To illustrate my meaning still further, I may observe that history presents cases where exactly the opposite course is called for, and which should be held up not for approbation but for infamy. Blame, it is true, should not be carried to the same extent as praise, because it stimulates the destructive instincts to a degree which is always painful and sometimes injurious. Yet strong condemnation is occasionally desirable. It strengthens social feelings and principles, if only by giving more significance to our approval. Thus I would suggest that after doing honour to the three great men who have done so much to promote the development of our race, there should be a solemn reprobation of the two principal opponents of progress, Julian and Bonaparte; the latter being the more criminal of the two, the former the more insensate. Their influence has been sufficiently extensive to allow of all the Western nations joining in this damnatory verdict.[6] The principal function of the spiritual power is to direct the future of society by means of education; and, as a supplementary part of education, to pronounce judgment upon the past in the mode here indicated. But there are functions of another kind, relating more immediately to the present; and these too result naturally from its position as an educating body. If the educators are men worthy of their position, it will give them an influence over the whole course of practical life, whether private or public. Of course it will merely be the influence of counsel, and practical men will be free to accept or reject it; but its weight may be very considerable when given prudently, and when the authority from which it proceeds is recognized as competent. The questions on which its advice is most needed are the relations between different classes. Its action will be coextensive with the diffusion of Positive principles; for nations professing the same faith, and sharing in the same education, will naturally accept the same intellectual and moral directors. In the next chapter I shall treat this subject more in detail. I merely mention it here as one among the list of functions belonging to the new spiritual power. [The political motto of Positivism: Order and Progress] It will now not be difficult to show all the characteristics of Positivism are summed up in the motto, _Order and Progress_, a motto which has a philosophical as well as political bearing, and which I shall always feel glad to have put forward.