OH. HI.] COSMIC THEISM. 417 



no'ance his position not only irreconcilable with sound philo- 

 sophy, but hopelessly retrograde as compared even with the 

 current anthropomorjihism. Seeing only the negative side 

 of the theorem of relativity, and thus failing explicitly to 

 recognize the existence of that Absolute Power of which the 

 web of phenomena is but the visible garment, he was obliged 

 to search for his Deity in the realm of the finite and the 

 knowable. Working under these conditions, the result at 

 which he finally arrived appears to have been legitimately 

 evolved from the conceptioD of the aims and scope of philo- 

 sophy v.'hich he had framed in early life, at the very outset 

 of his speculations. The thinker who from the beginning 

 consistently occupied the anthropocentric point of view, who 

 regarded philosophy, not as a unified theory of the Cosmos, 

 but as a unified theory of Man, who depreciated the develop- 

 ment theory and the study of sidereal astronomy as interfer- 

 ing with his anthropocentric notions, and to whom the starry 

 heavens declared no glory save that of finite men, arrived 

 ultimately at the deification of Humanity. Comte "refers 

 the obligations of duty, as well as all sentiments of devotion, 

 to a concrete object, at once ideal and real; the Human 

 Race, conceived as a continuous whole, including the past, 

 the present, and the future." " It may not be consonant to 

 usage," observes Mr. Mill, " to call this a religion ; but the 

 term, so applied, has a meaning, and one which is not 

 adequately expressed by any other word. Candid persons 

 of all creeds may be willing to admit, that if a person has 

 an ideal object, his attachment and sense of duty towards 

 which are able to control and discipline all his other senti- 

 ments and propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life, 

 that person has a religion. . . . Many indeed may be unable 

 to believe that this object is capable of gathering around 

 tt feelings sufficiently strong : but this is exactly the point 

 on which a doubt can hardly remain in an intelligent reader 

 )f Comte ; and we join with him in contemning, as equally 

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