Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/178

172 Thus, after rejecting the familiar belief that God created man, these philosophers are conducted to the very opposite conclusion that man created God. In the presence of this faith, not only revelation and miracle, but a great number of beliefs which were universal, and existed apart from the religious systems of which they formed the basis, are swept away, – the belief in a personal deity to whom man is responsible, that the conscience is a spark of divinity, that a future life will repair the inequalities of this, and that the soul's portion in it will be in accordance with its deserts while on earth. In these negations some of these freethinkers rested, pushing their inquiries in science only. But to others there appeared much risk in depriving the human race, even as it is known to philosophers, of all those powerfully inspiring and powerfully controlling influences which religion has supplied; they perceived also that any system dealing with humanity must admit a tendency to religious belief as an element in the constitution of man. In the writings of Comte these speculators found what they wanted. Closely associated with his views in science and polity was set forth the doctrine of a "religion of humanity," the whole forming what is known as the Positive philosophy. When this life is all, its value is increased infinitely. As all qualities ascribed to unseen powers worshipped by man have been emanations from humanity itself, so humanity itself is a fit object of worship. By fostering all that is best in it, by steadily inculcating that the elevation of the race is a duty to which every individual may be trained, a millennium is to be finally reached in which this world is to be the scene of light and harmony. For Comte's writings George Eliot had deep admiration and sympathy, and warmly acknowledged her great debt to him. Without being a declared adherent of his philosophy or religion, she explicitly avows her gratitude for the illumination he had contributed to her life. Dr Congreve, the chief evangelist of the religion of humanity in this country, was her intimate friend, and his wife her constant correspondent. Dr Congreve described the 'Spanish Gypsy' as a "mass of Positivism." With this preamble, we will present to the reader (who must not expect anything very explicit) some passages from her letters and works which seem to have most relation to the subject: –

"My books have for their main bearing a conclusion without which I could not have cared to write any representation of human life – namely, that the fellowship between man and man which has been the principle of development, social and moral, is not dependent on conceptions of what is not man; and that the idea of God, so far as it has been a high spiritual influence, is the idea of a goodness entirely human (i.e., an exaltation of the human)."

"Love, pity, constituting sympathy, and generous joy with regard to the lot of our fellow-men comes in – has been growing since the beginning – enormously enhanced by wider vision of results – by an imagination actively interested in the lot of mankind generally; and these feelings become piety – i.e., loving, willing submission, and heroic Promethean effort, towards high possibilities, which may result from our individual life.

"There is really no moral 'sanction' but this inward impulse. The will of God is the same thing as the will of other men, compelling us to work and avoid what they have seen to be harmful to social existence. Disjoined from any perceived good, the divine will is simply so much as we have ascertained of the facts of existence which compel obedience at our peril. Any