tendency to withdraw into themselves, and out of the world, apparent in men of strong mental power unbalanced by sociality. On the other hand, the tendency of exaggeration of sociality is toward the obliteration of individuality and the formularization of thought. Intellect without sentiment would isolate man. His independence and individuality would become more and more pronounced, and therewith his incompatibility to live as a member of a community.

The instinct of self-conservation would be the only motive actuating an intelligent being without sentiment. In the lowest organisms this instinct is the only one they know, and their generative process is by gemmation, which is purely selfish. In higher organisms sexual love and maternal love take the creature out of itself, but only in a measure; for distress through deprivation of the means of relieving itself of certain secretions is the real motive. Still, in these instances the animal does act for another, and in so acting develops a power and skill of which the monogamous animals exhibit no trace. This skill and power appear in their building of habitations suitable for the protection of their young. In man the social instinct is only one of a series of emotional cravings, all of which tend to withdraw him from himself, and attach him to human beings, or to objects of nature; and which are the means of developing his mental powers in the arts and sciences.

"In every complex existence," says Comte, "the general harmony can only result from a proper subordination of all spontaneous impulses to a single preponderant motor. Now this dominating penchant is either egoistic or altruistic. Not only does this latter surpass the former, as the only one compatible with the social state, but besides, it constitutes, even in the individual, a unity more complete, more easy, and more durable. The inferior instincts direct the conduct according to motives purely internal, whose multiplici

ty and variation allow him no steadiness of movement, nor indeed any habitual character, except during the impulses produced by the periodic exigencies of certain appetites. The being must subordinate itself to an exterior existence in order that it may find its proper stability. Moreover, this condition can only be realized effectively under the influence of desires disposing each to live chiefly for others. Every individual, man or beast, which, loving nothing outside of itself, lives solely for itself, finds itself to be by that alone habitually condemned to a miserable alternative of ignoble torpor and unregulated agitation. Unquestionably, the main object of every living being ought to be the perfecting of this universal consensus in which resides the essential attribute of vitality. This is why even personal happiness and merit depend everywhere on a just ascendency of the sympathetic instincts. Our race is the only one destined to entirely develop such a scheme, by constituting its sociocracy after long initiation.”

To coördinate the mind and the sentiment, to unite subjectivity and objectivity in a common work, to develop equally and harmoniously the cerebrum and the sensory ganglionic tract, and to subordinate to the domination of the reason and the feelings, acting conjointly, the actions of the body-this is what religion undertakes to perform.

Philosophy, the cultivation of logic, the abstract sciences, tend to raise the pitch of the intelligence.

Solidarity, politics, social life, give tone to the feelings; but religion claims as its special prerogative to develop equally and justly both the mind and the affections, to hold the balance between reason and sentiment, to direct the spontaneous life-force to the development and oxidation of cerebric and sensory tissue.

1 A. Comte: Système de Politique positive, i., 700; Paris, 1851.

CHAPTER II.

THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCTS.

Difference between inorganic and organic substances.-Mode in which life functionates.-Life the assimilation and liberation of force.-Organisms built on two types, the cellular and the axidal.-The latter developed from the former.-Advance in development when each pole assumes a distinct office.-Position in the scale of beings determined by complexity in the differentiation of parts.-Life demands a certain amount of consciousness.-This consciousness the measure of development.-Office of the senses.-Perceptions of pleasure and pain limited to objects necessary for development.-Development of consciousness in man necessitated by arrest in physical development.-Man's sense of pleasure and pain extends to objects in no way affecting his physical well-being.-Mental effort detrimental to physical perfection.-Perception a resolution of force. -The object of spiritual perception the development of spiritual life, not the progress of the species.-The religious sentiment an expression of the spiritual instincts of humanity.-An historical survey of these instincts will show in what direction man must seek his spiritual development.

ORGANISMS may be roughly distinguished from inor

ganic substances by the property of development. Inertness is the attribute of lifeless existences, and evolutive life of those which are organized; that is, in the former force is latent, in the latter it is developed.

Matter postulates space; for extension is a necessary property of matter. Life demands time, for duration is a property of life. Inorganic substances are, organisms become. Chemical elements know no youth, no age. Oxygen is the same to-day in every particular that it was yesterday, and will be to-morrow: to it, time is not. But life is a fountain of being, throwing up vital waves in rhythmic succession.

We do know that life is force, but we do not know that all force is life.

Certain inorganic structures grow, but their mode of growth is different from that of organisms. The crystal, for instance, is built up, but the force determining the crystal is a static force, whereas that developing the plant is clearly dynamic. The crystal, when its apex is formed, is complete forever, and the force that erected it maintains the cohesion of the particles, and does nothing more; whereas the plant-force thrusts forth living seeds to hand on life to another generation.

Life functionates in two ways, in the accumulation of force, and in the liberation of force. This liberation takes place in two ways; in direct expenditure, or in transmission. Thus the plant by its centripetal power incorporates matter through its roots, and with matter, force; and by its centrif ugal power expends it, first in the evolution of leaf and flower, and then in the transfer of life to the seed.

An animal expends force in its quest for food, assimilates force through its nutriment, and propagates it through its offspring.

Growth is due to a surplusage of absorbent power over waste. Decay and death are due to the liberation of force more rapidly than the body can acquire it by assimilation. The exercise of muscle, nerve, and brain, is a discharge of force.

The dynamic energy of life impels organisms to the development of the individual and the propagation of the species. For both purposes it accumulates force, and then distributes it, first upon one point, and then upon the other. Bloom is the highest term of life reached by the flower. The rose is in its glory when covered with blossoms; after it has reached this climax, its individual life wastes; petals fall off, and leaves shrivel, for its force is turned on the transfer of life through the seeds in its scarlet pods.

Organisms are built upon two types,-about a centre, and about an axis; that is, force is concentrated on, and radiates from, one point in cellular plants and cystic animalcules, whereas in trees and animals it operates along an axis, precipitating itself now on one pole and now on the other. The latter type is probably a development of the former. It is obvious that, when the accretive power is great, and the capability of the plant or animal to expend it on individual expansion is limited, it must discharge its superabundant force and matter in some other way. An individual of the Foraminifera, genus Triloculina, has been observed to reproduce itself by protruding its sarcoid substance through the foramina of its shell, and floating away in the shape of minute independent granules, leaving the parent shell empty. Thus the life of one individual, having felt itself straitened within the calcareous shell of its own construction, subdivided itself into some forty or fifty separate centres of action. But other Foraminifera present a different mode of reproduction. The primitive gelatinous grain secretes around itself a rigid envelope, and, having grown too large for its habitation, it protrudes a portion of itself through one of the orifices, and forms a second segment. If by a process of spontaneous fission this portion becomes detached from the parent, it repeats the life and reproductive method of the latter, and a series of monothalamous shells is the result. But if, by means of a sarcoid thread, the primitive segment maintains its connection with its immediate offspring, a polythalamous shell is the result, and a compound form of life is presented in which the vital force acts from a succession of centres as numerous as are the buds successively protruded.

An advance is made in the mode of life when each of these centres assumes a different office; when, for instance, one becomes a force-absorbing centre, and another a force