t 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 Etre'
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 t