A General View of Positivism - Auguste Comte (the snowy day read aloud TXT) 📗

religion. The buildings erected for the service of God may for a time suffice for the worship of Humanity, in the same way that Christian worship was carried on at first in Pagan temples as they were gradually vacated. But ultimately buildings will be required more specially adapted to a religion in which all the functions connected with education and worship are so entirely different. What these buildings will be it would be useless at present to inquire. It is less easy to foresee the Positivist ideal in Architecture than in any other arts. And it must remain uncertain until the new principles of education have been generally spread, and until the Positivist religion, having received all the aid that Poetry, Music, and the arts of Form can give, has become the accepted faith of Western Europe. When the more advanced nations are heartily engaged in the cause, the true temples of Humanity will soon arise. By that time mental and moral regeneration will have advanced far enough to commence the reconstruction of all political institutions. Until then the new religion will avail itself of Christian churches as these gradually become vacant.

Art then, as well as Science, partakes in the regenerating influence which Positivism derives from its synthetic principle of Love. Both are called to their proper functions, the one to contemplate, the other to glorify Humanity, in order that we may love and serve her more perfectly. Yet while the intellect is thus made the servant of the heart, far from being weakened by this subordinate position, it finds in it an exhaustless field, in which the value of its labours is amply recognized. Each of its faculties is called directly into play, and is supplied with its appropriate employment. Poetry institutes the forms of the worship of Humanity; Science supplies the principles on which those forms are framed, by connecting them with the laws of the external world. Imagination, while ceasing to usurp the place of Reason, yet enhances rather than diminishes its original influence, which the new philosophy shows to be as beneficial as it is natural. And thus human life at last attains that state of perfect harmony which has been so long sought for in vain, and which consists in the direction of all our faculties to one common purpose under the supremacy of Affection. At the same time all former efforts of Imagination and Reason, even when they clashed with each other, are fully appreciated; because we see that they developed our powers, that they taught us the conditions of their equilibrium, and made it manifest that nothing but that equilibrium was wanting to allow them to work together for our welfare. Above all do we recognize the immense value of the medieval attempt to form a complete synthesis, although, notwithstanding all the results of Greek and Roman civilization, the time was not yet ripe for it. To renew that attempt upon a sounder basis, and with surer prospects of success, is the object of those who found the religion of Humanity. Widely different as are their circumstances and the means they employ, they desire to regard themselves as the successors of the great men who conducted the progressive movement of Catholicism. For those alone are worthy to be called successors, who continue or carry into effect the undertakings which former times have left unfinished; the title is utterly unmerited by blind followers of obsolete dogmas, which have long ceased to bear any relation to their original purpose, and which their very authors, if now living, would disavow.

But while bearing in mind our debt to Catholicism, we need not omit to recognize how largely Positivism gains by comparison with it. Full justice will be done to the aims of Catholicism, and to the excellence of its results. But the whole effect of Positivist worship will be to make men feel clearly how far superior in every respect is the synthesis founded on the Love of Humanity to that founded on the Love of God.

Christianity satisfied no part of our nature fully, except the affections. It rejected Imagination, it shrank from Reason; and therefore its power was always contested, and could not last. Even in its own sphere of affection, its principles never lent themselves to that social direction which the Catholic priesthood, with such remarkable persistency, endeavoured to give to them. The aim which it set before men, being unreal and personal, was ill-suited to a life of reality and of social sympathy. It is true that the universality of this supreme affection was indirectly a bond of union; but only when it was not at variance with true social feeling. And from the nature of the system, opposition between these two principles was the rule, and harmony the exception; since the Love of God, even as viewed by the best Catholic types, required in almost all cases the abandonment of every other passion. The moral value of such a synthesis consisted solely in the discipline which it established; discipline of whatever kind being preferable to anarchy, which would have given free scope to all the lowest propensities. But notwithstanding all the tender feeling of the best mystics, the affection which to them was supreme admitted of no real reciprocity. Moreover, the stupendous nature of the rewards and penalties by which every precept in this arbitrary system was enforced, tended to weaken the character and to taint our noblest impulses. The essential merit of the system was that it was the first attempt to exercise systematic control over our moral nature. The discipline of Polytheism was usually confined to actions: sometimes it extended to habits; but it never touched the affections from which both habits and actions spring. Christianity took the best means of effecting its purpose that were then available; but it was not successful, except so far as it gave indirect encouragement to our higher feelings. And so vague and absolute were its principles, that even this would have been impossible, but