234 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the immediate and the relative." * Prof. Huxley admits in effect 

 precisely the same thing when he says that the tendency of sys- 

 tematic materialism is to " paralyze the energies of life/' and " to 

 destroy its beauty." 



Let us try to put the matter a little more concisely. It is ad- 

 mitted by our agnostics that the most valuable element in our life 

 is our sense of duty, coupled with obedience to its dictates ; and 

 this sense of duty derives both its existence and its power over us 

 from religion, and from religion alone. How it derived them from 

 the Christian religion is obvious. The Christian religion pre- 

 scribed it to us as the voice of God to the soul, appealing as it 

 were to all our most powerful passions — to our fear, to our hope, 

 and to our love. Hope gave it a meaning to us, and love and fear 

 gave it a sanction. The agnostics have got rid of God and the 

 soul together, with the loves, and fears, and hopes by which the 

 two were connected. The problem before them is to discover some 

 other considerations — that is, some other religion — which shall in- 

 vest duty with the solemn meaning and authority derivable no 

 longer from these. Our agnostics, as we know, declare them- 

 selves fully able to solve it. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Harrison, though 

 the solution of each is different, declare not only that some new 

 religion is ready for us, but that it is a religion higher and more 

 efficacious than the old ; while Prof. Huxley, though less prophetic 

 and sangiiine, rebukes those " who are alarmed lest man's moral 

 nature be debased," and declares that a wise man like Hume would 

 merely " smile at their perplexities." \ 



Let us now consider what this new religion is — or rather these 

 new religions, for we are offered more than one. So far as form 

 goes, indeed, we are offered several. They can, however, all of 

 them be resolved into two, resting on two entirely different bases, 

 though sometimes, if not usually, offered to our acceptance in com- 

 bination. One of these, which is called by some of its literary ad- 

 herents Positivism or the Eeligion of Humanity, is based on two 

 propositions with regard to the human race. The first proposition 

 is that it is constantly though slowly improving, and will one day 

 reach a condition thoroughly satisfactory to itself. The second 

 proposition is that this remote consummation can be made so in- 

 teresting to the present and to all intervening generations that 

 they will strain every nerve to bring it about and hasten it. Thus, 

 though humanity is admitted to be absolutely a fleeting phenome- 

 non in the universe, it is presented relatively as of the utmost 

 moment to the individual ; and duty is supplied with a constant 



* " Since the beginning, religion has had the all-essential office of preventing men from 

 being chiefly absorbed in the relative or the immediate, and of awaking them to a conscious- 

 ness of something beyond it." — "First Principles," p. 100. 



f " Lay Sermons," pp. 123, 124. 



