required for such isolation diverts a portion of our brain power, whilst that required for the contemplation of external objects is an aid in the internal act of evocation, as it places us in a situation more nearly resembling that in which we received the original impression. templation of those we Nor must we omit-and this applies to all forms admissible The conin personal worship-a precaution suggested by its concrete of the death nature, and as a consequence of the fact that the predominant evoke. image, the image of the mother, is usually subjective, as are also most of the others. Removed as she and they are from life, we should not shrink in each case from habitually calling up before us the circumstances of their death. The picture of their last moments should duly enter into our worship of them, the better to represent the natural commencement of the subjective immortality which, under their assistance, we hope to deserve as they have deserved. With these subsidiary remarks, we leave as complete the explanation of the personal worship, the main source of whatever value attaches to the two other constituents of Sociolatry. The explanation enables us to appreciate more fully the general power recognised above as inherent in the Positive worship, to promote the continuous amelioration of all the three parts of our nature. Influence of the private cultus Considered as a whole, private worship familiarises us with as a whole. the process of idealising human existence, for it daily brings before us our normal condition: the intelligence and the activity voluntarily submitting to the control of feeling. Not paid directly to the Great Being, it yet constantly recalls it, for each patron whom we invoke has no claim to our homage but such as is grounded on his qualification to be a representative of Humanity. fluence. The highest value of this worship has regard to our moral Moral inadvance, whether as concerns the growth of each of our sympathetic instincts in particular, or the general result of the three in their right combination. It draws its inspiration from attachment, and it developes benevolence, as we, the living, become protectors of our patrons who are no longer so. But above all it cultivates veneration by our worship of them, and veneration is the most important of the three social instincts, and the most difficult to stimulate, from the absence of any direct connection with the personal instincts; it has an indi Intellectual influence. Influence on action. rect connection with the two instincts of personal improvement, those of construction and destruction. Thus it is that we best realise the value of voluntary submission, which we find to be the habitual source of the truest satisfactions. As we subordinate in our personal worship more and more the subjective to the objective, in order to facilitate the evocation of the object of our love, it leads us to see that progress, as dependent on our own effort, always consists in the developement of natural order. The influence of the worship on the intellect is incontestable as regards art, each separate act requiring an effort of spontaneous idealisation, and the result being a poetical utterance aided by sound and form. This brings before us affection, as evidently the true source of artistic power, by virtue of the reciprocal action, developed with such a charm in the worship, between the improvement in the pictures we form and the expansion of our feelings. But the influence of private worship as regards science, though less evident at the present day, yet admits of equivalent results, in method especially, but also in doctrine. It makes us feel deeply, how necessary is the aid of affection in the operations of the intellect, in meditation no less than in contemplation, as in both equally it guides us in the combination of images with signs. At the same time it brings into evidence the principal laws of feeling and thought, which it also shows to be in constant dependence on our bodily constitution, a frequent source of disturbance to us in prayer as it is also the source of assistance; and, as it is the one or the other, it gives us a means of estimating the state of our health. In regard to action, the personal worship tends to direct it to the most important phenomena and those most easily modified, without in any way concealing their unavoidable dependence on the more simple. It calls into exercise, for its own ends, our three practical virtues, and besides this it gives a general stimulus to their growth, as a consequence of the natural influences of prayer. The wish solemnly expressed that we may grow in courage, prudence, or perseverance, tends of itself to make us do so, were it only by the acknowledgment of our actual deficiencies. Solitary prayer does not, it is true, offer as powerful a stimulus as social prayer, but it is better adapted to make us feel the importance of consecrating all our active powers to the service of altruism. Its tendency is to represent true morality as active rather than passive, disciplining our selfish instincts rather through the cultivation of our instincts of sympathy than by any direct compression. Worship. Respective the Head of and of the functions of the Family Mother. So far for the basis of Sociolatry, the private worship; there Domestic follows the exposition of its second element. This, at first sight, would seem to be distinguished from the two others solely in so far as the Family completes concrete adoration, or initiates abstract effusion, the former of which has its proper place in the private, the latter in the public worship. Its difference from the two in these respects calls for no peculiar institutions, but it does require fresh prayers adapted to the use of the Family, the simplest form of human society. Concrete worship takes in the Family a collective and more comprehensive character, more particularly as regards the past; for the father of the Family invokes, as household gods, the chief ancestors of the Family; and such subjective invocation, with the aid of art, ought to rekindle the sense of fellowship. The priestly function vested in the mother within her proper sanctuary, the home, by her position, is a step towards the public worship of the Great Being, whom she represents in the Family by abstract prayers, to a judicious form of which I have directed attention already in the general preface of this work. worship consecrates the various family life. But over and above these, the two habitual ceremonies Domestic of domestic worship, the intermediate element of Sociolatry admits of an organisation, with quite distinct institutions, on phases of the principle of the systematic consecration of the several phases of domestic life. In the private worship each one places himself under the patronage of the Family, whether subjective or objective. The next step is for the Family, as an unit, to receive from the priesthood, as a religious privilege, the protection of the Country. As the final step, in the public worship the State itself invokes the supremacy of Humanity. Such is the normal progression in which the Great Being sanctifies, in succession, the three indispensable stages of its continuous service, personal, domestic, and civic, by placing each under the protection of the next above it. There never has been wanting the consciousness that it is necessary, for the due sanction and regulation of private life, to bring it under the natural influence of public life, as the only mode of checking caprice, and ensuring stability. But the Previous confusion of the temporal and spiritual powers. Positivism error. Family being the basis of all other associations must, as such, come under the conjoint influence of the Church and of the State, respectively represented by the Priesthood and the Patriciate. Previous to the separation of the two powers, its relation to both involved no difficulty, whether the ascendancy in society was vested in the priests or in the patricians. It was only however by virtue of their priestly character that the patricians held such ascendancy, as is indicated most clearly in the celebration of marriages, seeing that all authority in society has a theocratic origin. In accordance with both these antecedents, as soon as in Western Monotheism the two powers became separate, it was on the priesthood exclusively that it devolved to place the Family under the regular action of social influences. During the decline of Catholicism this privilege of the priesthood was more and more looked upon as an usurpation upon the civil authority, to which ultimately the ecclesiastical succumbed in the three principal events of private life, birth, marriage, and death. Nevertheless the ascendancy of the civil power would still seem provisional, as connected with the revolutionary tendency to the absorption by the temporal power of the spiritual function. Positivism alone is able to introduce the normal condition rectifies this of things in this respect by giving systematic expression to the ultimate division of the two powers, both of which equally, each in its own way, have to regulate the domestic relations. As every important phase of private life has a direct connection with civil order, it is for the patriciate to prescribe, in refe rence to it, such legal conditions as are requisite to ensure harmony in action. But again, as the Family is in connection with the Church, it is for the priesthood to develope this connection, and with this object to maintain the due supremacy in the Family of the moral regulations called for by the religious consecration of the domestic relations. Higher in their nature, more difficult, and at the same time not so absolutely indispensable, the conditions prescribed by the priesthood lie entirely within the domain of conscience, supported by opinion, but rejecting all command. On the contrary, civil obligations, as more necessary, and of a less delicate nature, can never be optional. The several epochs, then, of domestic life demand a twofold discipline, the second of the two presupposing the first, the one civil, and alone legally indispensable; and if men brave This opinion, the only one to which they need submit; the other Thus obligation and liberty have each their legitimate sphere, and solely by virtue of the determination of that sphere is the worship of Humanity enabled to exert its full power to regulate the Family, by securing its due submission to conditions which, unless freely accepted, would be oppressive. The better to ensure this optional character, the priesthood will apply to the patriciate for the institutions required for the twofold discipline, hitherto limited to the case of marriages, births, and deaths. Without these general remarks, by way of preamble, it would not be possible rightly to appreciate the consecration by religion of the several phases of domestic life, and this is the only point I have to explain at present. Sacraments. From this point of view, life in its entirety stands before us The nine as a series of preparations, with the ultimate object of incorporating us into the Great Being, when our service has been worthily paid. Hence the institution of a system of nine social sacraments, by which Positive religion sanctifies all the great epochs of private life, by bringing each in its turn into a distinct connection with public life. The nine are, in their natural order: 1st, presentation; 2nd, initiation; 3rd, admission; 4th, destination; 5th, marriage; 6th, maturity; 7th, retirement; 8th, transformation; 9th, incorporation, implying a previous judgment. pense with But the function of woman is so uniform and so persistent, Women dis. that in her case we dispense with the sacrament which precedes the fourth, marriage and the two which follow it. Previous to any explanation, I should state that the more important of these sacraments have already been administered, within the very limited circle within which as yet Positivism has, in a certain degree, overcome the habits of earlier beliefs and revolutionary tendencies. Yet, however limited, such experience is an evidence that the time has come for a religious reconstruction, the more so if we take into account, that the results obtained were originally sixth, and seventh. The Sacrareuly ad ments al ministered. |