interest of the human race,' plainly incapable of affording them in exchange that 'eternity of personal enjoyment' to which ordinary devotees look forward as their reward, and whose virtue I honour as approaching the sublime, on account of its independence of all the props and stimulants which ordinary virtue finds indispensable. But the sublimest virtue does not of itself constitute religion. For, besides the creed,' 'conviction,' and 'sentiment' indicated above, there is needed some suitable object of worship to which the soul may alternately bow down in humble reverence, and look up in fervent love-some being to whom its prayer, praise, and thanksgiving may be fittingly addressed. This want, recognised-as one of the few who do not recognise it admits-by nine out of every ten persons, was distinctly recognised by Comte, who, however, attempted to supply it by pointing, not to God, but to Man. His reason for this was not a conviction that there is no God. On the contrary, he habitually disclaimed, not without acrimony, dogmatic atheism; and once even condescended so far as to declare that 'the hypothesis of design has much greater verisimilitude than that of a blind mechanism.' But in the 'mature state of intelligence' at which his mind had arrived, 'conjecture founded on analogy did not seem to him a basis to rest a theory upon.' He preferred a religious theory without a basis, and therefore adopted one as destitute of support as the tortoise on which stands the earth-upholding elephant of Hindoo mythology; selecting, as the Grand Être' to be worshipped, the entire Human Race, conceived as a continuous whole, past, present, and future.' For this great collective non-existence, this compound of that which is, that which has been but has ceased to be, and that which

is not yet, he elaborated a minute ritual of devotional observances, and would, if he had had the chance, have consecrated a complete sacerdotal hierarchy, subordinated to himself as supreme pontiff. Having, for fear of recognising what possibly might not be, begun by, wilfully and with his eyes open, recognising what could not possibly be, he proceeded to invest this sanctified non-existence with precisely those attributes best calculated to render it unfit to receive the admiration he prescribed for it. That feeble Humanity—the actually living portion thereof, that is-may need and be the better for our services, which Divine Omnipotence of course cannot be, was distinctly urged by him as a reason why prayers, or at least those outpourings of feeling which he so designated, should be addressed to the former and not to the latter. That Humanity is in a constant state of progress, so that both the collective mass and choice specimens of each successive generation of men must always be superior to the corresponding masses and specimens of all previous generations, is a prime article of the Comtist creed; but not the less is it an imperative injunction of the Comtist rubrick that religious homage shall be paid, not only to the collective 'Grand Être' of Humanity, but also to individual worthies of past ages-that superiors shall consequently fall down before, and worship, and take as models, their intellectual and moral inferiors. The fact of a religion made up of tenets like these having been thought out by one of the profoundest of reasoners does not prevent its being the very perfection of unreason. Even though on the one side there were nothing more than some doubt whether Deity might not exist, still with complete certainty on the other of the non-existence of 'Humanity,' Deity ought in fairness to have at least the

benefit of the doubt. In selection for adoration, that which only perhaps may be, at any rate deserves to be, preferred to that which positively is not. The excess of superstition with which St. Paul reproached the Athenians, for raising an altar to the 'Unknown God,' looks like excessive circumspection, beside the solemn dedication of temples to a chimera known not to be. Nay, even Isaiah's maker of graven images is at length outdone. Even he who, having hewn down a tree, 'burneth part thereof in the fire, with part thereof eateth flesh, roasteth roast, and is satisfied, warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire; and with the residue maketh a god, yea, his graven image, and falleth down unto it and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god '-even he has at last found more than his match in irrationality. For he has at least before him a visible tangible block of wood, not the mere memory of one that has long ago rotted, nor the dream of one that is yet to grow, whereas that mental figment, Consecrated Humanity, is not even a real shadow, but only a fancied one, a shadow cast by no substance. And it is to Comtists of all people-intellectual salt of the earth as they are— that this figment is recommended for adoration—yes, to those who, pharisaically standing aloof from the common herd, thank their imaginary substitute for God, or whatever else it is they deem thankworthy, that they are not blind as other men are, and least of all as those dazed metaphysicians who actually personify their own. mental abstractions. No wonder that such extreme provocation should try the patience of all but the stanchest disciples. No wonder that Mr. Lewes himself should seem half inclined to apostrophise his quondam master in words

resembling those once addressed to Robespierre, ‘Avec ton Grand Être, tu commences à m'embêter.'

Here make we one more pause. This chapter's theme is, as was betimes premised, not the strength of theism, but the weakness of atheism. I have in it attempted to execute a design which, according to Boswell, was conceived by Lord Hailes, and approved by Dr. Johnson, that of writing an essay, Sur la crédulité des incrédules, and I think I have succeeded so far as to show that, if any one who can swallow atheism affects to strain at theism, it cannot, at any rate, be for want of a sufficiently capacious gullet.

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CHAPTER VI.

LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM.

Thought without Reverence is barren. The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and worship), were he president of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried the whole Mécanique Céleste and Hegel's Philosophy, and the epitome of all laboratories and observatories with their results, in his single head, is but a pair of spectacles, behind which there is no eye. Let those who have eyes look through him; then he may be useful. — Sartor Resartus.

'I WOULDN'T mind,' said once a representative of extreme heterodoxy, in debate with a champion of its diametrical opposite-'I wouldn't mind conceding the Deity you contend for, were it not for the use commonly made of him after he is conceded.' And no doubt that use is such as might well provoke a saint, provided the saint were likewise a philosopher. To whatever extent it be true that man was created in the image of God, it is certain that in all ages and countries God has been created in the image of man, invested with all human propensities, appetites, and passions, and expected to demean himself on all occasions as men would do in like circumstances. As popularly conceived, so long as sensual gratification was esteemed to be the summum bonum, he wallowed in all manner of sensual lust; when some of his more fervent worshippers turned ascetics out of disgust with fleshly surfeit, he became ascetism personified: at every stage his great delight has been flattery, and his still greater, revenge; in the exercise of power he has always been capricious and often wanton-ruthlessly vindictive against impugners of his