"The adoration of woman, which may almost be called the natural religion of the modern man, springs from his recognition, instinctive when not conscious, that she is in an express sense, as he is not, the type, the representative, and the symbol of the race from which he springs, of that immortal and mystical life in which the secret of his own is hid. She is this by virtue, not of her personal qualities, but of the mother-sex, which, overbearing in part her individuality, consecrates her to the interests of the race, and makes her the channel of those irresistible attractions by which humanity exists and men are made to serve it. As compared with woman's peculiar identification with the race, man's relation to it is an exterior one. By his constitution he is above all an individual, and that is the natural line of his development. The love of woman is the centripetal attraction which in due time brings him back from the individual tangent to blend him again with mankind. In returning to woman he returns to humanity. All that there is in man's sentiment for woman which is higher than passion and larger than personal tenderness--all, that is to say, which makes his love for her the grand passion which in noble hearts it is--is the fact that under this form his passion for the race finds expression. Mysterious ties, subtending consciousness, bind him, though seemingly separate, to the mighty life of humanity, his greater self, and these are the chords which, when 'Love took up the harp of life,'... 'passed in music out of sight.' In woman humanity is enshrined and made concrete for the homage of man. This is the mighty indwelling which causes her to suggest something more august than herself, and invests her with an impersonal majesty commanding reverence.
"You may imagine with what power such a doctrine as this, set forth by an enthusiast like Régnier, appealed to the mind of an impassioned boy of twenty, as yet pure as a girl, but long vaguely stirred by the master passion of our nature. The other tenets of the Religion of Humanity had been impressed upon me by argument, but at the mere statement of this my heart responded, _O Dea Certe!_
"Subsequently, in response to my questioning, Régnier explained to me how the master had recommended his disciples to give practical effect to the cult of womanhood. I must remember that it was nothing new and nothing peculiar to Positivism for men to adore women to the point even of idolatry. Lovers constantly were doing it. But in these cases the worshipers did not look beyond the personality of the idol. Possibly, no doubt, some dim apprehension of the true grounds of woman's worshipfulness might mingle with the lover's sentiment, but it was very far from being the clear and distinct sense necessary to redeem his homage from the charge of extravagance. On the other hand, the spirit in which women received the homage men rendered them was usually as mistaken as that in which it was offered. Either, on the one hand, from an impulse of personal modesty they deprecated it, or, on the other hand, they accepted it as a gratification to their personal vanity. In either case, they equally misapprehended their true and valid title to worship, which, while personal qualities might enhance or partially obscure it, was itself in root more than personal, and consisted in the martyr and mother sex which so peculiarly sacrificed and consecrated them to the interests of humanity as to draw to them the homage and loyalty of all men who loved their race. It had been the counsel of his master, Régnier said, that, while his disciples should hold all women in exalted reverence, they should peculiarly address this general sentiment to some particular woman, who, being of the same faith, should be able to accept it worthily and without self-exaltation, in the spirit in which it was offered.