universities, most of them having been professors, examiners, and lecturers in various sciences, arts, or history. The courses have been followed, in many cases, during the whole of that period, and many of the students have obtained a solid general education, especially in the various branches of history, biography, and political philosophy. It is not pretended that this has been done by any large numbers. Other institutions of the kind have enjoyed much greater resources and have attracted far more numerous attendants. The reason is obvious. For one man who has the patience or the thoughtfulness to put himself under the curriculum of a laborious training, for the sole end of obtaining an intellectual and moral guidance in a definite system, there are always ninetynine who are ready to pick up any desultory, entertaining, or marketable knowledge which may be offered to them without too much mental discipline or any distinctive labels. To enter a Positivist hall, much less to join a Positivist class, or to subscribe to a Positivist fund, requires, in these days of prejudice and lampooning, a certain mental detachment and a real moral courage. The direct object of our courses is to inculcate Positive convictions with a view to a Positivist life. And as the public which is prepared to accept these terms is as yet not numerous, our hearers must be rather described as "fit, though few."

If the formation of coherent Positivist convictions by a scientific education be the first task of

such a movement, it is far from being the sole task. The control of all action, whether political, economic, or international, by moral judgment is a cardinal duty imposed on Positivists in all places and at all times. Accordingly, for forty years English Positivists have ardently supported the just claims , of labor against the oppression of capitalism, the just demand of the people to full incorporation in the state, which exists mainly for the use and improvement of the people; they have maintained the just demand of the Irish nation to be recognized as an indestructible national unit; they have protested against a series of unjust wars and the incessant efforts of British imperialism to crush out one independent race after another. All this is no recent thing. Forty years ago, the founders of the Positivist group in England began to take public action on behalf of the organized trades unions. In 1867 the Positivist Society appealed to Parliament through Mr. John Bright, M. P., on behalf of the Irish Nationalists; and they have never ceased to uphold the same cause. In 1881 they appealed to the government to recognize the full independence of the Transvaal Republic. And to-day they are the first to insist on the same policy as that of justice and honor.

There has never been an unjust annexation or a wanton war in Europe, Asia, or Africa within the last thirty years when the Positivist body has not raised its voice to plead for morality and justice, regardless of the popular cry for empire and malig

nant sneers at "Little Englandism." The record of these efforts may be seen in the Essays of Dr. R. Congreve, the first to form a Positivist body in England; in the Positivist Comments on Public Affairs, 1878-92; and, from 1893 to 1900, in the eight volumes of the Positivist Review. In an article in the Positivist Comments I wrote:

"The Positivist Society has no reason to shrink from a review of its policy over this period under five different administrations. It is a policy independent of party: national, patriotic, and devoid of any petty or factious criticism. Its sole aim is to plead for the real honor and good of England, in the interest of peace, the harmony of nations, respect for other races, religions, and honorable ambitions, and mainly for the cause of general civilization."

These Comments over fourteen years, I said:

"Embody a coherent and systematic policy dealing with England's international relations as a whole, and weighing the ultimate and indirect effect of each proposed action as affecting the peace of the world and the true cause of civilization. It is not a policy of peace-at-any-price, nor of a littleEngland, nor of uninstructed sentiment, nor of any prejudice of creed or race, much less of party, of democratic faction, or mischief-making. It is a policy that considers the past, and still more the future, and not merely the present-a policy that respects the rights and dignity of other nations as much as our own."

Of course, such a policy as this, publicly pursued in times of intense social and political excitement, could not fail to strain the cohesion of the Positivist propaganda and to limit its progress. Positivist Review, vol. iv., p. 73.

Bound by our most sacred principles to uphold definite views of national and international morality, we could not fail to encounter the prejudices of party, of class, of race, of patriotism, in their hours of keenest heat. Though resolutely abstaining from any party entanglement and from any criticism of practical applications of principle, it was in the last degree difficult to prevent some divergences of view, and impossible not to drive away thousands of those who were otherwise disposed to join. No system of thought, no economic scheme, certainly no religious movement, ever had to meet such inherent obstacles to acceptance. A philosophy appeals to thought, but it does not meddle with angry political debates. The social reformer has his own difficulties, but he does not rouse up the passions of politicians, party, and journalism. The religious reformer renders unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and is absorbed in the higher interests of the soul and its salvation. But Positivism, because it is a polity, as much as it is a philosophy and a religion, is continually forced to face the most angry storms of popular delirium and of political passion. And never so much as to-day.

Lastly, the distinctive aim of Positivism is to promulgate the conception of a real religion based on positive science. No religion can be stable or dominant if it rests on hypotheses and aspirations, which are necessarily dreamy and in constant flux. If religion, in our age of realities, is to be based on acknowledged proofs, its object must be

earthly and human. The supreme power, dominant on earth and over man, of which we have scientific knowledge is Humanity. And the ideal of Positivism is gradually to form the sense of a religion of Humanity.

And this is, also, the main difficulty that Positivism has to overcome. Denouncing, as it does, the insolent folly of atheism, and also the arid nullity of agnosticism, it is yet difficult to convince the religious minded that Positivism can be anything but a new attack on Christianity and on theism. Comte said: "The atheist is the most irrational of all theologians, for he gives the least admissible answer to the insoluble problem of the universe." Neither in open controversy, nor in private meditation, does the true Positivist hold the belief that the Infinite All came about by chance or made itself. But the orthodox controversialist perversely confounds him with those who do hold the atheistic creed, and this becomes the source of rooted antipathy and prejudice. The Positivist neither denies creation with the atheist, nor is he satisfied, with the agnostic, to boast that he knows nothing as to the religious problem. He simply says that. whatever higher paths may yet be known, the historic conception of Humanity and its practical providence offers all the essential elements of a religious faith.

This does not satisfy the theist, and the forms of theism are infinitely vague, indefinite, mystical, or even verbal, almost as numerous as the