of scientific study follows the dependence of the phenomena. Thus, as
has been said, it represents both the objective dependence of the
phenomena and the subjective dependence of our means of knowing them.
The more particular and complex phenomena depend upon the simpler and
more general. The latter are the more easy to study. Therefore science
will begin with those attributes of objects which are most general,
and pass on gradually to other attributes that are combined in greater
complexity. Thus, too, each science rests on the truths of the
sciences that precede it, while it adds to them the truths by which it
is itself constituted. Comte's series or hierarchy is arranged as
follows:--(1) Mathematics (that is, number, geometry, and mechanics),
(2) Astronomy, (3) Physics, (4) Chemistry, (5) Biology, (6) Sociology.
Each of the members of this series is one degree more special than the
member before it, and depends upon the facts of all the members
preceding it, and cannot be fully understood without them. It follows
that the crowning science of the hierarchy, dealing with the
phenomena of human society, will remain longest under the influence of
theological dogmas and abstract figments, and will be the last to pass
into the positive stage. You cannot discover the relations of the
facts of human society without reference to the conditions of animal
life; you cannot understand the conditions of animal life without the
laws of chemistry; and so with the rest.
This arrangement of the sciences and the Law of the Three States are
together explanatory of the course of human thought and knowledge.
They are thus the double key of Comte's systematisation of the
philosophy of all the sciences from mathematics to physiology, and his
analysis of social evolution, which is the basis of sociology. Each
science contributes its philosophy. The co-ordination of all these
partial philosophies produces the general Positive Philosophy.
'Thousands had cultivated science, and with splendid success; not one
had conceived the philosophy which the sciences when organised would
naturally evolve. A few had seen the necessity of extending the
scientific method to all inquiries, but no one had seen how this was
to be effected.... The Positive Philosophy is novel as a philosophy,
not as a collection of truths never before suspected. Its novelty is
the organisation of existing elements. Its very principle implies the
absorption of all that great thinkers had achieved; while
incorporating their results it extended their methods.... What
tradition brought was the results; what Comte brought was the
organisation of these results. He always claimed to be the founder of
the Positive Philosophy. That he had every right to such a title is
demonstrable to all who distinguish between the positive sciences and
the philosophy which co-ordinated the truths and methods of these
sciences into a doctrine' (_G. H. Lewes_).
We may interrupt our short exposition here to remark that Comte's
classification of the sciences has been subjected to a vigorous
criticism by Mr. Herbert Spencer. Mr. Spencer's two chief points are
these:--(1) He denies that the principle of the development of the
sciences is the principle of decreasing generality; he asserts that
there are as many examples of the advent of a science being determined
by increasing generality as by increasing speciality. (2) He holds
that any grouping of the sciences in a succession gives a radically
wrong idea of their genesis and their interdependence; no true
filiation exists; no science develops itself in isolation; no one is
independent, either logically or historically. M. Littre, by far the
most eminent of the scientific followers of Comte, concedes a certain
force to Mr. Spencer's objections, and makes certain secondary
modifications in the hierarchy in consequence, while still cherishing
his faith in the Comtist theory of the sciences. Mr. Mill, while
admitting the objections as good, if Comte's arrangement pretended to
be the only one possible, still holds that arrangement as tenable for
the purpose with which it was devised. Mr. Lewes asserts against Mr.
Spencer that the arrangement in a series is necessary, on grounds
similar to those which require that the various truths constituting a
science should be systematically co-ordinated, although in nature the
phenomena are intermingled.
The first three volumes of the _Positive Philosophy_ contain an
exposition of the partial philosophies of the five sciences that
precede sociology in the hierarchy. Their value has usually been
placed very low by the special followers of the sciences concerned;
they say that the knowledge is second-hand, is not coherent, and is
too confidently taken for final. The Comtist replies that the task is
philosophic, and is not to be judged by the minute accuracies of
science. In these three volumes Comte took the sciences roughly as he
found them. His eminence as a man of science must be measured by his
only original work in that department,--the construction, namely, of
the new science of society. This work is accomplished in the last
three volumes of the _Positive Philosophy_ and the second and third
volumes of the _Positive Polity_. The Comtist maintains that even if
these five volumes together fail in laying down correctly and finally
the lines of the new science, still they are the first solution of a
great problem hitherto unattempted. 'Modern biology has got beyond
Aristotle's conception; but in the construction of the biological
science, not even the most unphilosophical biologist would fail to
recognise the value of Aristotle's attempt. So for sociology.
Subsequent sociologists may have conceivably to remodel the whole
science, yet not the less will they recognise the merit of the first
work which has facilitated their labours' (_Congreve_).
We shall now briefly describe Comte's principal conceptions in
sociology, his position in respect to which is held by himself, and by
others, to raise him to the level of Descartes or Leibnitz. Of course
the first step was to approach the phenomena of human character and
social existence with the expectation of finding them as reducible to
general laws as the other phenomena of the universe, and with the hope
of exploring these laws by the same instruments of observation and
verification as had done such triumphant work in the case of the
latter. Comte separates the collective facts of society and history
from the individual phenomena of biology; then he withdraws these
collective facts from the region of external volition, and places them
in the region of law. The facts of history must be explained, not by
providential interventions, but by referring them to conditions
inherent in the successive stages of social existence. This conception
makes a science of society possible. What is the method? It comprises,
besides observation and experiment (which is, in fact, only the
observation of abnormal social states), a certain peculiarity of
verification. We begin by deducing every well-known historical
situation from the series of its antecedents. Thus we acquire a body
of empirical generalisations as to social phenomena, and then we
connect the generalisations with the positive theory of human nature.
A sociological demonstration lies in the establishment of an
accordance between the conclusions of historical analysis and the
preparatory conceptions of biological theory. As Mr. Mill puts
it:--'If a sociological theory, collected from historical evidence,
contradicts the established general laws of human nature; if (to use
M. Comte's instances) it implies, in the mass of mankind, any very
decided natural bent, either in a good or in a bad direction; if it
supposes that the reason, in average human beings, predominates over
the desires or the disinterested desires over the personal,--we may
know that history has been misinterpreted, and that the theory is
false. On the other hand, if laws of social phenomena, empirically
generalised from history, can, when once suggested, be affiliated to
the known laws of human nature; if the direction actually taken by the
developments and changes of human society can be seen to be such as
the properties of man and of his dwelling-place made antecedently
probable, the empirical generalisations are raised into positive laws,
and sociology becomes a science.' The result of this method is an
exhibition of the events of human experience in co-ordinated series
that manifest their own graduated connection.
Next, as all investigation proceeds from that which is known best to
that which is unknown or less well known, and as, in social states, it
is the collective phenomenon that is more easy of access to the
observer than its parts, therefore we must consider and pursue all
the elements of a given social state together and in common. The
social organisation must be viewed and explored as a whole. There is a
nexus between each leading group of social phenomena and other leading
groups; if there is a change in one of them, that change is
accompanied by a corresponding modification of all the rest. 'Not only
must political institutions and social manners on the one hand, and
manners and ideas on the other, be always mutually connected; but
further, this consolidated whole must be always connected by its
nature with the corresponding state of the integral development of
humanity, considered in all its aspects of intellectual, moral and
physical activity' (_Comte_).
Is there any one element which communicates the decisive impulse to
all the rest,--any predominating agency in the course of social
evolution? The answer is that all the other parts of social existence
are associated with, and drawn along by, the contemporary condition of
intellectual development. The Reason is the superior and preponderant
element which settles the direction in which all the other faculties
shall expand. 'It is only through the more and more marked influence
of the reason over the general conduct of man and of society that the
gradual march of our race has attained that regularity and persevering
continuity which distinguish it so radically from the desultory and
barren expansion of even the highest animal orders, which share, and
with enhanced strength, the appetites, the passions, and even the
primary sentiments of man.' The history of intellectual development,
therefore, is the key to social evolution, and the key to the history
of intellectual development is the Law of the Three States.
Among other central thoughts in Comte's explanation of history are
these:--The displacement of theological by positive conceptions has
been accompanied by a gradual rise of an industrial _regime_ out of
the military _regime;_--the great permanent contribution of
Catholicism was the separation which it set up between the temporal
and the spiritual powers;--the progress of the race consists in the
increasing preponderance of the distinctively human elements over the
animal elements;--the absolute tendency of ordinary social theories
will be replaced by an unfailing adherence to the relative point of
view, and from this it follows that the social state, regarded as a
whole, has been as perfect in each period as the co-existing condition
of humanity and its environment would allow.
The elaboration of these ideas in relation to the history of the
civilisation of the most advanced portion of the human race occupies
two of the volumes of the _Positive Philosophy_, and has been accepted
by competent persons of very different schools as a masterpiece of
rich, luminous, and far-reaching suggestion. Whatever additions it may
receive, and whatever corrections it may require, this analysis of
social evolution will continue to be regarded as one of the great
achievements of human intellect. The demand for the first of Comte's
two works has gone on increasing in a significant degree. It was
completed, as we have said, in 1842. A second edition was published in
1864; a third some years afterwards; and while we write (1876) a
fourth is in the press. Three editions within twelve years of a work
of abstract philosophy in six considerable volumes are the measure of
a very striking influence. On the whole, we may suspect that no part
of Comte's works has had so much to do with this marked success as his
survey and review of the course of history.
The third volume of the later work, the _Positive Polity_, treats of
social dynamics, and takes us again over the ground of historic
evolution. It abounds with remarks of extraordinary fertility and
comprehensiveness; but it is often arbitrary; its views of the past
are strained into coherence with the statical views of the preceding
volume; and so far as concerns the period to which the present writer
happens to have given special attention, it is usually slight and
sometimes random. As it was composed in rather less than six months,
and as the author honestly warns us that he has given all his
attention to a more profound co-ordination, instead of working out the
special explanations more fully, as he had promised, we need not be
surprised if the result is disappointing to those who had mastered the
corresponding portion of the _Positive Philosophy_. Comte explains the
difference between his two works. In the first his 'chief object was
to discover and demonstrate the laws of progress, and to exhibit in
one unbroken sequence the collective destinies of mankind, till then
invariably regarded as a series of events wholly beyond the reach of
explanation, and almost depending on arbitrary will. The present work,
on the contrary, is addressed to those who are already sufficiently
convinced of the certain existence of social laws, and desire only to
have them reduced to a true and conclusive system.'
What that system is it would take far more space than we can afford to
sketch even in outline. All we can do is to enumerate some of its main
positions. They are to be drawn not only from the _Positive Polity_,
but from two other works,--the _Positivist Catechism: a Summary
Exposition of the Universal Religion, in Twelve Dialogues between a
Woman and a Priest of Humanity_; and second, _The Subjective
Synthesis_ (1856), which is the first and only volume of a work upon
mathematics announced at the end of the _Positive Philosophy_. The
system for which the _Positive Philosophy_ is alleged to have been the
scientific preparation contains a Polity and a Religion; a complete
arrangement of life in all its aspects, giving a wider sphere to
Intellect, Energy, and Feeling than could be found in any of the
previous organic types,--Greek, Roman, or Catholic-feudal. Comte's
immense superiority over such prae-Revolutionary Utopians as the Abbe
Saint Pierre, no less than over the group of post-revolutionary
Utopians, is especially visible in his firm grasp of the cardinal
truth that the improvement of the social organism can only be
effected by a moral development, and never by any changes in mere
political mechanism, or any violences in the way of an artificial
redistribution of wealth. A moral transformation must precede any real
advance. The aim, both in public and private life, is to secure to the
utmost possible extent the victory of the social feeling over
self-love, or Altruism over Egoism. This is the key to the
regeneration of social existence, as it is the key to that unity of
individual life which makes all our energies converge freely and
without wasteful friction towards a common end. What are the
instruments for securing the preponderance of Altruism? Clearly they
must work from the strongest element in human nature, and this element
is Feeling or the Heart. Under the Catholic system the supremacy of
Feeling was abused, and the intellect was made its slave. Then
followed a revolt of Intellect against Sentiment. The business of the
new system will be to bring back the Intellect into a condition, not
of slavery, but of willing ministry to the Feelings. The subordination
never was, and never will be, effected except by means of a religion,
and a religion, to be final, must include a harmonious synthesis of
all our conceptions of the external order of the universe. The
characteristic basis of a religion is the existence of a Power without
us, so superior to ourselves as to command the complete submission of
our whole life. This basis is to be found in the Positive stage, in
Humanity, past, present, and to come, conceived as the Great Being.
A deeper study of the great universal order reveals to us at
length the ruling power within it of the true Great Being, whose
destiny it is to bring that order continually to perfection by
constantly conforming to its laws, and which thus best represents
to us that system as a whole. This undeniable Providence, the
supreme dispenser of our destinies, becomes in the natural course
the common centre of our affections, our thoughts, and our
actions. Although this Great Being evidently exceeds the utmost
strength of any, even of any collective, human force, its
necessary constitution and its peculiar function endow it with
the truest sympathy towards all its servants. The least amongst
us can and ought constantly to aspire to maintain and even to
improve this Being. This natural object of all our activity, both
public and private, determines the true general character of the
rest of our existence, whether in feeling or in thought; which
must be devoted to love, and to know, in order rightly to serve,
our Providence, by a wise use of all the means which it furnishes
to us. Reciprocally this continued service, while strengthening
our true unity, renders us at once both happier and better.
The exaltation of Humanity into the throne occupied by the Supreme
Being under monotheistic systems made all the rest of Comte's
construction easy enough. Utility remains the test of every
institution, impulse, act; his fabric becomes substantially an arch of
utilitarian propositions, with an artificial Great Being inserted at
the top to keep them in their place. The Comtist system is
utilitarianism crowned by a fantastic decoration. Translated into the
plainest English, the position is as follows: 'Society can only be
regenerated by the greater subordination of politics to morals, by the
moralisation of capital, by the renovation of the family, by a higher
conception of marriage, and so on. These ends can only be reached by a
heartier development of the sympathetic instincts. The sympathetic
instincts can only be developed by the Religion of Humanity.' Looking
at the problem in this way, even a moralist who does not expect
theology to be the instrument of social revival, might still ask
whether the sympathetic instincts will not necessarily be already
developed to their highest point, before people will be persuaded to
accept the religion, which is at bottom hardly more than sympathy
under a more imposing name. However that may be, the whole
battle--into which we shall not enter--as to the legitimateness of
Comtism as a religion turns upon this erection of Humanity into a
Being. The various hypotheses, dogmas, proposals, as to the family, to
capital, etc. are merely propositions measurable by considerations of
utility and a balance of expediencies. Many of these proposals are of
the highest interest, and many of them are actually available; but
there does not seem to be one of them of an available kind which could
not equally well be approached from other sides, and even incorporated
in some radically antagonistic system. Adoption, for example, as a
practice for improving the happiness of families and the welfare of
society, is capable of being weighed, and can in truth only be weighed
by utilitarian considerations, and has been commended by men to whom
the Comtist religion is naught. The singularity of Comte's
construction, and the test by which it must be tried, is the transfer
of the worship and discipline of Catholicism to a system in which 'the
conception of God is superseded' by the abstract idea of Humanity,
conceived as a kind of Personality.
And when all is said, the invention does not help us. We have still to
settle what _is_ for the good of Humanity, and we can only do that in
the old-fashioned way. There is no guidance in the conception. No
effective unity can follow from it, because you can only find out the
right and wrong of a given course by summing up the advantages and
disadvantages, and striking a balance, and there is nothing in the
Religion of Humanity to force two men to find the balance on the same
side. The Comtists are no better off than other utilitarians in
judging policy, events, conduct.
The particularities of the worship, its minute and truly ingenious
re-adaptation of sacraments, prayers, reverent signs, down even to the
invocation of a new Trinity, need not detain us. They are said, though
it is not easy to believe, to have been elaborated by way of Utopia.
If so, no Utopia has ever yet been presented in a style so little
calculated to stir the imagination, to warm the feelings, to soothe
the insurgency of the reason. It is a mistake to present a great body
of hypotheses--if Comte meant them for hypotheses--in the most
dogmatic and peremptory form to which language can lend itself. And
there is no more extraordinary thing in the history of opinion than
the perversity with which Comte has succeeded in clothing a
philosophic doctrine, so intrinsically conciliatory as his, in a
shape that excites so little sympathy and gives so much provocation.
An enemy defined Comtism as Catholicism _minus_ Christianity, to which
an able champion retorted by calling it Catholicism _plus_ Science.
Hitherto Comte's Utopia has pleased the followers of the Catholic,
just as little as those of the scientific spirit.
The elaborate and minute systematisation of life, proper to the
religion of Humanity, is to be directed by a priesthood. The priests
are to possess neither wealth nor material power; they are not to
command, but to counsel; their authority is to rest on persuasion, not
on force. When religion has become positive and society industrial,
then the influence of the church upon the state becomes really free
and independent, which was not the case in the Middle Age. The power
of the priesthood rests upon special knowledge of man and nature; but
to this intellectual eminence must also be added moral power and a
certain greatness of character, without which force of intellect and
completeness of attainment will not receive the confidence they ought
to inspire. The functions of the priesthood are of this kind:--To
exercise a systematic direction over education; to hold a consultative
influence over all the important acts of actual life, public and
private; to arbitrate in cases of practical conflict; to preach
sermons recalling those principles of generality and universal harmony
which our special activities dispose us to ignore; to order the due
classification of society. To perform the various ceremonies
appointed by the founder of the religion. The authority of the
priesthood is to rest wholly on voluntary adhesion, and there is to be
perfect freedom of speech and discussion; though, by the way, we
cannot forget Comte's detestable congratulations to the Czar Nicholas
on the 'wise vigilance' with which he kept watch over the importation
of Western books.