There was in the brain of the great Frenchman--Auguste Comte--the dawn of that happy day in which humanity will be the only religion, good the only God, happiness the only object, restitution the only atonement, mistake the only sin, and affection guided by intelligence, the only savior of mankind. This dawn enriched his poverty, illuminated the darkness of his life, peopled his loneliness with the happy millions yet to be, and filled his eyes with proud and tender tears. When everything connected with Napoleon, except his crimes, shall be forgotten, Auguste Comte will be lovingly remembered as a benefactor of the human race. 344. Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer relies upon evidence, upon demonstration, upon experience; and occupies himself with one world at a time. He perceives that there is a mental horizon that we cannot pierce, and that beyond that is the unknown, possibly the unknowable. He endeavors to examine only that which is capable of being examined, and considers the theological method as not only useless, but hurtful. After all God is but a guess, throned and established by arrogance and assertion. Turning his attention to those things that have in some way affected the condition of mankind, Spencer leaves the unknowable to priests and believers. 345. Robert Collyer I have the honor of a slight acquaintance with Robert Collyer. I have read with pleasure some of his exquisite productions. He has a brain full of the dawn, the head of a philosopher, the imagination of a poet and the sincere heart of a child. Had such men as Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill been present at the burning of Servetus, they would have extinguished the flames with their tears. Had the presbytery of Chicago been there, they would have quietly turned their backs, solemnly divided their coat tails, and warmed themselves. 346. John Milton England was filled with Puritan gloom and Episcopal ceremony. All religious conceptions were of the grossest nature. The ideas of crazy fanatics and extravagant poets were taken as sober facts. Milton had clothed Christianity in the soiled and faded finery of the gods--had added to the story of Christ the fables of Mythology, He gave to the Protestant Church the most outrageously material ideas of the Deity. He turned all the angels into soldiers--made heaven a battlefield, put Christ in uniform, and described God as a militia general. His works were considered by the Protestants nearly as sacred as the Bible itself, and the imagination of the people was thoroughly polluted by the horrible imagery, the sublime absurdity of the blind Milton. 347. Ernst Haeckel