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tained Him; He tells us that they will sustain us. unfathomable truth of which He bore witness is our home and dwelling-place. To be in fellowship with that, is to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. To be struggling with whatever opposes that, in ourselves and in our brethren, is to be entering into Christ's work on earth. And this truth, though it is ever discovering more of its wonders and its glory, is the same that was in the beginning, the same that men in every age have sought and struggled for. Some of them called it the favour or good pleasure of capricious Dæmons. What they wanted, what their inmost hearts told them must be, was a righteousness and love, without variableness or the shadow of a turning. They called it, and call it still, Happiness. What they want is that which is beyond all chance or hap, a Being in whom their being can find its end and aim. They have climbed up to heaven, and gone down to the deep in search of it. Lo! it is near to them; their hearts may turn to it and repose in it. They

hoped to find it in some condition of their own minds. They do find it when, worn out with their own efforts, they say, 'Thou who art the truth, Thou in whom is the eternal life, 'hold us up, for we are Thine.'

ON POSITIVISM AND ITS TEACHER.

I HAVE alluded in the 17th Lecture to the theory of Positivism, and have spoken of the battle between it and the doctrine of St. John, as, perhaps, the last which will be fought in the world; as one which will be no battle merely of words or merely of swords, but in which all human interests will be involved. Auguste Comte had the wisdom to perceive, and the honesty to proclaim, that we are in an age of Science; that the words Knowledge and Science are synonymous; that whatever by its nature cannot be known, must, in such an age, be assumed not to be. This being the major of his syllogism, what was the minor? That was furnished not by him, but by a multitude of orthodox Christian theologians and philosophers. They have said, 'GOD 'cannot be known. That He is, we have probable reasons for 'thinking; throw in the danger of doubt, if our guesses should 'prove true; and that is sufficient warrant for believing His 'existence, or acting as if we believed it. What He is we can 'only describe by negativing certain conditions of our own 'nature. The Bible, what we call the Revelation of God, tells 'us certain things which we have to believe about God, because we are ignorant, and must be ignorant, of that which He really 'is.' Comte held that such a belief as this cannot stand in an age of Science. I am convinced that he was right. But I am convinced also that it could as little stand in an age of faith.

If St. John belongs to an age of Faith, he teaches that which seems to me the only possible doctrine for an age of Science; that GOD can be known; that the knowledge of Him is the root of all other knowledge; that we are only capable of knowing our fellow-creatures, and of knowing the world of nature, because we are more directly related to Him than to them; because His knowledge of them is imparted in a measure to the creatures whom He has made in His image. If this be so, Science demands God, as its foundation; the effect of denying God will be to rob us of all the fruits of Science; ultimately of all belief in the possibility of Science.

But in the meantime the life of Auguste Comte seems to me to give us a beautiful and consolatory intimation how God guides an earnest man out of his theories, and if not into an acknowledgment of Himself, at least so many steps in the way to the acknowledgment of Him, as can leave us no doubt of what the seeker will behold when he is no longer bewildered by the mists of this world. The following sketch of his career appeared recently in 'The Leader :

The main facts of his history are soon told. Born, in 1797, of Catholic and Royalist parents, he was educated at one of the Bonaparte lyceums, where he early distinguished himself by his love of speculation, and his profound dissatisfaction with the existing philosophic schools and actual social condition of his country. On leaving college he became acquainted with the celebrated Saint-Simon, and being attracted by his personal character, and charmed by the originality of his views, he joined the band of brilliant disciples which the genius and ambition of that distinguished social reformer gathered around him. Being the youngest amongst them, he was known as the Benjamin of the Saint-Simonian school;—a soubriquet which his enemies maliciously said his subsequent career fully justified, his philosophical system being, according to them, a genuine Benjamin's As a favourite pupil of Saint-Simon, Comte not only assisted him in the preparation of his text-books, but undertook, in 1820, at the suggestion of the master, an independent work designed as an exposition of the scientific basis of the system. This work, entitled 'Système de Politique Positive,' while approved of in the main by Saint-Simon, was

mess.

ON POSITIVISM AND ITS TEACHER.

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described by him as defective in its exposition of the religious and sentimental aspect of his views. On the death of its founder in 1825, Comte deserted the Saint-Simonian school, to found one of his own; and during the next twenty years devoted himself to the elaboration of an original system of scientific thought, since known as the 'Positive Philosophy.' The great text-book of his system, entitled 'Cours de Philosophie Positive,' extending to six thick volumes, gradually appeared at intervals between the years 1830 and 1842. During this time he led a quiet, scientific life, as Professor of Mathematics in the École Polytechnique; and almost immediately after the conclusion of his great work published two popular treatises connected with the subject of his chair, one on Analytical Geometry, the other on Astronomy, both of which were very successful. In 1844 he issued an outline and defence of his system in a single volume, entitled 'Discours sur l'Ensemble du Positivisme.' Soon after the publication of this work, an emotional crisis happened in his history, through which he became conscious that his own system was defective—as his early exposition of Saint-Simonism had been—on the religious side. The occasion of this was an ardent but virtuous attachment to a lady named Clotilde, whose death, a year after he had first met her, left him miserable in himself, and dissatisfied with his philosophy. Comte's life divides itself into three eras; in the first, he is a disciple expounding the views of others; in the second a master, a philosophic legislator, unfolding a system of his own; in the third an apostle, proclaiming a new religion. In the first period he naturally accomplished but little, and his efforts in the last were, as we have said, to a great extent abortive; but in the middle era, that of his philosophic activity, he accomplished a scientific reform such as few men can ever individually achieve. Whatever may be thought of the positive philosophy either as to the perfection of the parts or as to its completeness as a whole-and it is undoubtedly open to criticism in both respects-it cannot be denied that to Comte belongs the honour of being the first who grasped the true principle for the co-ordination of the sciences; that in an age of vast speculative and scientific activity he first rose from the empirical classification of facts to a genuine science of principles. Even his enemies allow that he possessed great general force of intellect, rare speculative power, and that he reaches the happiest generalizations in every branch of science he undertakes to expound.

From this profoundly interesting narrative we learn that human love awakened Comte to a conviction of the inadequacy of his philosophical scheme. He must have a religion to graft upon it. There is no help for it; he must deny facts-facts which he has realized-if he pretends that his notion of Science