POSITIVISM : ITS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. WE have traced in mere outline the intellectual character of Positivism. We shall now deal with its more important character-the religious. In our previous paper we showed how Positivism organized thought; in this paper we shall show how it organizes life. The first is methodised and regulated in order to form a superstructure for the second. Knowledge is of little use save to teach us how to live. To know how to live as intelligent beings, we should understand enough of the laws of External and Human Orders to shape our lives and Conduct by them. What those laws are we showed in our previous paper, in which we expounded Comte's Law of the Three Stages,— Theological, Metaphysical and Positive-his Classification of the Sciences,-rising from the simplest to the most complex in hierarchical order, and showing the law of Evolution of activity from Conquest, through Defence, to Industry. Those who wish for a fuller treatment of these laws, with illustrations of their action, must go to Comte's works for it. Here, our object is confined to stating the reason why all human knowledge was thus organized by Comte-it was to prepare the way for the Religion of Humanity—a purely Human religion,-which is designed to satisfy all the wants of man's mind, whether Scientific Esthetic; and which meets the devout aspirations or of the heart after a holy and complete life, in a way no previous religion was able to do. By the nature of the case no Theological religion can become entirely and simply human. To do so, it must cease to be Theological. Of course all Theological religions have had much that was human in them because they were of human origin and growth. But the tendency of such religions is to lose their Theological character and become hybrid. Do what they will they cannot shake themselves utterly free from the theological or metaphysical fictions which underlie them, fictions which, like the shirt of Nessus, will ultimately consume them. The tendency of Human Evolution is, there is no question of it, towards a Scientific belief, and an industrial regime. It is obvious that a Scientific creed can only be composed of ascertained and systematized knowledge; and that man has not, and cannot have, knowledge of that which simply transcends his capacity of knowing. Positivism does not ignore Theologism, it explains it, and this done, it shows what the religion is which is to take its place. For the sake of simplicity we will state what is meant by the words "Religion" and "Humanity." It is necessary to define these terms, as so many people understand different things by them. The word "Religion" is especially misinterpreted,-hardly two minds attaching to it the same signification. "Religion expresses," says Comte, "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 habitually to converge towards one common purpose. Religion, then, consists in regulating each 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 different periods of his life, differs from himself not less than at any one time he differs from those around him; so that for the individual, as for the community, the laws of permanence and participation are identical. The full attainment of this harmony, for the individual 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 combination of all our exertions, we gradually approximate. Man's happiness and merit consist in drawing as near as possible to this unity." Comte states that if the word "religion" has been applied to very different and irreconcilable systems of thought and action it is because "men were led to take the means for the end, and to transfer the name religion to any of the systems of opinions it represented.” Comte adds, "There is at bottom but one religion, at once universal and final," and goes on to show that all previous religions, or syntheses, were but preparations for the Religion of Humanity-which alone is able to develop, systematically, the unity of man, which was never in previous syntheses more than partially developed and that in an unsystematic way. That the unity of man is not promoted by Theologism is becoming increasingly evident : |