but to supernatural beings, by making the event of life
turn on the favour or disfavour of such beings, rather than on the
social action and reaction of men upon each other, and by reducing this
world into a secondary position, so that its concerns were subordinated
to those of another world, Theology tended to dissolve rather than to
knit closer the bonds of society. The relation of the individual to God
isolated him from his fellows. Especially was this the case with the
Christian form of Monotheism, with its tremendous future rewards and
penalties, and the direct relation which it established between the soul
of the individual and the infinite Being. "The immediate effect of
putting personal salvation in the foremost place was to create an
unparalleled selfishness, a selfishness rendering all social influences
nugatory, and thus tending to dissolve public life."[32] "The Christian
type of life was never fully realized except by the hermits of the
Thebaid," who, "by narrowing their wants to the lowest standard, were
able to concentrate their thoughts without remorse or distraction on the
attainment of salvation."[33] What else, indeed, but egoism could be
awakened by the worship of a God who is himself the supreme type of
egoism? For "the desires of an omnipotent Being, being gratified as soon
as formed, can consist in nothing but pure caprices. There can be no
appreciable motive either from within or from without. And above all,
these pure caprices must of necessity be purely personal; so that the
metaphysical formula, To live in self for self, would be alike
applicable to the two extreme grades of the vital scale. The type of
divinity thus approximates to the lowest stage of animality, the only
shape in which life is purely individual, because it is reduced to the
one function of nutrition."[34] The natural result of such a religion
was, therefore, to discourage the altruistic affections, and, indeed,
Monotheism has systematically denied that such affections form part of
the nature of man.

The alchemy which, according to Comte, turned this poison into an elixir
vitae, was found in the altruistic affections of the teachers of mankind,
which led them to limit and modify the doctrine they taught, so as to
subserve man's moral improvement. This, however, would not have been
sufficient, if these teachers had not at an early period ceased to be a
theocracy, or, in other words, if the practical government of mankind
had n