The New York herald., 1868-04-12
New Religions.

have duly chronicled the progress of Shaker
ism, of Mormonism and of Spiritualism. The
last named development of the religious idea
must have proved peculiarly fascinating to a
large number of minds, for at the recent TWEEN
tieth anniversary of the birth of modern Spirit
ualism its disciples were variously estimated at
from five to eleven millions. The autobiogra, by
of one of the vestal virgins, Kitty and Maggie
Fox, to whom Spiritualism in this country owed
its earliest and most startling demonstrations,
is about to be published, with, perhaps, an ap-
pendix containing the spiritual letters which
were interchanged by one of these ''medums"
and the late DR.. Kane, the Arctic explorer
The brother of DR.. Kane, by the by, was for
some reason implicitly trusted by the Mormons
and the United States government once or
twice confded to him very delicate and impor-
tant mission to the Saints of Salt Lake City
Doctor Kane was venerated, it seems, by at
least one of the Fox sisters, the authors of
the table-rapping mysteries at Rochester, as
the latest incarnation of the Deity, or, as the
Hindoos would have called him in Sanscrit
the Avatar Of the present age The letters of
Miss Fox and her Avatar will, perhaps, prove
more interesting than those of Heloise and
Abelard.
But at the very moment that these spiritual
epistles are about to be delivered to general
circulation as substitutes for the epistles of ST.
Peter, ST. Paul, St. John, St. James and ST.
Jude, and the Fox sisters are receiving quasi
recognition as the united head of the church of
Judge Edmunds and Robert Dale Owen, a still
newer religion challenges the attention of
the American public. Henry Edgar, who
claims to be one of the apostles desig
mated by Auguste Comte to pro-
mulgate the principles Of the "Church of
Humanity" appears at the Music Hall on the
corner of Fourteenth street and Fifth avenue,
in New York, and announces scientific
religion, which the great mathematician Comte
was induced by the married lady whom he fell
in love with, and whom he called his "sainted
Clotilde, to graft upon the barren trunk of his
system of &C Positive Philosophy" Miss Mar
tineau and the other English disciples of Comte
have, with few exceptions, rejected the gospel
according to the "sainted Clotde" which
Comte accepted, acknowledging the truth of st.
Simon's criticism, that the religious or senti-
mental side of human nature is not to be
despised. 1t must be provided for.
After his love experience, as well as after
previous brain fever, which left him in such
state that Arago and Guizot and other eminent
contemporaries regarded him as climatic
philosopher, great change took place in the
views Of Comte respecting the nature and
objects of human life. The first position of bis
Positive Philosophy was that the human mind
in its progress historically and individually
passed through three stages Of Development
first the theological; second the metaphysi-
cal; and, third, the positive or scientific. His
second position was, that in the advance of
knowledge "no longer balled by the inscruta-
BILE or misled by the imaginary" from one gene
ralization to another to a comprehensive percep-
ton of the universe as a whole, it pro-
ceeds in regular hierarchial order, mathe-
matics the application Of mathematics to the
phenomena of the celestial sphere, or astron-
omy; the application of mathematics and
astronomy to the phenomena of the terrestrial
sphere, or general physics; the science of the
phenomena of the interior of bodies or of
molecular changes, chemistry the science of
the phenomena of individually organized being,
or vegetable and animal life, biology; and the
science of the phenomena of corporate or
social life, which he called sociology and which,
as presupposng and containing all the former,
he regarded as the queen and divinity of all the
sciences. His third position was demonstra
tion Of the statics and dynamics of social life,
or of the fundamental principles of order and
liberty. Subsequently his "sainted Clotilde"
convinced him that he had left a deeper ques-
tion than all these untouched and led him to
conceive religion to be the complete harmony
of human existence, individual and collective,
or the universal unity Of all exstences in one
great being, whom he calls Humanity. "This
alone is the genuine end and object of all wor-
ship, and to this every effort of the good man
should converge" But as eminent individuals.
Moses Socrates, Mohammed and others are
manifestations of the grand being, they are
entitled TO nigh yet qualified respect. Ac-
cordingly Comte arrayed the formula of an
exalted worship of humanity by means of
homages and festivals to its most illustrious
representatives. He even reformed the calen-
dar in view of 1t and bestows the names of
famous benelactors on the months and weeks
ofthe year. Thus the preface to his last work
is dated the llth of Caesar, Ga, which means
May 2, 1852. And it is this new calendar and
this new religion invented by Auguste Comte
which Henry Edgar preached last Sunday in
New York. The HERALD published on Monday
report of the apostle Edgar's discourse.
Whether the "Church of Humanity" shall
flourish on American soil or not, whether its
success shall prove that, as Hepworth Dixon
thinks America ia n hOtbed of now rolio;ona