COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



a religion without God and a society without 

 freedom of action. 



If we now pause for a moment, and gather 

 up the different threads of the argument, we 

 shall assist the comprehension of our own posi- 

 tion, presently to be stated. Let us, then, con- 

 template in a single view the conclusions de- 

 ducible from the foregoing series of criticisms. 



We have seen the old statical habit of thought, 

 as represented in the Doctrine of Creation, man- 

 ifesting itself in rigid orthodoxy, both in religion 

 and in politics. We have observed the way in 

 which modern scientific inquiry, detecting num- 

 berless absurdities or anomalies in the religious 

 and political orthodoxy inherited from medi- 

 aeval times, yet retaining and carrying into its 

 criticisms the statical habit of thought, has as- 

 sumed an iconoclastic attitude with reference to 

 the existing order of things. We have traced 

 this iconoclastic attitude in the modern history 

 of Atheism and Jacobinism, and have noted 

 how its tendency is in the direction of social 

 dissolution. We have found that the only pos- 

 sible result of a sudden and violent alteration of 

 the existing order of things must be a retrogra- 

 dation toward some lower order of things, char- 

 acteristic of some less advanced type of civiliza- 

 tion. And of this fatal necessity we have seen 

 the most instructive example in the career of 

 the Positive Philosophy. Though it had par- 



