combine and develop all the cults of all the religions

Egyptian, Judaic, Confucian, Buddhist, Hellenic, Roman, Byzantine, or Catholic.

For some time I joined the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street and gave some courses of lectures on History. But Mr. Maurice, the devoted Founder and Principal, vehemently resisted my efforts to have a regular scheme of studies laid down and especially a systematic survey of history. He perceived, not untruly, the ideas of Comte and of Congreve in all proposals I made. Accordingly I started a course of history lectures of my own in a Free-Thought Hall in Cleveland Street, to which I was introduced by George. Jacob Holyoake. I gave from that platform the lectures published in my first Meaning of History in 1862, and I then formed a very interesting class of men and women attached to the Secularist movement, to whom I lectured, first with a general sketch of Ancient History, then on Modern History and the detailed story of the French Revolution.

During the sixties I was occupied with Trades-Union interests on which I wrote constantly in the Beehive newspaper, the Pall Mall Gazette, and then the Fortnightly Review; and I served on the Trades-Union Royal Commission from 1867 to 1869. During this period I took no part in the religious problems of the time, except that I wrote in 1869 in the Fortnightly Review, the article entitled The Positivist Problem, which led to a spirited controversy with Sir J. Fitzjames Stephen in the Pall Mall Gazette. In this article I distinctly said that I was not one of those who definitely accepted Positivism as a religion; nor was I a member of the small community then directed by Dr. Richard Congreve. I said it seemed to me premature to form any group until there was an adequate body of persons and of families seriously bent on observing formal institutions, with a definite religious education and recognised forms of worship.

THE POSITIVIST GROUP

During the sixties I was occupied entirely with law, economics, and politics, and was in close touch with the leaders of the Trades Unions, and the International and Reformers' Agitations. In 1867 a body of friends met in my rooms in Lincoln's Inn and agreed to establish the Positivist political and social Union. This body has met without interruption for forty years, and has constantly put out manifestoes, appeals, and programmes on the political, social, and international questions of the day. These efforts were made in the interest of peace, of justice between nations, and of social progress. The Presidents of the Society have been Dr. Congreve, Professor Beesly, and Mr. S. H. Swinny. I have been, and still am, a member of the Society, but I have never held any official position in it.

When in 1870 Dr. Congreve resolved to open a small hall in Chapel Street, to be known as the Positivist School and afterwards as the Church of Humanity, I thought it to be quite premature, as no sufficient body of persons definitely committed to the active Positivist propaganda and cult was yet collected. I did what I could to postpone this step, but I did not choose to secede from it. I continued for many years to attend the meetings, which at that time consisted entirely of lectures on history, philosophy, and politics, drawn from the Positivist Polity; I gave an annual subscription to the expenses; and presented as decoration a collection of typical portraits. During the absence abroad of Dr. Congreve, I twice gave courses of lectures on historical evolution; I gradually accepted the rudimentary kind of rites instituted by Dr. Congreve; but I did not see my way to join the French Society founded by Comte in Paris.

In 1871 I was made a member of the Cosmopolitan Club by Lord Houghton, and of the Metaphysical Society by Lord Arthur Russell; and in 1875 I was made a member of the Political Economy Club, by Mr. John Morley. At these gatherings I was thrown into the society of some of the leading minds in politics, literature, and philosophy. The indefatigable secretary, and practically the founder, of the Metaphysical Society, was the present Sir James Knowles, who became editor, first of the Contemporary Review, and then of the Nineteenth Century, which under his hands has had so great a career. At his invitation I frequently was able to discuss the religious problems in both these Reviews, as well as in the Fortnightly Review, then in the hands of my life-long friend, John Morley.

In various papers (to which I need not refer) I tried to defend the Positivist cause against criticism from John Ruskin, Herbert Spencer, Professor Huxley, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Mr. Mallock, Mr. Arthur J. Balfour, and others. It has been a great misfortune to me to find myself so frequently engaged in what looked like controversy. But I was really always on the side of the defence, and I stood too often quite alone in seeking to dispel misconceptions, first from one side and then from another. Let us not forget that every advance in thought, whether philosophical or religious, has been won by animated discussion - nay by unsparing exposure of antiquated sophisms.

Those who with pious horror declaim against controversy in things religious should remember the language of the gentle Jesus about Scribes and Pharisees, the "generation of vipers," even to his resort to a scourge; the vituperations uttered by St. Augustine, St. Bernard, by Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Bossuet, to say nothing of the Vatican and Protestant divines.

When Dr. Congreve in 1879 determined to part company with Pierre Laffitte in Paris, I declined, along with most of my friends and colleagues, to follow his example; and from that date I have had no part with the group at Chapel Street. I am not aware that any difference of opinion, much less any divergent understanding of the Positivist Synthesis, has ever separated the group in Chapel Street from that in Newton Hall and Clifford's Inn. Nor has any ill-feeling ever existed between the two bodies, any more than between neighbouring colleges in one University. There have grown up, I am told, certain differences in practice, but the gossip about “rivalry" and "animosity" is merely part of the gratuitous legend which springs up round every novel and unpopular movement.

When Pierre Laffitte formed an English Positivist Committee I was one of the seven members; and I was the President of it from 1880 until 1905 when I nominated Mr. S. H. Swinny as my successor. The body of which, with the aid of an admirable and most harmonious committee, I was director, occupied Newton Hall for the twenty-one years from 1881 to 1902, and since then has been located in Clifford's Inn. From the first our Hall had the threefold object roughly described as Chapel, School, and Club-i.e. devoted to religious gathering, to systematic education, and to political action. On Sundays the meetings were mainly used to set forth the meaning and uses of the Religion of Humanity. During the week classes were held in Science, Art, Languages, History, and Sociology. On Fridays once a month the Society meets to discuss political and international questions on a given topic.

The paper which may be read elsewhere gives a summary of the kind of teaching which was attempted in the Hall. The courses included Astronomy, Geometry, Chemistry, Biology, and Sociology. The charge made by some Agnostic

E

specialists that Positivism is indifferent to Science was an absurd fiction. Science has been continuously taught in Newton Hall by many professional men and trained lecturers in each branch of science. A large part of those who have taken part in the Positivist propaganda from the first have been graduates in medicine and in physics. One of the most interesting of the Newton Hall institutions was the practice of visiting the birthplace, home, and burial place of illustrious men, the great historic museums, galleries, churches, and cities, and especially the annual visit to Westminster Abbey, and the delivery of memorial addresses at each of these pilgrimages. Our practice has been largely followed by other bodies, and is becoming more and more popular and per

manent.

Apart from the scientific classes, the political debates, and the social meetings in the Hall, and also distinct from the religious addresses on Sunday, there have been held from time to time commemorative sermons or ceremonies for Infancy, Education, Adult Age, Marriage, Choice of a Profession, Maturity, Burial. These were the principal of the nine Sacraments, as Auguste Comte called the rites which he assigned to signalise the great epochs of life. In resorting to the old Roman term- sacrament he of course meant nothing in any sense supramundane or mystical. The institution was a simple mode of impressing on the recipient and on those present the personal and social meaning of each irrevocable phase of human life. They answer to Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, and Funeral, as understood in the Churches; and to these Comte proposed to add ceremonies to mark Adolescence, Destination, Maturity, Retirement, and final Incorporation.

The order of these very simple rites and the discourses given for the most part fell to me to undertake. In so doing,