Idealisation of the days of the week. Concrete nomenclature of the week. Abstract nomenclature. respect of the different calendars. Yet we cannot at the present day decide whether the new names will be taken from the subjects to which they are consecrated, or from the order of succession, the fortunate circumstance that the two grounds coincide leaving the question undecided. To complete this theory of the Positivist calendar, I must indicate the ultimate form of the idealisation of the several days of the week. In the first place, it is drawn from their existing names, which we ought carefully to retain, as they recall the whole education of the race, instituted as they were by Fetichism, sanctioned by Polytheism, and adopted by Monotheism. Their adaptation to this end is the more valuable, as it arises from their representing in succession the various heavenly bodies which are in real connection with man's planet, for all essential purposes independent of all the others. The agreement of Positivism with earlier systems on this point-its agreement, historically and dogmatically-in thorough conformity with the whole conception of the week as a subjective institution, is yet of too abstract a character not to require a concrete addition, such addition to be derived from the transition of the West from Theocracy to Sociocracy. The addition consists in this, that whilst we adhere to the actual names as precious, we consecrate the seven days of the week to the memory of the seven principal organs of that transition: Homer, Aristotle, Cæsar, St. Paul, Charlemagne, Dante, and Descartes. This series of names adequately represents the whole of this capital evolution; an evolution peculiar, it is true, to the West, but deserving to be had in familiar remembrance in all ages and countries as having been the indispensable condition of the final regeneration. The introduction of these names is a compensation for the inevitable imperfection of the abstract worship as regards the concrete commemoration of the past, the three months reserved for the past being insufficient for such commemoration. Their adop tion will be the easier as it merely requires the definitive transfer to the days of the week of the highest monthly types of the provisional calendar, to be explained in the chapter which treats of the last period of the transition. Once more, the week admits of an abstract nomenclature, as we may dedicate the seven days to the seven fundamental sciences Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Bio : logy, Sociology, and Morals. This second method is not incompatible with the former; is in harmony with the spirit of our public worship; and will familiarise us with the encyclopædic hierarchy and the relative conception of the world in which we live. It is a consequence of the concurrence of the two forms that the festival at the end of each week will be marked by its consecration at once to the highest science and to the immediate precursor of the final religion. years. Thus in the calendar of Humanity we have two artificial Groups of periods, in subordination the one to the other; the two occupying an intermediate position between two other periods of natural origin and brought into sufficient agreement; the object of the whole system being to make the succession of time an expression of all the relations of man with his fellows or with the external world. As for groups of years, it is enough if we recall the systematic adoption, indicated in the last chapter, of the old relation between the century and the generation. When, in consequence of the duration of the Great Being, higher unities are required, it will be easy for the priesthood to form them. The theory of the calendar is a preliminary to our more direct examination of the public worship, such worship really being the developement of the system of abstract adoration in which the whole Positivist calendar issues. Were it not for the fear of excess in the number of festivals, we might decompose Sociolatry to the extent of festivals for each day and yet leave unimpaired the homogeneity of the presentation. Respecting the limits, however, imposed by the exigencies of daily life, we must here devote our attention to the four festivals of each month, always fixed for the Sunday. Our descendants will begin the year with the most august of all its solemnities, the festival in the immediate honour of the Great Being, whose children and servants they will acknowledge themselves. The nature of that Being, at once composite and subjective; its existence based upon love; its submission to an order which it improves; all these conceptions will receive an artistic expression in this initial festival, on which all will dutifully renew their devotion of themselves to the work of regeneration. This synthetical inauguration, wherein care will be taken to pay fitting honour to the animal races which are man's auxiliaries, will have its full signification Direct treat- ment of ship. The Festival of Humanity and those of the first month. Festivals of the second month. Marriage, drawn out by more special festivals, in commemoration of the different degrees or forms peculiar to human association, on the four Sundays of the first month. The first will glorify the union of the race, built on the foundation of a demonstrable faith; the only faith that is in the full sense of the term religious, but which is the outcome of a preparation to which all the fictitious beliefs of Humanity have contributed. The second Sunday commemorates the largest form of partial associations, a form which in the main has become a thing of the past, but of which a visible trace survives in the language common to several populations once subject to one government. On the third Sunday, the festival of the Country honours the political tie in its most perfect form, with a view to foster the feelings of affection between fellow-citizens which will then be deeply felt, as the nations will be reduced within moderate limits. Finally, on the last day of the month of Humanity, we pay homage to the primary form in which Families unite, the Township, the closest union of man for practical purposes, so happily expressed by the French word commune. During the second month, the month in which will be concentrated the fifth sacrament, Marriage, the several forms of the conjugal union will receive honour. The first Sunday will be devoted to Marriage in its complete form, showing how greatly the harmony of the married couple is confirmed and increased by their concert in the due discharge of the holy function vested in them as regards the child of Humanity. It is, however, the second festival of the month that will represent in its truest character the conjugal union, by its recognition of the superior perfection of chaste marriage; where the union is the union of the heart only, procreation being formally reserved for those best qualified for it. We have in the last masterpiece of the great Corneille the anticipation of such an union; and it will lose the anomalous character now attaching to it, when Positive education has told sufficiently on the two sexes, without waiting for the realisation of the hypothesis of the last chapter, by which propagation is limited to the woman. The third Sunday will be devoted to a form of marriage which will be a rare exception; the form in which imperfect agreement is all that is attainable, by virtue of a deficient parity, a disparity naturally of age rather than of rank, never of wealth, as is evident, since dowries are abolished. Closing the marriage month by a ceremony in special honour of the subjective union, consequent on the law of widowhood, it will be shown how indispensable is the perpetuity of the marriage hond to the sincere worship of the Great Being, a Being composed mainly of the dead. If incapable of living an ideal life in communion with the highest object of our love, we are by such incapacity disqualified for feeling, nay even for understanding, the past which has preceded us-the future which is to succeed us. One and the same explanation may here suffice for the three next months, as there is a natural agreement in regard to the relations to which they are respectively devoted: the Parental, Filial, and Fraternal relations. I limit myself then to the analysis in detail of the first case, the most important and the most strongly marked of the three; urging the reader to adapt to the fourth and fifth months the subdivisions of the third. On the first Sunday, we deal with the paternal relation in its complete and natural form, its only really normal form, the form in which the affection given to the son has its root in the tenderness felt for the mother, such an indirect origin being necessitated by the weakness of the paternal instinct in men. On the second Sunday, we honour the voluntary and yet complete tie formed by a judicious adoption, even where the person adopted is an adult perfectly unconnected with the family. The institution of adoption, emanating from Fetichism, was transformed by the Theocrats, but it is only Positivism to which it is fully suited; Sociocracy will spread a deep sense of its value, without waiting for human procreation to become independent of the father. On the third Sunday, we celebrate the incomplete, yet voluntary paternity due to spiritual connection; this too waits for its full developement in the system in which everyone of one and the same priest of Humanity. will be for seven years under the guidance The analogous temporal connection cannot be as complete; still it deserves commemoration on the last Sunday of the month, when, under both its aspects, will be shown the value of a relation which will be more common and more permanent in the sociocratic regime, by virtue of a degree of liberty which was incompatible with the Theocracy. month. To the domestic relation, or that of master and servant, is The sixth devoted the whole of the sixth month, and hereby the worship Domesticity. The follow namical festivals. Additional of Humanity will place in its true light this institution: an institution which, meant to perfect the family by binding it to society, could not be on its right footing whilst slavery persisted. Since the establishment of personal freedom it has been impossible, owing to the anarchy of the West, to estimate aright this indispensable link between man and man; the great misconceiving it in their pride; the inferiors in their insubordination. But when all life is viewed as an honourable service, it will be but natural to respect the families which offer, as their best contribution to the conservation and advancement of Humanity, their voluntary services in aid of her individual interpreters or ministers. On the first Sunday of the sixth month, we shall honour domestic service in its permanent and complete form, in which it more particularly applies to patricians, but never on conditions incompatible with the indulgence of conjugal and maternal affection, and to be given only when an improvement in habits, feelings, and position shall forbid service where it is undeserved. Such a voluntary fusion of two families will often be so complete, that the priesthood, when proclaiming the glorification after death of one of the two, will give the other a share in its consecrated tomb-in order that both together may receive the homage of their respective descendants and even of their fellow-citizens. The peculiar services of clerks call forth less self-devotion, as is indicated by their separate dwellings, yet when permanent it is a relation to be commemorated on the second Sunday in this month; the other two weeks of which will distinguish in like manner the temporary service of pages and apprentices. By its comprehension of these last, Sociolatry will show the universal applicability of a position which has been, dating from the Middle Ages, connected with the training of the individual, even in the case of patricians, and has been at all times calculated to develope, on both sides, the three social instincts. Thus, in the first six months, the public worship of Huing quarter manity expresses in an ideal form the fundamental nature of the Great Being under all its essential aspects; it devotes the three months which follow to the commemoration of the principal phases of its necessarily gradual evolution. The festivals, hitherto statical in character, now become dynamical, but not therefore less abstract; for were they otherwise, not to speak of the impairment of harmony in the system, so short a commemo rations. |