Comte says, that
assuming the existence of a Supreme Providence (which he is as far from
denying as from affirming), the best, and even the only, way in which we
can rightly worship or serve Him, is by doing our utmost to love and
serve that other Great Being, whose inferior Providence has bestowed on
us all the benefits that we owe to the labours and virtues of former
generations. It may not be consonant to usage to call this a religion;
but the term so applied has a meaning, and one which is not adequately
expressed by any other word. Candid persons of all creeds may be willing
to admit, that if a person has an ideal object, his attachment and sense
of duty towards which are able to control and discipline all his other
sentiments and propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life, that
person has a religion: and though everyone naturally prefers his own
religion to any other, all must admit that if the object of this
attachment, and of this feeling of duty, is the aggregate of our
fellow-creatures, this Religion of the Infidel cannot, in honesty and
conscience, be called an intrinsically bad one. Many, indeed, may be
unable to believe that this object is capable of gathering round it
feelings sufficiently strong: but this is exactly the point on which a
doubt can hardly remain in an intelligent reader of M.
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