st
now say something of the details. Here we approach the ludicrous side of
the subject: but we shall unfortunately have to relate other things far
more really ridiculous.

There cannot be a religion without a _cultus._ We use this term for want
of any other, for its nearest equivalent, worship, suggests a different
order of ideas. We mean by it, a set of systematic observances, intended
to cultivate and maintain the religious sentiment. Though M. Comte
justly appreciates the superior efficacy of acts, in keeping up and
strengthening the feeling which prompts them, over any mode whatever of
mere expression, he takes pains to organize the latter also with great
minuteness. He provides an equivalent both for the private devotions,
and for the public ceremonies, of other faiths. The reader will be
surprised to learn, that the former consists of prayer. But prayer, as
understood by M. Comte, does not mean asking; it is a mere outpouring of
feeling; and for this view of it he claims the authority of the
Christian mystics. It is not to be addressed to the Grand Etre, to
collective Humanity; though he occasionally carries metaphor so far as
to style this a goddess. The honours to collective Humanity are reserved
for the public celebrations. Private adoration is to be addressed to it
in the persons of worthy individual representatives, who may be either
living or dead, but must in all cases be women; for women, being the
_sexe aimant_, represent the best attribute of humanity, that which
ought to regulate all human life, nor can Humanity possibly be
symbolized in any form but that of a woman. The objects of private
adoration are the mother, the wife, and the daughter, representing
severally the past, the present, and the future, and calling into active
exercise the three social sentiments, veneration, attachment, and
kindness. We are to regard them, whether dead or alive, as our guardian
angels, "les vrais anges gardiens." If the last two have never existed,
or if, in the particular case, any of the three types is too faulty for
the office assigned to it, their place may be supplied by some other
type of womanly excellence, even by one merely historical. Be the object
living or dead, the adoration (as we understand it) is to be addressed
only to the idea. The prayer consists of two parts; a commemoration,
followed by an effusion. By a commemoration M. Comte means an effort of
memory and imagination, summoning up with the utmost