[188-1] No one has seen the error here pointed out, and its injurious results on thought, more clearly than Comte himself. He is emphatic in condemning “le tendance involontaire à constituer l’unité spéculative par l’ascendant universel des plus grossières contemplations numérique, geométrique ou mécaniques.” _Systême de Politique Positive_; Tome I., p. 51. But he was too biassed to apply this warning to Christian thought. The conception of the Universe in the logic of Professor De Morgan and Boole is an example of speculative unity. [189-1] _Bhagavad Gità_, ch. iv. [190-1] See the introduction by Mr. J. W. Etheridge to _The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel_ (London, 1862). St. Augustine believed the trinity is referred to in the opening verses of Genesis. _Confessiones_, Lib. xiii. cap. 5. The early Christian writer, Theophilus of Antioch (circa 225), in his _Apologia_, recognizes the Jewish trinity only. It was a century later that the dogma was defined in its Athanasian form. See further, Isaac Preston Cory, _Ancient Fragments, with an Inquiry into the Trinity of the Gentiles_ (London, 1832). [191-1] _The Unseen Universe_, p. 194. [194-1] “A good will is the only altogether good thing in the world.”--_Kant._ “What man conceives in himself is always superior to that reality which it precedes and prepares.”--_Comte._ THE CULT, ITS SYMBOLS AND RITES. SUMMARY. The Symbol represents the unknown; the Rite is the ceremony of worship. A symbol stands for the supernatural, an emblem for something known. The elucidation of symbolism is in the laws of the association of ideas. Associations of similarity give related symbols, of contiguity coincident symbols. Symbols tend either toward personification (iconolatry), or toward secularization. The symbol has no fixed interpretation. Its indefiniteness shown by the serpent symbol, and the cross. The physiological relations of certain symbols. Their classification. The Lotus. The Pillar. Symbols discarded by the higher religious thought. Esthetic and scientific symbolism (the “Doctrine of Correspondences”). Rites are either propitiatory or memorial. The former spring either from the idea of sacrifice or of specific performance. A sacrifice is a gift, but its measure is what it costs the giver. Specific performance means that a religious act should have no ulterior aim. Vicarious sacrifice and the idea of sin. Memorial rites are intended to recall the myth, or else to keep up the organization. The former are dramatic or imitative, the latter institutionary. Tendency of memorial rites to become propitiatory. Examples. CHAPTER VI. THE CULT, ITS SYMBOLS AND RITES.