488 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. in. 



amount of continuity in other respects could remedy or atone 

 for. We saw that, in spite of their numberless superficial 

 dififerencea, all historic religions have been at one in the 

 affirmation of a Supreme Power upon which man is de- 

 pendent ; and we saw that with respect to this affirmation 

 our Cosmic Philosophy is as 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 system of thought which 

 either denies it, like Atheism, or ignores it, like Positivism. 

 In this respect 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 religious senti- 

 ment 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 omitted. 

 Had he recognized this essential element, he would have 

 seen that the time for instituting 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 philosophy. To demonstrate 

 anew the fallaciousness of this opinion, which underlies the 

 whole Comtean effort to reconstruct human society after a 

 Utopian model, would be but to repeat the arguments which 

 have formed the woof of our chapters on sociology. If there 

 is any convincing power in the multitude of mutually har- 

 moniou/i proofs which were there accumulated, we must be 

 already convinced tliat men are civilized, not by a mere 

 change in their formulas of belief, but only by a change in 



