[10] Littré, his disciple, as we have already noted, rejected this part of his master’s teaching. Littré was opposed by Robinet, who laid the stress upon the “Religion of Humanity” as the crown of Comte’s work.
Comte’s attempt to base his new religion upon Catholicism was quite deliberate, for he strove to introduce analogies with “everything great and deep which the Catholic system of the Middle Ages effected or even projected.” He offered a new and fantastic trinity, compiled a calendar of renowned historical personalities, to replace that of unknown saints. He proclaimed “positive dogmas “and aspired to all the authority and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, supported by a trained clergy, whose word should be law. Curiously enough he, too, had his anathemas, in that he had days set apart for the solemn cursing of the great enemies of the human race, such as Napoleon. It was indeed a reversed Catholicism, offering a fairly good caricature of the methods of the Roman Church, and it was equally obnoxious in its tyrannical attitude.[11] While it professed to express humanity and love as its central ideas it proceeded to outline a method which is the utter negation of these. Comte made the great mistake of not realising that loyalty to these ideals must involve spiritual freedom, and that the religion of humanity must be a collective inspiration of free individuals, who will in love and fellowship tolerate differences upon metaphysical questions. Uniformity can only be mischievous.
[11] Guyau’s criticisms of Comte’s “Religion of Humanity” in his _L’Irreligion de l’Avenir_ are interesting. “The marriage of positive science and blind sentiment cannot produce religion” (p. 314; Eng. trans., p. 366). “Comtism, which consists of the rites of religion and nothing else, is an attempt to maintain life in the body after the departure of the soul” (p. 307; Eng. trans., p. 359).
It was because he grasped this vital point that Renan’s discussion of the religious question is so instructive. For him, religion is essentially an affair of personal taste. Here we have another indication of the clear way in which Renan was able to discern the tendencies of his time. He published his _Etudes d’Histoire religieuse_ in 1857, and his Preface to the _Nouvelles Etudes d’Histoire religieuse_ was written in 1884. He claims there that freedom is essential to religion, and that it is absolutely necessary that the State should have no power whatever over it. Religion is as personal and private a matter as taste in literature or art. There should be no State laws, he claims, relating to religion at all, any more than dress is prescribed for citizens by law. He well points out that only a State which is strictly neutral in religion can ever be absolutely free from playing the _rôle_ of persecutor. The favouring of one sect will entail some persecution or hardship upon others. Further, he sees the iniquity of taxing the community to pay the expenses of clergy to whose teachings they may object, or whose doctrines are not theirs. Freedom, Renan believed, would claim its own in the near future and, denouncing the Concordat, he prophesied the abolition of the State Church.