SCIENCE (CONTINUED)
PHENOMENA AND LAWS
The perfection of the positive system, towards which it unceasingly
tends, although very probably it may never reach it, would be to
represent all observable phenomena as particular cases of a single
general fact, such as, for example, that of gravitation. The
fundamental identity of phenomena, the reduction of particular laws to
a supreme law; this is an ideal which we are free to entertain. Comte,
after d’Alembert and Saint-Simon, has formulated it himself at the
beginning of the _Cours de philosophie positive_.[46]
Unfortunately this ideal is not realisable. We apply a very weak
intellect to a very complicated world.[47] The unity which, scorning
experience, we might establish, would naturally be valueless. For
the several categories of phenomena proposed to us seem irreducible.
If this[48] be the case, the pursuit after scientific unity is
“irrational.” Comte ended by treating it as an “absurd utopia.”[49]
However, this utopia is forever reappearing; for the human mind is
secretly attached to it. It is because, on the one hand, unity pleases
it above all things, and on the other hand because there is here an
illusion produced and maintained by a philosophy born of mathematical
inspiration. Descartes’ discovery which allowed questions of geometry
to be dealt with by algebra has been the occasion of a grave error.
It gave rise to the thought that differences of quality could be
reduced to differences of quantity. Hence the idea of “reducing” the
various categories of phenomena to one another. But this was a wrong
interpretation of the principle of analytical geometry. Even there,
we have a translation, not reduction, “The geometrical ideas of form
and of situation,” says Comte--and Mr. Renouvier will repeat it after
him--“are not naturally more like numerical notions than the other
real conceptions. Every phenomenon, even social, would certainly have
its equation, as a figure or a motion if its law were known to us with
sufficient precision.
Analysis is therefore but an instrument of incomparable power for the
study of phenomena. But, from the fact that we can make use of it, it
does not in the least follow that the phenomena may be all brought back
to an identical type. Quality is in no way by this means reduced to
quantity, which is something entirely abstract, and this no more takes
place in the case of geometrical quality than in the case of any other.
Neither can the geometrical quality be reduced to pure analysis, nor
the physical to the geometrical, nor the living to the inorganic, nor
the social to the biological. At every stage something qualitatively
new appears. Whether or no we can formulate the relations of phenomena
in the form of an equation, their heterogeneity subsists always
irreducible.
What is true of phenomena is also true of their laws. Each order of
phenomena has its special laws over and above those which result from
its relations with the less complicated and more general orders. The
idea of a supreme law from which all the others would be deduced must
therefore be forsaken. Even within the range of each fundamental
science, it is doubtful how far the unity dreamt of could ever be
attained. The number of irreducible laws is far more considerable
than is imagined by a false appreciation of our mental powers and of
scientific difficulties. For instance, in physics, how can optics and
acoustics be reduced to one another? Physiological considerations,
in default of other reasons, would be opposed to such a confusion of
ideas.[50] Likewise in biology, how can the laws of animal life be
reduced to those of lower organic life? and in sociology, the laws
of human society, implying a course of history, to those of animal
societies which do not do so?
Instead, therefore, of conceiving _a priori_, the phenomena and the
laws as capable of a “reduction” which is, in fact, impossible, the
positive method requires the determination of the general characters of
these phenomena and of these laws by observations. It first establishes
the following:
1. _The more complex phenomena become, the more also our means of
studying them increase in number._
It is a natural but an insufficient compensation. For the difficulty
of establishing the science of phenomena grows much more quickly than
the number and the power of our methodical processes. However, without
this compensation, scarcely any fundamental science would ever reach
the positive state. Thus, to the method of pure mathematics observation
in astronomy comes to be added. Experimentation appears in physics, the
art of nomenclatures in chemistry, the comparative method in biology,
the historical method in social science. With this final science, the
positive method is henceforth complete.
2. _The more complex phenomena become, the more modifiable they are._
We have no power over astronomical phenomena. Even the perfect
knowledge of their laws would only allow us to foresee them. But we
can, in a great number of cases, bring about or arrest physical and
chemical phenomena. Our intervention is still more efficacious if we
are concerned with biological phenomena, as is sufficiently proved by
the good and the evil wrought by medicine and surgery. And it finally
reaches the height of its power in social and political life. So much
so that even cultivated men find it difficult to persuade themselves
that social phenomena are governed by invariable laws, and that
politics can become the object of a science. Experience seems to tell
them, on the contrary, that the activity of man, and especially that of
the man of genius, is all-powerful in this domain. Nevertheless it is
not so, as sociology, by the mere fact of its existence sufficiently
proves. But it remains true that, of all the phenomena of nature, the
social and moral phenomena are those in which man’s intervention is at
once the easiest and the most efficacious.
3. _The more complex the phenomena the more imperfect they are._
We shall perhaps be surprised to see Comte appealing to the idea
of perfection. It seems that he ought to have excluded it as being
something metaphysical. Further on we shall consider his theory of
finality. At present let us only say that if he considers natural
phenomena as imperfect, it is in the sense in which Helmholtz calls the
eye a poor optical instrument. He simply states that certain ends, in
fact, being realized by a natural arrangement of a group of phenomena,
the same end might be better or more economically reached, by other
arrangements that we can easily conceive. In this sense our solar
system is imperfect, but less so than many living forms whose organism
might present a much higher degree of advantageous adaptation. And yet
these living forms are themselves less imperfect than societies subject
as they are to all sorts of pathological alterations, as history
clearly shows. It is remarkable that the most imperfect phenomena
should precisely be the most modifiable, and also those whose study
only became positive in the last stage.
II.
More or less complex, modifiable and imperfect, _all_ phenomena are
subject to laws. It is the supreme principle, the “fundamental dogma”
of science and of positive philosophy. Comte thus enunciates it: “All
phenomena whatever, inorganic or organic, physical or moral, individual
or social, are all subjected in a continuous manner to rigorously
invariable laws.”[51]
Undoubtedly this principle is not yet extended, by the majority of
minds, to all phenomena. This is shown clearly enough by their mode
of reasoning in ethics and in politics. But it is, however, implied
in their general conception of nature. It thus assumes a universal
character, which has caused it to be regarded by many philosophers
as an innate, or at least a primitive notion, in the human mind.
According to Comte, this is erroneous. Like John Stuart Mill, whom
he expressly quotes on this point,[52] he sees in this principle the
result of a long, gradual induction, at the same time individual and
collective. Except in the case of the most familiar phenomena, whose
regularity is most striking, the human mind does not begin by believing
in an invariable order. Even the mind’s conceptions, (theological and
metaphysical), conceal the existence of laws, long after observation
would have made it see them, were it freed from bias. It is true that
the “first germs” of this principle exist as soon as human reason
begins to be exercised, since the dominion of theological philosophy
never could be absolute. But these germs are only developed very
slowly, like the positive method and conceptions themselves.
The induction upon which this principle is founded only began to
acquire solidity when it was definitely verified for a whole order of
important phenomena, that is to say when mathematical astronomy had
been founded. Phenomena of the highest importance, from the theoretical
as well as from the practical point of view, could then be predicted
with perfect certainty. The invariability of their laws had been placed
beyond doubt. From that moment, the principle must have been extended
by analogy, to the more complex orders of phenomena, even before
their own laws could be known. But according to Comte this “vague
logical anticipation” remained valueless and fruitless. It is of no
use to conceive, in the abstract that a certain order of phenomena
_must_ be subject to laws. This empty conception cannot outweigh the
theological and metaphysical beliefs, which have the force of habit
in their favour. In order that the principle of laws should be really
established in an order of phenomena, some laws must _in fact_ have
been discovered and demonstrated in it.
Consequently, while in the _a priori_ doctrines the possibility of
all science rests upon the principle of laws, in Comte’s doctrine, on
the contrary, it is the progress of positive science which by degrees
founds the principle, and which finally brings it to the universal
form in which we find it to-day. Until the creation of sociology,
this principle did not yet possess an effective universality, since
the moral and social phenomena were not conceived as subject to
invariable laws. But when the last conquest of the positive spirit
is once accomplished, “this great principle at once acquires a
decisive fulness, and may be formulated as applying universally to all
phenomena.” Undoubtedly, in each order, we have only established for
a few what henceforth we affirm for all phenomena without previous
verification. But we think that laws, unknown to us, nevertheless
exist. In this we yield to an “irresistible analogy,” which has never
been proved to be false.
Thus, “the most fundamental dogma of the whole of positive philosophy,
that is to say, the subjection of all real phenomena to invariable
laws, only results with certainty from an immense induction, without
really being deducible from any notion whatever.”[53] This immense
induction is a progressive sum of inductions which have taken place
successively in each category of phenomena. It would not be absurd,
strictly speaking, that a certain category should not be submitted,
like the others to invariable laws. But, since sociology has been
founded, we know that all are in fact so subjected.
The laws are known to us, sometimes by experience, sometimes by
reasoning. This diversity of origin in no way influences either the
certainty or the philosophical dignity of the laws. Each of the six
fundamental sciences gives examples of these two distinct modes of
advance which mutually complete each other. “There is not less genius
in the discovery of Kepler than in that of Newton. The initial laws
of mechanics and even of geometry rest solely upon observation. The
logical perfection consists in confirming by one of these ways what
must have been found by the other. But one of the two suffices when all
the conditions required by the method are fulfilled.”[54] How should
the laws obtained by induction be regarded as less certain than the
laws obtained by deduction, since the principle of laws itself rests
upon an induction?
III.
In proportion as the several orders of phenomena are conceived as
governed by invariable laws, the belief in final causes becomes weaker
and tends to disappear. The final causes are imagined by the mind to
explain certain combinations of natural phenomena. When the laws of
these phenomena are known, this explanation becomes useless, it ceases
to have currency. It shares the fate of the whole of theological and
metaphysical philosophy, of which it is a part.
The doctrine of final causes is generally regarded as a constituent
principle of religious systems. A special argument in favour of the
existence of God has even been drawn from it. Comte remarks that
it is more probably a consequence of these systems. So long as man
believes in the continual action of the gods, or of God, in nature,
he does not need the consideration of final causes upon which to
found his belief. He does not even dream of it. Later on only, when
the religious conception of the world has become weaker, when God has
so far withdrawn from the world as to be no longer anything but a
sovereign who reigns, but does not govern, then the need is felt to
demonstrate His existence, and the order of nature becomes an argument.
The consideration of final causes from this point of view is a symptom
of the weakening of the theological spirit; it is thus pre-eminently a
metaphysical doctrine.
Whatever may be the case, experience witnesses against it. Positive
science does not lay down that the world must be conceived as the
work of an all-powerful intelligence. For instance, the scientific
knowledge of our solar system has shown in the most obvious manner,
and in various ways, that the elements of this system were certainly
not disposed in the most advantageous manner, and that science allowed
us to conceive of a better arrangement.[55] Astronomers may admire a
natural finality in the organisation of animals; but the anatomists
who know all its imperfections, fall back upon the arrangements of the
stars. In what concerns animals, a blind admiration wonders even at
evidently detrimental complications: it is the case with the eye, with
the bladder, etc.[56] But “it is an almost universal disposition of
physiologists to draw, even from their ignorance, as many motives for
the admiration of the profound wisdom of a mechanism which they declare
they cannot understand.”
In truth, the natural order, so much extolled, is extremely imperfect,
and we can without difficulty conceive a better one. The human works,
says Comte, from the most simple mechanical appliances to the most
sublime political constructions, are generally far superior either
in expediency, or in simplicity, to everything that the most perfect
natural economy can offer us.[57] Our geometers and our physicians
“sufficiently prepared” would do far better than nature, if they dared
“to take the direct conception of a new animal mechanism as the object
of an intellectual exercise.” This idea of artificial organisms pleases
Comte and he often returns to it. He considers that fictions of this
kind may be useful in biology to intercalate intermediaries between the
several known organisms, in such a manner as to facilitate comparison
in making the biological series more homogeneous and continuous.[58] In
fact this is what Broca attempted to do, when he endeavoured to connect
man with the other primates by hypothetical anthropoids. Quite recently
M. Delage has made use of a similar fiction in his _Traité de Zoologie_.
Comte seldom misses an opportunity of smiling at the stupid admiration
of those who believe that nature has done everything “for the best,” or
that everything in it has been ordered by a providential wisdom. But we
can surprise him also in the very act of admiration; not doubtless on
the subject of astronomical or biological phenomena, but in the chapter
which lies nearest to his heart, that of social facts. He writes, “we
cannot experience too much respect and admiration when we see this
universal natural disposition which is the primary basis of all
society....”[59] and elsewhere: “Can one really conceive, in the whole
of natural phenomena, a more marvellous spectacle than this regular and
continuous convergence of an immensity of individuals....”[60]
However, there is not here a contradiction. In reality, although
Comte says that the consideration of final causes must be accepted
altogether, or rejected altogether, he does not himself reject it as
entirely as he seems at first to do.
What he formally rejects, is the finality understood in the theological
or metaphysical manner: _Cœli enarrant gloriam Dei_. He does not admit
that we can “explain” the natural order by a supernatural wisdom.
But he in no way contests the finality which Kant called internal.
This finality, or better, this reciprocal causality appears in living
beings, where the whole and the parts are reciprocally end and means.
The tree could not subsist without the leaves any more than the leaves
without the tree. Comte expresses this idea in terms which are almost
identical with those of Kant, although he did not know them. “We
shall,” he says, “cease defining a living being by the collection of
its organs, as if these could exist isolated.... In biology the general
notion of the being, always precedes that of any of its parts whatever.
In sociology, where partial interdependence is less intimate although
wider, it would be a serious heresy to define humanity by man ...
_a fortiori_ in biology we ought not to conceive the whole from its
parts.”[61] As soon as we rise above the inorganic world, the first
condition for the study of phenomena is the idea of their consensus,
first in biology, and then in sociology. This _consensus_ corresponds
to Kant’s internal finality.
But the distinction between internal finality and external finality
cannot be strictly maintained. We will never affirm that some beings
were made in view of others. This would be in the highest degree a
theological “explanation” of the first order. But from the positive
point of view, we observe that, in order to subsist, organisms need
not only special intimate structure, but further require a certain
equilibrium of external conditions. At each moment their existence
depends at once on their constitution and on the “milieu.” This
word, which was destined to attain such popularity and the theory
of the “milieu” which Taine has rendered no less popular, belong to
Comte. Undoubtedly, the idea was suggested to him, on the one hand by
Montesquieu and by his successors, and on the other by the labours of
Lamarck and of the contemporary biologists. He also drew inspiration
from Bichat’s celebrated _Recherches sur la vie et la mort_. But Bichat
especially insisted upon the antagonism between the living being and
the forces of the inorganic world which press upon him from all sides.
Comte thinks, on the contrary, that the very existence of living beings
is the proof of a sufficient harmony between their organism and the
milieu. And what we cannot dispute is his merit in having generalised
the idea specially applied by Montesquieu to social facts, and also
specially applied by Lamarck and Bichat to the phenomena of life.
“I designate by this word “milieu,” says Comte, in excusing himself
for the new meaning which he gives it, “not only the fluid in which
the organism is immersed, but, in general, the totality of external
circumstances of any kind whatever necessary to the existence of each
determined organism.”[62]
Properly speaking then, Comte does not reject the doctrine of final
causes; he only transforms it. He had declared this himself in his
_opuscule_ in 1822. “The doctrine of final causes has been converted by
the physiologists into the principle of the conditions of existence.”
Positive philosophy appropriates, “with the understanding of a suitable
change,” the general ideas primitively invented by the theological and
metaphysical philosophies. As the positive notion of the mathematical
laws of phenomena arose out of the metaphysical conceptions of the
Pythagoricians concerning the properties of numbers, so the scientific
principle of the conditions of existence springs from the hypothesis of
final causes.[63]
An example will allow us to realise this transformation in the act.
The stability of the solar system renders the existence of living
species on the earth possible. A good example of finality it would
seem. Nevertheless this stability is simply a necessary consequence,
according to the mechanical laws of the world, of some circumstances
characteristic of our system: extreme smallness of the planetary masses
in comparison to the central mass, small eccentricity of their orbits,
slight mutual inclination of their planes, etc. Since, in fact, we
exist it must be that the system of which we form a part is arranged so
as to allow of this existence.” The so-called final cause would then
reduce itself here, as on all analogous occasions, to this childish
remark: the only stars inhabited are those which are habitable. In a
word, we return to the principle of the conditions of existence, which
is the true positive transformation of the doctrine of final causes,
and whose bearings and fertility are far superior.”[64]
In order to give the formula of this principle, we must have recourse
to the general distinction established by de Blainville between the
static point of view and the dynamic point of view.
Every active being, and in particular every living being, can be
analysed from these two points of view. The static analysis considers
its elements in their relations of simultaneous connexions. The dynamic
analysis discovers the laws of their joint evolution. The first is
the share of the anatomist, the second that of the physiologist. Now
it is clear that these two analyses are complementary to one another,
and are even separately unintelligible. For instance, the anatomist is
constantly guided by physiological considerations. Conversely, without
anatomical knowledge there is no positive physiology.
Thus, the statical analysis establishes the laws of coexistence, the
dynamic analysis the laws of succession or of movement. The principle
of the conditions of existence is nothing else than _the direct and
general conception of the necessary harmony of these two analyses, that
is to say, of the agreement of these two orders of laws_.[65] If this
harmony, in fact, was not realised, no living being, no natural system
of phenomena could subsist. From the point of view of the object this
principle accounts for the permanence of beings: from the point of view
of the subject it expresses the possibility of science.
Why does Comte say that the importance and fertility of this principle
are far superior to those of the doctrine of final causes? It is
because this latter doctrine claims to “explain.” In referring the
natural order to the wisdom of a Providence, it dispenses in some
measure with scientific research, or at least it does not require it.
The principle of the conditions of existence, on the contrary, is
closely allied to the positive conception of natural phenomena. It only
implies the existence of laws. It only establishes the continuity of
the relations between these laws, a continuity verified by experience,
since beings subsist and reproduce themselves. In a word, it allows
us to connect the laws of succession with the laws of coexistence
everywhere. Now, to connect is the essential function of science. By
means of this principle not only the successive moments of any natural
evolution whatever are understood as having solidarity with each other
but the whole of this evolution becomes intelligible by its relation to
the statical conditions to which it corresponds. And, in virtue of the
relativity of science, or, if we prefer it, of the universal reciprocal
action of all phenomena, the principle of the conditions of existence
leads the human mind to a scientific investigation ever more exact and
never completed.
This positive transformation of the doctrine of final causes had
already been clearly sketched by the philosophers of the XVIII. century
whom Comte knew very well, by Diderot, by Hume, by d’Holbach. Hume
says, for instance,[66] “It is useless to insist upon the uses of
parts in animals or in plants, and on their curious adaptation one to
another. I should much like to know how an animal could subsist without
this adaptation. Do we not see that if it ceases he perishes at once,
and that the matter of which he was composed takes some other shape?”
And d’Holbach, “These wholes would not exist in the form which they
bear, if their parts ceased to act as they do; that is to say, ceased
to be arranged in such a way as to lend themselves to being mutually
helpful to each other. To be surprised that the heart, the brain, the
eyes, the arteries, etc., of an animal act as they do; or that a tree
produces fruit, is to be surprised that a tree or an animal exists.
These beings would not exist or would no longer be what they are, if
they ceased to act as they do: this is what happens when they die.”[67]
Comte makes this criticism of the doctrine of final causes his own.
But, faithful to his maxim, “We only destroy what we replace,” he
claims to substitute a positive principle to this metaphysical
doctrine, which preserves the elements in it which are compatible
with the scientific method. It is the principle of the conditions of
existence. In virtue of this principle, by the very fact that such
an organ is part of such a living being, it necessarily co-operates
in a determined although perhaps unknown manner, with the totality of
the acts which make up its existence: an organ no more exists without
a function than a function without an organ. But it in no way follows
from this that all the organic functions are performed as perfectly
as we could imagine them to be. For instance pathological analysis
demonstrates that the disturbing action of each organ upon the whole
of the economy is very far from being always compensated for by its
utility in the normal state. “If, within certain limits, everything is
necessarily arranged in such a way as to be able to exist, we should
seek in vain, in the majority of effective arrangements, for proofs of
a wisdom superior or even equal to human wisdom.”[68]
Extending these considerations to the whole of the phenomena known to
us, Comte concludes in almost the same way as Cournot will later on.
An order establishes itself in nature, since it subsists, since it
is intelligible, since there are laws.[69] Does not the very idea of
a law induce at once the corresponding idea of a certain spontaneous
order? But “this consequence is not more absolute than the principle
from which it is derived.”[70] The experience which reveals this order
to us also shows us that it is imperfect, of an imperfection which
grows with the complexity of phenomena. Every time that the necessary
and sufficient conditions are realised for a natural system to be able
to exist, this system exists in fact, however full of imperfections
it may be in other respects. “Undoubtedly, an inevitable necessity
which links together a series of events, and a premeditated plan which
directs them, resemble each other very much so far as the consequences
are concerned.”[71] But, if the necessity is established, there is
no need to suppose the plan. Now the principle of the conditions of
existence, in showing that all that is “indispensable,” is at the same
time “inevitable,” renders this supposition superfluous.
A double tendency makes itself felt in this theory. On the one hand
Comte, faithful to the spirit of his philosophy, rejects all that
claims to go beyond experience, that is to say the transcendental
hypothesis of final causes and of optimism. On the other hand, he
wishes to account for the order of nature, which is a fact. Now this
order, all imperfect as it is, implies not only the existence of laws,
but moreover a permanent harmony between these laws. “The present
is full of the past, and big with the future.” The principle of the
conditions of existence explains this permanence of order, at least as
much as it needs to be explained from the positive point of view. For
it states that everywhere, in fact, the dynamical laws are in harmony
with the statical laws, and that “progress is a development of order.”
The principle of the conditions of existence is no more _a priori_
than the principle of laws. Like it it is founded upon an “immense
induction.” Like it again, it only acquires its full power when social
science is created, and positive philosophy established.
Should we not be tempted to see in this doctrine a kind of projection
of an idealism such as that of Leibnitz on the lines of positive
thought? Just as Leibnitz makes mechanism rest upon a deeper dynamism,
so Comte completes the principle of laws by the principle of the
conditions of existence. True, between these two doctrines there lies
all the distance which separates the positive from the metaphysical
spirit. But none the less both give symmetrical solutions of the same
problem which correspond to one another, the one _a priori_ the other
_a posteriori_.
IV.
All natural laws, must be conceived as rigorously invariable, whether
it be a question of mathematical or of sociological laws. If we could
conceive, in any case, that under the influence of conditions exactly
similar the phenomena should not remain perfectly identical, not only
in kind, but also in degree, all scientific theory would at once become
impossible.[72] This principle is the very condition of the possibility
of prevision, and consequently of positive science. Claude Bernard
will call it “the absolute determinism of phenomena.” Comte admits
no absolute: but he considers nevertheless that the invariability of
natural laws does not permit of exception.
In the case of certain laws their invariability can be directly
verified, since they come before us in a mathematical form. Such are,
for instance, the mechanical, astronomical and physical laws. Others,
on the contrary, such as the biological laws, refuse to be dealt with
by numbers and cannot be reduced to equations. But this evidently comes
from their complexity: “If it were possible rigorously to isolate
each one of the simple causes which concur in producing the same
physiological phenomenon, everything tends to show that under well
determined circumstances, it would appear to be possessed of a kind of
influence and of a quantity of action, as exactly fixed as we see it to
be in universal gravitation.”[73] Every elementary phenomenon has its
curve.
If then in all cases we could go back to the elementary phenomena,
we could undoubtedly also formulate their mathematical law. In this
sense, mathematical analysis would apply to all the phenomena of the
world without exception. But, nearly always, the decomposition of given
phenomena into elementary phenomena is impossible to us. At any rate
the work of synthesis or of re-composition taken in the reverse order
is far beyond our mathematical powers. The only phenomena to which
we apply the analysis without too much trouble are the most simple
of all, the geometrical and mechanical phenomena. The difficulty
grows very rapidly with the complication of astronomical, physical,
and especially chemical phenomena. When we reach the realm of living
nature, the elementary phenomena escape us altogether. They are given
to us in a state of almost infinite complexity, and, in virtue of the
biological _consensus_, closely bound up with others of no less complex
a character. These phenomena are in themselves syntheses depending upon
other syntheses all in a state of mutual influence and of constant
instability. Then, although, in principle, it remains true that
identical antecedents can only have identical consequents, in fact,
because of the very great number of elementary actions which concur in
the production of each phenomenon, there have perhaps never been, there
perhaps never will be, two cases rigorously similar.
It follows that we must not confuse “the subordination of any events
whatever to invariable laws with their irresistible necessary
accomplishment.”[74] Relatively single phenomena appear indeed to us
to be produced with an irresistible necessity: for instance, the facts
of gravitation. But complex phenomena, in virtue of the more and more
varied combinations which their several necessary conditions admit of
no longer present this character. They are more “modifiable” and less
“irresistible.” In other words, as one considers more elevated, more
complex, more “noble” categories of facts, the laws become removed
from the type of mathematical necessity, and admit more of an ever
increasing element of “contingency”?
The order of the world can then be conceived as a “modifiable
fatality.”[75] In the eyes of the greater number of present thinkers,
says Comte, this formula will seem contradictory. This comes from
old habits of mind which are not easily broken with. In the same
way, as we have had a great deal of trouble in representing truth to
ourselves otherwise than as immutable, so we are unwilling to conceive
order otherwise than as necessary. During a long time the science of
mathematics has been the only positive science. The idea of law formed
itself in this science, that is to say according to the necessary
relations which are demonstrated in it. It came to be afterwards
transferred, just as it was, into the other orders of phenomena,
as the positive spirit progressed. But orders of phenomena differ
qualitatively from one another. All laws ought not to be conceived
according to the single type of geometrical and algebraical laws. In
order to obtain a complete idea of a natural law, we must not confine
ourselves to the mathematical order, which is an “exception” in this
respect. All the orders of phenomena must be considered. We then see
that law must be defined “constancy in variety.”
In fact, “the normal type is never suited to any but a medium state,
more ideal than real, around which effective existence ceaselessly
oscillates, so long as the deviation does not go beyond the limits
which are compatible with the duration of the system. Order, even
isolated, is no more eternal than it is absolute.”[76] In this
passage, Comte is speaking of astronomical order, but the same
consideration applies to all the systems or groups of phenomena. Every
law is necessarily something abstract. Being indispensable to the
intelligibility of the real, every law allows prevision and science
to exist. But it is not an adequate expression of this reality, which
never remains identical with itself.
Comte goes so far as to say that our requirement of precision in
the study of natural laws must not be pushed too far. For the laws
which it has been possible to establish within certain degrees of
approximation vanish if this approximation is pushed further. Not that
the phenomena cease to be subject to laws; but these laws becoming too
complex, escape us. For instance, it has been possible to establish
with our thermometers the laws of the variation of temperature of
a body under certain conditions. With very much more sensitive
thermometers the variations becomes incessant and very complicated.
The known laws disappear without our being in a condition to establish
others.[77]
The order which positive science shows us in nature is then very far
from being absolute. It is, to speak truly, the outcome of the combined
activity of our mind and of things. We cannot separate what belongs
to each of these two factors, but it appears from what has just been
said that the mind plays a great part, that the external relations
are far more contingent than suits our blind instinct of universal
connection.”[78] Nevertheless the phenomena are not irreducible to
order, since science and prevision remain possible. But this order,
entirely relative in respect to our understanding is only established
within certain limits. More powerful minds than ours would probably
construct richer and more complex orders for themselves. For us, beyond
a certain point of complexity our vision becomes confused and our
logical requirements are no longer satisfied. Limits would thus seem to
be placed upon scientific investigation, and these in the interest of
science itself.
Finally we reach the last consequence of this theory founded upon
experience, the principle of laws and the principle of the conditions
of existence only insure a provisional order. Comte readily admits that
it might not exist. “This order might become so irregular that it might
even escape brains superior to ours. There is nothing to prevent us
from imagining words outside our solar system, always given over to
an inorganic and entirely disordered agitation, which would not even
allow of a general law of gravitation.”[79] This is the very hypothesis
formulated by John Stuart Mill, in almost similar terms, and in which
a kind of _reductio ad absurdum_ of his own theory was thought to be
found. It is, however, compatible with the existence of a science which
does not claim to possess an absolute value. Moreover Comte at once
adds, “Still, even if order should be found to be particular to our
world, in fact, it would be in no way accidental in it, since it is the
first condition for human existence.” In virtue of the principle of the
conditions of existence, the presence of a being such as man implies
the whole of the laws which govern our world.
V.
The laws which for us constitute the order of the world are of two
kinds. Some are established by the positive method in each order of
phenomena separately considered; the astronomical laws, physical laws,
chemical laws, etc. They belong to the domain of science properly
so-called. The others are apprehended when the mind leaves the special
point of view of science, and places itself at the universal point of
view of philosophy. They are found again in the different orders of
phenomena, whose relations they express without compromising their
respective independence. They represent them severally connected, or,
according to Comte’s expression, as convergent. Comte calls these last
_encyclopædic_ laws. They tend to realise the unity which the mind
claims, not in pursuing the chimerical reduction of all laws to a
supreme law, but in showing that the systems of irreducible laws are
nevertheless harmonious among themselves.
Generally speaking, these laws have been known for a long time, but
only as special laws of such and such an order of phenomena. It belongs
to positive philosophy to give them their encyclopædic character,
that is to say, to make them universal. For instance, d’Alembert’s
principle is known in mechanics as a law which connects questions of
movement with questions of equilibrium. Philosophy finds a similar
law in biology: (physiological questions are correlated to anatomical
questions); and also in sociology (“progress is the development of
order”). It then formulates the encyclopædic law which generalises
these three laws, that is, the principle of the conditions of existence.
Similarly the three great laws of mechanics, known under the name of
the laws of Kepler, of Galileo and of Newton, must be universalised
and become encyclopædic for they are applicable to all the orders
of phenomena.[80] The law of Kepler, in the first place, expresses
the spontaneous tendency of all natural phenomena to persevere
indefinitely in their state, if no disturbing influence supervenes;
a tendency whence are derived inertia in mechanics, habit in living
bodies, and the conservative instinct in societies. The law of Galileo
which reconciles every common movement with the various particular
movements, applies to all the organic and inorganic phenomena. For, in
any system, we can always ascertain the independence of the several
active or passive mutual relations with regard to any action which is
exactly common to the various parts, whatever may be their kind and
degree. Finally the universal character of Newton’s law (reaction is
equal to action), is evident at first sight. It is accidentally, not
essentially, that these laws have at first been mechanical laws. They
could have been equally attained by the study of biological or social
phenomena. If the science of mechanics was the first to formulate them
it is because it has for its object the less complicated phenomena.
A complete and rational system of encyclopædic laws would realise the
“philosophia prima” which Bacon dimly foresaw. In the actual condition
of the sciences this would probably be a rash undertaking. Comte
attempted it in the fourth volume of the _Politique positive_.[81]
One can hardly say that the trial was a decisive one. It is true that
at that moment Comte was already entirely taken up with religious
preoccupations.
However, the encyclopædic laws are destined to play a part in the
positive philosophy of nature, which may be compared, in some respects,
with that of the categories in Aristotle’s philosophy. They are the
most general forms under which the phenomena given in experience become
objects of scientific thought for us. As in each class of phenomena we
determine laws, principles of order and of harmony, so the encyclopædic
laws make the order and the harmony of the different classes among
themselves. They are, so to speak, _the laws of laws_. Through them
the human mind which has already reached unity of method, may some day
reach a certain unity of knowledge. But this unity will always differ
by two essential characteristics from that which metaphysicians have
pursued up to the present time: it will respect the irreducibleness of
the various fundamental sciences, and it will remain relative, both by
the conditions of the object and by those of the subject, upon which it
equally depends.
Our conception of universal order “results from a necessary concurrence
between that which is without us, and that which is within. The laws,
that is to say the general facts, are never anything but hypotheses
confirmed by observation. If harmony in no way existed outside us our
mind would be entirely incapable of conceiving it, but in no case is it
verified so much as we suppose it to be.”[82] We neither make order nor
perceive it entirely. By long and arduous labour the human intellect
gradually disengages the concept of order out of the facts that come
crowding within its reach. It is an imperfect, contingent, perishable
order, in a word, an order, relative like the mind itself. It is order
nevertheless, and a necessary condition for ethics as well as for
science.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] Cours, I. 4.
[47] Discours sur l’Esprit positif, p. 23.
[48] Cours, II. 505.
[49] Cours, VI. 648.
[50] Cours, VI, 659.
[51] Cours, VI, 655.
[52] Discours sur l’esprit positif, p. 17.
[53] Lettre inedite a M. Papot, 8 mai 1851 (archives de la société
positiviste).
[54] Cours, VI, 662.
[55] Cours, II, 36.
[56] Cours, III, 362.
[57] Cours, VI, 833.
[58] Cours, III, 339, 365.
[59] Cours, IV, 452.
[60] Cours, IV, 470.
[61] Pol. pos. i, 641.
[62] Cours, III, 235.
[63] Pol. pos. iv, Appendice p. 17.
[64] Cours, ii, 26-27.
[65] Cours, iii, 366.
[66] Dialogues on natural religion, VIII.
[67] Système de la nature, II. 187.
[68] Cours, III. 363-4.
[69] Pol. pos. II. 42.
[70] Cours, IV. 274.
[71] Pol. pos. Appendice, p. 25.
[72] Cours, III. 325.
[73] Cours, I, 128-9.
[74] Cours, III. 642.
[75] Pol. pos. II. 427.
[76] Pol. pos. 431.
[77] Cours, VI. 690.
[78] Pol. pos. I. 588.
[79] Pol. pos. II. 30.
[80] Cours, XI., 740-46; Pol. pos., I, 494-5.
[81] Pol. pos., IV., 173-80.
[82] Pol. pos., II. 33.