The whole of the Positive education, intellectual as well as affective, will familiarise us thoroughly with our complete dependence on Humanity, so as to make us duly feel that we are all necessarily meant for her unintermitting service. In the preparatory period of life, when incapable of useful action, every one owns his powerlessness as regards his chief wants, the habitual supply of which he sees to come from others. At first he believes himself indebted for it to his family only, which feeds, calls for, instructs him, etc. But before long he discerns a higher providence, of which his mother is for him merely the special minister and the best representative. The institution of language alone would be enough to reveal it to him. For its construction is beyond any individual power, and is solely the result of the accumulated efforts of all the generations of men, notwithstanding the diversity of idioms. Moreover, the least gifted man feels himself continually indebted to Humanity for quantities of other accumulations, material, intellectual, social, and even moral.

When this feeling is sufficiently clear and vivid during the preparation, it is able later to resist the sophisms of the passions to which real life, theoretic or practical, gives occasion. The exertions we habitually make then tend to make us ignore the true providence, whilst overrating our own value. But reflection can always dispel this ungrateful illusion, in those who have been properly brought up. For it is enough if they observe that their success in any work whatever depends mainly on the immense coöperation which their blind pride forgets. The most skilful man with the best directed activity can never pay back but a very slight portion of that which he receives. He continues, as in his childhood, to be fed, protected, developed, etc., by Humanity. Only, her agents are changed, so as no longer to stand out distinct to his view.

Instead of receiving all from her through his parents, she then conveys her benefits through a number of indirect agents, most of whom he will never know. To live for others is seen to be, then, for all of us, the everduring duty which follows with rigorous logic from this indisputable fact, the living by others. Such is, without any exaltation of sympathy, the necessary conclusion from an accurate appreciation of reality, when philosophically grasped as a whole.

The Woman. I am happy, my father, to find thus systematically sanctioned a disposition for which at times I reproached myself as due to an exaggeration of my feelings. Before I became Positivist, I used often to say: "What pleasures can be greater than those f devotedness to others?" Now I shall be able to defend this holy

principle against the sneers of egoists, and perhaps raise in them emotions which will prevent their doubting it.

The Priest. You have, my daughter, unaided, anticipated the chief characteristic of Positivism. It consists in finally condensing, in one and the same formula, the law of duty and the law of happiness, hitherto asserted by all systems to be irreconcilable, although the instinct of men always aimed at reconciling them. Their necessary harmony is a direct consequence of the existence in our nature of the feelings of benevolence, as demonstrated by science, in the last century, on a survey of the whole animal world, where the respective participation of the heart and the intellect is more easily traced.

Besides that our moral harmony rests exclusively on altruism, altruism alone can procure us also life in the deepest and truest sense. Those degraded beings, who in the present day aspire only to live, would be tempted to give up their brutal egoism had they but once really tasted what you so well call the pleasures of devotedness. They would then understand that to live for others affords the only means of freely developing the whole existence of man; by extending it simultaneously to the present in the largest sense, to the remotest past, and even to the most distant future. None but the sympathetic instincts can have unimpeded scope, for in them each individual finds himself aided by all others, who, on the contrary, repress his self-regarding tendencies.

This is how happiness will necessarily coincide with duty. No doubt, the fine definition of virtue by a moralist of the eighteenth century (Duclos), as an effort over oneself in favour of others, will always remain applicable. Our imperfect nature will indeed always need a real effort to subordinate to our sociality the personality which is constantly stimulated by the conditions of our existence But the triumph once gained it tends of itself, not to mention the power of habit, to gain strength and to grow by virtue of the incomparable charm inherent in sympathy whether of feeling or in act

It is then felt that true happiness is above all the result of a worthy submission, the only sure basis of a large and noble activity. Far from grieving over the sum of the fatalities to which we are subjected, we exert ourselves to strengthen the order they form by imposing on ourselves rules of our own creation, which may mor successfully contend with our egoism, the main source of humas misfortune. When such rules are freely instituted, we soon find according to the admirable precept of Descartes, that they deserv as much respect as the laws not within our choice, which have less moral efficacy.

The Woman.-Such a view of human nature makes me at length see, my father, that it is possible to give an essentially altruistic character even to the rules which concern our personal existence, rules hitherto always grounded on selfish prudence. The wisdom. of antiquity summed up morals in this precept: Do to others as you would be done unto. However precious at the time this general rule, all it did was to regulate a purely personal calculation. This character recurs if you sift it in the great Catholic formula: Love your neighbour as yourself. Not only is egoism thus sanctioned and not compressed, but it is excited directly by the motive on which the rule is based, the love of God, without any human sympathy, not to say that such love was generally but another expression for fear. Still, when we compare the two precepts, we see in them a great advance. For the first only bore upon acts, whereas the second presses on to the feelings which direct them. Still, this moral improvement remains very incomplete, so long as love in the theological sense retains its stain of selfishness. Positivism alone becomes at once both noble and true, when it calls on us to live for others. This definitive formula of human morality sanctions explicitly only the instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and of duty. But implicitly it sanctions the personal instincts, as necessary conditions of our existence, provided they are subordinated to the former, with this sole limitation, their continuous satisfaction is even enjoined on us, so as to fit ourselves for the real service of Humanity, whose we are entirely.

MODERN ORIENTAL RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS.

A. SIKKHISM.

I.

THE ONE INCOMPREHENSIBLE AND ADORABLE.

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His name is Verity, the Creator of all things, fearless, void of enmity, the timeless entity, not womb-born, self-existent.

By the favour of the Guru!

I. In primal eternity, the True One was; at the creation of the world, the True One still was; the True One now is; O Nânak' The True One still will be (in the future). By repeated meditation (knowledge of the True One) is not attained; though I meditate a hundred thousand times. By prolonged silence it is not attained, though I persevere in mental abstraction. The hunger of the hungry is not appeased, though I collect together the wealth of the universe There may be thousands of dexterities, yea, a hundred thousand. but no one (of them) accompanies (the soul after death). How can one become True? how break down the environment of falsity? We should walk in obedience to (God's) command, and by his favour, O Nânak, in accordance with what is written.

2. The existence of Form is by his command; but his decree is unalterable. The presence of life (in these forms) is by his command, by his command is expansion. 2 By his command there is high and low; by his command the allotted pain and pleasure are experienced By his command to some is the gift (of salvation); by his command

That is, the really existent, that which is ever true.

That is, God creates everything which has form; and he regulates whic forms shall be endowed with life; he also imparts the power of grow. or expansion.

another constantly wanders (in a series of transmigrations). All are subject to his command; no one is beyond his command. If one reflects on his commands, then no one can utter the word "I."1

3. Who can celebrate (God's) power? Who has the power (to do so)? Who can celebrate his liberality? Who knows his attributes? Who knows his excellent qualities, his greatness, and his course of action? Who can describe the difficult thoughts of his wisdom? Who can declare that (God) will prepare a body (or) ashes? Who can state which body the soul next may assume? Who can declare his cognoscence and his omniscience? Who can declare that he saw (God) in the very presence? The end of (his description) comes not by statements and phrases; millions and millions (of people) have again and again uttered (his praises). He gives gifts; this one by constantly accepting them, becomes fatigued. 2 Age after age they go on enjoying (the benefits which God has conferred). That commander continues to send his commands on their path; O Nanâk! unconcernedly he expands.

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4. That Master is True; his name is True; he is beyond the nature of language. They speak; they ask; the giver gives gifts to each corporeal being. What should we place before him in return, by which his Court may be seen? What speech should be uttered by the mouth, by hearing which He may bestow his love? At early dawn reflect on the greatness of the True Name. By destiny comes raiment; by (God's favourable) glance is the gate of salvation. 5 O Nânak! thus it is known, that he himself is true in all (things). 5. He cannot be established; he cannot be made; he himself is void of passion. By whom he is worshipped, honour is obtained.

Nának! the abode of excellencies should be praised. He should be praised, listened to; his nature should be borne in mind. He puts away misery; he brings happiness to his home. From the mouth of God is sound; from the mouth of God is the Veda; in the mouth of God it remains contained. God is Siva; God is Vishnu; Brahma; God is Mother Pârbatî. If I knew, would I not tell? the

That is, he cannot regard "I" as independent; for all entities are but manifestations of the One Entity.

The gifts are beyond the capacity for reception.

That is, God develops his processes without reference to anything beyond his own purposes.

That is, by which we may gain the right of entering his presence. That is, outside matters come in the usual course; but salvation by the special grace of God.

That is, the worshipper.