Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/265

Rh COMTE 237 key to Altruism over Egoism. This is the key to the regenera- ll r f tion of social existence, as it is the key to that unity of lon&amp;lt; individual life which makes all our energies converge freely and without wasteful friction towards a common end. What are the instruments for securing the pre ponderance of Altruism? Clearly they must work from the strongest element in humnn nature, and this ele ment is Feeling or the Heart. Under the Catholic system the supremacy of Feeling was abused, and the Intellect was made its slave. Then followed a revolt of Intellect against Sentiment. The business of the new system will be to bring back the Intellect into a condition not of slavery, but of willing ministry to the Feelings. Reli- The subordination never was, and never will be, effected of except by means of a religion, and a religion, to be final, lamty. mus t include a harmonious synthesis of all our conceptions of the external order of the universe. The characteristic basis of a religion is the existence of a Power without us. so superior to ourselves as to command the complete sub mission of our whole life. This basis is to be found in the Positive stage, in Humanity, past, present, and to come, conceived as the Great Being. Great &quot;A deeper study of the great universal order reveals to us at y. length the ruling power within it of the true Great Being, whose destiny it is to bring that order continually to perfection by con stantly conforming to its laws, and which thus best represents to us that system as a whole. This undeniable Providence, the supreme dispenser of our destinies, becomes in the natural course the common centre of our affections, our thoughts, and our actions. Although this Great Being evidently exceeds the utmost strength of any, even of any collective, human force, its necessary constitu tion and its peculiar function endow it with the truest sympathy towards all its servants. The least amongst us can and ought con stantly to aspire to maintain and even to improve this Being. This natural object of all our activity, both public and private, deter mines the true general character of the rest of our existence, whether in feeling or in thought ; which must be devoted to love, and to know, in order rightly to serve, our Providence, by a wise use of all the means which it furnishes to us. Reciprocally this continued service, whilst strengthening our true unity, renders us at once both happier and better.&quot; irks The exaltation of Humanity into the throne occupied by the Supreme Being under monotheistic systems made all lon * the rest of Comte s construction easy enough. Utility remains the test of every institution, impulse, act ; his fabric becomes substantially an arch of utilitarian pro positions, with an artificial Great Being inserted at the top to keep them in their place. The Comtist system is utilitarianism crowned by a fantastic decoration. Trans lated into the plainest English, the position is as follows : &quot;Society can only be regenerated by the greater subordina tion of politics to morals, by the moral ization of capital, by the renovation of the family, by a higher conception of marriage, and so on. These ends can only be reached by a heartier development of the sympathetic instincts. The sympathetic instincts can only be developed by the Religion of Humanity.&quot; Looking at the problem in this way, even a moralist who does not expect theology to be the instru ment of social revival, might still ask whether the sympathetic instincts will not necessarily be already developed to their highest point, before people will be persuaded to accept the religion, which is at bottom hardly more than sympathy under a more imposing name. How ever that may be, the whole battle into which we shall not enter as to the 1 igitimateness of Comtism as a religion turns upon this erection of Humanity into a Being. The various hypotheses, dogmas, proposals, as to the family, to capital, &c., are merely propositions measur able by considerations of utility and a balance of expedi encies. Many of these proposals are of the highest interest, and many of them are actually available ; but there does not seem to be one of them of an available kind, which could not equally well be approached from other sides, and j even incorporated in some radically antagonistic system. Adoption, for example, as a practice for improving the happiness of families and the welfare of society, is capable of being weighed, and can in truth only be weighed, by utilitarian considerations, and has been commended by men to whom the Comtist religion is naught. The singularity of Comte s construction, and the test by which it must be tried, is the transfer of the worship and discipline of Catholicism to a system in which &quot; the conception of God is superseded&quot; by the abstract idea of Humanity, conceived as a kind of Personality. And when all is said, the invention does not help us. We have still to settle what is for the good of Humanity, and we can only do that in the old-fashioned way. There is no guidance in the conception. No effective unity can follow from it, because you can only find out the right and wrong of a given course by summing up the advantages and disadvantages, and striking a balance, and there is nothing in the Religion of Humanity to force two men to find the balance on the same side. The Comtists are no better off than other utilitarians in judging policy, events, conduct. The particularities of the worship, its minute and truly The wor- ingenious re-adapt itions of sacraments, prayers, reverent ship and signs, down even to the invocation of a new Trinity, need ( lst 1 l llin i not detain us. They are said, though it is not easy to believe, to have been elaborated by way of Utopia. If so, no Utopia has ever yet been presented in a style so littlo calculated to stir the imagination, to warm the feelings, to soothe the insurgency of the reason. It is a mistake to present a great body of hypotheses if Comte meant them for hypotheses in the most dogmatic and peremptory form to which language can lend itself. And there is no more extraordinary thing in the history of opinion than the perversity with which Comte has succeeded in clothing a philosophic doctrine, so intrinsically conciliatory as his, in a shape that excites so little sympathy and gives so much provocation. An enemy defined Comtism as Catholicism minus Christianity, to which an able champion retorted by calling it Catholicism plus Science. Hitherto Comte s Utopia has pleased the followers of the Catholic, just as little as those of the scientific, spirit. The elaborate and minute systematization of life, pro- The priest- per to the religion of Humanity, is to be directed by a U00(i - priesthood. The priests are to possess neither wealth nor material power; they are not to command, but to counsel ; their authority is to rest on persuasion, not on force. When religion has become positive, and society indus trial, then the influence of the church upon the state becomes really free and independent, which was not tho case in the Middle Age. The power of the priesthood rests upon special knowledge of man and nature ; but to this intellectual eminence must also be added moral power and a certain greatness of character, without which force of intellect and completeness of attainment will not receive the confidence they ought to inspire. The functions of the priesthood are of this kind : To exercise a systematic direction over education ; to hold a consultative influence over all the important acts of actual life, public and private ; to arbitrate in cases of practical conflict ; to preach sermons recalling those principles of generality and universal harmony which our special activities dispose us to ignore ; to order the due classification of society; to perform th 3 various ceremonies appointed by the founder of the religion. The authority of the priesthood is to rest wholly on voluntary adhesion, and there is to be perfect freedom of speech and discussion ; though, by the way, we cannot forget Comte s detestable congratulations to the Czar Nicholas on the &quot; wise vigilance &quot; with which he kept watch over the importation of Vestern books.