It was their 
 conquest by Rome that alone preserved the Greek 
 cities from succumbing to the tyranny of some 
 despicable rhetorician. 
 
 There is but one fine period in the social ex- 
 istence of these tribes which have been the object 
 of such excessive admiration. Its duration was 
 scarcely two centuries. Even during that time 
 there were constant interruptions from their 
 wretched internal disputes. The period I mean 
 was that of their admirable struggle with the 
 Persian empire. Defensive at the outset, the 
 war became ultimately offensive. The issue was 
 to vindicate from all forcible compression on the 
 part of the Persian theocracy the small band of free 
 thinkers, on whose existence depended, at the time, 
 the intellectual destinies of Humanity. And even 
 in this struggle the success is mainly due to some 
 few citizens of pre-eminent merit. The several States 
 constantly showed themselves ready to sacrifice the 
 national defence to their mutual jealousies. 
 
 This long process of intellectual elaboration is 
 divided into three periods of unequal length. Each 
 of them is faithfully represented in our calendar. 
 The movement began with art, and Homer is for 
 all time the representative of art. It was natural 
 that poetry, as at once by nature more independent 
 of and yet more fettered by theocracy, should be 
 the first to separate from the parent stem, and lead 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 391 
 
 the way in the emancipation of the Western world. 
 Poetry made the way clear for philosophy. In 
 Thales and Pythagoras we have the first rudiments, 
 but the incomparable Aristotle is its genume re- 
 presentative. He was so far above his age that it 
 was not till the Middle Ages that he could be 
 appreciated. The value of his phHosophical elabo- 
 ration is imperishable, and the results obtained 
 were so definitive as to force on all true thinkers 
 the conviction that the Umit Aristotle had reached 
 could not be passed without a long scientific pre- 
 paration. The aim of such preparation should be 
 the development of mathematics, as the primary 
 basis of Positive philosophy. Under this convic- 
 tion, the genius of the Greeks directed its chief 
 attention to practical science, and this finds an 
 admirable representative in Archimedes. The ca- 
 pacity of the Greeks for art and their philosophical 
 power had been irreparably exhausted. 
 
 The Wmnan.^! have always found it easier, my 
 father, to understand the Roman period of the pre- 
 paratory regiTm. This is owing to the homogeneous 
 and strongly marked character which distinguishes 
 Rome's gradual march to universal empire. Bos- 
 suet's Universal History contains some brilliant 
 remarks on this point, and I have long known 
 them. The policy of Rome stands out so clear that 
 Virgil could embody it in a few matchless lines, which 
 were once explained to me. {^n. vi. 847-855.) 
 Directly they bear only on Rome's action on other 
 nations, yet in reading them we feel how intimate 
 
 \ \\ 
 
392 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the connexion is between that foreign action and 
 Rome's internal constitution. 
 
 The Priest. — All you have to do, my daughter, 
 is to complete your general idea of Rome's action 
 by distinguishing two main periods in her history. 
 Prior to the period when the incorporation of the 
 greater part of Western Europe was effected, the 
 direction of the warlike energies of Rome was na- 
 turally in the hands of the senatorial caste. Strong 
 in its theocratic ascendancy, the senate found in the 
 common efforts a sufficient check on the jealousy of 
 the plebeians. But this order of things, based upon 
 war, was destined to undergo a change when the 
 Roman dominion became so extended and so con- 
 solidated that it no longer absorbed the attention of 
 the Roman people. The emperors then stood 
 forwai-d as the true representatives of that people, 
 its protectors against the tyranny of the patricians. 
 At the very time that Virgil expressed the policy 
 of Rome, the best representative of which is the 
 great Dictator, the incomparable Caesar, that policy 
 was undergoing, unknown to the poet, this decisive 
 change, the first symptom of its inevitable decline. 
 These two periods of nearly equal length were, 
 one of them eminently progressive, the other essen- 
 tially conservative. Both equally have had a power- 
 ful social influence on the whole preparation of 
 Western Europe. To the first we owe the salutary 
 dominion which everywhere put a stop to fruitless 
 and yet continuous wars. To the second we owe, 
 in the civil order, the benefits attendant on incor- 
 
 THE GENERA.L HISTORY OF BELIGION. 
 
 393 
 
 poration into one political whole, benefits greatly 
 dependent on the uniform propagation of the Greek 
 intellectual movement. Rome conquered Greece, 
 but she always paid her a noble tribute, and de- 
 voted her own influence to spread the results of 
 Greek art, of Greek philosophy, and Greek science, 
 which, unless so disseminated, would not have ful- 
 filled their highest purpose. 
 
 Thus had finally been effected a junction between 
 the two last movements peculiar to antiquity, the one 
 intellectual, the other social. After this combina- 
 tion, the preparatory stage of man's existence na- 
 turally set towards the last of its necessary phases. 
 Theoretically and practically, our intellect and 
 activity had been developed. There soon came the 
 consciousness of the need of some discipline A 
 species of spontaneous discipline was a natural con- 
 sequence of having an end in view, however tern- 
 porary that end might be. But that end attained, 
 all discipline was over. The intellect and the heart 
 fell a prey to an unparalleled dissipation, and the 
 treasures accumulated by the thought and labour of 
 man were wasted in the ignoble gratification of un- 
 controlled selfishness. At the time when regenera- 
 tion was becoming indispensable, it seemed to have 
 a systematic basis laid for it. The whole ante- 
 cedent history of Greece and Rome seemed to 
 furnish that basis, by a combination of the intel- 
 lectual superiority of monotheism with the tendency 
 of society towards an universal religion. 
 
 It was to satisfy this great want of some complete 
 
 i 
 
394 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 discipline that Catholicism rose. Its success was 
 due to the impulse given by the incompai*able 
 St. Paul, a fact as yet too little recognised. In his 
 sublime self-abnegation he facilitated the pro- 
 gress of the new unity, by accepting a founder 
 who had no real claim. But Catholicism is pro- 
 foundly self-contradictory, and thus, even at its 
 birth, there were evidences that this last transi- 
 tional state would be less permanent and less 
 extensive than its predecessors. For to attain its 
 chief end, it was necessary to effect a radical 
 separation of the spiritual from the temporal power. 
 It is true, such a separation was the spontaneous 
 result of a position in which monotheism was 
 slowly making way under the political supremacy 
 of polytheism. Not the less, however, is this 
 division of the temporal and spiritual powers at all 
 times incompatible with the absolute character of 
 theology. For theology, and this is especially true 
 of its concentrated form, monotheism, only allows 
 its priesthood to confine itself to counsel when it 
 cannot exercise command. 
 
 That Catholicism is thus necessarily contradic- 
 tory may be best seen by taking two general points of 
 contrast, the one social, the other intellectual. And 
 firstly, the only possible foundation for human dis- 
 cipline was, at that time, a future state. Hence 
 the doctrine of a future life acquired, in the hands 
 of the new priesthood, a far greater importance 
 than it had ever before had, even in Judea. The 
 priesthood found in it the exclusive domain it 
 
 m 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 395 
 
 needed But a religion constituted on this basis 
 was incompetent to guide practical life, for every 
 believer was diverted from his duty as a social 
 being, and urged to a soUtary asceticism. In the 
 second place, the schism between theoiy and 
 practice, concealed and even atoned for whilst the 
 temporal and spiritual powers remained concen- 
 trated, became prominent on their separation. 
 Monotheism by its concentration drew out more 
 strongly the inherent opposition between arbitrary 
 will and immutable laws. 
 
 Aristotle had skilfully invented a scheme by 
 which the two might be reconciled, but his method 
 was only available at a later period when the 
 Positive spirit should be advancing towards its final 
 ascendancy, though still under the guardianship of 
 
 theology. 
 
 If we combine the two points above given, we 
 need not be surprised that Catholicism was long 
 reiected by the most eminent philosophers and 
 statesmen of the Roman empire. They looked 
 upon it as purely retrograde. These great chiefs 
 had been gradually prepared, from the time of 
 Scipio and C^sar, for the direct advent of the 
 kingdom of Humanity, in which the Positive spint 
 and°the industrial life should be paramount. They 
 foiled to see that one more preparatory phase of 
 society, which should essentially have reference 
 to feeling, was needed to introduce the final regime, 
 and that the results of that phase would be a two- 
 fold emancipation, the pecuUar work of the 
 
 I 
 
 ilH; 
 
 ..~f**jat-T- 
 
396 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Middle Ages, the emancipation of women and the 
 emancipation of the industrial classes. 
 
 The Woman. — When you attribute these great 
 results to Catholicism, you seem to me, my father, 
 to do so with the \dew of bringing out more clearly 
 their historical filiation, by representing them as 
 the possible efiects of the old system under the 
 impulse of the new religion. But their attainment 
 was greatly aided and even accelerated by the in- 
 fluence of feudalism. Catholicism once had my 
 belief, and it shall always have my respect. I could 
 never, however, prevent myself from secretly pre- 
 ferring Chivalry. The noble motto which embodies 
 the feelings of chivalry, I hear proclaimed even 
 in the sixteenth century ; Fais ce que dois, advienne 
 que pourra. Do thy duty, coiiie what may. 
 
 The Priest. — You are right, my daughter, as to 
 the respective merits of the two systems ; and I 
 need but complete your view, by showing you that 
 feudalism, erroneously attributed to the German 
 invasions, was in reality the necessary consequence 
 of the Roman empire, which in its later period had 
 a natural tendency towards the feudal organization. 
 The wide extension of the Roman empire speedily 
 substituted defence for conquest. This is the great 
 change, of which the two other characteristics of 
 the Middle Ages are the necessary result. On the 
 one hand, we have the gradual substitution of 
 serfage for slavery, when as a natural consequence 
 of the cessation of foreign conquests the slave- 
 market was confined within the limits of the Roman 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 397 
 
 world. On the other hand, we have a gradually 
 increasing dissolution of the central power, and the 
 substitution of local governments, each charged 
 with its share in the common defence. The 
 hierarchical subordination of these governments 
 was what constituted feudalism in the strict sense 
 of the word. All that Catholicism did was to 
 sanction these three political tendencies by recom- 
 mending peace, emancipation, and submission. 
 Catholicism at that time was the fit exponent of 
 the feelings called forth by the position of affairs 
 in Western Europe. This we may allow without 
 attributing it to its doctrine, a doctrine which, at a 
 later period, sanctioned dispositions of an entirely 
 opposite nature, and sanctioned them by vii'tue of 
 its vagueness and anti-social tendencies. 
 
 Catholicism contributed far less than feudalism 
 to the abolition of slavery in Europe. The move- 
 ment becran in the towns and subsequently extended 
 to the country. Neither did Catholicism contribute 
 as powerful an aid as feudalism to the emancipation 
 of women. In this respect we owe it the initial 
 step purity ; the final step, tenderness, is in no way 
 due 'to Catholicism, but to chivalry. Throughout 
 the Greek Church, Christianity still sanctions the 
 seclusion of women and serfage ; and the only at- 
 tempts at due modifications proceed from the Czars. 
 The Woman,—! am prepared, my father, to 
 accept this general estimate of the Middle Ages. 
 It remains for me to learn the chief divisions of 
 this last organic period of transition. 
 
 tm 
 
398 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The Priest. — We may divide it, my daughter, by 
 the two systems of defensive wars, on which the 
 attention of the West was naturally concentrated, 
 whilst the great social revolution which I have 
 just explained was in process of gradual accom- 
 plishment. The first period begins with the 
 opening of the fifth, and ends with the close of the 
 seventh century. It is occupied by the first great 
 settlement of the barbarians. In that settlement, 
 where, that is, the conditions of the invasion 
 permitted its final success, we can trace all the 
 characteristics of the Middle Ages with the excep- 
 tion of language. In this first period independence 
 was the primaiy object ; concert was of secondary im- 
 portance. The second period is of equal length, 
 from the eighth to the tenth century. In it, the 
 paramount want was concentration. The object 
 was to repel the invasions of fresh tribes, and to 
 secure from further disturbance the settlement 
 efiected. 
 
 The tribes who had efiected it had shown them- 
 selves fit for incorporation into Western Europe, 
 by the care with which they had been converted 
 from polytheism to Catholicism. The action of 
 Europe then in this period was collective, under 
 the guidance of the Carlovingian princes, and 
 especially under the dictatorship of the incom- 
 parable Charlemagne. The work of Charlemagne 
 found men worthy to complete it in the German 
 Emperors. 
 
 Thus wa^ founded the republic of Western 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 399 
 
 Europe. The earlier association, originating in the 
 forcible incorporation effected by Home, now- 
 assumed a new form. It became the voluntary 
 association of independent States, whose only bond 
 of union was a common spiritual organization, 
 centred in the person of the Pope. Even at its 
 commencement this change had a tendency, not- 
 withstanding the influence of the Church and 
 political associations, to form a new centre for the 
 whole system, and to substitute Paris for Rome. 
 By the end of the Middle Ages the choice had 
 been irrevocably made. The central situation of 
 Paris was more adapted to meet the requirements 
 of European society. It was during this second 
 period that the East experienced a vast convulsion. 
 The reaction of that convulsion was deeply felt by 
 the whole of the Western world. Its fii-st effect 
 was to prolong the existence of the Catholic-feudal 
 regime. Later, it gave the first impulse to its 
 irreparable dissolution. 
 
 The want of a really universal religion had been 
 lonf' felt by the greater part of the white race, 
 not' excepting that portion of it which, though 
 adjacent to the Roman empire, had not fallen under 
 the power of Rome. Universality had been 
 claimed by Catholicism, and the claim is at once 
 the chief merit of the system and the soundest 
 test by which to try it. No theological system can 
 make good the claim. Universality is the exclusive 
 apanage of Positivism. Monotheism, however, is 
 nearer its attainment than polytheism. For poly- 
 
 I 
 
 ■^i 
 
400 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 theism was always essentially national, though 
 perfectly compatible with the incorporation by war. 
 Monotheism, on the contrary, may be the rallying- 
 point for nations quite independent of one another, 
 though it has never practically been so except in 
 Western Europe, in the medieval period. It was 
 natural then that the East should aspire to a 
 monotheistic belief, one however which should be 
 entirely incompatible with that adopted by the 
 West, in consequence of its different social 
 destination. 
 
 In fact, the chief function of Islamism was to 
 direct the warlike development of another noble 
 portion of the white race, which aimed in its turn 
 at becoming the central population of Humanity. 
 Hence it was necessary for Islamism to fuse, as of 
 old, the spiritual and temporal powers. Nay, it 
 even gave greater force to the fusion, by its mono- 
 theistic concentration. Thus become more consonant 
 with the natural genius of theology, monotheism 
 was enabled, and even required, in the East, to 
 simplify its doctrine to a degree imattainable in 
 the West. For, in Europe, the factitious separa- 
 tion of the two powers had compelled St. Paul, 
 the real founder of Catholicism, to complicate its 
 doctrinal system. In common with every form of 
 monotheism, he had adopted a basis of revelation ; he 
 was driven to add to that basis the doctrine of the 
 divinity of Christ, the reputed founder of Catholi- 
 cism. This led to other secondary complications. 
 It is the boast of Islamism that it rejected all 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 401 
 
 equally, in order the better to secure the predomi- 
 nance of the military character against the de- 
 generacy of the priesthood in the person of its 
 supreme head. The independence of the clergy was 
 the real ground of the subtle refinements of the 
 Catholic system, which, judged historically, deserve 
 the respect of the philosopher, however repugnant 
 they may be to his reason. 
 
 At the very beginning of the struggle between 
 the two irreconcileable monotheisms, an impartial 
 observer might have foreseen that its result would 
 be to discredit both equally, by showing the 
 thorough groundlessness of the claim they both put 
 forward to be universal. The contest between 
 Catholicism and Mahomedanism occupies the last 
 period of the Middle Ages. It begins with the 
 eleventh century, and ends at the close of the thir- 
 teenth. During this period, what we call the feudal 
 system in the strict sense was established. Inde- 
 pendence had been the dominant idea originally ; it 
 had given way to the idea of concert. Feudalism 
 combined both without impairing either, so as to 
 constitute an anticipation of the final sociocracy. 
 The admirable institutions of feudalism in the 
 twelfth century served as a general basis for the 
 Crusades. Those heroic expeditions organized and 
 developed the collective activity of the Western 
 republic, and finally put an end to all the anxious 
 fears of a Mussulman invasion. In the next century, 
 the Crusades ceased to have any great social pur- 
 pose ; they lost their true character and fell into 
 
 D D 
 
402 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 discredit. The result was, that the Roman world 
 was divided between two incompatible mono- 
 theisms ; both alike doomed to an inevitable decline. 
 The only obstacle to retard the process in either case 
 was the difficulty of finding a system to substitute. 
 
 The Woman. — This general theory of the Middle 
 Ages, my father, at length enables me to under- 
 stand Catholicism as an intellectual and social 
 system. I see the necessity of its rise, why its 
 mission was but temporary, why its decay is irre- 
 mediable. At the same time this appreciation of 
 Catholicism shows clearly how unjust it was towards 
 the intellectual development of Greece and the 
 social work of Borne, the incorporation of the 
 Western world. The spontaneous combination of 
 the results of Greece and Rome had led to Catho- 
 licism. It cursed its parents, and was in its turn 
 cursed by its children. The first wrong is no excuse 
 for, but it explains, the second, and shows where 
 the continuity of the race was broken. 
 
 The Priest. — Yes, my daughter, this continuity 
 had been respected in the preceding revolutions. 
 At the outset, polytheism had almost insensibly sup- 
 planted fetichism by a natural process of incorpora- 
 tion. When the primitive form of theocracy gave 
 place to its progressive and military form, there 
 was still no breaking ofi' from the social antecedents, 
 no withholding their due honour. So again, when 
 Rome absorbed Greece, she made it her glory to 
 continue the intellectual movement originated by 
 Greece. But the advent of Catholicism has, on the 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 403 
 
 contrary, an anarchical character. In the Catholic 
 conception of the future and the present, and the 
 direction of the latter, the Greco-Roman past is as 
 completely set aside as if it had never existed. In 
 its unfairness Christianity makes no exception even 
 for its Jewish antecedents, and this notwithstanding 
 the importance which it unwisely attaches to them. 
 
 This rude disruption of continuity, which Islam- 
 ism carefully avoided, greatly weakened the general 
 consciousness of social progress. Yet the first germ 
 of the idea of progress was naturally due to Catho- 
 licism, by virtue of its real superiority over the 
 older system. It is very important to fonn a sound 
 judgment on the Catholic disruption of historical 
 tradition. First of all, it explains the profoundly 
 contradictory position, both intellectually and mo- 
 rally, which Catholicism occupied. Its doctrinal 
 system was the child of discussion, yet subsequently 
 it endeavoured to stifle discussion. Again it 
 demanded of its children the respect which it refused 
 its parents. But further, it is to this rupture of his- 
 torical continuity that we trace the origin of the worst 
 tendency which characterizes modern anarchy. The 
 anti-historical feeling and spirit, the prevalence of 
 which is the greatest obstacle to the regeneration 
 of the West, date as far back as the rise of Catho- 
 licism. Positivism alone can overcome the enormous 
 difficulty they cause, for Positivism can do equal 
 justice to all the phases, whether social or intellec- 
 tual, of the evolution of the human race. 
 
 Still, here as everywhere else, we must acknow- 
 
 dd2 
 
404 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 ledge that the Catholic priesthood by its remark- 
 able wisdom for a long time neutralized the main 
 vices of its deplorable doctrine. It adopted as its 
 own the language of Rome when it ceased to be 
 the language in common use, and instinctively pre- 
 served all the intellectual treasures of antiquity, 
 even its beautiful theology. Dante was right in 
 immortalizing the touching legend of the successful 
 intercession of Gregory the Great in behalf of 
 Trajan. We read in it a clear indication of the 
 regret felt by the nobler Catholics that their doc- 
 trine in its blindness prevented their honouring 
 their best ancestors. However, there was prevalent 
 a general respect for our Greek and Roman pre- 
 decessors, a respect especially felt by the statesmen, 
 notwithstanding the ignorance which was common. 
 
 Throughout we find the same contrast. All our 
 feelings were subjected by Catholicism to an admi- 
 rable discipline. And yet the very basis of Catho- 
 licism is the existence of an egoistic being, whose 
 preponderance was necessary to overpower the ordi- 
 nary selfishness of the individual The faith of 
 Catholicism is more adverse to women than any 
 other which has ever held supremacy, and yet this 
 very faith paved the way for, and sanctioned, the 
 tenderness of chivalry. By its institution of celi- 
 bacy for the clergy and its consequent destruction 
 of any hereditary character in the priesthood, Ca- 
 tholicism struck the most signal blow at the system 
 of caste in the West. Yet the doctrine from 
 which the blow comes is by its nature favourable 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 405 
 
 to theocracy, to establish which was the final object 
 of the papacy in its degeneracy. 
 
 Monotheism ultimately became thoroughly hostile 
 to all intellectual progress, but it prepared the way 
 for a general advance in this direction by com- 
 pleting the elaboration of logic. Fetichism had 
 taken the first step, it had founded the logic of 
 feeUngs. The second step, the logic of images, was 
 due to polytheism. But its development, so far 
 as it was spontaneous, was only complete under 
 monotheism by the habitual use of the aid of signs. 
 Though this final step is, in the main, common to 
 Islamism and Catholicism, it is more peculiarly 
 attributable to Catholicism, if we consider the habit 
 of discussion to which the separation of the two 
 powers gave rise in all classes of society. 
 
 A review of these points of contrast tends greatly 
 to increase the admiration and respect of true phi- 
 losophers for the noble members of a priesthood 
 which during several centuries could find such 
 powerful resources in a faith which was radicaUy 
 defective, and which yet was the only one suited to 
 this period of transition. WHlst we allow this, 
 however, we must not forget, that whatever pro- 
 gress wa^ made in the Middle Ages was due to 
 the joint action of the two heterogeneous elements 
 which must never be separated in our view of 
 medieval Europe, CathoHcism and feudalism. 
 
 Over and above its immediate services, the 
 admirable transitional organization of the Middle 
 Ages caUed into existence all the essential germs of 
 
 4i^i! 
 
 H 
 
406 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the final state. Nay, we find in it the rudiments 
 of the true order of society, under each of its chief 
 aspects, the temporal order as well as the spiritual. 
 The outline is as complete as the received belief and 
 the circumstances of the time allowed. Positivism 
 then at the present day adopts the program of the 
 Middle Ages, and aims at carrying it out. For 
 success in this work it trusts to the combination of 
 a better faith with a less unfavourable form of 
 activity. Feudalism now finds no special sup- 
 porters, and its influence is depreciated in our 
 historical estimate of the medieval period. Catho- 
 licism alone is studied by the retrograde school, and 
 its share in the joint result is unduly exaggerated. 
 On a searching and accurate examination, however, 
 we can trace the influence of chivalry even in the 
 modifications which were introduced into Catho- 
 licism, the last provisional form of man*s belief. It is 
 to the feudal feeling that we owe the first conception 
 of the worship of woman, the necessary prelude to 
 the religion of Humanity. It was to the same feel- 
 ing that was really due, in the time of the Crusades, 
 the change by which in Western monotheism the 
 Virgin Mary nearly took the place of God. 
 
 In the very process, however, of assigning to 
 their true authors the results of the Middle Ages, 
 we are led to see how profoundly precarious, by its 
 very constitution, was the Catholic-feudal system, 
 the last form of the regime based on theology and 
 war. The sole compensation for the imperfections 
 of the Catholic doctrine lay in the priesthood. The 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 407 
 
 adequacy of the priesthood depended on its keeping 
 its progressive character. This it could only do so 
 long a.s it discharged a social and moral office. Now 
 the very discharge of this office led to a progress m 
 Western Europe which was incompatible with the 
 Catholic faith, and ultimately at variance with the 
 constitution of the Catholic clergy in its retrograde 
 state. This is shown by the failure of the admirable 
 attempt at regeneration made by St. Francis and 
 St. Dominic, in the thirteenth century. In a word, 
 the results attained in the Middle Ages imperatively 
 called for a new system from the moment that 
 Islamism and Catholicism finally neutralized each 
 other's influence. For instance, the emancipation 
 from all theological belief, long limited to certaan 
 individuals, spread widely in consequence of the 
 Crusades. The impulse was given by the Knights 
 Templars, who had been brought into closer contact 
 with the Mussulmen. 
 
 At the opening then of the fourteenth century 
 begins the vast revolution in Western Europe, to 
 end which is the mission of Positivism. At the 
 date above mentioned, the whole movement of the 
 human mind was thoroughly hostile to the existmg 
 order, though it was impossible that the new system 
 eould a. yet be seen. After CathoHcism no other 
 theological organization was possible; just as after 
 feudalfsm, no further modification of the military 
 system was possible. The anticipations of C^sar 
 and Trajan were becoming iacts. The tendency of 
 which they had had a premature presentiment was 
 
 I *i 
 
 ii 
 
408 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 beginning to be distinctly recognised, the tendency 
 of Western Europe definitively to accept a Positive 
 faith and a peaceful activity. But for the attain- 
 ment of this end it was necessary that science, 
 industry, and even art should undergo a long 
 elaboration. And, in the main, the process must be 
 one of detail, and dispersive in character, so that its 
 social bearing was not seen. We thus see the 
 origin of the two characteristics of the last transi- 
 tional period of human society. Taken as a whole, 
 it is a period of growing anarchy; taken in its 
 several parts, it is one of increasing organization. 
 
 The Woman. — Now that I see, my father, the 
 direct connexion of the present with the past, I 
 must know the general course of the movement to 
 be able to follow the simultaneous growth of 
 anarchy and reorganization. 
 
 The Priest. — The negative progress, that of 
 anarchy, has a more distinct character than the 
 other, my daughter. We must distinguish its two 
 necessary phases. In the one, the work of decompo- 
 sition is unconscious; in the other, it becomes more 
 and more systematic. The first phase includes the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the other the 
 three following. These two periods also difier, if 
 we look to the positive side of the movement, the 
 process of reorganization ; but the difference is less 
 marked. The whole of Western Europe was 
 affected by the spontaneous decomposition. When 
 systematic, the triumph of the negative movement 
 was confined to the North. 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 409 
 
 From its commencement the direction of the re- 
 volutionary movement was in the hands of two 
 classes. Closely connected with one another, they 
 trace their origin to the old powers, but they 
 shortly became their rivals. These classes are the 
 metaphysicians and lawyers; they constitute re- 
 spectively the spiritual and temporal element in 
 the negative system. Its most prominent organs, 
 particularly in France, were the universities and 
 the parliaments. The legists are more entitled to 
 respect than the metaphysicians. Both are actuated 
 by one spirit, but in the legists it is modified by the 
 wholesome influence of social considerations. The 
 metaphysicians never were anything, as regards 
 theology, but inconsistent destructives. The law- 
 yers, and above all, the judges, not to mention 
 their temporary or special services, always had a 
 tendency to follow in the track of Rome, and con- 
 struct a moral system on a basis exclusively human. 
 During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, 
 the whole medieval regiim was thoroughly broken 
 up by conflicts between its component parts, its 
 doctrinal system remaining intact. The chief 
 struggle naturally was between the temporal and 
 spiritual powers. Their harmony had always been 
 precarious, a series of oscillations between theocracy 
 and the empire. The popes in the thirteenth 
 century strove in vain to establish an absolute 
 dominion. Throughout Europe, and in France 
 more than elsewhere, the kings organized a suc- 
 cessful resistance. In the next century they finally 
 
410 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 annihilated the power of the papacy in "Western 
 Europe. This decisive revolution was completed 
 in the fifteenth century, when, in every case, the 
 national clergy became subordinate to the temporal 
 authority. The Pope became a mere illusion as a 
 spiritual centre; he sunk into an Italian prince. 
 With its independence, the priesthood lost its mo- 
 rality, its public morality first, then its private. 
 To ensure its material existence, it placed its teach- 
 ing at the service of the stronger. 
 
 Side by side with this change in spiritual mat- 
 ters, in the temporal order the struggle which had 
 begun in the Middle Ages between the local and 
 central powers in the State, was continued on a 
 larger scale. In every case the power which had 
 originally been the weaker got the upper hand, by 
 the instinctive aid of the classes whose origin dates 
 from the abolition of serfage. The normal issue is, 
 that royalty should prevail and the aristocracy 
 succumb. The contrary result is to be looked on 
 as an exception. Venice was the first instance of 
 it; England the most complete and important. In 
 both forms alike, the combination of political con- 
 centration with the humiliation of the priesthood led 
 to the same result in every state of Western Europe. 
 This result was the formation of a real dictatorship, 
 as the only method of checking the temporal 
 anarchy which was the consequence of the spiritual 
 disorganization. The eminent Louis XI. was the 
 best type of this exceptional magistracy; he was 
 the only statesman who could clearly discern 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 411 
 
 and wisely guide the whole movement of modem 
 
 Europe. 
 
 If we turn to the positive side of the progress, its 
 most important feature during this first period is, 
 the growth of industry. The way had been pre- 
 pared by the organization of the labouring classes, 
 both in town and country, in the Middle Ages. In 
 the period under consideration three important 
 events gave a decisive impulse to the industrial 
 movement. There is nothing fortuitous in their 
 occurring at this particular time. First, by the 
 invention of gunpowder the transitional institution 
 of standing armies became perfect, and Western 
 Europe was able to dispense with a miUtary educa- 
 tion which was adverse to the new form of action. 
 Next, printing connected science with industry, 
 by enabling men to gratify the ardent desire for 
 knowledge which was then universal. Lastly, the 
 discovery of America and the passage by the Cape 
 of Good Hope to India gave an opening for a 
 vast extension of commercial relations. Under this 
 impulse the new form of European existence 
 took shape and consistency. The intellectual 
 movement produced no great effects as yet, except 
 in poetry The fourteenth century opens with the 
 unrivalled epic of Dante; in the fifteenth we have 
 an admirable mystical composition. On the other 
 hand, the accumulation of useful materials of all 
 kinds prepares the way for the subsequent^ scien- 
 tific development. 
 
 This simultaneous advance of the intellect and 
 
412 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 activity does but place in a clearer light the 
 lamentable neglect of moral improvement. The 
 attention to this had been general in the Middle 
 Ages, and is their chief merit. The ardour of 
 Western Europe for intellectual and practical pro- 
 gress was mainly the consequence of an universal 
 and irregular development of pride and vanity, not 
 unfrequently in conjunction with the basest selfish- 
 ness. The development of the esthetic faculties, it 
 must be allowed, though not clear from revolu- 
 tionary tendencies, unconsciously kept alive better 
 sentiments. But moral culture became more and 
 more exclusively confined to the afiective sex. Not 
 carried away by the stream of scientific and prac- 
 tical advance, it was reserved for women, amid mo- 
 dem anarchy, to hand down to us the more impor- 
 tant results of the Middle Ages, in spite of the 
 aversion felt for those results. But the holy provi- 
 dence of woman could not arrest the decline of the 
 power of love. The gradual weakening of this, 
 the only sound basis of all human discipline, coin- 
 cided with the rapid increase of strength in the 
 new forces, both spiritual and temporal, which 
 are required for the final state of the Western 
 world. 
 
 The Woman. — The initial stage of the twofold 
 movement of modern times is now clear to me, my 
 father. Would you give me a similar view of its 
 systematic period 1 
 
 The Priest. — Hitherto, my daughter, the doc- 
 trines of the old regime have been unassailed; they 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 413 
 
 are now the object of a direct attack on purely 
 negative principles. That the anarchy should 
 spread thus far was indispensable as well as inevi- 
 table, for in no other way could the necessity of a 
 real reorganization be evident. The want had not 
 been felt previously, owing to the appearance of life 
 which the old system wore after all its social bases 
 had been irrevocably destroyed. But to form a 
 sound judgment on the work of this period, we 
 must divide it into two parts. The first begins 
 with the sixteenth century, and ends at the point 
 at which the monarchy in France assumes a retro- 
 grade attitude, an event which coincides with the 
 triumph of the aristocracy in England. The second 
 division brings us to the close of the eighteenth 
 century, to the actual commencement therefore of 
 the revolutionary crisis; which, after the lapse of 
 two generations, is yet convulsing Europe with its 
 deplorable vicissitudes. 
 
 The necessity of such a division of the period 
 depends principally on the increase of system on 
 the negative side. At the outset it seemed that 
 the negative doctrines might be compatible with 
 the fundamental conditions of the theological 
 regime, but later it became evident that they were 
 
 incompatible. 
 
 We may mark these two successive stages of the 
 negative movement by the terms Protestant and 
 Deist. Infinitely varied as are the sects of Protes- 
 tantism, they all adhere to the Christian doctrine of 
 a revelation. And this is sufficient to distinguish 
 
 aata 
 
414 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 them from the more complete emancipation which 
 is implied in Deism. 
 
 At the very commencement of the second phase of 
 modem history, the negative doctrine broaches di- 
 rectly its anarchical principle,by its assertion of abso- 
 lute individualism. This follows from its allowing 
 that every one, without exacting any conditions of 
 competence, may decide every question. Once allow 
 this, and all spiritual authority is at an end. The 
 living rise in open insurrection against the dead, 
 as is evidenced by the blind reprobation for the 
 whole medieval system, for which the irrational 
 admiration of antiquity was but a poor compensa- 
 tion. Protestantism lent its influence to widen the 
 fatal breach in the continuity of the race which 
 Catholicism had begun. 
 
 The Woman. — Allow me for a moment, my father, 
 to interrupt you, that I may express the profound 
 dislike I have ever felt for Protestantism. Whilst 
 professing to reform Western monotheism, it 
 stripped it of its best institutions. Thus it sup- 
 pressed purgatory, the worship of the Virgin and 
 the Saints, the system of the confessional, and per- 
 verted the mysterious sacrament which was dear to 
 the hearts of the Western nations as the sublime 
 condensation of their whole religion. Hence it was 
 that my sex, which had aided so powerfully the 
 growth of Catholicism, took, as a general rule, no 
 active part in the Protestant reformation. For it 
 found its tenderness rejected, and the compensation 
 it received was the permission to interpret writings 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OP RELIGION. 415 
 
 which are unintelligible and dangerous. Protes- 
 tantism would have grievously lowered the institu- 
 tion of marriage as it existed in Western Europe, 
 by re-establishing divorce; but the state of manners 
 and feelings instinctively rejected so retrograde a 
 movement, even when it was accepted officially. 
 
 The FriesL-^Your just disUke of Protestantism, 
 my daughter, is a spontaneous explanation of the 
 great disagreement of Western Europe in regard to 
 it. Its purely negative doctrine became a source of 
 division in nations, in cities, and even in families. 
 Its success, partial as it was, shows however that 
 it met some important wants, wants both of the 
 intellect and of society. The anarchical character of 
 its principles did not prevent Protestantism from 
 aiding, at its commencement, the progress of science 
 and the development of industry, for it gave a 
 stimulus to individual effort and it set aside oppres- 
 sive rules. We owe to it two revolutions— that of 
 Holland against the tyranny of Spain; that of 
 England, to secure internal reform. The second 
 was premature, and therefore ultimately failed. 
 But it did not fail till it had given indications, 
 under the admirable dictatorship of CromweU, of 
 the inevitable tendency of the European movement. 
 From this time forward the requirements of order 
 and those of progress, both equally imperative, 
 became absolutely irreconcileable. The nations of 
 Western Europe ranged themselves on one side or 
 the other, according as they felt more strongly the 
 need of order or of progress. There was imminent 
 
 i; 
 
416 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 
 danger of universal oppression had Protestantism 
 nowhere gained the ascendancy. For the retro- 
 grade clergy of Catholicism were busy everywhere, 
 trying to rouse the governments of Europe against 
 a movement, the tendency of which could no longer 
 be doubted. We may be glad, however, that the 
 greater part of the Western world was preserved 
 from Protestantism. Had it been universally ac- 
 cepted, that acceptance would have been deemed a 
 satisfactory issue of the general revolutionary move- 
 ment. The essential conditions of regeneration 
 would in no way have been complied with, for 
 Protestantism proclaims the permanent fusion of 
 the spiritual and temporal power. This view of 
 the two systems leads us to feel equal sympathy 
 with the great men who on either side took a noble 
 part in this immense struggle, the necessary pre- 
 liminary to a true reorganization. 
 
 Great as were the obstacles arising from the Pro- 
 testant movement, in the second period of modem 
 history we see perfected the temporal dictatorship, the 
 origin of which is traceable to the first. The growth 
 of its power coincides with the formation of the great 
 nationalities, a provisional result of the disruption 
 of the union effected by Catholicism in the Middle 
 Ages. But this political anomaly led to no great 
 social results of value anywhere but in France, 
 and even in France such results were necessarily 
 temporary. Since the time of Charlemagne, there 
 has been an increasing tendency to invest France 
 with the general direction of the European move- 
 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 417 
 
 ment. It was necessary then that she should be- 
 come a very compact power, yet large enough to 
 turn the scale by its influence, and to overcome all 
 aggression from the retrograde side. In the other 
 nations of Europe, the dictatorial concentration of 
 power was but the blind and perilous imitation of 
 an exceptional policy required in France. 
 
 In this second period, the scientific character and 
 philosophical tendency of the positive movement 
 became clearer. Cosmology took a decisive step in 
 advance by establishing the theory of the earth's 
 motion. Then followed shortly the systematization 
 of celestial geometry, and the foundation of celestial 
 mechanics. Such theories showed that the scien- 
 tific spirit was radically at variance with theology 
 and metaphysics. The tendency to construct di- 
 rectly a philosophy which should be thoroughly 
 positive became strongly marked. Bacon and Des- 
 cartes both lent their aid in this direction, and 
 pointed out the preparation required for the con- 
 struction of a positive synthesis. During this 
 decisive movement, the progress of poetry and the 
 other fine arts was a worthy continuation of that 
 made in the preceding period, which in its turn had 
 been due to the Middle Ages. In the absence of all 
 philosophical guidance and of any social purpose, 
 the poetry of Western Europe produced, in the 
 course of five centuries, more real masterpieces 
 than the whole of antiquity. As for the progress 
 of industry, to extend it became more and more 
 the object of the various governments, though they 
 
 E E 
 
'I 
 
 418 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 still looked on it as subordinate to war. We can 
 even then trace tlie tendency of the masters to 
 separate themselves from their workmen, and to 
 make common cause with a degenerate aristocracy. 
 
 The Woman. — I wish now, my father, to form 
 an idea of the character and object of the last period 
 of modem history. 
 
 The Priest. — Its necessity, my daughter, lay in 
 the general results of the preceding period. Protes- 
 tantism and Catholicism had given up all idea of 
 universal supremacy. Western Europe was di- 
 vided between them, as the Roman empire was 
 divided between the Coran and the Bible. Limit- 
 ing ourselves to the leading nations, this division of 
 the West into Catholic and Protestant, coincides 
 naturally with the division of the dictatorship 
 into aristocratic and monarchical. This division 
 had been the result of the preceding period. By 
 this coincidence it became more marked. In the 
 Protestant nations the aristocratic form prevailed; 
 in Catholic countries, the monarchical. 
 
 Under both forms equally, the dictatorship had 
 become hostile to the movement of emancipation, 
 for it threatened both alike with an entire subver- 
 sion. Monarchy, more especially in France, had 
 been progressive so long as it had a powerful oppo- 
 sition to overcome. When the opposition ceased, 
 and the struggle was over, its retrograde tenden- 
 cies became manifest. As early as the second 
 half of the reign of Louis XIY., it gradually 
 rallied around it all the fragments of the older 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 419 
 
 order. The object of the union was to arrest a 
 social movement which it could not but consider as 
 simply anarchical. And in its aristocratical and Pro- 
 testant form, the dictatorship, especially in England, 
 was a still more formidable enemy to the move- 
 ment in Western Europe than in its monarchical 
 and Catholic form. It was more formidable, be- 
 cause it found more aid in the nation. Protestant- 
 ism, so long as it had had to struggle, had been 
 favourable to liberty. As soon as it became esta- 
 blished officially, it exerted itself to put a stop to 
 further emancipation. This is the tendency of every 
 system which refuses to adopt the separation of the 
 spiritual and temporal powers. In England, it led 
 to the prevalence of a systematic hypocrisy, more 
 skilfully organized and more pernicious in its re- 
 sults than that with which it taunted Jesuitism, 
 the latest form of expiring Catholicism. Nor was 
 this all. A still more important source of corrup- 
 tion was opened by Protestantism. I mean the 
 development on the largest scale of the system of 
 national selfishness. Yenice had displayed the 
 same quality, but simply in its rudimentary state. 
 The English nation gave it too a cordial welcome, 
 and the result was to isolate England from Western 
 
 Europe. 
 
 In such a position of affairs, an explosion was at 
 once indispensable and inevitable. It was negative 
 in character, and is the distinctive event which 
 marks the eighteenth century. A real reorganiza- 
 tion was impossible without it, nay, the very idea 
 
 E E 2 
 
 I 
 
J 
 
 / 
 
 420 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 of such a reorganization was impossible. The critical 
 doctrines which had their origin in the fundamental 
 principle proclaimed by the two Protestant revolu- 
 tions, had already been co-ordinated by the meta- 
 physicians who succeeded Bacon and Descartes. 
 They had gained universal acceptance, owing to 
 the assiduous exertions of the literary class. This 
 class had hitherto been subaltern ; it now assumed 
 the position of leader. In the direction of the 
 revolutionary movement, the litterateur replaced 
 the doctor of medieval times, just as the advocate 
 stepped into the place of the judge. Two genera- 
 tions witnessed and exhausted the ascendancy of 
 these inconsequent reasoners, who wished to destroy 
 the altar and maintain the throne, or conversely. 
 But pure destructives, such as Voltaire and Rous- 
 seau, who are already nearly forgotten, can never 
 be the philosophical representatives of the eighteenth 
 century. Its great school is that of Diderot and 
 Hume, of which Fontenelle was the precursor, Con- 
 dorcet the complement. This school accepted the 
 system of destruction, but accepted it only with 
 this object, that it might be able to gain as clear a 
 conception as possible of the final regeneration. 
 Among statesmen, Frederic the Great of Prussia 
 represents this school. Even at that early period, it 
 was only the narrower order of mind that could think 
 it possible by any conceivable modification of the older 
 order to meet the want of an entire renovation. 
 
 It was during the revolutionary crisis that on 
 the positive side of the movement, we see cos- 
 
 \oi 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 421 
 
 mology completed by the foundation of chemistry. 
 With this signal advance end the services of the 
 analytical spirit and of the academical regime. 
 Their predominance continued. But such blind 
 persistence became at once an obstacle, and an 
 obstacle of growing importance, to the progress 
 of future scientific labours, the presiding spirit of 
 which should be synthetic. In the industrial de- 
 partment we see the banking class rising to the 
 ascendancy, which is naturally its due ; for its 
 ascendancy is the sole condition under which the 
 systematization of our industrial action is possible. 
 At the same time, war became the minister of com- 
 merce. The colonial disputes were the occasion of 
 the change. The great extension of machinery 
 gave its last characteristic to modem industry. But 
 it also gave occasion to a lamentable increase, on 
 the part of the masters, of neglect of all the social 
 conditions of industrial enterprise. The workmen 
 came more and more to be looked on simply as a 
 source of profit, to the exclusion of all ideas of 
 government or direction. 
 
 It is easy then to understand the stormy cha- 
 racter of the crisis; of the vast revolution which was 
 the final issue of the whole five centuries which lie 
 between us and the Middle Ages. That stormy 
 character was the necessary result of the fatal in- 
 equality in the rate of progress of the positive and 
 negative movements. The two together make up 
 the whole movement of Western Europe. The 
 negative movement had been very rapid, and the 
 
422 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 positive had not been able to satisfy its demand for 
 organization. Whilst the negative was destroying 
 all general conceptions, the positive had only some 
 partial ones to offer in exchange. The leadership 
 in the work of modem regeneration, and that at 
 the time of its greatest difficulty, had devolved on 
 the class least qualified for the post, the class of 
 mere writers. The sole object of their aspirations 
 was the pedantocracy dreamed of by their Greek 
 masters. They would concentrate all power in 
 their own persons. 
 
 The Woman. — Your explanation of the revolu- 
 tionary crisis as a whole makes it clear to me. But 
 I should like, my father, to know in outline the 
 course it has taken, with a view to a right estimate 
 of its actual state, which is the last object of this 
 concluding conversation. 
 
 The Priest. — In the first place, my daughter, I 
 would draw your attention to the abolition of the 
 French monarchy. This was a necessary step. The 
 monarchy was the centre, the condensed expression 
 of the whole regime in its decay. The funeral of 
 Louis XIY. might have opened men's eyes. But 
 there was at that time no true theory of history to 
 onidemen to the right interpretation. What occurred 
 at that funeral was a clear indication of the irre- 
 mediable degeneracy of the government, of the 
 thorough hostility of the people. 
 
 After a few years of hesitation under the Consti- 
 tuent Assembly, hesitation due to the prevalence of 
 metaphysical theories, a decisive shock overthrew for 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 423 
 
 ever the retrograde institution of monarchy, the last 
 vestige of the caste system. The theocratic consecra- 
 tion given it by the servile clergy of modem times 
 points to it as such. The glorious Convention, the 
 only assembly that enjoys a real popularity m France, 
 when it overthrew the monarchy as a preliminary 
 step to social regeneration, had no power to supply 
 any deficiencies in the intellectual movement of 
 Western Europe. It was without the requisites for 
 a really organic poHcy. It was competent to direct m 
 an heroic manner the defence of the French B^- 
 public, but it could not do more than express in 
 vague form the program of social wants ; and even 
 this was obscured by a metaphysical philosophy, 
 which has always been incapable of any construction 
 
 whatever. _ , . • 
 
 The political triumph of the negative doctrine 
 brought to light its thoroughly subversive tenden- 
 cies This soon led to a retrograde reaction. The 
 reaction began under the ephemei-al ascendancy of 
 a bloodthirsty deism in the person of E«bespierre. 
 It took larger proportions on the official restoration 
 of Catholicism under the miUtary tyranny of Buona- 
 parte. But the primar)' tendencies of modern civUi- 
 Ltion are such as to reject alike theology and war. 
 Though every egoistic instinct was at that timestimu- 
 lated to an unparalleled extent, the military spirit 
 was yet obliged, in its last orgies, to rest on a system 
 of compulsory recruitment. The universal adoption 
 of conscription is a sign that the abolition of standing 
 armies is approaching. Their substitute wiU be a 
 
424 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 police force. The expedients to which a retrograde 
 policy has since been driven to avert such a result 
 have all failed ; it has been found as impossible to 
 revive a warlike spirit as a theological one. Even 
 the plea of progress has been put forward in vain, 
 and the failure has been the more marked as there 
 are no general convictions leading men to a just 
 reprobation of such conduct. Tlie expedition to 
 Algiers was the most immoral of these expedients ; 
 and I venture in this place, in the name of true 
 Positivists, solemnly to proclaim my wish, that the 
 Arabs may forcibly expel the French, unless the 
 French consent to an act of noble restitution. It is 
 a matter of pride to me to think that, in early years, 
 I ardently wished success to the heroic defence of 
 Spain. 
 
 The retrograde movement under the first Napo- 
 leon drew its apparent strength solely from war. The 
 extent of its failure was evident on the final resto- 
 ration of peace. In the absence, however, of all 
 organic views, metaphysical empiricism attempted 
 a solution. It found it in an imitation of the 
 English parliamentary system ; but seeing that that 
 system was only adapted to the transition state of 
 England, it urged its universal adoption. The 
 attempt was successful for a generation, and only 
 served to give some regularity to a wretched 
 series of oscillations between anarchy and retro- 
 gression. In this process the sole merit of either 
 party lay in its excluding its rival. 
 
 It became more and more clear that in this long 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OP RELIGION. 
 
 425 
 
 period of fluctuation the received theories were all 
 equally powerless. The spiritual anarchy reached 
 its height. All the previous convictions of men, 
 whether of the revolutionary or retrograde school, 
 had lost their hold. If discipline is partial, it 
 cannot be real and lasting. If it is to be universal, 
 it must rest on one principle— the constant supre- 
 macy of the heart over the intellect. But the 
 principle had been losing ground ever since the 
 close of the Middle Ages. It had the support of 
 women ; but this holy suppoi-t was powerless, for 
 Western Europe, in its madness, paid less and less 
 respect to women. The result was that even in the 
 scientific sphere, the provisional order, which Bacon 
 and Descartes had tried to institute, was set aside, 
 and free course given on empirical grounds to 
 the unconnected study of special sciences. All 
 philosophical control was scorned by those who 
 engaged in such pursuits. Each encyclopedic phase 
 ought to be kept within certain limits— limits to be 
 fixed by the wants of the next phase above it. 
 Instead of this, every exertion was made to give each 
 an indefinite extension by isolating it from the whole. 
 At each step in this process, the whole was more 
 completely lost sight of. The movement became 
 retrograde as well as anarchical. For it threatened 
 to destroy even the great results of former labours, 
 while it gave increased power to academical medio- 
 crity. In the domain of art we find anarchy and 
 retrogression still more rampant. Art is, by its 
 nature, eminently synthetical ; it rejects analytical 
 
'I 
 
 i 
 
 426 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 empiricism more absolutely than science does. Yet 
 even in poetry the degradation was so great that 
 the learned could appreciate nothing but style. To 
 such an extent was this carried, that they often 
 placed real master-pieces below compositions which 
 were both poor and immoral. 
 
 Tlie Woman. — Your picture is a sad one, my 
 father, but I cannot dispute its accuracy. I cannot 
 see in it any point with which I can connect the 
 final solution which it has been the aim of this 
 Catechism to set forth. 
 
 The Priest. — ^We may trace the origin of this 
 solution, my daughter, to the completion of the 
 vast preparation of the race. The objective and 
 introductory period had begun with Thales and 
 Pythagoras; it had been continued during the 
 whole of the medieval period ; it had never ceased 
 to advance during the anarchy of modem Europe. 
 At the beginning of the French Revolution, it had 
 been completed, so far as cosmology was concerned, 
 by the recent creation of chemistry. Bichat and 
 Gall had taken a decisive step in advance. Gall 
 by founding biology, Bichat by completing it. 
 By the introduction of this new science, the scientific 
 basis for the entire renovation of the philosophical 
 spirit was laid. The result of the whole positive 
 movement was to facilitate the advent of sociology 
 — -an advent which had been heralded by Condorcet 
 in his attempt to bring the future into systematic 
 subordination to the past. The attempt failed, but 
 is not the less immortal. It was made at a time 
 
 THE GENERAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 427 
 
 when men's minds were in a state most entirely 
 averse to all sound historical conceptions. 
 
 By the universal adoption of an exclusively human 
 point of view, it was possible for a subjective synthesis 
 to construct a philosophy which should be prbof 
 against all objections. The next step after the 
 synthesis was to found the final religion. To this 
 I was led as soon as the renovation of the intellect 
 had been followed by a regeneration of the moral 
 nature. Henceforth the medieval period receives 
 its due tribute of admiration, while antiquity meets 
 with a more thorough appreciation. The cultivation 
 of the feelings is found to be quite compatible with 
 that of the intellect and the activity. 
 
 All noble hearts and all great intellects may for 
 the future converge. They accept this termination 
 of the long and difficult initiation through which 
 Humanity has had to pass, under the sway of 
 powers which have been constantly on the decline- 
 theology and war. The movements of modem 
 times are no longer profoundly unequal. The posi- 
 tive movement is at length able to meet all the 
 demands, intellectual and social, to which the 
 negative movement can give rise ; nor can it meet 
 them solely in reference to the future, but also in 
 the present, though I am not here concemed with 
 the present. The relative finally takes the place 
 of the absolute j altruism tends to control egoism ; 
 systematic progress is substituted for spontaneous 
 growth. In a word, Humanity definitively occu- 
 pies the place of God, but she does not lorget 
 
 .. --^tfairr.-:-). 
 

 428 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the services which the idea of God provisionally 
 rendered. 
 
 Here then, my beloved daughter, you have my 
 last explanations as to the advent of the universal 
 religion, which during so many centuries has been 
 the object of the common aspirations of the West 
 and the East. Its acceptance finds great obstacles, 
 especially in France, in the prejudices and passions 
 which, under difierent forms, are averse to all sound 
 discipline. But its efficacy will soon be felt by 
 women and proletaries in the South more than in 
 the North. For its best recommendation, how- 
 ever, it must look to the priests of Positivism. 
 They must prove their exclusive competence to 
 bind together into one body all honest and intelli- 
 gent men, by a noble acceptance of the inheritance 
 of the past. 
 
 i^ 
 
 Love as the Principle ; 
 Order as the Basis ; 
 Progress as the End 
 
 id J 
 
 Table A. 
 
 SYSTEM OF SOCIOLATRY, 
 
 or r'Live for Others. 
 
 SOCIAL WOESHIP, V^t^. gZSu^r 
 
 Embracing in a series of Eighty-one Annual Festivals the Worship of Humanity 
 
 under all its aspects. 
 
 O 
 
 1st Month. HUMANITY. 
 
 New Year's Day 
 
 ("Synthetical Festival of the 
 (. Great Being, 
 /'religious. 
 
 CO ^ 
 
 QQ 
 
 O 
 
 P^ 
 
 Weekly Festivals of j historical. 
 . the Social Union, j national. 
 r complete. CniunicipaL 
 
 2ndMonth.MARRIAGE.^ chaste. 
 
 j unequal. 
 
 V. subjective. 
 
 3rd Month. ThePATER- f ^o^^P^ete {SSdal. 
 
 NAL RELATION. .J ^^^ rspiritual 
 
 v. ^ (.temporal. 
 
 4th Month. The FILIAL-) ^ ,_,... 
 
 RELATION 1 iSame suodivisions. 
 
 5th 'Month. Th'eFRAo ^ , ,- - • 
 
 TERNAL RELATION, j *'*'"^ mOdtviswns. 
 6th Month. The RELA-^ ^ C complete 
 
 TION OF MASTER C permanent ^incomplete. 
 
 AND SERVANT. ) temporary Same subdivision. 
 
 ( spontaneous (°T^? ....Festival of the Animals 
 TthMonth. FETICHISM .' <^ aedentary.. Festival of Fire. 
 
 ) systematic... ( sacerdotal. ^.««ra? oft_he Sun. 
 K ■^ I military . . .Festival of Iron. 
 
 ''conservative. ..Festival of Castes. 
 
 i 
 
 8th Month. 
 ISM 
 
 POLYTHE- 
 
 < 
 
 9th Month, 
 ISM 
 
 MONOTHE- 
 
 inteUectual 
 (Salamis) 
 
 festheiic.nomer,.^schylus,Pkidia9. 
 scien- "^ Thales, Pythagoras, 
 
 tific and I Aristotle, Hippocrates, 
 philoso- j Archimedes, Apollo- 
 phic. J nius, Hipparchus. 
 social... Scipio, Ccesar, Trajan. 
 
 ^theocratic Abraham, Moses, Solomon. 
 
 est. Paul. 
 Charlemagne. 
 
 catholic 
 
 CD 
 
 O 
 
 M 
 
 O 
 
 Alfred, 
 midebrand. 
 Oodfrey of Bouillon. 
 ^St. Bernard. 
 Mahometan (Lepanto) Mahomet. 
 
 ^ Dante. 
 
 metaphysical < Descartes. 
 
 ( mother. (.Frederic II. 
 
 10th Month. WOMEN. J wife. 
 
 Moral Providence. / daughter. 
 
 ^ sister. 
 
 llthMonth. The PRIEST- f^^^Jf*!- J^f^^J^^^r^- 
 
 HOOD "{ PJ^eparatory Festival of Science. 
 
 InteUectiiaiProridence:' C definitive {««^^^^^^- p,,Uval of Old Men. 
 12thMonth. ThePATRI- C^^^'^f- Festival of the Knights. 
 
 CIATE...^........ "S manufactures. 
 
 Material Providence. C agriculture. 
 n»tl, Ar.-.«tl, TKr> p-Rn ( ^fi^iy^- Festival of Inventors: Chttemberg, Colum- 
 
 TFTARTATE \ affective. Ibus, Vaucamon, Watt, Montgolfer. 
 
 General Providence*" / contemplative. 
 
 ueneral i-roviaence. (^ passive St. Francis ofAssiH. 
 
 COMPLEMENTARY DAY Festival of all the Dead. 
 
 The additional Day in LEAP YEARS... General Festival of Holy Wombbt. 
 4eme vol. Politique Positive, p. 159. 
 
 Paris, Saturday, 7 Archimedes, 66. (1 April, 1854.) 
 
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 Pbbliminabt Scibncb, 
 
 or 
 Natttbal Philosophy. 
 
 (The Order of the Ex- 
 ternal World.) 
 
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 Final Science, 
 
 or 
 
 MoBAL Philosophy. 
 
 I 
 
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 : Frida> 
 ' Saturday 
 I Sunday... 
 
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 (Social and Moral 
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 16 
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 18 
 19 
 20 
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 22 
 23 
 24 
 25 
 26 
 27 
 28 
 
 /us. 
 
 >.! C/ J»l A. 
 
 Belus 
 
 Sesostria. 
 
 Menu. 
 
 Cyrus, 
 
 Zoroaster. 
 
 The Druids .. 
 
 BOUDDHA. 
 
 .Semiramit. 
 
 .Osaian. 
 
 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..46rferraAma»JII. 
 
 MAHOMET. 
 
 bopuu 
 Theocj 
 
 ^SCjf 
 
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 Zeuxi. 
 Ictinu 
 Praxil 
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 PHII 
 
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 Plauti 
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 •xoisiAia ivoiivK^Doa 
 
 Monday ... 
 Tuesday ... 
 Wednesday 
 Thursday... 
 
 Friday 
 
 Saturday... 
 Sunday 
 
 eighth month. 
 DANTE. 
 
 MODBBN BPIC POETBY. 
 
 1 The Troubadours. 
 
 2 Boccacio Chaucer. 
 
 3 ' Rabelais. 
 
 4 ; Cervantes. 
 
 5 I La Fontaine Bums. 
 
 6 I DeFoe Goldsmith. 
 
 7 ARIOSTO." 
 
 Marcc 
 Jacqu 
 Vasco 
 Napie. 
 Lacail 
 Cook. 
 COLU 
 
 8 I Leonardo da Vinci Titian. \ Benve 
 
 9 1 Michael Angelo Paul Veronese, j Amoni 
 
 10 ^ . - • 
 
 11 
 12 
 13 
 14 
 
 15 
 16 
 17 
 18 
 19 
 20 
 21 
 
 22 
 23 
 
 24 
 25 
 26 
 27 
 
 23 
 
 Holbein Rembrandt. I Harri: 
 
 Poussin Lesueur. \ Dolloi 
 
 Velasquez...... Murillo. \ Arkwi 
 
 Teniers Bubens 
 
 RAPHAEL. 
 
 Froissart Joinmlle. 
 
 Camoens Spenser. 
 
 The Spanish Romancers. 
 Chateaubriand. 
 
 Walter Scott Cooper. 
 
 Manzoni. 
 TASSO. 
 
 Conte 
 VAU( 
 
 Stevin 
 Mario 
 Papin. 
 Black. 
 JoufFn 
 Daltoc 
 WATT 
 
 Petrarca. \and Bunt/an. 
 
 Thomas a Kempis. Louis of Granada 
 Mme. de Lafayette. ...3f/»<'. de Stael. 
 
 Fenelon St. Francis of Sales. 
 
 Klopstock Gessner. 
 
 Byron ..Elisa Mercceur and Shelley. 
 MILTON. 
 
 Bemai 
 G-uglie 
 Duhaii 
 Saussu 
 Coulor 
 Camol 
 
 mon:- 
 
 Seventh Edition, Aug. 1855, in Appel aux Conservateurs, p 
 
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