of its sway by the order of external nature. There would then be still an uncertainty in the world outside the brain sufficient to forbid man's attaining harmony; since in the designs suggested by the heart to the intellect there would be no steadiness from the impossibility of carrying them into execution; they would but increase our sense of impotence. Again, limit the suspension of law to the order of inorganic nature, so that the organic world, equally with man's world, were supposed subject to law; still there would be a deficiency of harmony, though the uncertainty would be lessened. The hypothesis in this last form is at once easier to grasp, and more conclusive than in its other two forms, and we may perfect it by the further supposition that our environment were such as to free us from the need of any continuous exertion; still even then we feel that unity would remain precarious at least, if not impossible. Not to dwell longer on considerations of this nature, it is essential here to recognise that the intellect and the feelings must act in concert if we would establish and maintain a state of synthesis, although such state in the main has its source in the instincts of sympathy. Our purest affections could not ensure harmony were we not under compulsion to submit to an order independent of us, and independent even as regards the phenomena of our own being. But it is in the predominance of the heart over the intellect that lies the essential source of our unity, as it compels us to fulfil the intellectual conditions of that unity, and disposes us to love a necessity which makes us better. Thus the worship, by its cultivation of love, gives its sanction to the doctrine, without reference to the requirements of action as the indispensable condition of our unity, whether as individuals or societies. It is not solely to modify the order of the world that we are bound to know it; the chief reason why we study it is that we may submit to it properly, in accordance with the fundamental theory of unity summed up in the word religion, the construction of which points to the without as consolidating the within. The laws most open to modification are the laws which make us most feel that such modifications, far from setting us free, do but in reality bind us with stronger bonds, in such a way as to bring out at once and strengthen our unity. In the normal state love is our guide to faith; we begin, therefore, by reverencing and The heart and intellect must act in synthesis. concert for So the worsanction to tic system. ship gives its the dogma The heart rules, the intellect advises. Discipline of the intellect. Precautions always required against the encroachments of the intellect. cherishing these bonds of our own institution, with their constant tendency to secure the victory of our higher instincts, and we soon learn to look with similar feelings on such necessities as are inevitable. The opposite course may become necessary in times of anarchy, but is less noble, and also harder; for submission then appears oppressive in its character, and, as such, we are inclined to restrict rather than enlarge its sphere. It is the heart, then, that must ever rule, though the intellect alone can indicate in the relations of things those which are available. But the sway of feeling can never be hostile to the intelligence; on the contrary, it gives it a sanction unattainable under the regime of pure abstraction. For as it bases unity on the subordination of egoism to altruism, the Positive religion sanctifies in the name of the Great Being the thoughts as well as the actions, which, even indirectly, are of a nature to support or develope the instincts of sympathy. But its sanction is never without the accompaniment of a wholesome discipline, a discipline without which the mind would shake off its torpor only to follow its natural bent towards idle speculations. Its preference for them, on the plea of their greater dignity, is invariably traceable to its weakness, whether it be that it cannot continue its researches without losing sight of its true aim, or that it recoils from the more important questions as the harder. Such misdirection requires for its due control the combination of all the peculiar appliances of Positivism: the inseparable connection of the cultivation of science with the priestly office; the encyclopædic character of our ordinary speculations; unceasing watchfulness on the part of the public. Such are the appropriate considerations which the prevailing disorder of our time compels me to recall in detail; my object being, that the study of the doctrine may be entered upon and pursued in a proper spirit, in spite of the weakness of our intellect, which leads it to lose sight of the end in the means. Such is our feebleness, that it will always necessitate constant precaution to prevent our intelligence from playing false to the Great Being, by devoting itself to the service of egoism rather than of altruism. There was no real danger in this tendency prior to the developement of our speculative powers; but it is the leading difficulty in the discipline of man, now that the intellect is being constantly appealed to, whether for action or for regulation. But if the difficulty is in a high sense peculiar to the Positive state, that state has more resources for meeting it, than were available under the conditions of the theological order, when the intelligence found it easy to gain a sanction for any deviation. The first foundation for the discipline of the intellect was laid when we placed Morals at the head of the encyclopædic hierarchy; its final completeness is given it by placing the doctrine below the worship. When the intellect shall be thus consecrated to the service of the heart, we shall be justified in considering the problem of man's existence as solved, so far as it can be solved. In fact, no serious difficulty can then arise as to the proper direction of human activity; errors in regard to it being principally due to the intellect's proving false to the feelings. Yet however legitimate this discipline, however urgent the need of it at the present time, we must still admit that its introduction, to be opportune, must coincide in point of time with the state of things which makes it practicable. During the whole of the first period of human existence, when the object was to call into action all our powers, without any possibility of duly regulating them, the Positive spirit naturally exercised itself on all the theories for which it was competent, with a preference of the easier to the more important. Apart from the fact that it was beyond its power at that time to devote its energies to the construction of a Synthesis, the nature of which and the source of which were equally unknown, the premature concentration on such an object would have been an obstacle to its developing its powers of abstraction by exerting them on subjects of logical rather than scientific value. The genius of speculative research was unchecked save by the influence of the discipline of Theology, a discipline for repression rather than guidance, and from its disparate nature at all times unable to reach it in the required degree. Science, however, in its onward course, empirical and dispersive though it has been, has gradually, under the strengthening impulse of Humanity, grasped more important and more difficult questions. This of itself constitutes an advance towards an efficient discipline, one which it can the less reject, as itself furnishes the intellectual basis for it. The distinct existence of that basis The disci pline of science in relation to the will. Public opinion. dates from the time when the Positive spirit took definitive possession of its chief province by the foundation of Sociology, soon followed by the systematic construction of the Religion of Humanity. To complete our conception of the share taken by the doctrinal system in the establishment of our normal unity, we must consider the discipline to which it is ultimately subjected as having for its chief object to regulate the wills, in order to direct the actions, of men. We then see that such an object requires the persistent consensus of the three parts of the true religion, its emotional, its intellectual, and its active elements. It requires, first of all, the developement by the worship of our sympathetic instincts, as being the principal source of unity. But it implies, in the next place, the removal, by the doctrine, of our natural indecision in conduct, furnishing as the doctrine does, from without, reasons for action free from all alloy of caprice. The discipline suggested by love thus placed on a sure foundation of faith, the regime gives it completeness and strength by fostering a form of activity leading, as a necessary consequence, to the reaction of the whole on each part, a reaction which is at once a guidance and a check. Thus each in its due degree, feeling, reason, and opinion, take part in the spiritual government of man; the temporal government being its indispensable supplement and concerned solely with the outward act, with no direct power to modify the will. The acknowledgement that the temporal power is indispensably needed to secure society from the more signal mistakes, makes us feel how important it is that the intellect, which supplies the grounds of our determinations, should be in unceasing unison with the affections from which they spring. The first point, then, is for the heart to govern the intellect, in order that the two, by their agreement, may discipline public opinion, which issues in a moral force calculated to improve our individual impulses. Public opinion as the general complement of the spiritualty of Positivism, presupposes above all suitable feelings, and these easily attain power with the poorest order of minds as regards the conduct of others. But the term ought of itself to remind us that it is a force which also requires community of thought, as a basis for our judgment in each Where there is not such community, from divergence or from misdirection, the best sentiments fail to guide aright our case. conduct, as individuals or as societies. Now the agreement of opinions in question remains incomplete and precarious, so long as the preconceptions of the public spring from views which are essentially subjective, not being able as yet to rest on an objective conception of the whole order of things. Viewed in this light, science acquires a sacredness hitherto unattainable, for it places on a firm footing, at one and the same time, true liberty and true morality. Both in strict relation with the habitual predominance of good impulses, they rest primarily upon love. But love would not be able to uphold them against the disturbing influences of daily life, were it not for the submission which it breathes into us as towards the order which is beyond our control, and the great laws of which alone can secure the victory of altruism by compressing egoism. The doctrinal system of Positivism may seem to chain us to external necessities, but in reality it procures us the only possible liberty, nay, the only liberty desirable, by its elimination of the element of caprice, ever favourable to the worse instincts. Theologism, especially monotheistic Theologism, gave ascendancy to a defective type by subjecting the real world to wills, which from their very nature could not but be capricious. Positivism must correct these anarchical habits; it must complete and systematise the instinctive suggestions of Fetichism in reference to an all-embracing Destiny, which, in its original conception absolute, ultimately takes a relative character. Subject to modifiable laws, we are in the truest sense free and moral beings, for their sway is always an aid towards the triumph of our higher propensities. Even whilst limited to the understanding of the inorganic world, the original domain of science, it already exerts this holy influence, the first beginning of which we trace to the study of phenomena which are absolutely beyond our interference. They compel submission, and the submission they determine represses our self-regarding instincts, the natural source of all rebellion, and developes the altruistic instinct which of the three is the most in requisition and the least accessible. This moral influence-a spontaneous growth in Fetichism, especially astrolatrical Fetichism-is organised systematically in the Positive state, for we then are no longer obliged to attribute life to the heavenly bodies, that so we may respect an order of things which is the basis of the existence of the Hence a higher sa credness for science. Even the sciences lower have a moral reaction. |