•COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



should be supplied by fictitious " constructions 

 of the reason," so that our craving for symme- 

 try may be appeased. Above all, science must 

 be as far as possible deprived of its " dryness," 

 and vivified by " sentiment." To this end it is 

 well to accustom ourselves to the belief that all 

 nature is alive, and that inorganic bodies, for 

 instance, exert volition and feel what is done to 

 them ! Fetishism is, in express terms, restored, 

 and we are invited to adore the Earth as the 

 Grande Fktiche, This great fetish is supposed 

 to have planned a shrewd system of shocks or 

 explosions, by which to render its orbit less 

 eccentric and the inclination of its axis better 

 fitted for the requirements of the Grand Etre, 

 the Human Race. But even this is not enough 

 to satisfy the demands of " le coeurT We 

 must adore whatever is useful to Humanity, 

 and therefore must erect Space into a deity, 

 and endow it with feeling, though not with in- 

 telligence. Not only physics but mathematics 

 also must be made religious. And thus we 

 reach the Comtist Trinity, — Humanity, the 

 Grand Being ; Earth, the Grand Fetish ; and 

 Space, the Grand Medium ! ! ! Decimal nu- 

 meration is to be abandoned in favour of a 

 septimal system ; because seven is a sacred num- 

 ber, and moreover a prime number, incapable 

 of division, and therefore well adapted to im- 

 press us with a due sense of the weakness of 

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