But it was against a corresponding being, "The Infinite," that Mr.
Mill was arguing. It is this that he calls a "fasciculus of
contradictions," and regarded as the _reductio ad absurdissimum_ of
the transcendental philosophy.
Mr. Mill's religious tendencies may very well be gathered from a
passage in his review of Auguste Comte, a philosopher with whom he
agreed on all points save those which are specially M. Comte's.
"Candid persons of all creeds may be willing to admit, that if a
person has an ideal object, his attachment and sense of duty towards
which are able to control and discipline all his other sentiments and
propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life, that person has a
religion; and though every one naturally prefers his own religion to
any other, all must admit, that if the object of his attachment, and
of this feeling of duty, is the aggregate of our fellow-creatures,
this religion of the infidel cannot in honesty and conscience be
called an intrinsically bad one. Many indeed may be unable to believe
that this object is capable of gathering round it feelings
sufficiently strong; but this is exactly the point on which a doubt
can hardly remain in an intelligent reader of M.
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