ABSTRACT
The Worship of the Dead is no arbitrary creation of Auguste Comte. Were it so, there would be no reasonable hope of making it general and perpetual. It is, in truth, an institution deeply rooted in nature. All religions, except Monotheism, have taken pains to cultivate it, as eminently moralising in its influence. The worship of Saints, the most healthy, the most useful, the most popular part of Catholicism, was declared sinful, and men were bidden to confine their veneration to a Being of whom they knew nothing, and whose very existence was incomprehensible. The word "Worship," like the word "Religion," from having been so long associated with theologism is thought to have an essentially theological signification; and this although everybody is constantly using it in non-theological senses. On the subordination of public worship to private really depends, after all, the chief efficacy of Positive religion.
