further borne in mind than is necessary not to falsify our conception of
facts. On the other hand, the Grand Etre in its completeness ought to
include not only all whom we venerate, but all sentient beings to which
we owe duties, and which have a claim on our attachment. M. Comte,
therefore, incorporates into the ideal object whose service is to be the
law of our life, not our own species exclusively, but, in a subordinate
degree, our humble auxiliaries, those animal races which enter into real
society with man, which attach themselves to him, and voluntarily
co-operate with him, like the noble dog who gives his life for his human
friend and benefactor. For this M. Comte has been subjected to unworthy
ridicule, but there is nothing truer or more honourable to him in the
whole body of his doctrines. The strong sense he always shows of the
worth of the inferior animals, and of the duties of mankind towards
them, is one of the very finest traits of his character.

We, therefore, not only hold that M. Comte was justified in the attempt
to develope his philosophy into a religion, and had realized the
essential conditions of one, but that all other religions are made
better in proportion as, in their practical result, they are brought to
coincide with that which he aimed at constructing. But, unhappily, the
next thing we are obliged to do, is to charge him with making a complete
mistake at the very outset of his operations--with fundamentally
misconceiving the proper office of a rule of life. He committed the
error which is often, but falsely, charged against the whole class of
utilitarian moralists; he required that the test of conduct should also
be the exclusive motive to it. Because the good of the human race is the
ultimate standard of right and wrong, and because moral discipline
consists in cultivating the utmost possible repugnance to all conduct
injurious to the general good, M. Comte infers that the good of others
is the only inducement on which we should allow ourselves to act; and
that we should endeavour to starve the whole of the desires which point
to our personal satisfaction, by denying them all gratification not
strictly required by physical necessities. The golden rule of morality,
in M. Comte's religion, is to live for others, "vivre pour autrui." To
do as we would be done by, and to love our neighbour as ourself, are not
sufficient for him: they partake, he thinks, of the nature of personal
calculations.