M. Comte is accustomed to draw most of his ideas of moral cultivation
from the discipline of the Catholic Church. Had he followed that
guidance in the present case, he would have been less wide of the mark.
For the distinction which we have drawn was fully recognized by the
sagacious and far-sighted men who created the Catholic ethics. It is
even one of the stock reproaches against Catholicism, that it has two
standards of morality, and does not make obligatory on all Christians
the highest rule of Christian perfection. It has one standard which,
faithfully acted up to, suffices for salvation, another and a higher
which when realized constitutes a saint. M. Comte, perhaps
unconsciously, for there is nothing that he would have been more
unlikely to do if he had been aware of it, has taken a leaf out of the
book of the despised Protestantism. Like the extreme Calvinists, he
requires that all believers shall be saints, and damns then (after his
own fashion) if they are not.
Our conception of human life is different. We do not conceive life to be
so rich in enjoyments, that it can afford to forego the cultivation of
all those which address themselves to what M.
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