Naturally, in positive education duties will be presented in their social aspect. Thus the elementary virtues of temperance, of chastity, etc., are recommended by positive morality;--but not from the point of view of their usefulness to the individual. Even if “an exceptionally constituted nature should shield the individual from the consequences of intemperance or debauchery,” soberness and continence would be no less strictly required of him as being indispensable for the fulfilment of his social duties.[353] In the same way, the object of domestic morality is not to form “a selfishness shared by several,” but to develop the sympathetic affections which, from the family will gradually extend to the social group, and then to humanity. The principle is to get man into the habit of subjecting himself to humanity, even in his smallest actions, and in all his thoughts. Once this point is reached, modern society will spontaneously become organised and the positive _régime_ will of itself be established. FOOTNOTES: [333] Cours, VI, 376. [334] Pol. pos. I, 128-9. [335] Cours, V, 357. [336] Pol. pos., II, 410-12. [337] Cours, VI, 268-9. [338] Cours, V, 608; Pol. pos. III, 585. [339] Cours, IV, 218-24. [340] Cours, IV, 212-15. [341] Pol. pos. I, 154. [342] Pol. pos. I, 160-3. [343] Cours, IV, 97-9. [344] Pol. pos. I, 159. [345] Cours, VI, 480; Pol. pos. I, 361-3; II, 87. [346] Cours, VI, 543-6. [347] Pol. pos. 156-64. [348] Pol. pos. II, 409. [349] Cours, VI, 511-15. [350] Pol. pos. II, 16. [351] Pol. pos. IV, Appendice, p. 211. [352] Pol. pos. I, 169. [353] Pol. pos. I, 97-8. CHAPTER III THE IDEA OF HUMANITY In this world there is nothing absolute, everything is relative; Comte wrote this to his friend Valat as early as 1818.[354] But as a matter of fact, there exists a supreme reality to which all others are subordinated, the idea of which is the principle of a rational conception of the world. Comte calls this reality _humanity_. Instead of being the ultimate end of all thought and all action “in itself,” it is the ultimate end “for us.” But this difference simply signifies that the new philosophy leaves the metaphysical for the positive point of view. With these limitations the idea of humanity “corresponds” to the old idea of the absolute. It takes its place and fulfils its religious part. It is truly, if one dares to say so, a “relative absolute.”