COSMIC THEISM 



Comte recognized, though vaguely, the truth 

 that while the human race in the course of its 

 philosophic evolution must outgrow theology, 

 it can never outgrow religion. He justly main- 

 tained that, while the conception of a presiding 

 quasi-human Will must eventually be discarded 

 as an inadequate subjective symbol, there will 

 nevertheless remain to the last the powerful 

 sentiment of devotion which has hitherto at- 

 tached itself to that anthropomorphic concep- 

 tion, but must finally attach itself to some other 

 conception. Throughout future time, while sci- 

 ence is supreme, no less than in that past time 

 when mythology was supreme, there must be 

 a religion, and this religion must have an ob- 

 ject. So far the position taken by Comte ap- 

 pears to be defensible enough. But now when 

 we come to consider the object of the religious 

 sentiment in Comte*s scheme, we must pro- 

 nounce his position not only irreconcilable with 

 sound philosophy, but hopelessly retrograde as 

 compared even with the current anthropomor- 

 phism. 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 

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