The opening of a new year again assembles us together to look back on
the work of the year that is gone, to look faithfully into our present
state, and to take forecast of all that yet awaits us in the visible
life on earth, under the inspiring sense of the Great Power which makes
us what we are, and who will be as great when we are not.
In the light of this duty to Humanity as a whole, how feeble is our
work, how poor the result! And yet, looking back on the year that
is just departed, we need not be down-hearted. Surely and firmly we
advance. Not as the spiritualist movements advance, by leaps and
bounds, as the tares spring up, as the stubble blazes forth, but by
conviction, with system, with slow consolidation of belief resting on
proof and tested by experience. If at the beginning of last year we
could point to the formation of a new centre in North London, this year
we can point to its maintenance with steady vigor, and to the opening
of a more important new centre in the city of Manchester. Year by year
sees the addition to our cause of a group in the great towns of the
kingdom. Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, already have
their weekly meetings and their organised societies.
I make no great store of all this. The religious confidence in Humanity
will not come about, I think, like the belief in the Gospel, or in
the Church, or in any of the countless Protestant persuasions, by
the formation of a small sect of believers, gradually inducing men
to join some exclusive congregation. The trust in Humanity is an
ineradicable part of modern civilisation: nay, it is the very motive
power and saving quality of modern civilisation, and that even where
it is encumbered by a conscious belief in God and Christ, in Gospel
and salvation, or where it is disguised by an atheistical rejection
of all religious reverence whatever. Positivists are not a sect.
Positivism is not merely a new mode of worship. It is of small moment
to us how numerous are the congregations who meet to-day to acknowledge
Humanity in words. The best men and women of all creeds and all races
acknowledge Humanity in their lives. For the full realisation of our
hopes we must look to the improvement of civilisation; not to the
extension of a sect. Let us shun all sects and everything belonging to
them.
I shall say but little, therefore, of the growth of Positivist
congregations. Where they are perfectly spontaneous and natural; where
they are doing a real work in education; where they give solid comfort
and support to the lives of those who form them, they are useful and
living things, giving hope and sign of something better. But I see
evil in them if they are artificial and premature; if they spring out
of the incurable tendency of our age toward sects; if they are mere
imitations of Christian congregations; and, above all, if their members
look upon them as adequate types of a regenerated society. The religion
of Humanity, by its nature, is incapable of being narrowed down to
the limits of a few hundreds of scattered believers and to casual
gatherings of men and women divided in life and activity. And that for
the same reason that civilisation or patriotism could not possibly be
the privilege of a few scattered individuals. Where two or three are
gathered together, there the Gospel may be duly presented, and God and
Christ adequately worshipped. It is not so with Humanity. The service
of Humanity needs Humanity. The only Church of Humanity is a healthy
and cultured human society. It is the very business of Humanity to free
us from all individualist religion, from all self-contained worship
of the isolated believer. And though the idea of Humanity is able to
strengthen the individual soul as profoundly as the idea of Christ,
yet the idea of Humanity, the service of Humanity, the honoring of
Humanity, are only fully realised in the living organism of a humane
society of men.
For this reason I look on a Positivist community rather as a germ of
what is to come, one which may easily degenerate into a hindrance to
true life in Humanity. The utmost that we can do now as an isolated
knot of scattered believers is so immeasurably short of what may
be done by a united nation, familiar from generation to generation
with the sense of duty to Humanity, saturated from infancy with the
consciousness of Humanity, and with all the resources of an organised
public opinion, and a disciplined body of teachers, poets, and artists,
to secure its convictions and express its emotions, that I am always
dreading lest our puny attempts in the movement be stereotyped as
adequate. Our English, Protestant habits are continually prompting us
to look for salvation to sects, societies, self-sufficing congregations
of zealous, but possibly self-righteous reformers. The egotistic spirit
of the Gospel is constantly inclining us to look for a healthier
religious ideal to some new religious exercises, to be performed in
secret by the individual believer, in the silence of his chamber or in
some little congregation of fellow-believers. Positivism comes, not
to add another to these congregations, but to free us from the temper
of mind which creates them. It comes to show us that religion is not
to be found within any four walls, or in the secret yearnings of any
heart, but in the right systematic development of an entire human
society. Until there is a profound diffusion of the spirit of Humanity
throughout the mass of some entire human society, some definite section
of modern civilisation, there can be no religion of Humanity in any
adequate degree; there can be no full worship of Humanity; there can be
no true Positivist life till there be an organic Positivist community
to live such a life. Let us beware how we imagine, that where two or
three are gathered together there is a Positivist Church. There may be
a synagogue of Positivist pharisees, it may be; but the sense of our
vast human fellowship—which lies at the root of Positivist morality;
the reality of Positivist religion, which means a high and humane life
in the world; the glory of Positivist worship, which means the noblest
expression of human feeling in art—all these things are _not_ possible
in any exclusive and meagre synagogue whatever, and are very much
retarded by the premature formation of synagogues.
I look, as I say always, to the leavening of opinion generally; to the
attitude of mind with which the world around us confronts Positivism
and understands, or feels interest in Positivism. And here, and not in
the formation of new congregations, I find the grounds for unbounded
hope. Within a very few years, and notably within the year just ended,
there has been a striking change of tone in the way in which the
thoughtful public looks at Positivism. It has entirely passed out of
the stage of silence and contempt. It occupies a place in the public
interest, not equal yet to its importance in the future; but far in
excess, I fear, of anything which its living exponents can justify
in the present. The thoughtful public and the religious spirits
acknowledge in it a genuine religious force. Candid Christians see that
it has much which calls out their sympathy. But apart from that, the
period of misunderstanding and of ridicule is passed for Positivism for
ever. Serious people are beginning now to say that there is nothing
in Positivism so extravagant, nothing so mischievous as they used to
think. Many of them are beginning to see that it bears witness to
valuable truths which have been hitherto neglected. They are coming to
feel that in certain central problems of the modern world, such as the
possibility of preserving the religious sentiment, in defending the
bases of spiritual and temporal authority, in explaining the science
of history, in the institution of property, in the future relations
of men and women, employers and employed, government and people,
teachers and learners, in all of these, Positivism holds up a ray of
steady light in the chaos of opinion. They are asking themselves, the
truly conservative and truly religious natures, if, after all, society
may not be destined to be regenerated in some such ideal lines as
Positivism shadows forth:—
“Via prima salutis,
Quod minimè reris, Graia pandetur ab urbe.”
Here, then, is the great gain of the past year. It has for some time
been felt that we have hold of a profound religious truth; that
Positivism, as Mr. Mill says, does realise the essential conditions of
religion. But we have now made it clear that we have hold of a profound
philosophical truth as well; and a living and prolific social truth.
The cool, instructed, practical intellect is now prepared to admit that
it is quite a reasonable hope to look for the cultivation of a purely
human duty towards our fellow beings and our race collectively as a
solid basis of moral and practical life—nay, further, that so far as
it goes, and without excluding other bases of life, this is a sound,
and indeed, a very common, spring to right action. It is an immense
step gained that the cool, instructed, practical intellect of our day
goes with us up to this point. It is a minor matter, that in conceding
so much, this same intelligent man-of-the-world is ready to say, “You
must throw over, however, all the mummery and priestcraft with which
Positivism began its career.” Positivism has no mummery or priestcraft
to throw over. The whole idea of such things arose out of labored
epigrams manufactured about the utopias of Comte when exaggerated into
a formalism by some of his more excitable followers.
In the history of any great truth we generally find three stages of
public opinion regarding it. The first, of unthinking hostility; the
second, of minimising its novelty; the third, of adopting it as an
obvious truism. Men say first, “Nothing more grotesque and mischievous
was ever propounded!” Then they say, “Now that it has entirely changed
its front, there is nothing to be afraid of, and not much that is new!”
And in the third stage they say, “We have held this all our lives, and
it is a mere commonplace of modern thought.” Positivism has now passed
out of the first stage. Men have ceased to think of it as grotesque or
mischievous. They have now passed into the second stage, and say, “Now
that it is showing itself as mere common-sense, it is little more than
a re-statement of what reasonable men have long thought, and what good
men have long aimed at.” Quite so, only there has been no change of
front, no abandoning of anything, and no modification of any essential
principle. We have only made it clear that the original prejudices we
had to meet were founded in haste, misconception, and mere caricature.
We have shown that Positivism is just as truly scientific as it is
religious; that it has as much aversion to priestcraft, ritualism,
and ceremony, as any Protestant sectary: and as deep an aversion to
sects as the Pope of Rome or the President of the Royal Society.
Positivism itself is as loyal to every genuine result of modern science
as the Royal Society itself. The idea that any reasonable Positivist
undervalues the real triumphs of science, or could dream of minimising
any solid conclusion of science, or of limiting the progress of
science, or would pit any unproven assertion of any man, be he Comte,
or an entire Ecumenical Council of Comtists, so to speak, against
any single proven conclusion of human research, this, I say, is too
laughable to be seriously imputed to any Positivist.
If Auguste Comte had ever used language which could fairly be so
understood, I will not stop to inquire. I do not believe he has. But
if I were shown fifty such passages, they would not weigh with me a
grain against the entire basis and genius of Positivism itself; which
is that human life shall henceforward be based on a footing of solid
demonstration alone. If enthusiastic Positivists, more Comtist than
Comte, ever gave countenance to such an extravagance, I can only say
that they no more represent Positivism than General Booth’s brass
band represents Christianity. If words of Auguste Comte have been
understood to mean that the religion of Humanity can be summed up in
the repetition of phrases, or can be summed up in anything less than
a moral and scientific education of man’s complex nature, I can only
treat it as a caricature unworthy of notice. This hall is the centre in
this country where the Positivist scheme is presented in its entirety,
under the immediate direction of Comte’s successor. And speaking in
his name and in the name of our English committee, I claim it as an
essential purpose of our existence as an organised body, to promote
a sound scientific education, so as to abolish the barrier which now
separates school and Church; to cultivate individual training in all
true knowledge, and the assertion of individual energy of character
and brain; to promote independence quite as much as association;
personal responsibility, quite as much as social discipline; and free
public opinion, in all things spiritual and material alike, quite as
much as organised guidance by trained leaders. Whatever makes light
of these, whatever is indifferent to scientific education, whatever
tends to blind and slavish surrender of the judgment and the will,
whatever clings to mysticism, formalism, and priestcraft, such belongs
not to Positivism, to Auguste Comte, or to humanity rightly regarded
and honored. The first condition of the religion of Humanity is human
nature and common sense.
Whilst Positivism has been making good its ground within the area of
scientific philosophy, scientific metaphysics has been exhibiting the
signal weakness of its position on the side of religion. To those who
have once entered into the scientific world of belief in positive
knowledge there is no choice between a belief in nothing at all and
a belief in the future of human civilisation, between Agnosticism
and Humanity. Agnosticism is therefore for the present the rival and
antagonist of Positivism outside the orthodox fold. I say for the
present, because by the nature of the case Agnosticism is a mere raft
or jurymast for shipwrecked believers, a halting-place, and temporary
passage from one belief to another belief. The idea that the deepest
issues of life and of thought can be permanently referred to any
negation; that cultivated beings can feel proud of summing up their
religious belief in the formula, that they “know nothing” this is too
absurd to endure. Agnosticism is a milder form of the Voltairean hatred
of religion that was current in the last century; but it is quite as
passing a phase. For the moment, it is the fashion of the emancipated
Christian to save all trouble by professing himself an Agnostic. But he
is more or less ashamed of it. He knows it is a subterfuge. It is no
real answer. It is only an excuse for refusing to answer a troublesome
question. The Agnostic knows that he will have to give a better
answer some day; he finds earnest men clamoring for an answer. He is
getting uneasy that they will not take “Don’t know” for an answer. He
is himself too full still of theology and metaphysics to follow our
practice, which is to leave the theological conundrum alone, and to
proclaim _regard for the human race as an adequate solution of the
human problem_. And in the meantime he staves off questions by making
his own ignorance—his own ignorance!—the foundation of a creed.
We have just seen the failure of one, of these attempts. The void
caused by the silent crumbling of all the spiritual creeds has to be
filled in some way. The indomitable passion of mankind towards an
object to revere and work for, has to be met. And the latest device has
been, as we have seen, to erect the “Unknowable” itself into the sole
reality, and to assure us that an indescribable heap of abstract terms
is the true foundation of life. So that, after all its protestations
against any superstitious belief, Agnosticism floats back into a
cloud of contradictions and negations as unthinkable as those of the
Athanasian creed, and which are merely our old theological attributes
again, dressed up in the language of Esoteric Buddhism.