XVI NEWTON HALL 1886 POSITIVIST COMMITTEE Report for the Year 1885 Since much misunderstanding still exists as to the actual working of the Positivist community, in spite of the entire publicity of everything said or done by that body, it seems right to include the operative part of one of their early Annual Reports, omitting only business details, balance sheets, and statements of accounts. Between Man and the World, we find Humanity. THE past year has shown a still further extension of the threefold purpose for which Newton Hall was originally opened in May 1881; that purpose combining religious communion, systematic education, political and social action. The work which for twenty-eight years has been carried on in Paris and elsewhere in France by M. Pierre Laffitte, the actual Director of Positivism, has been continued during the past year with unabated energy. He has maintained the regular commemorations, together with some others, occasional and new, and the social institutions to which Comte gave the name of sacraments. M. Laffitte has also been able to organise, not only in Paris, but in some other places in France, a system of free and popular teaching in science and philosophy. As work of the same kind is being on many sides attempted, both in England and in France, we would urge emphatically on all who desire to take part in it, how essential for this end is a real union amongst the whole body of Positivist Groups, wherever situated; and how important it is to avoid any sectarian spirit in those groups. The only possible means of permanent cohesion, it appears to us, is to be found in the spontaneous aggregation of those groups round the centre, directed by the friend and disciple of Auguste Comte in Paris. To give to Positivism a national character, or, what is worse, a local character, would be, we believe, in direct contradiction to the express language of Comte, no less than to the entire spirit of his teaching and practice. I. On the first day of the past year we met, as usual, to commemorate Humanity, and to review our relations and our duties towards it. On the 5th of September, the day of Comte's death twenty-eight years ago, we held the commemoration of that anniversary in Newton Hall. This included an address by Mr. Beesly; a Pilgrimage to Westminster Abbey; a dinner, at which many of our friends from the country were present; and a social gathering, with music. On the 31st of December we commemorated the Day of All the Dead, by an address given by Mr. J. Cotter Morison, and appropriate musical pieces. On the 19th of December we held a musical commemoration of Handel, like those which we had given before for Mozart and Beethoven. Mr. Vernon Lushington gave a discourse on the life and work of the great musician; and Mr. M'Naught volunteered his valuable services, and those of many of his friends, in performing several of the vocal and instrumental works of the master. These occasions, in which the performance of some of these immortal works is combined with the expression of religious emotion, afford, it seems to us, some foretaste of new modes which the future may open to sacred art. We have also carried out this year another series of commemorations, long familiar to our friends in France, which are a real creation of Positivist belief. These are the Pilgrimages or religious visits to the scenes which are sacred to us as containing the tombs of some of our great men, their homes, or the spots where they lived and worked. It is a revival of a noble medieval and Oriental practice; but in this case, without any trace of fictitious sanctity, and entirely in accordance with historic and scientific reality. These Pilgrimages combined a meeting in the spots associated with great men, and suitable discourses on their lives and work. These excursions included a visit to Chalfont St. Giles, to the house where John Milton wrote Paradise Regained; and to Jordan's the first Meeting-House of the Society of Friends, with the grave of William Penn. Another was to Highgate, to see the house built by Oliver Cromwell for his daughter; to the grave of John Harrison, the inventor of the modern chronometer, in Hampstead Churchyard. A third excursion was made to Windsor, which is associated with so many names in English literature and history. The Pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon, which took place on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of August (17, 18, 19, Dante), was the most systematic excursion that we have attempted. Nearly eighty persons of all ages and both sexes took part in it. Visits were made to the birthplace, the house, and the tomb, of William Shakespeare; as well as to the reputed house of Anne Hathaway, and other spots in the neighbourhood associated with his memory. The party were most hospitably welcomed by the Mayor of Stratford. Mr. Vernon Lushington gave a discourse on "The Life and Times of Shakespeare" (now published). And in the evening a musical commemoration of the poet was held, by the performance of many of his songs and poems, both as solos and part songs. On the 5th of September, the anniversary of the death of Auguste Comte, we made a collective visit to Westminster Abbey. The Abbey, with its precincts, is associated in a special way with English history and literature. Seven of those whose names are in the Positivist Calendar were buried in the Abbey, and it contains monuments erected to the memory of five others. It seemed to us appropriate that, on the day when our friends in Paris are visiting the tombs of Comte and of his disciples and friends in Père la Chaise, we should visit the venerable Abbey, which is associated with so many great men in our own country. Our Sunday meetings have been continued regularly throughout the year except during the four summer months, when this portion of our general work was suspended. The character of our meetings has remained, as it has done since the formation of our Committee, devoid of formal ritual. It consists in addresses intended to awaken our sense of general dependence on Humanity, and our duties towards Humanity in all their forms, and to supply us with a knowledge of the general laws of its being, in order that we may be able to serve its advancement better. These meetings and addresses have had a religious character, in that they are intended to deepen our understanding of human nature in general, of personal and social duty, and to kindle the spirit of devotion to our human duty. But we have not sought to give them the character of adoration by way of set formularies, nor do we speak of them as services in any special sense. Our Sunday discourses have dealt with the history of the past, the public and social duties of citizens, and the philosophical and religious truths on which the harmony of personal and social life depends. The following is a list of the various series of Discourses given on the Sunday evenings: MR. J. COTTER MORISON Social Duty (Four Discourses). The Cultivation of Human Nature (Four Discourses). MR. J. OLIPHANT — Charity and Charities. MR. FREDERIC HARRISON Industrial Reorganisation (Six Lectures). The Future of Women (Two Lectures). Duties of Positivists (Two Lectures). MR. HENRY ELLIS International Morality (Four Lectures). On the Nature of Life (Two Lectures). DR. KAINES - The Higher Life (Three Discourses). Positivism and Party Politics (Two Lectures). Altogether there have been thirty-six discourses in the course of the year, by eight different lecturers. |