the second into a barren collection of truths, were not both, over and above their relations with one another, subjected to the only power competent to regulate and ennoble them. Identifying happiness and duty, Positive religion places them once for all in moral improvement, the exclusive source of true unity. Under the persistent influence of that religion, all the aspects of human existence should become henceforward coherent and pure by virtue of the capital substitution of the relative for the absolute. In the last chapter, this substitution is effected for the intellect, which for the future will aid feeling by bringing faith to the support of love. We must now similarly regenerate the activity, which is more open to the process, as more social by nature. For private life the process

is accomplished, and we have only to extend it to public life, the sole security for the whole discipline.

It is not enough for this, to conceive of action as equally competent with faith to be the support of love, from its completing the sense of order by that of progress. Its influence in this respect, necessary as it is, and common to all its forms, is inadequate to a satisfactory organisation of labour, which must excel that of war by substituting the union of mankind for the political society. To enable Humanity to throw off its egoistic character when getting rid of the absolute synthesis, man's peaceful activity must become, not merely collective, but distinctly altruistic in character.

Activity

must become

directly

altruistic.

attempts to

industry

national.

Hitherto, the only Occidentals who have made any serious Hitherto effort to organise industry have been content with the endeavour organise to reintroduce, under a different form, the nationality charac- have been teristic of antiquity. Their patriotism was as inimical to other nations as the patriotism of ancient nations, its only aim being to substitute industrial for military dominion. Their attempts were too conflicting to allow of full developement, yet they soon proved to be more oppressive than anterior conquests; these latter invariably leading to incorporation, compulsory it is true in the first instance, but subsequently accepted by free consent, whereas the former tended to destruction. Their aim was to solve the problem of collective action to the total neglect of any moral purpose, and the result at which they arrived was the retrograde one of keeping war, in the interest of industry; a result which has brought them into complete discredit after two centuries of painful exertions. In the nation, where territorial

Socialist attempt.

The supremacy of the

of all nations substituted

for that of one nation.

isolation, official Protestantism, and aristocratic rule, acted in spontaneous concert so as to give an appearance of consistency to this defective form of industrial organisation, peace and liberty have already led to its abandonment.

The revolutionary crisis gave birth in the West to another attempt to solve the problem, one more vague in its character but less transient, which seems to comply with the condition of universality, whereas in reality all it does is to change the object of preference. It gained, as was to be expected, most adhesion in the central nation, aided thereto by the negative metaphysical philosophy which France alone up to the present time has applied to the work of reconstruction; the initiative throughout resting with her, by virtue of the whole of past history. But aspirations of a similar nature have already shown themselves in all the Western nations, not excepting even the nation apparently given over to the craving for industrial supremacy. The errors in question, if more respectable, must be held to be also more dangerous than the other, as they combine the organisation of labour with the regeneration of society. Hence it is incumbent on Positivism rather to give attention to their examination with the object of correction, than to aim at completing and coordinating the investigation entered on by the economists with reference to national industrialism.

The difference between the two solutions, both equally erroProletariate neous, may be reduced to this: the one transfers to the proletariate, without distinction of nation, the oppressive dominion which the other sought to establish on behalf of one particular nation under exceptional conditions. Such is the only form in which it is possible for the metaphysical dogmas of the sovereignty of the people to retain a firm and dangerous hold, till such time as the Positive religion shall have succeeded in regenerating the anarchical aspirations which find in it their formula. In complete insurrection against the rich, the poor in their turn wish to be supreme; on the ground of their numbers they would be, not the basis, but the end, of all collective action. The error may wear a more social aspect than the preceding, but at bottom it is not less oppressive, since it exerts a pressure within the State instead of outside it, substituting, that is, the selfishness of a class for the selfishness of a nation. If it took this subversive form, the civism of modern times would be a contradiction in terms, since it would be the consecration of a

system of mutual industrial oppression, whereas its aspiration is to emancipate itself from that evil. To say nothing of the moral invalidity of the claim resting on mere number which is urged in justification of this new form of collective selfishness, its practical result could only be a never-ending struggle between the various constituents of the proletariate when it had triumphed over its common enemy, the patriciate. Were it then practicable, which it is not, from its anarchical nature,-a circumstance which gives it, as a theory, a longer existence,—we might confidently assert that the industrial demagogism would be even more ephemeral than national industrialism.

bour must

manity in

view.

Treading neither path, for both equally though diversely Human lamislead, in our organisation of human labour on the principles keep Huof universality and permanence we must ever keep in view the whole race of mankind without any exclusive preference. For the due compliance with this condition continuity must consequently take precedence of solidarity, as it did in the truly social phase of Antiquity, solidarity being purified in the normal state in that its sphere is enlarged by virtue of its better form of activity. Labour, as conquest, requires, to be rightly organised, that it be in the interest of posterity; the two cases differ only in that Humanity takes the place of the Country, as being the ultimate goal of all social existence.

not the

Thus it is, then, that the Positive religion constructs the The Future system of man's active life by making it subordinate to the Present. sympathetic synthesis whose universal supremacy has already coordinated our intellectual life. Destined respectively to reveal order and develope progress, both may really consist in living for others. But the consecration to this purpose implies that the above destination always regards the future, not the present, so to avoid the deterioration of our collective existence in the direction of egoism. With this condition the intellect spontaneously complies, as speculation naturally has a distant range, whether in art or science, not as a rule bearing fruit till the succeeding generations. It is for action to become as liberal as thought by stripping itself of all selfishness in a degree unknown to its earlier and introductory forms. Begun by the instinct of Fetichism with an eye to the Family descendants, the transformation became a conscious process during the military period on behalf of the succeeding generations of Citizens, and must now learn to embrace Posterity as a whole. No being can

We must work con

Posterity,

not, as hitherto, blindly.

nobly labour for itself save Humanity, her servants for the time being do but employ in the interest of her servants yet unborn the products which they get from the materials collected by her servants in the past.

The organisation of human industry as here presented sciously for requires no extraordinary enthusiasm in the industrial milieu, it does not even require any radical change in the prevailing habits. Here, as elsewhere, the ultimate regeneration is but the doing consciously and voluntarily what was hitherto done blindly. Traceable in the higher animals in rudiment, this disposition to labour for a posterity ever growing larger and more remote, was at all times the highest attribute of man. Here above all is the point at which the family and the state lend each other mutual support, the one preparing and rekindling the impulse which the other perfects and consolidates. Had our predecessors treated us, as demagogic selfishness would treat posterity, Humanity would never have improved either its circumstances or itself. Fortunately solidarity has more and more become secondary to continuity, owing to the increasing importance of the accumulations of the past as compared with the present production. In the maturity of the race our great effort being not so much to develope as to regulate our powers, it is with the future especially that we must connect our exertions, so to rise superior to egoism, which, if it continue, even in a collective form, will inevitably end in mere personal selfishness.

The end of industrial activity.

Thus conceived, industrial existence is at once social and synthetical, by virtue of the concentration of all activity on this end of universal applicability: the developement of our sympathetic instincts by providing posterity with the means of securing their fuller triumph. Each family feels itself constantly ennobled and bound together by its inevitable cooperation with the whole of the race in the task of perfecting the external order on which all existence rests. Our compatriots and our contemporaries appear to us merely as fellow-labourers more within our ken, whose work we can second in a higher degree, without neglecting our own proper duties, the chief ground of our connection with the Great Being. The still beginning, never ending, reproduction of material wealth becomes for all the normal source of a growth of sympathy, on a scale beyond what the indestructible treasures of the intellect

can ever excite, save only in the special class which presides over their universal distribution. The non-recognition hitherto of this prerogative of industry was solely due to the incompetence of the absolute synthesis on all social questions, the ordinary phenomena of which are so complex as to interfere more than others with their perception, in the absence of a theory which is an adequate presentation of them.

Assuming this as the fundamental end of human industry when regenerated, I have now to state the general conditions, the moral in the first place, then the political, implied in the collective service of the Great Being. Peaceful activity looks no longer to one family, nor to one class, nor to one nation, but to Humanity in its utmost comprehension, so that all the great sources of dispute disappear of themselves, leaving only, what are inevitable, occasional disorders. In such a state of things the priesthood, aided by women and the old men, may well succeed in inducing the ministers and the agents of the Great Being to exhibit, in their general conduct, the feelings and habits best calculated to consolidate and develope the Sociocracy. The collective service of Humanity has for its perpetual foundation two correlative dispositions: the devotion of the strong to the weak, the veneration of the weak for the strong. During the whole preparatory stage, the latter naturally prevailed, for the object then was to concentrate powers whose very existence depended on such concentration. But in our maturity, the former principle vindicates for itself the legitimate predominance which I could not but assign it in my construction of statical Sociology. They on whom the Great Being devolves the permanent direction of its material providence should habitually set the example of the dispositions required by their office and which legitimise their power. A faith which is at all times demonstrable can warrant their claim to due obedience on the part of their subordinates, only so far as they themselves rest command on abnegation. And yet these dispositions on both sides would establish no solid accord, were not the end both have in common constantly made paramount, an end external in equal degree to all the associated workers without exception, each of whom, in the vigorous performance of his own service, ought to assist all the rest. Under these conditions, the distribution of the several functions may be an object of sincere respect, be the sentiments of the func

The general industry, political.

conditions of

moral and

(1) The

moral con

ditions.

Devotion

and Venera

tion the two

pillars of the

social fabric.