Humanist tendencies were apparent in some of the literature of the time. The English poet Swinburne, wrote The Garden of Proserpine in which he gives thanks that individual lives end with "the sleep eternal in an eternal night." He described "God" as the collective aspirations of humanity and he concluded his Hymn of Man with the line, "Glory to Man in the high-est! for Man is the master of things."
Agnostic-leaning poet Matthew Arnold attacked religion and upheld the idea that Jesus was not God but a great teacher. In the following verse, written in 1852, he stresses the Humanistic emphasis on the enjoyment of this life, as opposed to focus on the afterlife.
"Is it so small a thing, To have enjoyed the sun, To have lived light in the Spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes- That we must feign a bliss Of doubtful future date, And while we dream on this, Lose all our present state, And relegate to worlds...yet distant our repose?"
The Positivist movement of Auguste Comte (1798-1857) put forward a personal and humanistic religion, and was fashionable and profoundly influential for several decades. He also named and established the science of sociology.
Moral philosophy started becoming more and more distinct from religion. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) developed a utilitarian standard of behavior, while Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) attacked Judeo-Christian morality. Neitzsche argued that while most people conform to tradition, the ideal person thinks independently, is able to control his impulses, and focuses on the real world rather than on the supposed afterlife.
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) developed pragmatism, a philosophical system in which no object or concept possesses inherent validity or importance, but it significant only to the extent that it is useful. Therefore, its "truth" value can be empirically measured by its usefulness. The American philosophers William James and John Dewey expanded the concept. Pragmatism can be applied to morality such that right and wrong may be defined in terms of whether an act or rule is useful in promoting the well-being of humankind.
