154 Science Religion and 'Reality 



feelings, but merely to deprive them of all arbitrary character and 

 therefore to make them emerge from the close and uncontrollable 

 intimacy of the subject in order to consider them in their social 

 aspects, which could be observed objectively. From such a point 

 of view religion could be, and had to be, preserved. Positive 

 philosophy, by systematising science, aims at realising the intel- 

 lectual unity of human knowledge. Yet the intellect is powerless 

 to create or to preserve the social bond. The feelings alone can 

 really unite men. Religion which, in the past, had, above all 

 egoistic theories, strengthened the social bond, could and must 

 still fulfil that duty. It was necessary, however, to purify the 

 traditional religions from their negative and decaying elements, in 

 order to leave in them only the positive, human, and indestructible 

 element. God and immortality were to be the two dogmas in 

 which the fundamental content of all religions was to be summed 

 up. It remained to seek their positive significance. The idea of 

 God was at bottom that of a universal, immense, and eternal Being, 

 with whom human souls communicate, and who fills them with 

 the power to conquer their selfish tendencies in order to harmonise 

 and reunite them in Himself The positive significance of im- 

 mortality is to be found in the fact that it allows a participation in 

 the eternal life of the Divine Being to the just who have truly loved 

 God and their neighbour in this life. Now the idea of Humanity 

 is the positive notion which corresponds to both these demands. 

 The traditional religions, purified of their metaphysical elements, 

 are thus transformed into the religion of Humanity, which takes 

 the place of God. 



4. Causes which Favoured the Prevalence of Positivism 

 Positivism held sway in the world of culture for about fifty 

 years down to the year 1870, by reason of the favourable atmo- 

 sphere for its development which was created by the advances of 

 science. Let us deal with the most important of these. 



1. The atomic theory, with its principle of the conservation 

 of matter and of the equivalence of the weight of the compound 

 with that of its elements in all chemical changes, built itself 

 up on solid experimental foundations and reasserted the ancient 

 aphorism of materialism : " nothing is created and nothing is 

 destroyed." 



2. The discovery of the law of the conservation of energy, 

 according to which all forms of energies, such as heat, electric 



