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 Booths 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 mans 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 Comtes 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 Dont 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.
III 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 Comtes 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 lArt. 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 lHumanité 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 lHumanité 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 Comtes 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.