moral and physical, converge habitually to a common destination....
Such a harmony, individual and collective, being incapable of complete
realization in an existence so complicated as ours, this definition of
religion characterizes the immovable type towards which tends more and
more the aggregate of human efforts. Our happiness and our merit consist
especially in approaching as near as possible to this unity, of which
the gradual increase constitutes the best measure of real improvement,
personal or social." To this theme he continually returns, and argues
that this unity or harmony among all the elements of our life is not
consistent with the predominance of the personal propensities, since
these drag us in different directions; it can only result from the
subordination of them all to the social icelings, which may be made to
act in a uniform direction by a common system of convictions, and which
differ from the personal inclinations in this, that we all naturally
encourage them in one another, while, on the contrary, social life is a
perpetual restraint upon the selfish propensities.

The _fons errorum_ in M. Comte's later speculations is this inordinate
demand for "unity" and "systematization." This is the reason why it does
not suffice to him that all should be ready, in case of need, to
postpone their personal interests and inclinations to the requirements
of the general good: he demands that each should regard as vicious any
care at all for his personal interests, except as a means to the good of
others--should be ashamed of it, should strive to cure himself of it,
because his existence is not "systematized," is not in "complete unity,"
as long as he cares for more than one thing. The strangest part of the
matter is, that this doctrine seems to M. Comte to be axiomatic. That
all perfection consists in unity, he apparently considers to be a maxim
which no sane man thinks of questioning. It never seems to enter into
his conceptions that any one could object _ab initio_, and ask, why this