THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY 



much at one with Christianity as Christianity is 

 at one with older religious philosophies. On the 

 other hand it is self-evident that there can be 

 no continuity of development between a system 

 of thought which affirms this truth and a sys- 

 tem of thought which either denies it, like Athe- 

 ism, or ignores it, like Positivism. In this re- 

 spect it cannot be questioned that Comte broke 

 with the past as completely as if he had been a 

 dogmatic atheist. Hence is to be explained his 

 utterly unphilosophical attempt to found a new 

 religion. In his earlier scheme no place is left 

 for religion at all ; but when, by an afterthought, 

 he recognized the existence in mankind of a re- 

 ligious sentiment which demands satisfaction, his 

 ignoring of Deity led him to the construction 

 of an artificial religious scheme from which the 

 essential element of religion was entirely omit- 

 ted. Had he recognized this essential element, 

 he would have seen that the time for institut- 

 ing new religions has long since passed by, and 

 that religious progress in future is possible only 

 through the gradual evolution of Christianity 

 itself into higher and higher forms. 



The second fatal error in Positivism is the 

 opinion that society can be reorganized by phi- 

 losophy. To demonstrate anew the fallacious- 

 ness of this opinion, which underlies the whole 

 Comtean effort to reconstruct human society 

 after a Utopian model, would be but to repeat 

 343 



