The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-08 00:00:00

quently left the " theological" epoch far behind us, the tendency of our minds to form theolo gical notions is not thereby eliminated ; the same craving to look beyond the mere order of visible nature which supplied the debased savage with his fetish, or made the imaginative Greek see Dryads in the groves and an Apollo in the sky, still exists and demands satisfaction. For this necessity, therefore, Positivism, if it aspires to embrace the whole of human nature, must attempt to provide; and, having in its Philoso phy absorbed man's contemplative element, and in its Politics shown him how to occupy his active powers, must finally include in its sphere his faculties of emotion and belief; by furnishing him with a Religion. Mr. Congreve, who once promulgated some notions about the Roman empire which history unaccountably omitted to confirm, and who has since given his countrymen some advice about India and Gibraltar which they have somehow neglected to follow, has now come forward to attempt a performance in which two or three writers of note have met with but indifferent success. In spite of Mr. Lewes's lively exposi tion, and Miss Martineau's closely-packed com pendium, it may be reasonably doubted whether the adherents of Positivism in England are numerous enough to fill a good-sized family pew. Even Mr. J. S. Mill, though he derived a good part of his " Sociology " from M. Comte, fuit in parentem splendid mendax, and recoiled from the application of his instructor's principles to the practical art of Politics. When a system which appeals to its wished-for disciples, in virtue of its rational character, does not succeed in reaching them by means of their rational faculties, it does not seem a very hopeful task to try and gain admission for it by the avenues of sentiment and belief. However, Mr. Congreve, who appears to have that sort of courage which would lead him to wear a brown hat in Friesland, or propose the health of Dr. Bernard at a Tuileries banquet, has come forward as a forlorn hope, to induce us to accept Positivism by showing what an excellent substitute it is for Christianity. Because we refused to take it when we were not satisfied with our existing philosophies, he expects us to take it when we are satisfied with our existing religion. The volume before us consists of " a Summary Exposition of the Universal Religion, in thirteen systematic conversations between a Woman and a Priest of Humanity," and unfolds in their order the theory of Religion, the worship, the doctrine, and the regime or mode of life, private and public, which Positivism ordains. The following passage expresses clearly enough its general purport:— The imaginary beings, whom religion provisionally in troduced fur its purposes, were able to inspire lively affections in man ; affections which were even most power ful under the least elaborate of the fictitious systems. The immense scientific preparation required as an introduction to Positivism, for a long time seemed to deprive it of any such valuable aptitude. Whilst the philosophical initiation only comprehended the order of the material world, nay, even when it had extended to the order of living beings, it o 'old only reveal laws which were indispensable for our a!tion, it could not furnish us with ar.y direct object for an e 'during and constant affection. This is no longer the oise since the completion of our gradual preparation by the introduction of the special study of the order of man's existence, whether as an individual or as a society. This is the last step in the process. We are now able to condense the whole of our Positive conceptions in the one single idea of an immense and eternal Being, Humanity, destined by sociological laws to constant development under the preponderating influence of biological and cos• mological necessities. This, the real Great Being, on whom all, whether individuals or societies, depend as the prime mover of their existence, becomes the centre of our affections. They rest in it by as spontaneous an impulse as do our thoughts and our actions. This Being, by its very idea, suggests at once the accred formula of Posi- tivism :—Love as our principle; Order as our basis; and Progress as our end. Its compound existence is ever founded on the free concurrence of independent wills. . . . Such a Supreme Being is more within the reach of our feel►ngs as well as of our conceptions, for it is identical in nature with its servants, at the same time that it is supe rior to them. As such it more powerfully excites them to an activity, the aim of which is its preservation and amelioration. Now that the veil is lifted from the shrine, the reader, it is to be feared, may experience a slight disappointment. How can "Order" be a basis, and how can " Progress " be an end ? Progress must have an end, or the word has no meaning. And there is something about the " Great Being " which damps one's religious ardour, and which nn one, certainly, but a bona-fide Realist of the middle ages would be competent to appreciate. But then a mediaeval realist would only appreciate THE PRESS, MAY 8, 1858. it by believing, with Plato, that Universals exist in the Divine mind. He would not be satisfied with their existing in that of M. Comte. lie would look on the object of religious sentiment held up to him by the philosopher with much the same perplexity that a well-known popular lecturer shows at his friend's "photograph of a cathedral by night." Seeing nothing but a black space, he is told, that as he would perceive nothing if he were on the spot at the time sup posed, though the building would be really there, so it is " really there" in the picture, though he is equally unable to discern it. Logicians may tell us of the abstract Humanity existing in all human individuals; and when M. Comte "con denses" this airy nothing (the word has a slightly materialistic sound), and calls upon us to kneel before it, it may be there also, but we similarly fail to perceive the intended object of our adoration. This difficulty of realization is surmounted in the following manner. Each servant of Humanity enjoys two forms of being,—the one equivalent to mortal life in the common accepta tion of the word ; the other conunencing only after death, and existing only in the minds of other people. The former is transient and conscious, the latter perpetual and unconscious. But it is the latter which forms the aggregate constituting " Humanity " in general. lo bring ourselves into contact with it, the life of each person while on earth is made susceptible of a similar division into two phases,—the one " ob jective," governed by the conditions of the ex ternal world; the other " subjective," controlled only by the laws of the affections. It is by means of the latter that full play is attempted to be given to the spiritual and sentimental portion of our nature. The existence of the dead is at once idealized, and they form the object of our adoration and meditation. humanity itself, repre senting the dead, the living, and the unborn, will in the great Positivist Temple be symbolized by the figure of a woman of thirty years old with her son in her arms. But, as it may be difficult to rise at once to this grand conception of Divinity, an intermediate stage is provided, in the institution of "personal and domestic worship." The deceased members of a family are to personify Humanity for the individual citizen; and as the ex istence of this Supreme Being is founded entirely on love, the "affective sex" is naturally its most perfect representative. Thus mother, wife, and daughter —typifying the Past, Present, and Future mem bers of the race—are to stand in the place of deities, and after death to be regarded as " guardian angels." Hence it follows, that no second marriage can be allowed, since it would occasion a subjective polygamy. The worship of Humanity includes also nine social sacraments— Presentation, initiation, admission, destination, mar riage, maturity, retirement, transformation, and lastly in corporation. They succeei one another in an unbroken aeriev, and form so many preparations by which, during the whole of his Ojective life, the worthy servant of Humanity proceeds, in a gradual course, to the subjective eternity which is ultimately to constitute him in the strictest sense an organ of the Divinity we worship. After the four first of these have been explained, M. Comte's fair interlocutrix observes : I understand, my father, this series of consecrations prior to marriage, itself to be followed by our four other sacraments. As for marriage, the most important of them all, and which alone gives completeness to the whole series of man's preparation, I already know the main points of the Positivist doctrine All these precious notions had I made almost my own before I became 3our cate chumen. Relatively to a Positivist, this may be consi dered positive humour. M. Comte no doubt means to intimate that Humanitarian young ladies study their marriage-service just as at tentively as Christian damsels turn over the corresponding portion of their own liturgy. A similar slyness is shown in his assigning the additional day in Leap Year to the "general festival of Holy Women." There is a great deal more in the book after the same fashion, such as the "Calendar," with its three hundred and seventy-seven worthies, from Moses and Promotheus down to Bichat and Gall, and which forms as miscellaneous an Olympus as the Groves of Blarney ; the "system of sociolatry," embracing the worship of llu manity under all its aspects, in a series of eighty one festivals; and the " systematic view of the soul," with its eighteen functions, an adaptation of the principles of phrenology. But we have 4 said enough to attract to e w h the volume those who are curious on such subjects, and to warn off those who are not. We do not profess to criti cize the system, because there is really no com mon ground between it and its o p ponents; but from the specimens given, we think we are en titled to say that "what is new in it is not true, and what is true is not new." There is a great deal of pure morality in M. Comte, which, if it could be made the rule of human life, would doubtless be of vast benefit to society. But he leaves the problem of moral evil just where he finds it ; and, as long as human nature continues what it is, it is impossible that an abstract entity like that which is the keystone of the system can become the object of religious feeling or worship. When the adoration of the symbol typifying the race, or even of guardian angels, shall become the practice of any considerabl e p ort i on of man kind, then, but not before, may M. Comte's dis ciples have some hope of superseding the Chris tianity from which he has so liberally and ingeniously plagiarized. He himself is beyond the reach of human praise or censure. The Day after To-morrow; or, Fata Morgans. Edited by William de Tyne. London : Rout ledge. WE were attracted by the title of this book, and mo a f.h cii c ri Thh o g ti ea s i ly iniej ss History such speculative fn oh tei volume, O wn ! u ee man nearly Twenty-second ch e ou r nnd t d l the hundred t fashion yu.eD ar, expected . that it would prove a satirical novel, or s ago. But our surmises proved errone ous . Th e book is a sort of rambling disquisition on p o li t i cs , religion, and society, and criticizes all the world as it goes round. Mr. Sergeant Mallet, M.P. for Brassborough, had a snug country place, where he was surrounded by a clique that appeared to love to hear him talk ; and the learned sergeant was certainly very long-winded. This vol ume , in fact, is a series of monologues from the lips of the learned gentleman ; and it shows little inge nuity on the part of the author that he did not break up his matter, and give it a more dramatic form. The old plan of philosophical dialogues was found tiresome and unreal, because it was difficult to believe in characters talking like books; but it was better than a series of dissertations, in the mouth of a single speaker, occupying upwards of four hundred pages. The matter of the book is of a mixed character. Some of it is good, much of it is prosy, and not a little of it is mere commonplace. The author forgets that he is entering into competition with the daily and weekly political writers, and that the same topics which he has taken up have been almost worn threadbare. Yet there are many pages of fresh and strong composition in the volume ; and, judging its author to be inex perienced, we accept the volume as indicative of promise. Carlyle and Emerson have influenced his mind, although he does not copy the rugged ness of the author of " Sartor Resartus," nor does he venture into the speculative boldness of the American writer. We cannot, however, see the germs of an original mind in this volume, and the author is far more conventional than he sup poses himself to be. He has not yet thought out thoroughly the complicated questions to which he has addressed himself, and he is perhaps timid in ascertaining how far his views on certain deep problems are floating suppositions or the fixed inductions of reflection. It is as a mere writer, contradistinguished from a thinker, that the author has most success. H . e has facility as a moral sketcher, and can describe classes of men with force. Although we differ with many of the assertions in the chapter on "The Church," yet we have read it with inte rest, and we shall give some examples of the style of the book by citing some parts of his preachment on things ecclesiastical. Ile breaks forth thus:— What is the nresent state of this English Church ? It is ceasing to be nqtional. Dissent has preyeit upon it a . O long, and with such tenacity, that in many parts them i s little left but the bare bones. Who shall once more Waite life into these bones and bid them life? Who shall ?Y " Arise ! take up thy bed and walk "? It is not the sick only that love the bed. After the Revolution had esta il fished toleration, the Church worthies consoled themse lves with the spoils of conquest, nd became drowsvaa t e gGrged Alpine vultures. The nremnant of the old Puritan s also became peaceable as Poundtext. They r espectfully . declined the overtures of the Dutch deliverer f or ream ciliation ; for their leaders had arrived in the bay of Content. Now and then they might be el o q uent and ■