mistakes.

In the lecture where he dwells on "the deficiencies of judgment," which he thinks that education ought to do more to correct, he throws in the remark: "Do not suppose, because I stand here and speak thus, making no exceptions, that I except myself. I have learned to know that I fall infinitely short of that efficacious exercise of the judgment which may be attained." He even proceeds to enumerate instances in which he had formed hasty conclusions from inadequate experiments, and had been set right by others: so careful is he to avoid all semblance of conceit in inculcating what he deems to be an important lesson. "To be open to correction on good grounds in all things," is the duty which he earnestly inculcates. But Faraday's humility extended further than the exercise of the intellect in the investigations of science. It was attended by a sense of sin. In the study of the laws of nature, he did not lose his consciousness of the free and accountable nature of the soul. He had a profound sense of the capacities of the soul, and of its difference from all material things. But this only enhanced his conviction of sin. Sentiments of this nature prepared him to feel the power of the Bible. The great, fundamental fact of sin and salvation, that pervades the Bible, found a response in his conscience and heart. The blessing of those who humble themselves, and who hunger and thirst after righteousness, belonged to him. It is certainly remarkable that in a country where class distinctions count for so much, one who rose from a poor newspaper boy to so high a place in society, where princes thought an acquaintance with him an honor, should have carried through his entire career this child-like humility. If it be owing in part to a happy moral constitution, it is to be ascribed chiefly to the refining influence of religion. Do not the annals of science prove that a like humility-a certain reverential spirit-belongs to the highest order of mind? It is not the Keplers, and Newtons, and Bacons, from whose lips we hear the flippant language of unbelief. Sir Isaac Newton, who read the laws of nature almost by intuition, as he draws near the close of his great work, in a few weighty paragraphs, affirms the necessity of recognizing an omnipotent and all-wise God, who built up and inhabits the mighty frame of nature. Elsewhere he comments

on the folly of atheism: "Who taught blind chance," he inquires, "the laws of light, that it should construct the eye, with its lenses and fluids in strict conformity to them?" In a like spirit, Faraday exclaims: "When I consider the multitude of associated forces that are diffused through nature -when I think of that calm and tranquil balancing of their energies, which enables elements most powerful in themselves, most destructive to the world's creatures and economy, to dwell associated together, and be made subservient to the wants of creation, I rise from the contemplation more than ever impressed with the wisdom, the beneficence, and grandeur, beyond our language to express, of the Great Disposer of all." The child-like quality, in the best sense of the term-in the New Testament conception of it-belonged to Faraday. To an eminent scientific friend, he writes: "Though your science is much to me, we are not friends for science's sake only, but for something better in man, something more important in his nature,-affection, kindness, good feeling, moral worth."

* *

* * "I should be glad to think that high mental powers insured something like a high moral sense; but I have often been grieved to see the contrary; as also, on the other hand, my spirit has been cheered by observing in some lowly and uninstructed creature such a healthful, and honorable, and dignified mind as made one in love with human nature. When that which is good mentally and morally meet in one being, that that being is more fitted to work out and manifest the glory of God in the creation, I fully admit." Warm, domestic affections, simple, home-bred feelings, were ever fresh in his heart. The love of distinction did not chill these feelings; for though he valued the rewards of success, he had not, he said, pursued his studies for the sake of them. When absent from his country, he wrote: "The thoughts of those at home are a warm and refreshing balm to my heart. . . . . these are the first and greatest sweetness in the life of man." He was faithful to his early friends, who had helped him in the days of his poverty. He did full justice to the merits even of men from whom he had received injuries.

The reader must not imagine that in speaking of this man, we are seeking to bring a testimonial to the Christian religion;

as if religion needed to be bolstered up by the suffrages of the great in intellect. When we consider what this religion is, and has been, to millions upon millions of souls; how it kindles the light of hope in hearts darkened with sorrow or remorse; how it carries elevation and peace into the dwellings of the poor-as in the picture drawn by Burns of "The Cotter's Saturday Night;" when we think of what Christianity has done for mankind-imparting a new life and strength to a despairing world, raising up the nations of Europe from barbarism to the heights of culture and civilization-when we think of all that the Gospel of Christ is and has done, we should no more think of collecting testimonies to its value, than we should think of looking up recommendations for the sun in the heavens, to blot out which would bring in universal darkness and death. We wish merely to illustrate one point,-that there is a temper of heart which is the condition and preparation of faith; that humility, including a sense of sin, is involved in it, as a prime ingredient. It implies a consciousness of the soul, and of its free and responsible nature. Materialism, and fatalism, its inevitable companion, exclude this conviction. A belief in the soul, in its freedom and accountableness, and a belief in God, go together. "They that deny a God," says Lord Bacon, "destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature." He who pursues the investigation of nature with this conviction respecting the soul and the sublime attributes which distinguish it from matter, and who does not omit to reflect on his personal responsibility, as a rational being and the subject of a law which commands while it does not coerce, will not cast away his religious faith. With this temper of mind, he is safe; for he does not lose sight of the data on which faith rests. He will carry within him an unassailable conviction that the soul has a high origin, and a consciousness of spiritual necessities which only the religion of Christ can satisfy.

It comes to this, then: the heavenly good which is offered in the Gospel, falls under the category of want and supply. Selfsufficiency, when it springs from conceit of knowledge and of intellect, or craves nothing higher than the earthly happiness

within its reach, shuts up the avenues to the soul through which alone the grace of the Gospel can enter. The soul reaches out for nothing above itself, is stirred with no want which cannot be supplied from a human source, yearns not for the peculiar good which Christ was sent into the world to bestow. The Stoic morality was, in many respects, the noblest which was known to the ancient world; but the number of Stoics who received the Gospel was very small. They rested upon themselves. But let the soul be struck with a sense of its loneliness without God, and especially with a sense of its guilt and need of forgiveness, and there will follow a new perception. God will be recognized in His word, as well as His works. The ministry of Christ will be seen to be adapted to the deepest necessities of the spirit. "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."

ARTICLE VII.-AUGUSTE COMTE AND POSITIVISM.

Cours de Philosophie Positive. Par AUGUSTE COMTE, Répétiteur d'Analyse transcendante et de Mécanique rationelle à l'École Polytechnique, et Examinateur des Candidats qui se destinent à cette École. Deuxième Édition, Augmentée d'une Préface, par É. Littré, et d'une Table alphabétique des Matières. Paris J. B. Baillière et Fils. 1864. (Six volumes.)

Système de Politique Positive. Par AUGUSTE COMTE, Auteur du Système de Philosophie Positive. Ordre et Progrès. Paris: Chez Carilian-Goury et Vor. Dalmont. 1851, 1852, and 1853. (Three volumes published in successive years.)

GENEALOGY OF POSITIVISM.

In a previous Article (New Englander, Jan., 1873, p. 56) we presented a brief notice of the life of M. Comte, as preliminary to an attempt to estimate his writings, and the system of positivism which they set forth. By a persual of the Article abovenamed, the reader will perceive a mixture of motives and influences at work on the mind of the author, not altogether favorable to clear conceptions of truth or foretokening an unbiased treatment of facts.

Hence, in attempting to account for the origin and character of positivism, it is necessary to bear in mind, that it was not simply and primarily a well considered effort, like the philosophy of Emanuel Kant, to systematize the results of human thinking in the past, and to leave a more shapely system of thought to the inheritance of the future. Positivism, as a system of thought, originated in a raison d'être outside of itself. It was constructed not primarily to meet the logical necessities of the human intellect. Its primary object and aim were to meet the practical necessities of human society. If it aims incidentally to supply a want of the intellect, it does so, in order thereby the better to subserve the practical interests of society. In the words of the author, his "aim from the outset was