I turn now, as is our custom, to review the work of the year under
its three-fold heads of Cult, Education, Politics. You will see that
I avoid the word Worship, because worship is so often misunderstood;
and because it wholly fails to convey the meaning of the Positivist
_cultus_, or stimulus of the noblest emotions of man. Worship is in
no way a translation of Comte’s word _culte_. In French we can talk
of the _culte des mères_, or the _culte des morts_, or the _culte
des enfants_, or the _culte de l’Art_. We cannot in English talk of
_worshipping_ our mothers, or _worshipping_ our dead friends, or
_worshipping_ children, or _worshipping_ art; or, if we use the words,
we do not mean the same thing. Comte has suffered deeply by being
crudely translated into English phrases, by people who did not see
that the same phrase in English means something different. Now his
_culte de l’Humanité_ does not mean what Englishmen understand by the
worship of Humanity: _i.e._, they are apt to fancy, kneeling down
and praying to Humanity, or singing a hymn to Humanity. By _culte de
l’Humanité_ is meant, deepening our sense of gratitude and regard for
the human race and its living or dead organs. And everything which does
this is _cult_, though it may not be what we call in English worship.
So _service_ is a word I avoid; because the service of Humanity
consists in the thousand ways in which we fulfil our social duties,
and not in uttering exclamations which may or may not lead to anything
in conduct, and which we have no reason to suppose are heard by any
one, or affect any one outside the room where they are uttered. The
commemoration of a great man such as William the Silent or Corneille
is _cult_, though we do not worship him; the solemn delight in a piece
of music in such a spirit is _cult_, though it is not _worship_, or
_service_, in the modern English sense of these words. The ceremony of
interring a dead friend, or naming a child is _cult_, though we do not
worship our dead friend, nor do we worship the baby when brought for
presentation. Cult, as we understand it, is a process that concerns
the person or persons who worship, not the being worshipped. Whatever
stimulates the sense of social duty and kindles the noblest emotions,
whether by a mere historical lecture, or a grand piece of music, or by
a solemn act, or by some expression of emotion—this is cult.
In the same way, I avoid the word _religion_, to signify any special
department or any one side of our Positivist life. Religion is not a
part of life, but a harmonious and true living of our lives; not the
mere expression of feeling, but the right convergence of feeling and
thought into pure action. Some of our people seem to use the word
“religion,” in the theological sense, to mean the formal expression of
a sentiment of devotion. This is a mere distortion of Comte’s language,
and essentially unworthy of the broad spirit of Positivism. The full
meaning of _culte_, as Comte employed it, is every act by which man
expresses and every means by which he kindles the sense of reverence,
duty, love, or resignation. In that sense, and in that sense only, do
I now employ _cult_, which is obviously a somewhat inadequate English
phrase.
The past year opened with the commemoration of this day, in which,
though the words of praise and devotion that we uttered were few, we
sought to brace our spirits and clear our brains by pausing for an hour
in the midst of the whirl of life, to look forth on the vast range of
our social duties and the littleness of our individual performance. On
the 5th of September, the twenty-seventh anniversary of the death of
Auguste Comte, we met, as usual, to commemorate his life and work. The
discourse then given will be shortly published. At the friendly repast
and in the social meeting of that day we had the welcome presence of
several members of our Positivist body in Paris and also from the
northern cities of England. The hundredth year since the death of
Diderot, the two hundredth since that of Corneille, the three hundredth
since that of the great founder of the Netherlands, William of Orange,
called the Silent, were duly commemorated by a discourse on their life
and work. Such vague and unreal ideas are suggested by the phrase,
the _worship of humanity_, that it is useful to point out that this
is what we in this hall mean by such a notion: the strengthening our
sense of respect for the worthy men in the past by whom civilisation
has been built up. This is what we mean by the worship of humanity.
A mere historical lecture, if its aim and its effect be to kindle in
us enthusiastic regard for the noble men who have gone before us, and
by whose lives and deaths we are what we are,—this is the worship of
humanity, and not the utterance of invocations to an abstract idea.
On the 28th of last month we held a commemoration of the great
musician, Beethoven, in all respects like that which we had given
two years ago for Mozart. Our friend Professor Henry Holmes and his
admirable quartet again performed two of those immortal pieces, and our
friend, Mr. Vernon Lushington, again gave us one of those beautiful
discourses on the glorious art to which he and his have devoted so
much of their lives. These occasions, which are a real creation of
Positivism, I deeply enjoy. They are neither concert nor lecture, nor
service specially, but all three together, and much more. It is the one
mode in which at present the religion of the future can put forth its
yearnings for a sacred art worthy to compare with the highest types of
Christian art. We meet not to listen to a musical display—not to hear
the history of the musician’s life—not to commemorate his career by any
formal ceremony; but we mingle with our words of gratitude, and honor
and affection for the artist, the worthy rehearsing of his consummate
ideas in a spirit of devotion for him and the glorious company of whom
he is one of the most splendid chiefs.
Last night, as the year closed, we met as before to dwell on the past,
on the departing year that was being laid to rest in the incalculable
catacombs of time, and on the infinite myriads of human beings by whom
those catacombs are peopled; and with music and with voice we sought to
attune our spirits to the true meanings of the hour. The year has been
to many of us one of cruel anxieties, of sad memories and irreparable
loss. In Mr. Cutler we have lost a most sincere and valued brother.
As we stood round his open grave, there was but one feeling in our
gathered mourners—a sense of loss that could ill be borne, honor to
his gentle and upright career, sympathy with those whom he had left.
The occasion will long be remembered, perhaps, as the first on which
our body has ever been called on to take part in a purely Positivist
burial service. Did any one present feel that the religion of Humanity
is without its power to dignify, to consecrate, and to console in the
presence of death? I speak not for others, but for myself. And, for
my part, when I remember the pathetic chant of our friends at the
grave, the reality of their reverend sorrow, the consolatory sense of
resignation and hope with which we laid our brother in his peaceful
bed, I feel the conviction that in this supreme office, the great test
of religious power, the faith in Humanity will surpass the faith in the
fictions—in beauty, in pathos, in courage, and in consolation, even as
it so manifestly surpasses them in reality.
The hand of death has been heavy on us both abroad and at home. The
past year has carried off to their immortal life two of the original
disciples and friends of our master, Auguste Hadery and Fabien
Magnin. Both have been most amply honored in funeral sermons by M.
Laffitte. Fabien Magnin was one of those rare men who represent to the
present the type that we look for in the future. A workman (he was
an engine-pattern maker,) he chose to live and die a workman, proud
of his order, and confident in its destinies; all through his long
life without fortune, or luxury, or ambition; a highly-trained man of
science; a thoroughly trained politician, loyal unshakenly to his great
teacher and his successor; of all the men I have ever known the most
perfect type of the cultivated, incorruptible, simple, courageous man
of the people. With his personal influence over his fellow-workmen,
and from the ascendency of his intellect and character, he might
easily in France have forced his way into the foremost place. With his
scientific resources, and his faculty both for writing and speech, he
might easily have entered the literary or scientific class. With his
energy, prudence, and mechanical skill, he might easily have amassed
a fortune. The attractions of such careers never seemed to touch by a
ripple the serene surface of his austere purity. He chose to live and
die in the strictest simplicity—the type of an honest and educated
citizen, who served to make us feel all that the future has to promise
to the workman, when remaining a workman, devoted to his craft and to
his order, he shall be as highly educated as the best of us to-day; as
courteous and dignified as the most refined; as simple as the ideal
village pastor; as ardent a Republican as the Ferrys and Gambettas
whose names fill the journals.
We have this past year also carried out another series of
commemorations, long familiar to our friends in France, but which are
a real creation of Positivist belief. I mean those Pilgrimages or
religious visits to the scenes of the lives of our great men. This is
a real revival of a noble mediæval and Oriental practice, but wholly
without superstitious taint, and entirely in the current of modern
scientific thought. We go in a body to some spot where one of our
immortal countrymen lived or died, and there, full of the beauty of
the scene on which he used to gaze, and of the _genius loci_ by which
he was inspired, we listen to a simple discourse on his life and work.
In this way we visited the homes or the graves of Bacon, of Harvey, of
Milton, of Penn, of Cromwell, and of our William of Orange. What may
not the art of the future produce for us in this most fruitful mode,
when in place of the idle picnics and holidays of vacant sightseers,
in place of the formal celebration of some prayer-book saint, we shall
gather in a spirit of real religion and honor round the birthplace, the
home, it may be the grave, of some poet, thinker, or ruler; and amidst
all the inspiration of Nature and of the sacred memories of the soil,
shall fill our hearts with the joy in beauty and profound veneration of
the mighty Dead?