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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



tich with a vague personality, such as would ren- 

 der it capable of propitiation. But how can we 

 invest with a collective personality the fleeting 

 generations of mankind ? Even the sum of man- 

 kind is never complete, much less are the units 

 blended into a personal whole, or, as it has been 

 called, a colossal man. 



There is a gulf here, as it seems to us, which 

 cannot be bridged, and can barely be thatched 

 over by the retention of religious phraseology. 

 Tn truth, the anxious use of that phraseology be- 

 trays weakness, since it shows that you cannot do 

 without the theological associations which cling 

 inseparably to religious terms. 



You look forward to a closer union, a more 

 complete brotherhood of man, an increased sa- 

 credness of the human relation. Some things 

 point that way : some things point the other way. 

 Brotherhood has hardly a definite meaning with- 

 out a father ; sacredness can hardly be predicated 

 without anything to consecrate. We can point 

 to an eminent writer who tells you that he detests 

 the idea of brotherly love altogether; that there 

 are many of his kind whom, so far from loving, 

 he hates, and that he would like to write his ha- 

 tred with a lash upon their backs. Look again at 

 the inhuman Prussianism which betrays itself in 

 the New Creed of Strauss. Look at the oligarchy 

 of enlightenment and enjoyment which Renan, in 

 his " Moral Reform of France," proposes to insti- 

 tute for the benefit of his own circle, with sub- 

 lime indifference to the lot of the vulgar, who, he 

 says, " must subsist on the glory and happiness of 

 others." This does not look much like a nearer 

 approach to a brotherhood of man than is made 

 by the Gospel. 



In an article on " The Ascent of Man," we re- 

 ferred to doctrines broached by science at the 

 time of the Jamaica massacre. "We neither de- 

 nied nor had forgotten, but, on the contrary, most 

 gratefully remembered, that among the foremost 

 champions of humanity on that occasion stood 

 some men of the highest eminence who are gen- 

 erally classed with the ultra-scientific school ; but 

 they were men in whose philosophy we are per- 

 suaded an essentially theological element still lin- 

 gers, however anti-theological the language of 

 some of them may be. 1 



We are speaking, of course, merely of the com- 

 parative moral efficiency of religion and of the 

 proposed substitutes for it, apart from the influ- 

 ence exercised over individual conduct by the 



1 We are not aware that in the writings of Mr. Dar- 

 win there is anything to prove, or even to suggest, 

 that he is not a theist. 



material needs and other non-theological forces of 

 society. 



For the immortality of the individual soul, 

 with the influences of that belief, we are asked to 

 accept the immortality of the race. But here, in 

 addition to the difficulty of proving the union and 

 intercommunion of all the members, we are met 

 by the objection that unless we live in God, the 

 race, in all probability, is not immortal. That 

 our planet and all it contains will come to an end 

 appears to be the decided opinion of science. This 

 " holy " being, our relation to which is to take the 

 place of our relation to an eternal Father, by the 

 adoration of which we are to be sustained and 

 controlled, if it exists at all, is as ephemeral com- 

 pared with eternity, as a fly. We shall be told 

 that we ought to be content with an immortality 

 extending through tens of thousands, perhaps 

 hundreds of thousands, of years. To the argu- 

 mentam ad verecundiam there is no reply. But 

 will this banish the thought of ultimate annihila- 

 tion ? Will it prevent a man, when he is called 

 upon to make some great sacrifice for the race, 

 from saying to himself, that, whether he makes the 

 sacrifice or not, one day all will end in nothing ? 



Evidently these are points which must be made 

 quite clear before you can, with any prospect of 

 success, call upon men either to regard Humanity 

 with the same feelings with which they have re- 

 garded God, or to give up their own interest or 

 enjoyment for the future benefit of the race. The 

 assurance derived from the fondness felt by par- 

 ents for their offspring, and the self-denying ef- 

 forts made for the good of children, will hardly 

 carry us very far, even supposing it certain that 

 parental love would remain unaffected by the gen- 

 eral change. It is evidently a thing apart from 

 the general love of Humanity. Nobody was ever 

 more extravagantly fond of his children, or made 

 greater efforts for them, than Alexander Borgia. 



It has been attempted, however, with all the 

 fervor of conviction, and with all the force of a 

 powerful style, to make us see not only that we 

 have this corporate immortality as members of 

 the " colossal man," but that Ave may look for- 

 ward to an actual, though impersonal, existence 

 in the shape of the prolongation through all fu- 

 ture time of the consequences of our lives. It 

 might with equal truth be said that we have en- 

 joyed an actual, though impersonal, existence 

 through all time past in our antecedents. But 

 neither in its consequences nor in its antecedents 

 can anything be said to live except by a figure. 

 The characters and actions of men surely will 

 never be influenced by such a fanciful use of Ian- 



