444 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



at thirteen he had rejected all historic religion, includ- 

 ing Theism. James Mill brought up his son in the 

 conviction that ' concerning the origin of things nothing 

 whatever can be known.' Christianity, he held with 

 the school of Bentham in general, is not only false but 

 pernicious, the God of orthodoxy being ' the most 

 perfect conception of wickedness which the human 

 mind can devise.' . . . But, as J. S. Mill observes, 

 during the period in which he grew up, opinion in 

 England on religion was more compressed than it has 

 been earlier or later. If the Utilitarians were not to 

 throw away all chance of influence they must observe 

 a rule of strict reticence in public ; though, as a matter 

 of fact, their real opinions were well understood. Comte 

 was more fortunately situated in this respect. Even 

 under the restored monarchy he could speak as he 

 liked in lectures as in writing ; and he never left any 

 doubt that he regarded every form of theology, including 

 the Christian, as superseded, to use his own expression, 

 for all minds at the level of their age." ^ 



The school of ethics which was represented in France 

 by Comte, in this country by Mill and later on by 

 Spencer, has been variously termed naturalistic or 

 positivist, though Spencer refuses to be considered as 

 influenced by the positivism of Comte. For our present 

 purposes we may more conveniently term it the socio- 

 logical school, inasmuch as it is distinguished from the 

 earlier theological ethics which had its anchorage in a 



^ Nevertheless Comte was at one | Roman Catholic Church, though 



with the Jacobin programme in I emptying it of its specifically 



imitating in his later positive pol- i Christian content. 



;ty the hierarchical system of the | 



