The order of mankind as seen by Auguste Comte

of this in relation to his own vision of Sophia). Much of Comte’s teaching on these matters is expressed in a dialogue between a priest of the Church of Humanity and a woman, brought up asa Catholic, who seeks instruction. The Priests (who, you remember, have been educated in all seven of the sciences and who are doctors of medicine) are obliged to marry, so as to ensure that they come under this beneficent, altruistically-inspiring influence of woman. Marriage for all is to be lifelong and indissoluble. As Comte puts it: “Between two beings so different as man and woman, is our short lifetime too much for getting to know and to love each other worthily’:

Comte, like Solovyov, sees conjugal love as a gateway to the possibility of universal love: he is not so naive as to expect anyone to attain to love of humanity without achieving love in a number of intermediate relationships, including family and motherland, and attaches a quite special importance to the love of man and woman.

Like Rudolf Steiner, he saw particular significance in the sevenyear stages of human life, and devised appropriate sacraments for each. Among these it was only at the Sacrament of Destination, at the age of 28, that a man could become a Priest (as one may well imagine from the fullness of his preliminary training). This was indeed the age by which any man was to be formally launched on his chosen and trained career. The Priests were to be maintained through life by a ‘sacerdotal subsidy’ contributed by the faithful: and this was in fact how Comte himself lived for most of his life. The principle in force was one which Comte applied in a very important way to all forms of service to Humanity. He said that all such service was essentially free and that it should be granted by society the dignity of material appreciation, that is maintenance, in return. One of his mottoes should be remembered in this connection: “Wealth is social in its source, and should be used for social

purposes’.

t was Comte’s attitude to existing religions? As Bridges puts it: “The discovery of a natural law of growth in human beliefs made it possible for the first time to sympathise fully and deeply with the religions of the past; to recognise the immensity of

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