Comte's polity divides mankind. M. Comte's
religion has, moreover, nine Sacraments; consisting in the solemn
consecration, by the priests of Humanity, with appropriate exhortations,
of all the great transitions in life; the entry into life itself, and
into each of its successive stages: education, marriage, the choice of a
profession, and so forth. Among these is death, which receives the name
of transformation, and is considered as a passage from objective
existence to subjective--to living in the memory of our
fellow-creatures. Having no eternity of objective existence to offer,
M. Comte's religion gives it all he can, by holding out the hope of
subjective immortality--of existing in the remembrance and in the
posthumous adoration of mankind at large, if we have done anything to
deserve remembrance from them; at all events, of those whom we loved
during life; and when they too are gone, of being included in the
collective adoration paid to the Grand Etre. People are to be taught to
look forward to this as a sufficient recompense for the devotion of a
whole life to the service of Humanity. Seven years after death, comes
the last Sacrament: a public judgment, by the priesthood, on the memory
of the defunct.
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