As the conduct of each one can only be finally judged after his death, humanity is essentially made up of the dead and “the admission of the living within her will hardly ever be more than provisional.”[364] Each generation, while it lives, furnishes the indispensable physiological substratum for the exercise of the superior human functions. But this privilege which momentarily distinguishes it from the others, soon slips away from it, as it slipped away from the preceding ones, and from the men of which they were composed; they alone who are worthy of it are incorporated into humanity. Moreover, they are only incorporated in it by their noblest elements. Death causes them to pass through a “purification.” This theory allows Comte to attain at the same time two results, which he considers equally desirable. In the first place, the religious idea of humanity remains in perfect accordance with the idea given of it by biology and sociology. Humanity conceived as the Great Being, is a kind of hypostasis of the functions by which man tends to become distinguished from the animal. It is the progressive realisation through time, of the intellectual and moral potentialities contained in human nature: it is also its ideal impersonation. In this last sense, it becomes an object of love and adoration. Thus, the positivist religion naturally leads to a “commemoration” of great men, the benefactors of humanity. Here we have one of the ideas which were defined very early in Comte’s mind. On the other hand, the desire for immortality is very strong in the heart of man. On principle Comte recognised at any rate a provisional value in all that arises spontaneously from human nature. In science he saw a prolongation of “public reason,” in systematic morality a development of spontaneous morality. He was thus led to take into account the almost irresistible tendency which impels man to desire to triumph over death.[365] This tendency, up to the present time, has satisfied itself by means of illusions. But beliefs of this kind have become incompatible with the progress of our mental evolution. Moreover, the social efficacy of hopes and fears concerning the future life has been much exaggerated. As a matter of fact, says Comte (and the science of religions bears him out on this point), the tendency to desire, and consequently to accept the idea of an ultimate survival, existed for a long time before it was made use of to support religious beliefs or to preserve public order. Here, again, positive philosophy does not deny, does not destroy: it transforms. To the chimerical and vulgar notion of _objective_ immortality, it substitutes the notion, which is alone acceptable, of _subjective_ immortality. The same doctrine which takes from us the consolations so dear to past generations, gives us an adequate compensation, by allowing each one to hope that he may be united to the Great Being.