“La sagesse sacerdotale, digne organe de l’instinct public, y avait intimement rattaché les principales obligations sociales à titre de condition indispensable du salut personnel: mais la récompense infinie promise ainsi à tous les sacrifices ne pouvait jamais permettre une affection pleinement désinteressée.” This perpetual iteration of a system of future reward and punishment, as a principle of our religion and a motive of action, has in some sort demoralised Christianity; especially in minds where love is not a chief element, and which do not love Christ for his love’s sake, but for his power’s sake, and because judgment and punishment are supposed to be in his hand. 86. Putting the test of revelation out of the question, and dealing with the philosopher philosophically, the best refutation of Comte’s system is contained in the following criticism: it seems to me final. “In limiting religion to the relations in which we stand to each other, and towards _Humanity_, Comte omits one very important consideration. Even upon his own showing, this _Humanity_ can only be the _supreme being_ of _our_ planet, it cannot be the _Supreme Being_ of the Universe. Now, although in this our terrestrial sojourn, all we can distinctly know must be limited to the sphere of our planet; yet, standing on this ball and looking forth into infinitude, we know that it is but an atom of the infinitude, and that the humanity we worship _here_, cannot extend its dominion _there_. If our relations to humanity may be systematised into a cultus, and made a religion as they have formerly been made a morality, and if the whole of our practical priesthood be limited to this religion, there will, nevertheless remain for us, outlying this terrestrial sphere,—the sphere of the infinite, in which our thoughts must wander, and our emotions will follow our thoughts; so that besides the religion of humanity there must ever be a religion of the Universe. Or, to bring this conception within ordinary language, there must ever remain the old distinctions between _religion_ and _morality_, our relations to God, and our relations towards man. The only difference being, that in the _old_ theology moral precepts were inculcated with a view to a celestial habitat; in the _new_, the moral precepts are inculcated with a view to the general progress of the race.”—_Westminster Review._ In fact the doctrine of the non-plurality of worlds as recently set forth by an eminent professor and D. D. would exactly harmonise with Comte’s “Culte du Positif,” as not merely limiting our sympathies to this one form of intellectual being, but our religious notions to this one habitable orb.