l of
moralists, it cannot, properly speaking, be called a positive pleasure
at all, but that, it is still essentially a religious one; and that when
the religious element is eradicated, its entire character will change.
It may be, of course, contended that the religious element is
ineradicable: but this is simply either to call positivism an
impossibility, or religion an incurable disease. Here, however, we are
touching on a side issue, which I shall by and by return to, but which
is at present beside the point. My aim now is not to argue either that
positivism can or cannot be accepted by humanity, but to show what, if
accepted, it will have to offer us. I wish to point out the error, for
instance, of such writers as George Eliot, who, whilst denying the
existence of any sun-god in the heavens, are yet perpetually adoring the
sunlight on the earth; who profess to extinguish all fire on principle,
and then offer us boiling water to supply its place; or who, sending
love to us as a mere Cassandra, continue to quote as Scripture the
prophecies they have just discredited.

Thus far what we have seen is this. Love as a positive pleasure, if it
be ever reduced to such, will be a very different thing from what our
positivist moralists at present see it to be. It will perform none of
those functions for which they now look to it. It will no longer supply
them, as now, with any special pinnacle on which human life may raise
itself. The one type of it that is at present on an eminence will sink
to the same level as the others. All these will be offered to us
indiscriminately, and our choice between them will have no moral value.
None of the ethical epithets by which these varieties are at present so
sharply distinguished from each other will have any virtue left in them.
Morality in this connection will be a word without a meaning.

I have as yet dealt only with one of those resources, which have been
supposed to impart to life a positive general value. This one, however,
has been the most important and the most comprehensive of all; and its
case will explain that of the others, and perhaps, with but few
exceptions, include them. One or two of these others I shall by and by
treat separately; but we will first enquire into the results on life of
the change we have been considering already.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Mr. A.C. Swinburne.

[16] _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, pp. 213-222. Ed. Paris. 1875.

[17] _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, p.