wilderment, as
the manifest fact that in their infinite diversity and innumerable
varieties, they are all subordinated to one vast end--the constitution
and the good of the whole. Explain every sun that lines the eternal
path into the Infinities, where no telescope can penetrate--what is
that to the mind that knows that the numberless series is bound
together by laws which they as unhesitatingly obey as an animal when it
walks? Hence, by the very terms of his own law, Comte is compelled to
restore to the human mind its belief in a Power other than the world,
for if our only justification for discarding that belief is that
science will explain one day the _individual_ phenomena of the
universe, it is plain that man's science can never hope to explain the
origin of the worlds themselves and the infinite complexities of their
mutual relations. And if science cannot hope to do that, the mind of
man must, under penalty of going to disruption, assent to the belief
that there is a World-Power who is responsible for the conscious
production of the universe, and therefore of ourselves.

And I am glad to be able to say that Comte never expressly excluded
this belief. On the contrary, he asserts that if a cosmic hypothesis
is to be held at all, that of an intelligent Mind is far more probable
than atheism. Indeed of atheism he has written as caustically as the
most orthodox could wish. He expressly contends that the theory of
design is far more probable than blind mechanism, and if he excludes
theism, it is not so much for philosophical as for social reasons.
Consumed with a passion for human betterment, seeing that the "love of
God" had deplorably failed as an incentive to morality, he made the
tremendous effort of endeavouring to substitute the love of man as a
stimulus towards the accomplishment of duty. If Comte denied God, let
the Churches and ecclesiastics of France and of Europe bear the
responsibility. It was the disastrous condition into which Europe had
fallen under their guidance which led him to despair of "God" as a
rallying point for humanity.

But there is, I submit, no inherent necessity in the Positivist system
to insist on the dogmatic exclusion of such theism as we profess under
the guidance of Emerson and Kant, and it is gratifying to be able to
quote so sympathetic a supporter as J. S. Mill in favour of this
interpretation. "Whoever regards all events as parts of a constant
order, each one being the