contradicted by many; and, until it is explained further, it is only
natural that it should be. It will be said that a positive human
happiness of just the kind needed has been put before the world again
and again; and not only put before it, but earnestly followed and
reverently enjoyed by many. Have not truth, benevolence, purity, and,
above all, pure affection, been, to many, positive ends of action for
their own sakes, without any thought, as Dr. Tyndall says, '_of any
reward or punishment looming in the future_'? Is not virtue followed in
the noblest way, when its followers, if asked what reward they look for,
can say to it, as Thomas Aquinas said to Christ, '_Nil nisi te,
Domine_'? And has not it so been followed? and is not the positivist
position, to a large extent at any rate, proved?

Is it not true, as has been said by a recent writer, that[11] '_lives
nourished, and invigorated by_ [a purely human] _ideal have been, and
still may be, seen amongst us, and the appearance of but a single
example proves the adequacy of the belief_?'

I reply that the fact is entirely true, and the inference entirely
false. And this brings me at once to a point I have before alluded
to--to the most subtle source of the entire positivist error--the source
secret and unsuspected, of so much rash confidence.

The positive school can, and do, as we have seen, point to certain
things in life which have every appearance, at first sight, of adequate
moral ends. Their adequacy seems to be verified by every right feeling,
and also by practical experiment. But there is one great fact that is
forgotten. The positive school, when they deal with life, profess to
exhibit its resources to us wholly free from the false aids of
religion. They profess (if I may coin a word) to have _de-religionized_