Harvard and the Religion of Humanity

Under the leadership of Charles W. Eliot, Harvard set the pace in moving from an old-time college in the mid-1800s to a leading modern university by the early 1900s. Eliot was known for instituting the elective system. Influenced by German ideals, he emphasized modern education as inculcating freedom and building character. He said the university could not be founded upon a sect but must serve the whole nation. He was also an advocate of the modern expert. William James became the best known of Harvard’s impressive faculty. His pragmatic search for religious expression well represented the spirit of search for nonsectarian spirituality and morality. Charles Eliot Norton championed the idea of the humanities as the source for finding the highest human ideals.

Tocqueville, Democratic Poetry, and the Religion of Humanity

The Religion of Humanity has typically been associated with Auguste Comte's positivism. Within liberal philosophical debate, John Stuart Mill's measured advocacy for it has received some attention, especially given his otherwise well-known emphasis on the tension between religion and liberty. Yet Alexis de Tocqueville's perceptive awareness of the Religion of Humanity as an evolving phenomenon, expressed through his discussion of democratic poetry, remained largely unnoticed. Of course, Tocqueville's essential religio-political task was to promote a modified version of Christianity and buttress the standing of religious morality as an outside barrier against human action motivated by democratic materialism, notwithstanding the secular doctrine of self-interest well understood. Indeed, despite the neutral tone of Tocqueville's discussion of democratic poetry, elsewhere his critique of democratic pantheism, writers and orators, theatre, and historians warned against excessive veneration of humanity, which amounted to a sublimation of the dogma of the sovereignty of the people.

Pierre Leroux et la religion de l’humanité : une conception post-séculière au XIXe siècle ?

PIERRE LEROUX AND THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY: A POST-SECULAR CONCEPT IN THE 19th CENTURY?The aim of the article is to show, using the example of Pierre Leroux, that the extension of the post-secular perspective to Romanticism is not only possible, but even desirable. Leroux’s work contains in this context two fundamental aspects: first, a philosophical reflection on humanity, its true tradition and eternal life; secondly, a socio-political reflection on the necessity of establishing a civil religion. Some threads that are present in Leroux’s thought, referring to Joachimism, seem to make him closer to the views of contemporary post-secular and post-modern authors.

Czyżby przedwczesny krzyk sowy Minerwy? O renesansie syberyjskiego szamanizmu

In this study, I refer to the metaphor of the cry of Minerva’s owl, which was supposed to herald the twilight of a given phenomenon into the classic scientific descriptions of Siberian shamanism, which was treated by many scientists as part of the phenomenon “universal” for the history of the religion of humanity, and at the same time belonging only to the past. I am analysing the concepts of Mircea Eliade and Andrzej Wierciński in the context of my own field research on the Renaissance of Siberian shamanism. I propose a reflection on the usefulness and limitations of classical models of shamanism for studying contemporary religions of ethnic peoples traditionally considered to be shamanic. Certainly many researchers have become interested in issues related to shamanism thanks to the suggestive descriptions of the classics. The classic model of shamanism is therefore useful as a free frame of intellectual inspiration. Their usefulness decreases abruptly when we treat them as a summary of knowledge about shamanism. I argue that in modern research, it is certainly necessary to take a critical approach to individual statements and holistic assumptions that have grown around shamanism for decades.

Comte, Isidore-Auguste-Marie-François-Xavier (1798–1857)

The French philosopher and social theorist Auguste Comte is known as the originator of sociology and ‘positivism’, a philosophical system by which he aimed to discover and perfect the proper political arrangements of modern industrial society. He was the first thinker to advocate the use of scientific procedures in the study of economics, politics and social behaviour, and, motivated by the social and moral problems caused by the French Revolution, he held that the practice of such a science would lead inevitably to social regeneration and progress. Comte’s positivism can be characterized as an approach which rejects as illegitimate all that cannot be directly observed in the investigation and study of any subject. His system of ‘positive philosophy’ had two laws at its foundation: a historical or logical law, ‘the law of three stages’, and an epistemological law, the classification or hierarchy of the sciences. The law of three stages governs the development of human intelligence and society: in the first stage, early societies base their knowledge on theological grounds, giving ultimately divine explanations for all phenomena; later, in the metaphysical stage, forces and essences are sought as explanations, but these are equally chimerical and untestable; finally, in the positive or scientific stage, knowledge is secured solely on observations, by their correlation and sequence. Comte saw this process occurring not only in European society, but also in the lives of every individual. We seek theological solutions in childhood, metaphysical solutions in youth, and scientific explanations in adulthood. His second, epistemological law fixed a classification or hierarchy of sciences according to their arrival at the positive stage of knowledge. In order of historical development and thus of increasing complexity, these are mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and sociology. (Comte rejected psychology as a science, on the grounds that its data were unobservable and therefore untestable.) Knowledge of one science rested partly on the findings of the preceding science; for Comte, students must progress through the sciences in the correct order, using the simpler and more precise methods of the preceding science to tackle the more complex issues of later ones. In his six-volume Cours de philosophie positive (The Positive Philosophy) (1830–42), Comte gave an encyclopedic account of these sciences, ending with an exposition of what he regarded as the most advanced: social physics or ‘sociology’ (a term he invented). The sociologist’s job would be to discover the laws that govern human behaviour on a large scale, and the ways in which social institutions and norms operate together in a complex yet ultimately predictable system. In his later work, Comte fleshed out his vision of the positive society, describing among other things a Religion of Humanity in which historical figures would be worshipped according to their contribution to society. Despite such extravagances, however, the broader themes of his positivism – especially the idea that long-standing social problems should be approached scientifically – proved influential both in France and, through J.S. Mill’s early support, in England.

Spiritually Minded

This chapter discusses Mill’s Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (1865) which was primarily an attack on intuitionism. It also engages with a theological controversy in which F. D. Maurice attacked H. L. Mansel, the author of The Limits of Religious Thought. Mill joined the attack on Mansel, becoming a champion of the goodness of God. Finally, this chapter examines Mill’s interest in Auguste Comte’s Religion of Humanity as a non-dogmatic alternative to traditional religion. Tellingly, ‘spiritual’ and ‘religion’ were positive words in Mill’s lexicon—they generally spoke of things that were good and needed to be retained. He assumed that the goal was to purify religion, not to eliminate it.