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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42

Religion of Humanity

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Religion of Humanity.

With all centres of our faith, wheresoever they exist; with all its scattered disciples; with the members of all other religious organisations or beliefs, Monotheist, Polytheist, or Fetichist, all lesser distinctions being absorbed in the one bond of community of religious aim; with the whole human race; with man, that is, wherever found and in whatever condition, again all lesser distinctions being absorbed in the one bond of our common humanity; and with the animal races which, during the long effort of man to raise himself, have been, as they still are, his companions and helpers, we, on this occasion, on this Festival of Humanity, would be in conscious sympathy.

Nor with our contemporaries alone are we in sympathy, but even more with the larger portion of the race which constitutes the Past. We gratefully commemorate the services of all the generations whose labour we inherit and wish to hand down with increase to our successors. We acknowledge the sway of the Dead.

We gratefully commemorate also the services of our common mother, the Earth, the planet which is our home, and with her the orbs which form the solar system, our world. We may not separate from this last commemoration that of the milieu in which we place that system, the Space which has ever been of great service to man, and is destined to be of greater, by his wise use, as it becomes the recognised seat of abstraction, the seat of the higher laws which collectively constitute the Destiny of man, and is introduced as such in all our intellectual and moral training.

From the Present and the Past we extend our sympathies to the Future, to the unborn generations which, with happier lot, shall follow us on this earth: the thought of whom page 7 should he constantly present to our minds, in order to complete the conception of Humanity, as revealed to man by the Founder of our Religion, by the full recognition of the continuity which is her noble characteristic. The memory of her greatest servant, Auguste Comte, finds a fitting place in this her greatest Festival, consecrated as it is by its very idea to the remembrance of all her servants, known or nameless—to the remembrance of all the results they have achieved and by which they live.

Wisest and noblest of teachers! may all of us who avow ourselves thy disciples, animated by thy example, supported by thy doctrine, guided by thy construction, face all the obstacles which indifference or hostility throws in our way, and in the midst of this revolutionary age, undebased by any hope of reward, undeterred by the ill success of our efforts, in a spirit of submissive veneration, carry forward the great work to which thy life was devoted—the work of human regeneration, by and through the Worship of Humanity.

For the sake of continuity, and in order to use to the full such opportunities as I have, I adhere to my practice of making some introductory remarks on some of the larger questions of political or social interest. In regard to most of them I may be brief, for I have no important alteration to make in what I said at the opening of last year. None look with satisfaction on the provisional settlement effected as to the Eastern Question; no increase of confidence has been gained in the ability of the actual directors of Europe to guide her aright; and the dangers to which I then pointed—the development of Western ambition as regards Asia, and an augmentation of the mutual distrust between ourselves as a leading Western power and the semi-oriental Empire of Russia—are manifest to all as marked features of the actual political condition. We may hope rather than rationally expect that, after all the uncertainties of the last three years, after all the hesitation and unwise shifts that have been adopted, war between the two may yet be avoided. But if it is avoided, it would seem but too likely that such result will be due to some unrighteous compact which shall page 8 sacrifice to the ambition of both the interests of weaker powers, the inhabitants of Central Asia—a compact which, begun in wrong, will but adjourn the difficulty and be the fruitful parent of future complications. All that is now being said or done points to one or other of these two methods, both alike deplorable.

Again, the faint hope to which I gave utterance that England would remember her higher obligations, to the neglect of her own aggrandisement, has not been justified, while the fear that her conduct would involve us in fresh disgrace has proved but too well founded. Shrinking from the effort of a noble and direct resistance to a policy which she blamed, she chose rather to advance her empire by the acceptance of Cyprus. Under whatever specious pretext the occupation of that island is defended, it is in reality taking her share in the plunder of the power she professed to protect, and thereby compromising, in spite of the acquiescence of the other powers of Europe, her legitimate influence in their counsels. That the step brings upon us manifold embarrassments and responsibilities may be true, but it is not on that ground that I would assail it. It may be right and even wise to incur such consequences, even in the face of a probability of failure. But a complete abstinence from further acquisitions, the renunciation of all that could even wear the appearance of direct advantage—this was the conduct which the whole circumstances of the case, and, above all, the prevailing tone of European morality, imperiously prescribed to her Government, in the highest interests of the world's due management, and to such considerations her Government and her people have proved blind.

The incentive to such blindness, the warping influence which perverts so fatally the political judgment of our country, the motive for the particular measure which I have been attacking, all are to be found in our Indian Empire, which has dazzled the imagination and vitiated the conscience of England, if we take the nation broadly and judge it by its action on the large scale. A new and unpleasant consequence of that Empire has lately disturbed us in this Afghan war, a fresh obstacle to our contented acquiescence page 9 in the acquisition made by the ambition of our forefathers—an acquisition never justifiable as an end, too often, nay almost invariably, not justified in its means. I say a fresh obstacle, for gloomy financial prospects and recurring famines, with their attendant burden of material and moral discredit, have awakened, and are destined increasingly to awaken, our misgivings. Whilst, however, on the matter of this war, it is pleasant to observe signs of a better feeling, to remember utterances in which morality asserts itself, the nation as a whole cannot be acquitted, for all parties are in essential agreement on the fundamental issue—the retention of India—and the comparatively insignificant discussion what are the particular means demanded to that end need not interest us here. It is well that by one shock after another our countrymen should be driven back on that fundamental issue, such shocks constituting apparently the necessary process by which a public opinion is to be formed alien to the present agreement. So much be said without the remotest thought of condoning the miserable war of which I am speaking.

Worse even than the Afghan war, but passing almost unnoticed whilst attention is concentrated elsewhere, is the struggle at the Cape, which seems to be assuming larger proportions, to be more definitely tending towards a career of South African conquest. In this case, as in India, the same principle is at work; a wrong step once taken must be upheld—such is the language—or the prestige of England would be lowered and her supremacy endangered. No demands, however unjust, but must be pressed to avoid such a consequence. The immorality of such a practice is little thought of, still less the just opposing claims of others. The result is, that we are dependent on any rash or unscrupulous officer who may enter on an untenable course, and the nation finds itself committed to a series of difficulties which its rulers at home would have deprecated, but which they have not the nerve to avoid by a due firmness in revising a mistaken decision. I cannot but think that the annexation of the Transvaal by Sir Theophilus Shepstone is a case in point, and that the act ought to have been at once disavowed, and that officer set aside.

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We may hope that if, as seems likely, the Eastern difficulty is for the present less pressing, this African question may he more studied in all its bearings, and the relations of the colonists with the native tribes, as well as the responsibilities of our own Government, thoroughly examined. Our whole colonial action in reference to those amidst whom our emigrants settle demands a searching examination.

There has been visible, it must be allowed, on these subjects in general, this past year, an increase of that which I noticed last year—the recoil from the aggressive spirit, from the Imperialism which has so long been in the ascendant. It is so wholly without foundation in reason or justice, so repugnant to the higher moral conclusions of man, so contrary to the teachings of either religion, the theological or human, that very imperfect or intermittent attacks are of great power to shake its hold, and lend to our consistent opposition a support which we recognise as most valuable. That consistent opposition, I would further say, has been afresh manifested in an utterance of other London Positivists, which most of you have probably seen. I allude to the protest signed by Mr. Beesly.

All the discussions which ended in the purely provisional settlement effected at Berlin, were of a nature to encourage reflection on this point. Faint indications of a higher spirit were traceable in the proceedings of the Congress, but the more superficial and the predominant tendency was the assertion by each power of its own peculiar interests, as the ultimate reason of its policy. No glimpse is attainable of a concordant action of Western Europe in which those interests should be fused; a negative pressure to make them consistent with the preservation of a hollow peace—that is the utmost point which was reached. Nor could it be otherwise, so far as England is concerned. Her influence, whatever her professions, must be nullified so long as she stands before the world as the most conspicuous representative of European domination over Asiatic or African races, as the most intrusive of all powers where intrusion is safe. An entire revision of her policy in this respect is the indispensable condition, on which we can never insist too often or too page 11 strongly, of her having her due weight as an European power; of her being able to contribute as she ought to the establishment of real European union. But the prevalent tone of public morality forbids our looking for any such revision on rational and well-considered grounds, in the exercise of a sound political foresight, inspired by a sound morality. The harsher lessons of experience alone, it would seem, will bring to her a higher wisdom, and there are not wanting signs that such harsher lessons are impending; there are not wanting signs that the intrusive, aggressive policy which is in question will at no distant period be roughly checked, if not previously modified by prescient reason. I will not speak of external opposition, though there is much in the state of the world to excite reflection on that head, in Europe and out of Europe, but will limit myself to a point which connects with what I said last year in relation to our industrial perplexities.

I spoke then of the great London building strike, which ended in the victory of capital over labour. Similar industrial disturbances have occurred since, and are impending, now in one branch of industry now in another, to-day among the agricultural labourers, to-morrow among the miners. I do not enter on the discussion whether such disturbances are wise or unwise. It seems but too probable that they will be frequent, and equally probable does it appear that they will end in the same way. Not that the failure of one after the other in its immediate object is necessarily the failure of the whole. Though unsuccessful directly, they may modify wholesomely the too hard conditions of labour, through awakening attention to them. But this is not the consideration I have in my immediate view. It is rather, whether the whole industrial problem is not changing for England; whether that commercial supremacy, for which she has schemed, and toiled, and fought, is not passing from her, and her command over the markets of the world destined to end. The internal consequences of her losing this command would naturally be a diminution in the increase of her wealth, so far as it depends on manufacturing production, and a hardening of the conditions of labour by a general reduction of page 12 wages, with all its attendant evils—a terrible strain on the well-being of the community. The external consequences are, however, my more immediate object.

An error in principle punishes itself at some time or other. Various causes led to the rapid development of our industry and its accompaniment, the growth of our population, and under the stimulus hence resulting the hunger for new markets, as well as for the monopoly of the old by underselling all rivals, grew inordinately. The principle of unlimited competition, of absolute free trade, was naturally adopted under the peculiar circumstances of our country as the theoretic basis for her practical conclusions. But it would seem that events are showing that principle to be fraught with danger, as other nations make way in their industrial advance and seek to protect it against a competition which would supersede it. In other words, England will not be allowed to manufacture for the world, but each nation of he civilised world will, within certain limits, supply itself. I use the most general language. But it is sufficient to indicate that a great change in our commercial relations is possible, and that of a nature which may rudely shake her statesmen out of the dream that a nation's true welfare is measured by an exclusive reference to exports and imports. As in so many other respects, so in this also, our thought has been far too material in its tendency. Commercial interests, and not moral considerations, have been the dominant idea in connection with free trade, and the cause, and the large amount of truth which that doctrine contains have suffered in consequence. It has been blindly urged in too absolute a spirit, and it has broken down. Not less complete is the failure of the doctrine which accompanies it, the theory of unlimited competition. I am here only concerned with one aspect of this theory: that in which it presents itself as the basis of a nation's, of our own nation's, industrial existence. Its danger has been often pointed out, and the warning is receiving confirmation by experience.

The result of such failure in the principles so long in the ascendant, and in the name of which England has been so prosperous in the ordinary sense, must be to cripple her page 13 power and to increase the sense of her burden. Her Imperial policy, as it is called, her colonial and dependent Empire, arc, after all has been said, a heavy item in that burden, one calculated for fair weather and growing resources. Combine the two difficulties, the internal and the external, and the change which no reason and no morality had power to work may be imposed by imperious necessity. All the false glitter which attaches to the adjuncts of England, and makes them seem essential to her welfare, will be detected under the test of a long industrial pressure and its sure accompaniment, a searching inquiry into its causation.

The truth is that all these adjuncts, this Indian Empire, this vast colonial aggregate, these constant acquisitions and annexations, are cherished under the influence of ideas radically alien to the new order which is dawning. They are the rags and tatters of an older state. For the same difficulty runs throughout. We are in the conflict of two forms of social existence, wholly incompatible with each other, but the complete victory of one over the other is a slow process. Industrialism, as against the remnants of mediæval feudalism, under all the successive disguises which have adapted it to meet each new exigency; positive science as against the earlier explanations of the phenomena which are the common aliment to both modes of thought; a human religion as opposed to and seeking to substitute itself for that based on theology; these are the three forms which the conflict assumes as we rise in the succession. During its progress there is necessarily much confusion: men cannot clear themselves easily of that which is outworn, for it has been the very framework of their early associations. The ideas of empire and of conquest have exercised a fascination which is not easily broken; and under its bondage we cling to the outward symbols when all that gave them a real value is gone from them. At home as abroad, in the government of England as in the management of the various dependencies which she has planted or clutched, we have to face this conclusion—that all statesmanship, as every wise direction of opinion, should set before it as its aim the consistent elimination of all obstacles to the triumph of that form of society which the whole history of the past shows to page 14 have been in constant growth, and so warrants our supposing certain to prevail. That form is the industrial. The Government, therefore, should become purely industrial; our Empire be detached from us by a careful process as an obstacle to its becoming so, if only by its steady diversion of the attention from the problem how it is to become so.

The remarks seem to take an exclusively English application, but they are not in spirit so limited. They apply to the whole Western world, with no exception even for its colonial settlements. Though for these last some deductions may seem necessary, owing to their peculiar circumstances which appear to involve a complete breach with the past, consequently an emancipation from its ideas. But with a recognition of a certain amount of truth in this way of looking at their case, there comes the consideration that they are essentially the children of their fathers, and under the dominion of the same notions which prevail in the countries from which they are offshoots. It is one strong argument in favour of ending the connection which bind to England the colonies which yet remain to her, that, its severance would precipitate their abandonment of that which is effete and the full adoption of the new industrial order. Be this as it may, I return to what I was saying as to the unity of the West in respect of the difficulties which beset it owing to the conflict between two incompatible forms of social existence. If we wanted a more palpable instance even than of England—an instance in which the contrast stands out in the harshest, most glaring manner—we have but to turn to the German Empire, with its somewhat brutal struggle between its retrograde militarism, instinct with the worst spirit of feudalism, and the newer industrialism under the peculiar features of a rather anarchical socialism. And this struggle by no means excludes the others. We may easily discover in Germany, if in a special form, the contest between positive science and the older beliefs, theological or metaphysical; as also, though again in a special form, that between the rising belief in a Humanity superior to all national distinctions and an intense page 15 clinging to the most narrow nationalism. Equally, if in varying degree, all countries of Europe, properly so called, are being torn and rent by the spirit of the Past, which the present is as yet unable to exorcise, waiting for the master doctrine which is alone competent to the task.

I but indicate such questions; there will be other opportunities of dealing with them; and many similar ones must be omitted altogether. With a few observations on the countries which are more intimately connected with the advent of the new Religion, and especially France, I will leave this portion of to-day's address. The unrest of the world, a current expression, may appear less applicable immediately to France than to her sister nations. For Italy is seen by all to be in a most perturbed state, and precisely from the same causes as I have dwelt on above. Spain is less known and understood, but occasionally there are significant symptoms of an analogous condition. And, added to the internal disturbance, there is now a force working from without on those two countries which must be taken into account. Spain's susceptibility as to the French ambassador points to the same conclusion as a recent utterance of the most prominent French statesman, the conclusion that the establishment of the Republic in France is acting as a leaven in countries which so immediately feel her influence as the two under consideration. All the later history of both warrants us in expecting that it would be so, for it has more than once shown, apart from all the stimulus of a successful experiment external to themselves, that both have in them a more or less influential Republican party, the direct outgrowth of their own national development.

Less agitated, more self-reliant and contented than Italy or Spain, in the enjoyment of a high relative degree of prosperity, we cannot yet look on the state of France as an exceptional one, as endowed that is with an immunity from the evils which afflict her equals. It is much that her Republican form lasts. We wish it, all of us, to last on for ever; but consistently with its lasting there are yet grave difficulties unmet. I will say no more than that in a democratic and parliamentary Republic, resting on universal page 16 suffrage, in the co-existence of an active Catholic organisation with a purely negative emancipation, which most frequently, moreover, is incomplete, all Positivists must see elements of danger which no provisional calm can wholly disguise, much less remove.

I have latterly on these occasions abstained from comment on our own action as English Positivists, and, so far as any history of our immediate past is concerned, I adhere to this abstention as more than ordinarily desirable. But the year has seen, and you have the sign of it in your hands, a step in advance in regard to the slow creation of a liturgy—a, want to which I gave expression in my second sermon, that for the year 72 (1860). All such services as that which we have to day (the form of it is due to the thoughtful cooperation of two members, and, with allowance for the accidental failure of the portrait, is I think very successful)—all such services, I say, I look upon as rudimentary and tentative, meeting as occasion arises a distinct demand, and open to modification and enlargement to any extent. The demand was for something which might give a definitely religious character to our ordinary Sunday meetings, and take from them their predominantly intellectual aspect, which could in no wise adequately awaken our feelings. Even this slight expression has been of gradual growth, and the particular addition of to-day is the direct introduction of the congregation in the short sentences which precede the sermon, with its usual preface of a liturgical character. Other additions will come in time. The one which is the most to be wished, and yet which cannot be made under our present circumstances, were it only from the consideration of our number, is that of some hymns; if possible, with accompaniment, but without, if that is not to be had. Meanwhile we use what we have, and little as it is it may be of advantage to us here, whilst it has in it the further good that it may be a bond of communion by its use for all the members of our too-dispersed society. I have the pleasure of thinking that it has already served this purpose in more than one instance. Such simple primary steps are very difficult and of high ulterior importance.

I touch as shortly as I can on the present condition of page 17 the Positivist body, and on its division. Mindful of the religious character of this meeting I would avoid all words of irritation. I seek rather to establish our own position than to speak of others. Painful as the responsibility was of changing the preexistent order, it seemed to me, as to others, that it was a duty from which we might not shrink; that the taking it upon ourselves was the indispensable condition of a right presentment of the Religion of Humanity as the one paramount consideration; that a bolder, fuller, more direct assertion of the religious aspect of our doctrine was the essential want; lastly, that the worship in some form or other must precede the teaching in a more marked degree than it had hitherto done. The extreme slowness of our progress we thought due, and the words of our common Master warrant our so thinking, to our own imperfect appreciation of, and insistence upon, this truth, more than to any external obstacle. We did not feel warranted by our experience, much less by the course of the discussion when the issue was once raised, in looking for any decided change in regard to this defect on the part of the then direction. The only alternative then was, either to acquiesce in that which we thought so imperfect, or, by a new combination, to attain complete freedom for working out our own conception of the true method to be pursued. We chose the latter course as the right one—as the best means of arousing and enforcing attention to so capital a problem. When I say We, I include with myself the eminent French disciples of Auguste Comte, whose competence to form a judgment on the past conduct and present exigencies of our cause can hardly be contested. It is therefore a combined action of French and English Positivists, and the group which is its result is in the fullest sense Western; adheres strictly to that most important principle of avoiding all merely national formations. We are in full communion with the only other constituent of the West which furnishes religious disciples. The mere number is not to be unduly insisted on. The new religion at its beginning must evidently set itself above such a consideration. Had my dissatisfaction with our progress been limited to myself, or shared only by my English co-religionists, I should have kept page 18 it to myself and never stirred in the matter, so entirely do I accept the above principle as overruling all others in relation to such a question.

Our choice has involved us all for the time in great unpleasantness; in much that is really and permanently painful, so far at any rate as the older members are concerned. I have never seen the necessity for such consequences. We are, in the widest extension given to our numbers, but few. There is ample room for the energies of all, and if those energies could be more fully called into play when distinct than in a given combination we might renounce this combination.

The difficulties in which English Positivists more particularly at present find themselves are not of quite recent origin, nor have they come upon us unforeseen. It is three years since I wrote as follows: 'It may be that we may have to meet 'worse times than we have yet met; that we may see the 'break-up of our present organisation, the dispersion of its 'members, the love of many waxing cold; their faith failing 'them from impatience or other human weaknesses, their aid 'denied us from yielding to some of the noblest, or being led 'astray by some of the most contemptible of our impulses; 'or it may be simply a time of slower progress, of less hope, 'the depressing tedium of a long halt. Whatever the particular form of the evil, I doubt not that some of us are 'resolved to hold on, whether alone or in company—whether 'standing shoulder to shoulder with those who have hitherto 'been with us, or deprived of their support, or even exposed 'to their active hostility; that through honour and dishonour, through evil report and good report, some will 'continue faithful to the end to the noble cause which they 'have made their own. No passing gloom will make them 'renounce their service, even though their dispersion and 'isolation may be such that to the common judgment anything that might be called a social organ of the new Religion 'may have ceased to exist. I do not think, looking at all the 'circumstances, that in this and the generation or two which 'will follow, such a course of our movement is impossible.' Such words are less hopeful than what we may now use; page 19 for amidst all the pain and difficulty, the assurance of the strength of our cause—I speak with reference to all the disciples without exception—stands out doubly sure. The trial has come and there has been no disposition perceptible to fall back. Pressing out of sight any complications, the essential discussion has been as to the desirability of a given course, and amidst all the differences which have arisen there has been evolved a greater activity than had previously existed. I have been also much struck by the importance attached to our movement by some who previously had been rather spectators than actors, but whose judgment in this respect is of value in my eyes; nor the less so that on the special issue it has generally gone against my action. It is a great thing to find that the weakness numerically of its advocates, which is patent to all, does not blind those whose acceptance of our system is but partial and most conditional, to the power and promise of the doctrine nor to the value of an organ for its propagation. The particular constitution of the organ is another matter and of relatively inferior interest. Composite or unified, it can serve the purpose on which we all are agreed—the reorganisation of human society through the establishment of the new Religion.

For ourselves, as a special portion of the composite organ now constituted by the aggregate of disciples, what should be our conduct? in what spirit must we act in relation to our actual position? Very shortly I would say that we have to move on in quiet confidence without either yielding to or stimulating the opposition to which we are exposed. In all human changes such divergences have been as it were the law; it was almost inevitable that we should offer no exception; such are the antecedents of our very mixed body, such the milieu from which it has been drawn. Add to this the premature death of our founder and guide, leaving no one competent to take his place. Had he lived to 'teach us what a Pontiff should be,' we might have escaped most of our present embarrassments. But, left to ourselves, with a many-sided doctrine, and one whose greatest development was, by the necessity of the case, most perfect in the page 20 direction to which its author assigned the secondary, subordinate place—a doctrine, therefore, not complete and rounded off to his wish in all its parts, but overweighted in its intellectual as compared with the practical and religious constituent—it was hardly to be hoped that we should escape a divergence such as the present, which turns ultimately on the relative immediate importance of these two distinct, yet in our system inseparable constituents. Recognising the probability beforehand of such a difficulty, capable from our study of history and man's nature, of explaining at once its gravity and its provisional, passing character, seeing also how with a wise forbearance it may be turned to good account, though a matter for deep regret, we may bend ourselves to our proper work, the enforcement on others, the ingraining into ourselves of the Religion we profess, as able by its direct propagation to secure most shortly the result we all have in view.

There is one evil which we have to guard against, the tendency to be looking outside of ourselves and watching the action of others. We may strengthen ourselves on this point by the following reflections: We, as representatives of the new Religion, are in the world a collective spiritualty, aiming at the direct guidance of its affairs. But in our weakness we must wait for such direct influence, and meanwhile exercise as much indirect as we can, using, so far as they are available, all existing social forces, and modifying them to our purpose. For instance, we wish to spread a true scientific instruction as part of our educational scheme. We have not the means to do this directly, having neither the teachers, nor the pupils. But so far as the lower sciences are concerned, even including biology, there is a great and general, if not always well directed, effort being made to imbue the young with them. We can see much in the methods and the spirit in which they are taught from which we differ, but we can also see that the general movement is, under all the conditions of our modern life, susceptible of receiving an impulse of a different kind. We may therefore look upon our work as being done for us where we could not do it ourselves, and feel, in consequence, free to devote our own time page 21 and energy, limited as they must necessarily be, to the teaching those subjects which more immediately connect with the above-mentioned impulse. In a higher sphere, I might take the various religious movements which we are witnessing. Our own direct conversions are so few as to be at times discouraging even to the most patient, but as our task is the revival of the religious feeling and the reinvigoration of our higher moral nature, which the Western Revolution has so shaken, we can allow that in their wide variety all the forms of religious revival are doing some part of our work, and whilst conducing even now to the end we aim at, are preparing, again under the conditions of modern existence which are necessarily sapping the foundations of theological belief, the minds and hearts of men for our own non-theological belief, with which those same conditions are radically in accordance.

These two instances are sufficient to explain what I mean, when I say that within the area of Positivism we, who would more immediately concenter our efforts on the direct preaching of Humanity, may avail ourselves with satisfaction of the exertions of others who lean rather more to the intellectual propagation of the system. We must not at this point forget that Positivism in Europe—nor only in Europe, but in, to us, so important a field as Europeanised India, as also in Russia—is not identified with our small body but with the name and the followers of Messrs. Littré and Mill. The former is considered as the most rational exponent of the doctrine. Imperfect and misleading as is the exposition which he gives, we can allow and shall recognise the fact later, that the wide extension even of that is a service rendered, a preparation made, an inroad upon the adverse mental constitution which is the great obstacle intellectually. We have ample reason to regret that the work is not more thoroughly done, in more accordance with the spirit of Comte's construction. We cannot conceal from ourselves the amount of hindrance it creates by its negative character, but neither should we hesitate to allow it its own measure of utility. If we can do this when the interval is so wide, and with reference to a presentation which would avowedly crush our own were it in page 22 its power, there can be no difficulty in regard to those who theoretically are in complete agreement with us but whose presentation is to our minds in deficient agreement with their theory. Manifestly their labours will converge to the same result as ours, though they choose a method, as we think, less in accordance with the teachings and spirit of Auguste Comte, as it is less in accordance with the religious traditions of Humanity, and by virtue of these two defects, is a method which hampers our advance in the sense of extension, and exercises a prejudicial influence on our own best progress, our religious advance intensively considered. From this standpoint of a quiet judgment we may clear ourselves of all irritation. Whatever increase of energy or numbers there may be is a gain to the common cause, and whichever of the two tendencies is most in conformity with the real exigencies of our task will be sure, ultimately, to prevail, to the just subordination, in no way to the exclusion, of the other. The religion which we both believe will not have power perhaps to remove all personal differences, any more than its predecessor, nor to heal all the wounds inflicted in the course of our discussion; but it will have power, I am inclined to believe, to keep us in substantial agreement even now, and sooner or later to harmonise any discrepancies in our respective conceptions of the most suitable means to be employed.

From a more personal point of view the dispersion of the members of our group is to us all a source of difficulty as of discouragement, for it deprives us of that stimulus which numbers give, as also of the strength due to ready concert. I feel it myself in two ways: it increases my labour in correspondence, it makes all my work here harder. The very small attendance at our ordinary meetings—it need not be as small as it is were there a proper sense of duty—is a great pressure, as it will no doubt impair our efficiency. It has always done so hitherto, even when it was somewhat larger than what we can now have. I make allowance for our exceptional conditions, but I must press the necessity of effort in the direction here indicated.

Still no dispersion, no isolation, no increase of burden, must weigh against the duty of setting forth the full religion page 23 of Humanity in all its completeness, to the utmost measure of our power. And whatever the action of others we are ultimately dependent on ourselves for the discharge of this duty, and should find in it a sufficient satisfaction. I look to it as one of the best results of the present crisis, that it will add depth and strength to the convictions of most Positivists, leaving a valuable influence when the great soreness it has produced shall have passed away. We had, take us as a whole, been too passive; in all directions there will for the future be greater thought exerted, a more general sense of individual responsibility in relation to the furtherance of our common object.

We are not, or we should not be, of those who concern ourselves about immediate results, looking for some striking success rapidly attained. And in proportion as we free ourselves from the weakening effects of this tendency do we lie open to the full influence of that confidence in its ultimate triumph which our religion warrants, and under such influence do we estimate at their just value the passing complications. For we live by it in the past and in the future in order to gain a sound judgment of the present and the power to modify it wisely, with deliberate resolution meeting each particular conjuncture as it arises, and shaping our course in the best way we can according to the facts of our changing existence. The object we set before us, the spirit in which we work for its attainment, these are the cardinal points, and true to them we are independent in a high degree of the rest. Nothing can interfere with us so far. None can lower them, none can take from us our power to forward them, so long, that is, as life and liberty are left us, things not now in question. I doubt whether, essentially, any can even lessen that power, the means generally adopted being often more suicidal than injurious to us—a lesson which the ordinary party contentions around us might teach all observers. On such grounds then we may move forward hopefully, not indifferent to, but not depressed by, the annoyances attendant on the present excitement in our particular world. We can all help in allaying that excitement, and the moderate spirit generated by the thoughtful, hardly visible, yet most real intervention of all, would conduce more than anything page 24 to lessen what evil there is in our present state, and to its satisfactory modification in the future.

It was almost impossible not to speak on this point; it is a pleasure to turn from it to the more proper subject. It will be found a continuation of my four last annual addresses, which have all dealt directly with the Religion of Humanity as a new Catholicism succeeding and superseding the older or Roman Catholicism, a Catholicism, therefore, which for a time must take some distinctive epithet such as the one I have used; till the day shall arrive, when this Human Catholicism being completely triumphant, this historical necessity shall no longer exist, for all contrast will have disappeared. As we are yet, however, necessarily in such contrast, it has been my object, to the exclusion as far as I could of the critical negative spirit, to throw light at once on the religious history of our Western world, and on the intrinsic superiority of the new Faith which has arisen within its limits, by a careful comparison of the two Churches which alone I consider in serious competition, the Mediaeval or Roman, and the Positive or Human. The comparison has taken the two in various lights, and it has aimed most of all at establishing this great truth, that the later is but the perfecting of the earlier institution, the successful accomplishment of the task which the noble effort of its predecessor had proved unequal to accomplish; that the whole religious movement from the close of Antiquity to the creation of the Positive religion is entirely one in this sense: that its first part was the primary, incomplete solution of a problem, the final solution of which has been given by the second. Looking at the two parts in this light, we naturally conclude that there is not any breach of continuity, any opening for hostility, any defect of sympathy between them, and as naturally, that we may betake ourselves to the earlier construction with a certainty of finding in its principles, methods, and true spirit, much light and guidance in our understanding and appropriation of the more recent. So we explain the observed affinities between Positivism and Mediæval Catholicism.

Whilst this has been one great object of the comparison, it has also aimed at manifesting the superiority of our own religion, and that on the special point which constitutes its page 25 most distinctive characteristic, its complete continuity. It contains within itself that which no other religion has contained, the reconciliation of all history—to borrow a phrase which I have seen lately. I endeavoured last year to show that there was in St. Paul's mind an instinctive sense of a defect in his system under this aspect, and that in his way, and with the most judicious use of the materials at his command, he tried to supply it, but that his attempt could not be accepted as successful; as also that no similar attempt could be successful on the basis of theology. It is only in Humanity that all ages and faiths can be at one. She alone can reconcile man to man.

The question then arises how best to set forth the truth, How can we most efficiently preach Humanity? and on this question of method I went into some detail in last year's address. It is condensed in the motto which is prefixed to that address. Humanity needs no demonstration; that which she has produced leads us naturally to her, as do the two great notions of the family and the country. Hence, by the naturalness of the process, that is, we explain the rapidity with which the conception, now fully worked out, is taking possession of the thoughts of men, and, as a symbol of such possession, is penetrating their language. It is by virtue of the same character that we can trace in the nobler natures of the past, in their action or in their speculation, such frequent recognition of the conception when it could only be imperfectly apprehended, and when it was, if explicitly stated, in contradiction, as it were, with the prevailing doctrines and practice.

We rise to the conception of Humanity by the contemplation of her products. Is it not so? On us who live in the midst of this vast accumulation of those products, which we call London, this truth on its material side is borne in with irresistible power when once the mind is awakened. A trivial expression in common use has its application here, 'God made the country, man the town.' Its greater or less truth I do not examine; but for my purpose it testifies to the acceptance of Humanity as the real agent in our more visible advance, in all that connects with the ceaseless onward march of industry, the earliest sphere of Positive thought, page 26 the persistent and fundamental obstacle to the triumph of theology. One amidst the numerous similar, if unequal, centres of human activity, London is a sufficient image to direct and support our thoughts when we would vividly present to ourselves the agency of the power we serve. We know that it has been a gradual creation through many generations of men, each bringing its contribution, at times of health fulness and beauty, at times of the reverse; for, on a great historical city like this, the oscillations of man's right perceptions and imaginative power imprint themselves together with its growth. We see at every turn that gradual creation still in progress, still under a spontaneous impulse, and not under wise direction: in this again a symbol of the power to which it owes its origin. But under all variations and with all drawbacks we all allow, we all feel the continuity of the effort, and the grandeur of the product evolved, the capabilities for future use that are stored up, the shelter it has afforded the higher aims of the past generations. The contemplation of such a product should render easy the conception of Humanity, should by a natural process lead us into her presence. True she is not as yet inducted into her rightful possession; her vicegerent still claims her work as consecrated to himself; this city's most gorgeous temples, the Abbey of St. Peter, the Cathedral of St. Paul, with all their subordinates, yet belong to the older and provisional faith; but we find no obstacle in this, and by an easy exertion of the historical imagination, as we worship in them, we can antedate their definitive appropriation, as we can even now, by an exertion of sympathy, apply to our own benefit the beautiful services which they freely offer.

Again, in a different domain, where the effort is somewhat greater, the same conception is yet attainable. The poetry of the human race is, as much as its industry, a product of Humanity. Intimately bound up with each successive phase of man's existence it has ever borne the impress of his varying notions and of the dominant ideas, and thus its symbolism has been largely theological. It has been an incomplete service of the true power. But by this very adaptation which is its necessity, it offers us a large variety of such theological symbolism, and thereby destroys that page 27 unity which is the essence of religion, and introduces those who wisely drink as freely as they can of its inspiration, to the idea of contradictory and mutually destructive beliefs; to the desire for one in which all contradictions disappear. This by the way. I am more concerned, immediately, with the gradual construction which we can evoke by an effort when we turn our thought on the progress of mankind, the 'vision of poets' all consentient to one end—the idealising man and man's life in all its rich complexity. Each great type of that 'royal race' feels himself a stone in the living temple, which they by their succession gradually raise, each 'shining to the measure of his light, and being content.'

Ch'essi mi fecer della loro schiera,
Si ck'io fui sesto tra cotanto senno.

The special continuous whole the poets form testifies to the larger whole which contains it, and facilitates the conception of that of which they have been the prophets in the past as they will be its æsthetic interpreters in the future. More directly their labours, combined into one continuous stream of song, as we in our teaching endeavour to combine them, present us with a treasure of human accumulation from which, in grateful reverence and due thankfulness to the giver, we can draw freely for all the better purposes of our life, for the cultivation and expression of our emotional nature.

And as it is with poetry so it is with the other acts of expression, through sound or form. All in their varying degree, and with differences which admit of a social explanation, are continuous products of Humanity, and each might serve, if we stopped to contemplate its history, to furnish us with a special help to the bringing before us her real existence. Some are more partial and intermittent than others, but such differences are unimportant here. In all, those least familiar with them may by a short consideration of the names connected with them convince themselves that the considerations which apply to poetry apply to them also. We can carry our thoughts back to their rudimentary existence and see them under the action of man's social life develop into the very great beauty which every one of them has reached; as we can also easily imagine that under the page 28 action of the same influence when strengthened, man's social life raised and beautified, each of them is destined to rise with it to a higher beauty, or at any rate to a larger, more powerful, more wholesome application.

Whilst I am speaking of these various forms of expression I must briefly notice the most universal of all, the most precious of all, as being the highest instrument of communication, and as such the primary instrument of our advance in well-being. Language, I use the word in its general, most usual acceptation, is, as the others, a gradual construction of Humanity. This is true of each special language, our own as much as any other, the steps in the formation of which we can trace as accurately as our purpose requires. It is true also if we carry our thoughts onward to the time when, superposed on these special languages, which, by their diversity, aptly represent the disunion of mankind, and are a hindrance of great potency to all its progress, there shall extend throughout the world one language of universal adoption, the symbol of the definitive constitution of Human Unity—its reconstitution, we might say, if we used the old legend, which instinctively struck the truth and that more deeply than at first appears, when it pointed to the confusion of tongues as the instrument of man's dispersion, and associated that dispersion with the interests of the God-Idea, the maintenance of its power as against its human substitute.

Such universal language will be a gradual adaptation to the wants of all of one of the existing languages, and will doubtless bear the impress of such gradual adaptation and have the faculty of admitting further modifications with the growing thought of men. Its creation has been the object of hope and anticipation to the imaginative thinkers of the past, and must continue as yet a hope and an anticipation. Meanwhile each special language is enough for our present subject.

Passing from art in the ordinary sense as the medium of expression, and as distinct from the arts which deal directly with man, as education and government, we find in science again a confirmation of the truth here insisted on, that each separate attainment of man's energy is a product of Humanity, page 29 and facilitates our conception of her. Take science in its fullest constitution, and as fused into one imposing whole by the highest philosophical genius; or take any one of the separate portions of such whole, and we shall equally find that in the slowly elaborated product we can trace the accumulation of the efforts of generations, the onward march of an existence whose organs are in a constant state of disappearance and renewal, but whose essential unity through all such changes remains unimpaired.

So again with what I but now referred to, the educational and political arts; however imperfect they still remain, we can see that they bear witness to the same effect. What has yet been reached in them may be, probably is, but the heaping up of materials ready for the builder's hand, a succession of experiences of more or less value, but, whatever the name we give them, they are the work of human intellect and the groundwork for a human construction. Distinct and antagonistic as they have too often been in the past, the conceptions or schemes of education and of polity are become, or will become, convergent under the shapings of later thought, all ministering to the one end—the establishment of the definitive principles on which man shall be trained, of the definitive societies in which he shall put that training to its legitimate use.

Once more, in the highest sphere of all, and the one at first sight most alien to our position, that of religion, through the contemplation of her products we rise to Humanity. Each religion in turn, the more closely it is examined, is seen to bear more evidently the stamp of the thought and feelings of its believers, is seen to be made in their own image. This truth, long the possession of the more philosophical, has become the widely accepted conclusion of ordinary thinkers, and, like so many others, often colours the statements of those who are most adverse to it. If rejected for their own particular belief, it is accepted for all others.

Any one of the more conspicuous theological religions might serve to verify these remarks. It is not my purpose to do this here; nor do I wish to take up your time in showing how they all contribute to the one final and universal page 30 religion, the highest product of the ascending religious experience of mankind.

As in this rapid enumeration we pass in review the several provinces of thought and action, we by an almost unconscious process effect completely that substitution which is our real aim. We find one after another in the possession of man, of Humanity, to the satisfactory exclusion of the older idea, without any necessity for an unpleasant disputatious war upon it, an exclusion by a proper positive method, that of supplying the place it provisionally filled. Industry, Art, Science, Philosophy, Polity, all speak of Man, and with Religion, which is the crown of Philosophy and Polity, we come into the immediate presence of the Power we serve, and into direct contact with the duty of proclaiming her, of preaching her religion. On the method to be adopted, and on our estimate of the relative value of what to us are necessarily interdependent, the intellectual preparation, and the more concrete, more synthetic presentation, I spoke last year, giving to this last the preference, as the means of propagating our faith, not doubting that it will amply ensure the other, the due cultivation of the intellect, as an indispensable instrument at once and satisfaction. In fact, all that I have been to-day saying might show how secure we are against any undue depression of our intelligence. By her composite and continuous formation, Humanity exercises our contemplation and our meditation in a very different way and degree than they were exercised under her several predecessors. Think of the power for intellectual development that is latent in the mere tracing out, at first in outline, then in more detail, the several constructions I have mentioned. As in regard to one after the other we evoke the ages and the nations, and the individual great names which have emerged in the work, we must feel that there is no room for any alarm lest our mental horizon be too narrow, our faculties be deprived of their due nourishment.

The true danger lies elsewhere. It is our emotional nature that is threatened, for we are exposed to the forgetting, in the multiplicity and interest of the products, the source of their production. Hence the priority assigned to this central idea, and next in the series to the direct cultivation page 31 of our feelings: there is comparatively no recognition of excess in these two respects. There may be such excess, and the liability to it will at a future period be greater than it is now, but in our actual mental and moral state it is very small, and our chief precautions must be against the opposite evil.

But enough on this comparison. Beyond all comparison the more important consideration for all is the moral culture on which I have been lately dwelling in our Sunday meetings. It is by the fashioning of ourselves and our lives that we shall best serve. Convictions spread and strengthen by contact; our sentiments are enlarged at once and vivified by the sense of their participation; but the life which is the expression of the sum of our habits remains the most powerful of all contagious influences, for it is the only solid guarantee of the reality of our convictions and sentiments. In this age of talk and writing, so much tends to obscure this truth that it is well for us to remind ourselves of it, well to remember that what we are is the supreme point, and that for others no less than ourselves, as centres of conversion, if I may use the term, no less than for the truthfulness of our own being. It is fortunate that it is so, for this alone is in the power of all. Underneath all the ceaseless flow of utterances which wastes energy and absorbs attention the quiet influence of lives and characters devoted to a great cause will most promote that cause, the more in proportion as that cause is a religion.

Undervaluing no means, then, but in the conviction that this last means is at once the best for ourselves as for others, we have to proceed unhesitatingly in the course we have chosen—in the service, I mean, of the Power in whom we believe. We have to make our belief more sure and more efficacious by thought and sympathy; we have to impart it to others by the same means—by thought and by the sympathy we give and excite. We can never exhaust the power in this respect inherent in the object of our adoration and submission. 'Man is akin to and the friend of man,' says Aristotle, and we need not scruple to enlarge the meaning of his language and adapt it to our use. By no condescension, no putting off a higher nature, but by her own nature and constitution, Humanity is one with us, and we are one with page 32 her. She needs no mediator, she appeals directly to her worshippers and servants. The strength of this simplicity has yet to be fully understood; the power, that is, there lies in the straightforwardness of the relation. Even now, we can trace its influence on others and on ourselves in the increased clearness of our mental vision, in the increased intelligibility of our action; I add with conviction, in the enlargement and purification of our moral nature—benefits which in a wise combination tend to perpetuate and propagate themselves. But, whether we can trace it or no, it exists, a possession for all time, and open to the appropriation of all without detriment, one of the countless treasures within the reach of our own and all succeeding generations.

At the opening of a New Year, on the recurrence of this Festival, whatever our troubles, private or public, if there be any discouragement, and from whatever source, we, the disciples of Humanity, should be able to accept the support she can so largely minister to all her servants and worshippers, if not from the anticipations of the future, at any rate from the sympathetic recollection of her past. She, the mourning mother, has stood by the suffering generations of her sons, drawing from their suffering the great yet imperfect result which we profit by and increase. Their lot is ours; by mingled suffering and success we contribute our share to the gradually increasing result. More it were weakness to ask; it is our wisdom to find a sufficient happiness in this. Not in the ease of life, but in its pain and difficulty, met and overcome, lies the true sphere for all that is highest and noblest in us, for that which constitutes our better selves.

Consecrate we these to Humanity with gratitude and humility.

So mighty art thou, Lady, and so great,
That he who grace desireth, and comes not
To thee for aidance, fain would have desire
Fly without wings. Not only him who asks
Thy bounty succours, but doth freely oft
Forerun the asking. Whate'er may be
Of excellence in creature, pity mild,
Relenting mercy, large munificence,
Are all combined in thee.

Dante, Par. xxxiii. (Cary).

Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, New-street Square London.

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Thoughts on Theism, Etc.

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Heaven and Earth are full of Thy Glory.

Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.

A new Commandment I give unto you; that ye love one another.