individual theists. A well-known man of letters thus summed up his creed: "He fancied there was a sort of a something!" Any of us might say that, and not find it a working religion. It is the very definiteness, the undeniable reality of Humanity, its close touch upon every phase of human life, that repels so many anxious wanderers in the limitless wilderness of theology. In these days of shallow spiritualism, the weaker brethren will cling to anything that is cloudy, unintelligible, transcendental. And their practical gods are Mammon and Moloch. Much less is Positivism an attack on Christianity. It is the rational development of Christianity, its incorporation with science and philosophy. Not, certainly, with the miraculous and supernatural dogmas of Christendom, but with the humanity of the gospel in its spiritual ideal, and the moral and social ideals of the Christian churches. No doubt, the Christian ideal is but a fractional part of the Positivist ideal, just as the Christian ideal is only in touch with a fractional part of human nature and man's life on earth. But so far as this Christian ideal is honestly human and essentially permanent Positivism is destined to give it a vast development. But this is not enough for those who still hanker after the Athanasian Creed or the Westminster Confession, or even some more inscrutable label. The human type of religion must radically differ from the theological type, for it can have nothing of the violent, ecstatic, sensational character which is inherent in monotheism. Positivism is an adult and mature phase of religion, primarily addressed to adults, to men and women of formed character and trained understanding. It is a manly and womanly religion, full of manly and womanly associations and duties. Hence, it must grow gradually, work equally, and be marked by endurance, reserve, good sense, completeness, more than by passion, fanaticism, and ecstatic selfabandonment. When they ask us, Where are the tremendous sanctions, spasmodic beatitudes, penances, raptures, beatific visions, and transcendent mysteries of Christianity? we can only smile. These things belong to the childhood of man, the fairy tale of religion. The "customs of Dahomey, the sacrifices of polytheism and Mosaism disgust the maturity of man. And so Christianity will never satisfy the later ages of civilization, until it is rational from top to bottom, co-extensive with human life, and in close touch with our latest culture and all forms of healthy manliness and womanliness. Religion is not to be forever nourished by mere hysterical emotions and vague yearnings for what we cannot rationally conceive. Religion, so reconstituted, will lose much of its rapturous and ecstatic character. It will gain in solidity, constancy, and breadth. Instead of being a thing of transcendental hopes and fears, stimulated on Sundays and occasional moments, but laid aside, if not doubted, for the rest of man's active time, religion will be a body of scientific convictions, poetic emotions, and moral habits, in close relation with all our thoughts, acts, and feelings, and naturally applying to everything we do or desire or think. It will be part of the citizen's daily life: more social than personal, more civic than domestic, more practical than mystical. It will give ample scope to the personal, the domestic, even the mystical side of human nature, within the control of reason and the claims of active duty. Religion will thus mean the guidance of right living by the light of personal and social duty as taught by a systematic sociology. Its creed will be a synthetic philosophy, resting on the general body of positive science. And its worship will be the expression of loyalty to Humanity in all its phases, as manifested in its true servants, the known or the unknown, the living or the dead, of all ages and of every race. FREDERIC HARRISON. |