sciences in the state in which they appear before him. On the contrary,
he intends that they should be subject to deep modifications, and that
they should strive towards an ideal form which is laid down for them by
philosophy. He calls this form “positive.” In reality it is Cartesian.
FOOTNOTES:
[116] Pol. pos. I, 499-507.
[117] Cours, VI, 749.
[118] Cours, III, 93.
[119] Cours, II, 16-17.
[120] Cours, II, 14-15.
[121] Pol. pos. I. 500.
[122] Cours, II, 153.
[123] Cours, II, 132-3.
[124] Cours, VI, 751.
[125] Cours, II, 133.
[126] Cours, II, 266-7.
[127] Cours, II. 7.
[128] Cours, VI, 751.
[129] Pol. pos. I, 508.
[130] Pol. pos. IV. 212.
[131] Pol. pos. I. 508-13.
[132] Cours. II. 297.
[133] Cours II. 310.
[134] Pol. pos. I, 516-18.
[135] Cours, II, 313-15; Pol. pos. I, 519.
[136] Cours, II, 317.
[137] Cours, II, 321.
[138] Cours, II, 336 sq.
[139] Pol. pos. 520.
[140] Pol. Pos., I, 532.
[141] Cours, III, 3-4.
[142] Cours, III, 186-9.
[143] Cours, III, 195.
[144] Cours, I. 118: II. 311.
[145] Cours III. 11-12.
[146] Cours, III. 206.
[147] Cours, III. 35.
[148] Cours, III. 87-8.
[149] Pol. pos. I. 551.
[150] Cours, II. 24-26.
[151] Cours, II. 331.
[152] Cours, III. 75.
[153] Pol. pos. I, 561.
CHAPTER IV
BIOLOGY
The passage from the inorganic world to the world of Life constitutes a
critical step in natural philosophy. Astronomy, Physics, and Chemistry
represented successive steps in the same series. If each order of
phenomena presented in itself something which was irreducible to
previous orders, nevertheless all these phenomena, in a certain sense,
remained homogeneous. Without rashness, Descartes could conceive that
physics, like astronomy, would one day assume the mathematical form.
And to-day more than one scientific man considers the distinction
between physics and chemistry as provisional.
But as soon as life appears, we enter a new world. At this degree
the “enrichment of the real” is suddenly so considerable that we
find it difficult to admit the homogeneity of these phenomena with
the preceding ones. Comte here reaps the benefit of his prudence.
His philosophy has guarded against reducing all science to a single
type, and it is content with the unity of method and the homogeneity
of doctrine. It only demands that each science should limit itself to
the search after the laws of phenomena. As to the way in which this
research is to be carried out, it is evidently subordinated to the
nature of the phenomena in question. Now, biological phenomena present
a number of characteristics which belong to them alone, and the first
duty of the positive science which studies them is to respect their
originality.
Comte, therefore, here breaks with Descartes who conceived biology as
a prolongation of physics. He takes an entirely different view of this
science, which, in a sense, is opposed to the whole of the sciences of
the inorganic world. From this there arises a double effort. On the
one hand, Comte wishes to maintain the continuity of the encyclopædic
series of the sciences: he thus shows Biology as immediately following
chemistry, and maintaining the closest relations with astronomy and
physics. On the other hand he clearly brings out the irreducible
character of the vital phenomena, and the modifications which the
positive method must undergo when applied to them. Despite the extreme
difference between the points of view and the doctrines, he often
makes us think of those deep and difficult passages in the _Critique
du Jugement_ where Kant has shown that without the hypothesis of an
inner finality, (although this hypothesis is in itself obscure), the
phenomena which take place in living beings remain unintelligible.
With biology, says Comte, necessarily appear the ideas of _consensus_,
of hierarchy, of “milieu”, of the conditions of existence, of the
relation between the static and the dynamic states, between the organ
and the function.[154] In a word, a biological phenomenon, considered
alone is devoid of meaning. Strictly speaking, it does not even exist.
It can only be understood by its relations with the other phenomena
which take place in the living being, phenomena which react upon it. At
the same time it reacts upon them. Here, in opposition to what takes
place in the inorganic world, the parts are only intelligible through
the idea of the whole. Undoubtedly a certain solidarity of phenomena
exists in the inorganic world, which allows us to consider united
wholes in it. But the solidarity of biological phenomena is far closer,
for, without it we could not conceive them, while, as regards the
phenomena of the inorganic world, there is nothing impossible in this
abstraction.
Henceforth, the positive method must adapt itself to the
characteristics which belong to biological phenomena. It does not
always demand, as it has been wrongly stated, that we should go from
the simple to the complex, but only that we should proceed from the
known to the unknown. It is true that in the sciences of the inorganic
world we proceed from the least complex to the most complex cases;
we begin by the study of phenomena which are as isolated as possible
from one another. But, on the contrary, living beings are all the
better known to us in proportion as they are more complex. The idea
of the animal is in some respects clearer to us than the idea of the
vegetable. The idea of the superior animals is clearer to us than that
of the inferior ones. Finally man for us is the principal biological
unity, and it is from this unity that speculation starts in this
science.
Thus, in dealing with Biology the positive method undergoes a veritable
inversion. In the preceding sciences, the last degree of composition is
forbidden us: we never succeed in uniting the whole of the inorganic
world into a single synthesis. In biology, on the contrary, sums of
phenomena are given; but it is the last degree of simplicity which
escapes us. We have to start from those sums of phenomena, and biology
must in this way assume a synthetic character. In it the analysis of
phenomena will be as minute as possible; but the analytical operations
will always be more or less directly subordinated to the leading idea
of the vital _consensus_.[155]
II.
Like the other fundamental sciences Biology must be abstract, that is
to say it must not bear upon individual beings, but upon phenomena.
It is thus distinct from zoology and botany which are concrete
sciences. In its widest generality it is defined through the constant
correspondence between the anatomical and the physiological point of
view. Its object is to constantly unite them to one another. In reality
these two points of view are the two aspects of a single problem. It
is owing to historical reasons that, during a certain time, these two
sciences appeared to develop independently of one another. Physiology
remained attached to the metaphysical methods, that is to say, to
unverifiable hypotheses and to principles which went beyond experience,
while anatomists already made use of the positive method. But to-day,
the two sciences being equally positive, “their opposition is reduced
to that which subsists between the static and the dynamic points of
view.”[156]
Another element which should enter into the more general definition of
biology, although it has sometimes been neglected, is the consideration
of the _milieu_. The relation between the organism and its _milieu_
is no less essential to life than the relation of the organ to the
function. Life supposes not only that the being should be organised in
a certain way, but also that a certain number of external circumstances
should sustain this organisation, and should be compatible with its
activity. Living beings are thus dependent upon their _milieu_, and
this dependence grows as we rise in the organic series. The system
of the conditions of existence becomes all the more complex as the
functions develop and become more varied. Inferior organisms are
subject to less numerous external conditions; but, says Comte, a little
variation in one of these conditions suffices to make them perish.
The superior organisms stand a variation of this kind better. But, in
return, the number of conditions upon which they depend is far greater.
The study of _milieux_ in their relations to organisms, a study which
is hardly outlined, undoubtedly has many discoveries in store for the
future.[157] Here is an order of problems of which Lamarck probably
suggested the idea to Comte, and upon which Darwin’s genius will work.
Bichat then was wrong in saying in his celebrated definition of life
that it is “the sum of the forces which resist death.” The radical
antagonism between inorganic and living nature is an incomplete and
consequently a false idea. Indeed if, as Bichat supposed, everything
which surrounds living bodies tended to destroy them, their existence
would become unintelligible.[158] Where could they find strength
to resist such formidable pressure, even for a short time? On the
contrary, the fundamental condition for life is a certain “harmony”
between the organism and the _milieu_ in which it is placed. The proof
of this is furnished at every turn by experience.
This being established, what will be the most general problem of the
science of life? From the anatomical point of view, says Comte, all
possible organisms, all parts whatever of each organism, and all the
various states of each necessarily present a common basis of structure
and of composition, from which the tissues, organs and apparatus have
emerged by means of a progressive differentiation. In the same way,
from the physiological point of view, all living beings, from the
vegetable kingdom up to man, considered in all their actions and all
the periods of their existence, necessarily possess a common basis
of vital activity, whence the innumerable phenomena of nutrition,
secretion, etc., proceed, by means of progressive differentiation. Now,
from both these points of view, that which is similar in these cases,
is more important than that which distinguishes them, since the more
general phenomena govern those which are less so. We must therefore
disengage the elementary physiological phenomenon and the anatomical
structure which corresponds to it, we must determine their relation,
and, with the help and confirmation of experience, we must deduce the
increasingly more complex, physiological and anatomical, phenomena from
it.[159]
This conception which, despite Comte’s reservation, still appears to be
entirely saturated with the Cartesian spirit, leads him to the “most
mathematical statement possible” of the biological problem. “Given
the organ, or the organic modification, to find the function or the
act, and vice versa.”[160] There is nothing more in conformity with
the general definition of science, which consists in substituting the
knowledge of laws to that of facts, and rational prevision to empirical
observation. Here, it is true, we have an “ideal scientific type,” from
which biology, which has scarcely reached the positive state, is very
far removed. But there is no science which does not fall short of its
definition more or less. The use of this definition is already a help
for a science, and provides a means for measuring its progress.
III.
In part, or even entirely, biology is deprived of certain methodical
processes which are utilised by the sciences which precede it. It
cannot avail itself of calculation. Undoubtedly each of the elements
which go to make up a physiological phenomenon varies according to
a definite law. But the sum of these elements forms such a complex
whole, that we shall never be able to express their relations in the
terms of an equation. Further, the numbers which are relative to the
phenomena of living bodies present continual and irregular variations,
which do not allow us to establish the data of a mathematical
calculation.[161] Each living being has its individuality, its
personal formula, its characteristic reactions, which prevent us from
treating it as identical with the other beings of the same species.
Each physiological or pathological “case” is distinct from any other
case. That is why Comte distrusts statistics. In his judgment they
are misleading in physiology, and fatal in medicine. In the same way,
Claude Bernard will protest vigorously against averages.
Is the inductive method at least a convenient one to make use of in
biology? Simple observation cannot lead us far in the study of such
complex phenomena, of which many are not directly accessible to our
senses or to our instruments. Experimenting is very difficult in
biology, for nothing is easier than to disturb, to suspend, or even
to bring about the entire cessation of the phenomena of life. But it
is almost impossible to introduce an exactly determined perturbation,
whether of kind, or, _a fortiori_, of degree. Indeed a modification of
a single condition of the phenomenon almost at once affects the greater
number of the other phenomena, by reason of their _consensus_. In
principle, experimenting is not forbidden in biology. On the contrary
it is of remarkable efficacy, but it is often impracticable.
Nevertheless, as we know, it is not man’s intervention in phenomena
which constitutes experimenting properly so called. It consists,
before all things, in the rational selection of cases, (natural or
artificial, it matters little), which are most appropriate for bringing
out the law of variation of the phenomenon under observation. Nature
gives us such, for illnesses resemble experiments which we can follow
through their entire course and to their termination. They are often
difficult to interpret, on account of their extreme complexity, but
less so, however, than the majority of the experiments which we bring
about ourselves. For are they not more or less violent diseases,
suddenly produced by our intervention, without our being able to
foresee all their indirect and future consequences? It is pathological
anatomy which led Bichat to his fine discoveries in histology and in
physiology. And to pathology we must join teratology which is, as it
were, its prolongation. Here again, nature supplies experiments which
we should not know how to institute.[162]
Whatever may be the help which biology derives from these natural
ways of experimenting, its progress could only be a very slow one, if
it did not possess besides a powerful method for proceeding which is
peculiar to it: _comparison_. It is true that every inductive operation
implies comparison. We compare what we observe with other real and
possible cases. Again we compare when we are experimenting. But, in
the comparative method, properly so called, we do not limit ourselves
to bringing two cases together. Comparison bears upon a long sequence
of analogous cases, in which the subject is modified by a continual
succession of almost insensible gradations.[163]
How would the general problems of biology receive a solution without
this method? If we consider an organism by itself, the complication of
functions and organs is inextricable in it. But, if we compare this
organism with those which come nearest to it, and then with others
which are near to them and so on, disengaging what they have in common,
a simplification is produced. The accessory characteristics disappear
by degrees, as we descend in the biological series, and, if we have set
ourselves to study a certain function, we can finally determine its
relation to its organ.
Although it belongs to biology, this method has its analogy in
other sciences, and especially in mathematics. It appears to me,
says Comte, to present a character similar to that of mathematical
analysis, which brings forward, in each sequence of analogous cases
“the fundamental portion which is common to all, which portion, before
this abstract generalisation, was concealed beneath the secondary
specialities of each isolated case.” The comparative method, in a
word, is a method for analysing biological continuity. Whether it be a
question of an anatomical disposition or of a physiological phenomenon
“_the methodical comparison of the regular sequence of the growing
differences_ which relate to them will always present the surest
and most efficacious means of throwing light upon even the ultimate
elements of the proposed question.” We see that Comte had here his
conception of the infinitesimal calculus in his mind. Better still,
where terms are lacking in the organic series he does not hesitate to
suppose them to re-establish continuity. He introduces intermediary
“fictitious organisms” hypotheses which some day perhaps palæontology
will turn into realities.
By means of this method, not only we shall know a far greater number of
cases, but, what is of more importance, we shall know each one among
them better, “as an inevitable consequence of their being drawn nearer
together.” We assume, it is true, that all these various cases present
a fundamental similarity accompanied by gradual modifications, which
always follow a regular course. But this hypothesis as we have seen, is
implied in the very definition of general biology.
The comparative method will then apply successively to the different
parts of an organism, to the different ages of the same organism, and
to the different organisms in the animal and vegetable series. It will
even apply to embryonic life, Comte clearly formulates von Baer’s
law, while making indispensable reservations. The primitive state of
the highest organism, he says, must represent, from the anatomical
and physiological point of view, the essential characteristics of the
complete state which belongs to the more inferior organism, and so on
successively “without our being able to find again the exact analogy
of each of the principal terms of the inferior organic series in the
sole analysis of the various phases of development of each superior
organism.” This comparison, so to speak, allows us to realise in the
same individual the growing complication of organs and of functions
which characterises the whole biological hierarchy. Thus it is
particularly “luminous.”[164] Von Baer’s book had appeared in German in
1827. Had Comte known it, it is most probable that, according to his
habit, he would have quoted it.
IV.
In order to consider organisms in the regular sequence which allows
of comparison, we must first have established the order in which
they should be arranged. But, conversely, to establish this order, a
knowledge of anatomy and physiology is indispensable. So between these
two sciences on the one hand and “biotaxy” on the other there is a
strict solidarity. The problem of classification is thus an essential
part of general biology. In the natural classification sought after
by science, the position assigned to each organism would suffice
to define at once the whole of its anatomical and physiological
nature, in relation to the organisms which precede and to those which
follow.[165] Any natural classification cannot, however, be anything
but imperfect. Accustomed as we are to artificial classifications,
which admit of absolute and immediate perfection, we are surprised that
the same should not be the case in natural classification. But, if the
latter is a real science, we must own that, here as elsewhere, we can
only reach more or less distant approximations. The co-ordination of
living species is a problem like the static or dynamic analysis of a
determined organism. Like this analysis, it only allows of solutions
which are approached rather than realised.[166]
How, in the first place, must we understand species? Between Cuvier
and Lamarck, Comte sides with Cuvier, with this reservation, however,
that “our ideas upon this question of capital importance are not yet
properly fixed.” Two reasons especially incline him to admit the fixity
of of species. Lamarck’s theory is not sufficiently proved: we nowhere
see that the _milieu_ exercises the almost boundless influence upon
organisms which is attributed to it by Lamarck. Undoubtedly, within
certain limits, the exercise induced by external circumstances tends
to modify the primitive organisation. But this action of the _milieu_
and this aptitude of the organism are certainly very limited. On
the other hand, if we have a choice between the two hypotheses, the
interest of science would prompt us to use this liberty in favour of
Cuvier. The fixity of species guarantees that the series of organisms
will always be composed of terms which are clearly distinct, separated
by insuperable intervals. This “increases the degree of rational
perfection of which the final establishment of this hierarchy is
capable.”[167] It is then under the influence of a purely formal motive
that Comte’s preference is here decided. For he felt the strength and
the import of Lamarck’s labours. Of the two celebrated antagonists, he
said, Lamarck was unquestionably the one “who manifested the clearest
and deepest sense of the true organic hierarchy.”[168]
Comte has even dealt with certain objections which do not go against
Lamarck. Thus, we might think at first that, in his hypothesis,
there is no real zoological series, since animal organisms would be
essentially identical, their differences being henceforth attributed
to the diverse and unequally prolonged influence of the external
conditions. But, on looking into it more closely, we see, on the
contrary, that this hypothesis only presents the series in a new
aspect which would even render its existence still more evident. For
the whole of the zoological series would then become, in fact as
well as ideally, altogether analogous to the whole of the individual
development, confined at least to its ascending period. It would then
be conceived as continuous. “The progressive advance of the animal
organism, which for us is only a convenient abstraction, would be
converted into a natural law.”[169]
For the logical perfection of science, Comte prefers to regard species
as fixed in the absence of contrary proofs. None the less Lamarck
has stated a problem of the highest interest. Comte points out its
importance. “The rational theory of the necessary action of the various
_milieux_ on the different organisms has still almost entirely to be
formulated. Such an order of research, although greatly neglected,
constitutes one of the finest subjects which the present condition of
biology can present.” By this means, he adds, we might obtain a theory
for the perfecting of living species even including mankind.[170]
V.
Comte’s anatomical and physiological philosophy is naturally allied to
the science of his time. It is especially connected with the labours
of Bichat and of de Blainville. Here again he endeavours to state the
problems in the most general form possible. Anatomy should begin by
the study of the tissues, to ascend afterwards to the association of
several tissues, that is to say, to the organs, and to the associations
of several organs, that is to say, to systems. But analysis must not
be concerned with the tissue itself. To attempt the passage from this
notion to that of the molecule, is to allow the organic to enter into
the inorganic philosophy. In biology, the tissue corresponds to what
the molecule is in physics. Such, at least, is the doctrine of the
_Cours de philosophie positive_. Later on, instructed by Schwann’s
works, Comte admits in the _Politique positive_ that the anatomical
element is the cell.
Be it tissue or cell, there must be a fundamental anatomical element.
The simultaneous existence of several elements independent of one
another would greatly mar “the admirable unity of the organic world,”
and consequently the perfection of biological science. Life is always
essentially the same. To this dynamic consideration, there must
correspond, in the static order, that of a common basis invariable in
its primordial organisation, successively producing, by deeper and
deeper modifications, the various special anatomical elements.
Similarly, physiology will not be entirely organised until it studies
functions (at least the organic functions), throughout the whole chain
of living beings, from the vegetable kingdom up to man. This conception
of a general physiology leads Comte to dwell, as Claude Bernard will
later on, upon the phenomena of life which are common to plants and
to animals. Some are better studied in plants and others in animals.
But, whether it be animal or vegetable every organism always presents
two fundamental functions: 1. the absorption of nutritious materials
borrowed from the _milieu_ (the assimilation of these materials and
finally nutrition); 2. the rejection of unassimilated materials.
However, plants are the only organised beings which live directly upon
the inorganic _milieu_.[171] Comte was ignorant of the physiology of
fungi.
Comte unreservedly adopts the distinction established by Bichat
between the functions of organic life and those of animal life. In
the first place he concludes from this, in virtue of the correlation
of the dynamic to the static point of view, that distinct tissues
correspond to these distinct functions. Then, he goes more deeply into
the difference between the two kinds of functions. Strictly speaking,
the phenomena of organic life only constitute a special order of
composition and of decomposition. They come very near to chemistry, and
may serve as a transition between the inorganic world and the world of
life.[172] On the contrary, the phenomena of animal life (irritability,
sensibility), offer no analogy with the phenomena of the inorganic
world. We might almost believe, according to Comte, that the separation
is established not between the chemical and biological phenomena, but
between organic and animal life, the phenomena of the former reducing
themselves to physico-chemical phenomena, and those of the latter
presenting entirely different characteristics. Such is not, however,
Comte’s thought. Undoubtedly, considered one by one, the phenomena of
organic life (absorption, circulation, exhalation, etc.) are indeed
physico-chemical phenomena. But what renders their biological character
irreducible is that it is impossible to consider them separately: in
order to understand them we must first look at them from the point of
view of the whole, and appeal to the organic _consensus_, in a word, to
what Claude Bernard, will call _l’idée directrice_.
In the study of organic functions we shall begin by the lower extremity
in the series of living beings, that is to say by the most rudimentary
forms of the vegetable kingdom, for it is here that we shall grasp the
phenomena in their simplest form. Then we shall follow their growing
complexity. For the animal functions, on the contrary, it is expedient
to begin by man, “the only being in which such an order of phenomena
is ever immediately intelligible.” From this point of view man is
pre-eminently the biological unity. As soon as it is a question of the
characteristics of animality, we must begin with man and see how they
descend by degrees, rather than start from the sponge, and look for
their mode of development. Man’s animal life helps us to understand
that of the sponge; but the reverse is not true.[173] Moreover, the
phenomena of organic life, being the most general, are also the most
fundamental. The functions of animal life are first useful for the
needs of organic life, by perfecting it. It is in man alone that the
vegetative life is subordinate to the life of relation: and even for
that he must have reached a high degree of civilisation.[174]
VI.
It is not surprising that biology, even more than physics and
chemistry, preserves the metaphysical spirit. Such, for instance,
is the hypothesis of spontaneous generation. Positive philosophy
recognizes that each living being always emanates from another similar
being. This is not established _a priori_, but is the result of an
“immense induction.”[175] _Omne vivum ex vivo._ Efforts to explain
how the generating tissue should itself be formed by kinds of organic
monads, (an allusion to certain theories arising out of Schelling’s
philosophy) can only fail. We should never know how to connect the
organic with the inorganic world except through the fundamental laws
belonging to the general phenomena which are common to them both.
Positive speculations in anatomy and in physiology form a limited
system, within which we must establish the most perfect unity,
but which must ever remain separated from the whole of inorganic
theories.[176] We see clearly, it is true, that there is no matter
which is of itself living. Life is not peculiar to certain substances
which are organised in a certain manner. It never belongs to them for
more than a time: every organism of which the molecules are not renewed
is dissolved. But “we can no more explain this instability than this
speciality.”[177]
In the same way we see that in living bodies the nutritive functions
are the basis of the others; but there is no contradiction in
“dreaming” of thought and sociability in beings whose substance would
remain unalterable. From this point of view spiritualism is not less
admissible than materialism, in so much as death does not seem to be a
necessary consequence of life. This again is an idea which is common
to Descartes and to Comte. They both conceive an organism in which the
play of functions should not cease of itself. The theory of death, says
Comte, although it is founded upon that of life, is entirely distinct
from it.[178]
If biology still often hesitates in the statement of its problems
and in the choice of its hypotheses, it is in a great measure due to
the two opposite tendencies between which it oscillated in the last
century. On the one hand, Boerhaave, and the school of physiology which
is more or less directly connected with Descartes, sought a mechanical
explanation of biological phenomena, and tended to reduce biology to
physics and chemistry. On the other hand, Stahl in Germany, and the
vitalist school of Montpellier in France, appealed to metaphysical
principles and to unverifiable hypotheses. Being thus swayed from
one extremity to another, biology only escaped the “oppression” of
the inorganic sciences to involve itself in conceptions which were
scarcely scientific.[179] It is only at the end of the XVIII. Century,
with Haller, Gall and Bichat, that it finds its equilibrium, takes
possession of its method, and at last enters into its positive phase.
By its lower extremity it is contiguous to inorganic science (the
physico-chemical phenomena of vegetative life). By its higher
extremity, (intellectual functions), it reaches to the final science,
or sociology. But the adherence is far from being as close in one case
as in the other. At the moment when we pass from the inorganic world to
the world of living beings, according to positive philosophy, there is
a sudden “enrichment of the real.” The transition is very marked. The
domain of biology is not so sharply separated from that of sociology.
For the higher biological functions, the intellectual functions, cannot
be analysed from the point of view of the individual, at least in man,
but only from the point of view of the species. We must then, while
preserving the distinction between the two sciences, admit a kind of
inter-relation between them. Undoubtedly sociology could not be founded
so long as biology had not made decisive progress. But, conversely,
sociology once founded alone completes the positive study of the
highest biological functions.
Certainly, biology has not been less transformed than chemistry during
the last sixty years, and the state in which we see it to-day differs
singularly from that in which Comte knew it. It has been developed
and differentiated far beyond what he could foresee. None the less
he conceived some of its principles with remarkable power. He had a
precise idea of that which could constitute a general biology that is,
a single physiology and anatomy for the whole of living beings. He
knew the fecundity of the comparative method, and he pointed out its
analogy with the method of analysis in mathematics. Finally, although
he refused to adopt the transformist hypothesis, he had understood the
importance of Lamarck’s work.
FOOTNOTES:
[154] Cours, VI, 772.
[155] Cours, IV, 285-7.
[156] Cours, III, 8-239.
[157] Cours, III, 490, 510.
[158] Cours, III, 224-7.
[159] Cours, III, 271-2.
[160] Cours, III, 237.
[161] Cours, III, 326 sq.
[162] Cours, III. 259-65.
[163] Cours, III. 284-5.
[164] Cours, III. 282-546.
[165] Cours, III. 437.
[166] Cours, III. 456-7.
[167] Cours, III, 452.
[168] Cours, III, 444.
[169] Cours, III, 441-2.
[170] Cours, III, 452-3.
[171] Cours, III, 529-31; Pol. pos., I, 594.
[172] Cours, III, 553-6.
[173] Cours, III, 380-1.
[174] Cours, III, 562-3.
[175] Pol. Pos., I, 591.
[176] Pol. Pos., I, 587.
[177] Pol. Pos., I, 587; Cours, III, 419-20.
[178] Pol. Pos., I, 589.
[179] Cours, VI, 766-68.
CHAPTER V
PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology has no place in the classification of the fundamental
sciences. In it Sociology immediately succeeds Biology. Use has been
made of this fact in order to reproach Comte with having neglected an
order of most important phenomena. A grave objection has been raised
against his doctrine in general. What are we to think of a philosophy
which, deliberately, omits a part, and, according to many philosophers,
the chief part of reality, the world of consciousness, the spiritual
nature of man?
Presented in this way, the objection rests upon many confused notions
about words and ideas. What do we understand by psychology? If the
word means: “the science of the soul reached through the introspective
method,” we must own that Comte does not admit the possibility of
such a science. But the same objection will also hold good against
the majority of the psychologists of our time. For they do not admit
this possibility any more than Comte, and they have endeavoured to
constitute the science of psychical facts by a different method than
that of introspection, pure and simple. Is psychology defined as “the
science which investigates the laws of feeling, of the intellect and of
moral phenomena in man and in animals?” Then it is inaccurate to say
that there is no psychology for Comte. On the contrary, he thinks that
positive psychology has just been founded by contemporary science of
whose methods he approves. If he did not use the word “psychology,”
he did so in order to avoid confusion. At that moment the word was, so
to speak, the property of the eclectic school. By the “psychological”
method, everyone then understood that of Jouffroy. “Psychology” was
the science founded by Cousin on the analysis of the _ego_. Comte
who opposes these philosophers, did not wish his theory of psychical
phenomena, which differs from theirs, to be called by the same name. It
is this very precaution which has come to be no longer understood, now
that “psychology” does not designate the eclectic doctrine alone, but
any theory whatsoever concerning mental facts.
I.
Comte finds the field occupied by three psychological schools, and he
combats all three, for reasons of method and also of doctrine. He looks
to them to refute each other mutually, and he will only attack what is
common to them all.[180]
The representatives of these three schools are the Ideologists, with
Condillac, from whom they proceed, then the Eclectics, and finally
the philosophers of the Scottish school. Comte sometimes calls the
eclectics the German school, in opposition to the ideologists, who
are the French school, and to the Scottish school, the first of the
three in point of time. But he always speaks sympathetically of
the Scottish school, remembering that, in part, he owes to it his
philosophical education. He also esteems the sincerity and logical
vigour of the ideologist Destutt de Tracy. But, after all, we have
here metaphysicians, as are also the eclectics upon whom he passes a
more severe judgment. By “metaphysicians,” he understands all those
who study phenomena, (in this case psychical phenomena), by means
of a method which is no longer theological, but which has not yet
become positive. In this sense, Locke is a metaphysician, as well as
Condillac and his other successors in the XVIII. century, Hume alone
excepted.
Comte showers derision upon the method of internal observation which
is practised by the “psychologists.” The sharpness of his language is
at least partially explained by the indignation with which Cousin’s
“charlatanisme” inspired him. This “famous sophist,” in whom he
recognises some of the gifts of an orator, and in particular that of
a mimic, according to him, exercises most unfavourable influence over
the minds of men.[181] He turns them aside from the positive path,
which they are about to enter, to bring them back to metaphysical
dialectics, or to hollow and sonorous rhetoric. And, to crown all, this
“psychology” claims to follow a scientific method! the very method
which has succeeded so well in the natural sciences! It conceives
the idea of practising internal observation, as physics makes use of
external observation. But what is this internal observation? How can
the function of the same organ be to think, and at the same time to
observe that it thinks? We conceive that man should be able to observe
himself if it is a question of the passions which animate him. No
anatomical reason is opposed to this since the organs which are the
seat of the passions, are distinct from those which are used for the
observing functions. But as to observing the intellectual phenomena
in the same way, it is manifestly impossible. In this case, the organ
which is observed being one with the observing organ, how could the
observation take place?
This objection does not only hold against the eclectics, but also
against the Scottish school and the ideologists. We already find it
set forth in a letter from Comte to Valat on the 24th, of September,
1819, when he was perhaps not yet acquainted with Cousin. “With what
should we observe the mind itself, its operations, its activity? We
cannot divide our mind, that is to say, our brain, into two parts, of
which one acts while the other looks on, to see how it goes to work.
The so-called observations made on the human mind, considered in
itself and _a priori_, are pure illusions. All that we call _logic_,
_metaphysics_, _ideology_, is an idle fancy and a dream, when it is not
an absurdity.”[182]
This text, to which we could add many similar ones, allows us to
rectify an erroneous, although a frequent interpretation of Comte’s
thought. He does not deny that we are informed by consciousness of
the existence of psychical phenomena. On the contrary, he expressly
recognises the fact. What he regards as impossible is to study the
activity of thought by means of reflection, that is to discover the
“intellectual laws” by a method of internal observation. In a word,
it is such works as those of Condillac, of the ideologists, of Reid,
etc., which he condemns in their principle. In these works the subject
matter is the theory of knowledge, and not that which is called to-day
_psychology_ proper.
If, instead of seeking specially for the intellectual laws, we wish to
study psychical phenomena in general, internal observation will become
possible in a certain number of cases. But it will not lead to the end
which we wish to reach. It excludes the use of the comparative method,
so fertile and so indispensable in the whole domain of biology. It only
studies man, and even adult and healthy man. What will it tell us of
the child, of the mentally deranged, of the animal?[183] Will it, like
Descartes, go so far as to deny the existence of a psychical life in
animals? Still this life cannot be studied by internal observation. We
must then have recourse to another method.
Strictly speaking, there are only two methods which are suitable for
the science of those phenomena. Either we determine with all possible
precision the various organic conditions on which they depend: this is
the object of what Comte calls phrenological psychology. Or else we
observe directly the products of the intellectual and moral activity,
and this study then belongs to sociology. But, if by this supposed
psychological, method we set aside the consideration of the agent,
that is to say of the organ, and that of the action, that is to say
of the productions of the human faculties, what can remain “unless an
unintelligible logomachy,” or verbal entities which are substituted to
real phenomena? Here then is the study of the most difficult and most
complex functions suspended, as it were, in the air, without any point
at which it touches the simpler and more perfect sciences, “over which,
on the contrary, it is claimed that it should reign majestically.”
Nothing is more opposed to the general order of nature, in which we
always see the more complex and higher phenomena subordinated, so
far as the conditions of their existence are concerned, to the more
simple and commoner ones. As the biological depend upon the inorganic
phenomena, just as, within biology, the phenomena of animal life are
subordinated to those of organic life, so the intellectual and moral
phenomena depend upon the other biological functions. Beyond their own
particular laws, the laws of all the subjacent orders of phenomena also
govern them. Can we study them as if all these laws did not exist? Let
the metaphysician be free to do so. The scientific man who follows the
positive method will proceed on other lines.
A defective method could lead but to false results. Notwithstanding
the differences in their doctrines, ideologists and psychologists
have agreed to place the intellectual functions in the front rank,
and to thrust the affective functions further back. _The mind_ has
become the almost exclusive subject of their speculations. Look
at the titles of their great works since Locke’s “_Essay on the
Human Understanding--Principles of Human Knowledge--On the origin
of our Ideas--On Sensations--Ideology, etc._” The various affective
faculties have been left comparatively in the shade. Now, it is the
contrary which should have been done. Experience shows that the
affections, the passions, the inclinations, play by far the most
important part in the life of animals and even of man. Far from
being the result of intelligence their “spontaneous and independent”
impulse is indispensable for the first awakening, and afterwards for
the development, of the various intellectual faculties. “Against
all evidence man has been represented as essentially reasoning, as
being continually performing unaware a multitude of imperceptible
calculations with scarcely any spontaneity, even from tenderest
childhood.”[184]
Had the study of the psychical functions been made upon animals at
the same time as upon man, this error would not have lasted long. But
philosophers were maintained in it, on the contrary, by metaphysical
and even theological preoccupations. The science of mental functions
had to establish a difference, not only of degree but of kind between
man and animals. It was further required, by reason of another
necessity closely allied to the former, that the soul should be
considered as being immortal. And it was consequently necessary that
the “ego” should present metaphysical characteristics of unity, of
simplicity and of identity. Now, it is by thought that man is most
distinguished from animals. It is therefore from thought that the
characteristics attributed to the soul or to the “ego” have been
borrowed.
But in fact the “ego” is not the absolute unity which the eclectic
psychologists say that it is. It represents the feeling which the
superior living being has, at every moment of the “sympathies” and the
“synergies” which take place within the organism. It is the conscious
expression of what the French call to-day “cénesthésie.” Far from being
directly perceived as Cousin asserts, it is the indirect product of a
quantity of sensations and sentiments, of which the majority are not
perceived in the normal state.[185] It is especially by pathological
facts, (diseases of the personality, double consciousness, lunacy,
etc.), that the attention of the scientific man is drawn to this very
complex phenomenon. It is, moreover, impossible to regard the sentiment
of the “ego” as belonging exclusively to man. Everything leads us to
believe that it also exists in the other higher animals. In any case
there is no metaphysical doctrine to be founded upon this exceedingly
complex and very unstable sentiment. Comte is here speaking as the
successor of Hume and of Cabanis. In the clearest manner he defines
his opposition to Cousin’s doctrine. The latter draws the whole of
philosophy from the analysis of the “_ego_,” Comte draws nothing from
it.
He does not, however, stop to show the superiority of the positive
method over theological or metaphysical method in this matter. Of what
use would it be? The progress of science, in the end, gets the better
of methods which have become antiquated and barren. Metaphysicians
have already passed from the state of “domination” to that of
“protestation.”[186] And when the positive method gets a footing in an
order of phenomena, there is no instance in which, sooner or later, it
has not asserted its mastery over it.
II.
The psychology of Comte is connected with that of Cabanis and of Gall,
without, however, any actual confusion with them. He praises Cabanis
for having been one of the first to form a positive conception of
intellectual and moral phenomena.[187] Cabanis set himself to show that
the phenomena so numerous and so varied which take place in the being
who lives and feels, constantly act and react upon each other. The
psychical phenomena do not escape this law. At every moment, through
the medium of the nervous system, they are subject to the influence
of the state of the whole body, and they make the body feel their own
influence. Cabanis gives a great number of proofs of this, borrowed
from the action of sex, of age, of temperament, of illness, etc.
Moreover, the relation of psychical phenomena to the brain is identical
with that which exists between any function whatever and its organ,
for instance, between digestion and the stomach. According to Cabanis
we are not necessarily materialists because we refuse to explain the
functions of feeling, and the intellectual functions by means of a
special principle. First causes always escape us. Here, as elsewhere,
the scientific man confines himself to the observation of phenomena
and to the search after their laws. On the other hand, if psychology
claimed to start from the analysis of the “ego,” it would leave aside
many phenomena with which our consciousness does not acquaint us, and
which are psychical nevertheless. This is a fruitful remark, which will
be taken up again by Maine de Biran, and which psychologists in our own
time have turned to great account.
Cabanis conceived psychical facts in a positive manner, but he did not
attempt to construct their science. In Comte’s opinion it is Gall who
is the real founder of positive psychology. Whatever may be the value
of his localisations--Comte does not think it an enduring one,--to Gall
at least belongs the merit of having set the problem as it should be
set, and of presenting a precise solution of it. Moreover Gall did not
confine himself to localising the different faculties in different
parts of the brain. His doctrine proper is preceded by an excellent
criticism directed against the psychology usually received in the
XVIII. century.
In order to combat Condillac, Helvetius and the ideologists, Gall takes
his stand upon experience, that is to say upon mental physiology and
pathology, and also upon the observation of animals. As a fact, each
individual comes into the world with tendencies, with predispositions,
with innate faculties. The supposed natural equality of all men is an
ill-founded abstraction, since their propensities and their qualities
often differ very greatly. The paradox of Helvetius who attributes the
moral and intellectual inequality of men to the all powerful influence
of education and of circumstances, cannot be upheld. We cannot, as we
will, make just minds and upright souls. Variety of organs entails
diversity of functions; the difference between men and animals, as
that of men among themselves, is therefore due to anatomical and
and physiological differences. Condillac’s absolute sensualism is
thus refuted by facts. Moreover, if the science of psychology does
not advance it is because distinctions between the faculties of the
soul, (memory, imagination, judgment, etc.) have been arbitrarily
established, from a metaphysical and logical point of view, which does
not correspond to the real speciality of the functions.
Gall lays down the following principle as the ultimate conclusion of
experience, and the fundamental basis of his doctrine of the functions
of the brain:[188] _The dispositions of the individual soul and mind
are innate and their manifestation depends upon the organisation_. We
must not see in this a return to the _a priori_ method. Gall guards
against reverting to the innateness of Descartes and Leibnitz. He
means to speak simply of dispositions, or tendencies, or “faculties,”
for instance, the faculty of love, the feeling of the just and of the
unjust, ambition, the faculty of learning languages, that of comparing
several judgments or ideas, of deducing consequences from them, etc.
“We confine ourselves,” says Gall, “to observation.” We only consider
the faculties of the soul in so far as they become phenomena for us by
means of the material organs. We deny and affirm nothing except that
which can be brought under judgment by experience.
Comte assents to all this. With Gall he condemns the “childish dreams”
of Condillac and of his successors about transformed sensations[189];
with him he admits the speciality of the psychical functions,
corresponding to the speciality of the cerebral organs. But he only
borrows Gall’s principle. He has the strongest objections even to
Gall’s psychology. Undoubtedly at the time when Gall lived, no one
could have done better, and his effort deserves to be admired. But his
errors, although they were inevitable, are errors none the less.
In the first place Gall was wrong in isolating the nervous system too
much from the brain, which is in fact a prolongation of this system,
as is proved by comparative anatomy.[190] Gall considered the systems
of automatic life, of voluntary motion, and of the senses, as entirely
distinct from one another. He only included in the brain those nervous
organs, which, at any rate in the most perfect animals, are the
special organs of consciousness, of the instinctive aptitudes, of the
inclinations, and of the faculties of the mind and soul. To this thesis
Comte opposes the facts assembled by Cabanis, and the solidarity of all
the elements in the living being. The brain can neither be isolated
from the rest of the nervous system, nor the nervous system from the
rest of the organism.
Again, Gall multiplies the faculties in an arbitrary manner. He had
established 27 of them. Spurzheim carried this number to 35, and
others have further increased it. Every phrenologist will soon create
a function, and its organ, whenever it may seem opportune to him,
with as much facility as ideologists and psychologists construct
entities.[191] These creations are nearly always extremely clumsy.
Thus an innate “mathematical aptitude” has been established. Why not
also a chemical, an anatomical aptitude, etc.? And this mathematical
aptitude is manifested by the facility for executing calculations. But
the mathematical mind, far from being an isolated and special aptitude,
presents all the varieties which the human mind can offer by the
different combinations of really elementary faculties. For instance,
some great geometers have especially excelled by the sagacity of their
inventions, others by the extent of their combinations, others again
by the genius of language and the institution of signs and so on. From
this point of view, well drawn up monographies of great scientific
men and great artists would be extremely precious for the progress of
psychology.
In conclusion, “fundamental phrenological analysis” must be
reconstructed. From Gall, Comte only preserves “the impulsion.” The
greater part of the localisations which Gall thought right to establish
must be abandoned. But he was right in searching for them, for thus he
showed science the path to be followed. Even an erroneous hypothesis
on positive lines is always a service rendered in the beginnings of
a science. But of Gall’s doctrine only two principles henceforth
indisputable subsist. 1st, the innateness of the various fundamental
dispositions, be they affective or intellectual; 2nd, the plurality of
faculties distinct and independent of one another, “although effective
actions usually demand their more or less complex co-operation.” These
two principles are moreover the two correlative and interdependent
aspects of the same conception, which is in accordance with what
“common sense” has always thought of human nature. It corresponds to
the division of the brain, from the anatomical point of view into a
certain number of partial organs, at once independent and depending
upon one another. To establish and to demonstrate the detail of this
correspondence is the object of “phrenological physiology.”
III.
Comte took up the attempt where Gall had failed. But his doctrine
passed through two successive forms. He himself calls attention to the
importance and to the causes of this change.
In 1837, when he was writing the third volume of the _Cours de
philosophie positive_, he still closely followed not only Gall’s
general conception, but also his anatomical and physiological
hypotheses. He then thought that “the doctrine deduced by Gall from the
method represents the true moral and intellectual nature of man and
animals with admirable fidelity.” He approved of the division of the
faculties into the affective and the intellectual, the organs of the
former occupying the whole of the posterior and middle regions of the
brain, and the organs of the others occupying only the anterior region
of the brain, that is to say, a quarter or a sixth of the cephalic
mass, “which at once re-establishes the pre-eminence of the affective
faculties upon a scientific basis.” He even accepted the sub-division
of these faculties into inclinations and feelings, and that of the
intellectual faculties into perceptive faculties and reflective
faculties.
At this moment, his objections were especially directed against the
excessive multiplication of the faculties, and upon the insufficiency
of the anatomy of the brain which accompanied the distinction of so
many faculties. He thought the anatomists were right in protesting
against this method of the phrenologists who, from the supposed
existence of an irreducible faculty, assume the existence of a
corresponding organ in the brain. But anatomy cannot thus be treated
_a priori_. As the aim of every biological theory is to establish an
exact harmony between anatomical analysis and physiological analysis,
this evidently supposes that they are not exactly modelled upon one
another, and that each one of them has been worked out in a distinct
manner. We must then take up the analysis of the cerebral apparatus
again, provisionally setting aside all idea of function, or at least
only making use of it as an auxiliary in anatomical research.[192]
In 1851, in the first volume of the _Politique positive_, Comte’s
attitude is quite different. In Gall’s psychology he no longer
recognises anything but what is of historical interest. His own
conception of psychology is completely altered. This great change has
been determined by the foundation of sociology.
Undoubtedly Gall’s merit remains very great, for he rendered a
service of the first order in daring to construct a positive theory
of the intellectual and moral functions. Without this theory, which
at first he considered to be exact in its general lines, Comte could
not have undertaken to apply the positive method to social facts,
nor consequently to found his philosophy. So his gratitude to Gall
is almost as great as to Condorcet, “his spiritual father.” But once
sociology is founded, in looking back, Comte understands that Gall’s
“cerebral theory” cannot be maintained. It resembles a provisional
bridge by means of which positive philosophy passed over the interval
which separates biology proper from sociology. Hardly has it reached
the other side when the bridge collapses. It matters little: it
suffices that, thanks to the bridge, Comte should have set foot upon
the sociological ground. He can now return in all security to the
study of the mental functions. “When I had founded sociology,” he says,
“I understood at last that Gall’s genius had been unable to construct
a real physiology of the brain, owing to the lack of a knowledge of
the laws of collective evolution, which alone must furnish at once its
principle and its end. From that time I felt that this task, which
before I expected biologists to accomplish, belonged to the second part
of my own philosophical career.”[193]
The psychology, which, in the _Cours de philosophie positive_, was
essentially biological, and ended simply in sociology, becomes, in the
_Politique positive_ essentially sociological, and is only secondarily
biological. From 1846 Comte became conscious of this new orientation of
his thought, and, during the five years which follow, he never ceases
working at his “cerebral table.”
At first, he no longer demands an anatomical study parallel to the
analysis of the mental functions, and independent of it. He intends,
henceforth, to determine these functions outside all anatomical
research. “The logical principle of this construction consists, for
me, in its subjective institution.” He systematically subordinates
anatomy to physiology, and he henceforth conceives the determination
of the cerebral organs as the complement, and even as the result, of
the positive study of the intellectual and moral functions. At bottom,
“this subject has never allowed of any other method but the subjective,
well or ill employed.” It has been equally used by the disciples of
Gall and by his adversaries. What psychology has lacked up to the
present is, not exact localisations but a sufficiently deep analysis
of intellectual and moral phenomena. And as a matter of fact it was
impossible to treat this problem well, so long as we ignored the laws
of sociology, “which alone is capable of dealing with these noble
functions.”[194]
Thus, in order to determine the elementary faculties, those which
are irreducible, and which by their co-operation produce the complex
phenomena which are apprehended by consciousness, the method must be
at once subjective and sociological. For the subject which we must
analyse is not the individual consciousness, of which the study is too
inaccessible, and whose life is too short: it is the universal subject,
_humanity_, “the case of the species being alone sufficiently developed
to characterise the various functions.” To this analysis, as a system
of control, will be joined the observation of animals. Indeed, all our
innate dispositions belong also to the other superior animals. If then
the study of man should seem to establish elementary, moral, or even
intellectual functions, of which we see no trace in these animals, by
this alone we should consider that the analysis has been imperfect,
and that complex results have been considered as irreducible.
“_Sociological inspiration controlled by zoological appreciation_: such
is the general principle of the positive theory of the soul.”[195]
By this method Comte obtains 18 irreducible faculties, of which 10 are
representative of the heart, 5 of the mind, and 3 of the character. To
each of these he assigns a special organ. He places the organ of the
heart in the posterior portion of the brain and in the cerebellum, the
organs of the mind in the anterior portion of the brain, and those of
character in the intermediary region. Anatomists are free to verify _a
posteriori_ the separation of the 18 elements which Comte distinguished
_a priori_ in the cerebral apparatus. The existence of these organs,
in any case, appears to him to be sufficiently demonstrated, and
anatomical determination is not very important. We might confine
ourselves to the specification of the number and the situation of the
organs, which we have deduced from the number and relations of the
elementary functions. It would not be necessary for us to know their
shape or their size. The utility of cerebral localisations resembles
that which geometers draw from curves for the better consideration
of equations.[196] The organ is simply the static equivalent of the
function of the soul. It suffices for us to know its existence and
its position so as to situate in it all the relations of the function
itself, so to speak. It plays the part of a schematic drawing.
So, the theory of the brain and of the soul is no longer
“simultaneous.” In fact, the theory of the soul is first constructed by
a subjective and independent method and without any consideration of
the disposition of the cerebral apparatus. This disposition is deduced,
afterwards, from the theory of the soul, once it is established.
Returning then to Gall’s psychology, Comte can explain its defects
to himself. Gall had “oscillated between subjective inspiration and
objective tendencies,” without adopting a systematic plan. There has
not been any very great disadvantage in this empirical fluctuation
in what concerns the theory of the affective functions. Without a
doubt, Gall had established an ill-founded distinction between the
inclinations and the feelings. But he could not be mistaken concerning
the fundamental inclinations of human nature. In default of the true
method, he was supported on this point by common wisdom, and by the
observation of animals. It is on the subject of the intellectual
functions that he is entirely wrong, because here this twofold help
failed him, and nothing, in this case, filled the place of the true
method which was then unknown. In order to discover the static and
dynamic laws of the intellect, it was necessary to abandon the
biological point of view. To Gall’s theory Comte then substitutes a new
classification of the intellectual functions. He distinguishes between
the faculties of conception and the faculties of expression. He
indicates the relations of the intellectual functions proper with the
affective functions and the functions of motion. He makes us apprehend
the very intimate relations which connect desire and will. Finally, to
determine the fundamental intellectual functions, he takes into account
the historical evolution of the human species.
It does not enter into the purpose of this work to set forth Comte’s
theory in detail, and to examine the eighteen irreducible faculties
of the cerebral table one by one. But the systematic character of
the doctrine does not prevent us from taking up a certain number of
interesting and deep psychological views in it. To limit ourselves to
a few examples, Comte drew imitation near to habit, and he brought
habit itself back “to the great cosmological law of persistence,”
which, in the vital order is modified by the intermittance of
phenomena.[197] He remarked that attention is never produced without an
affective phenomenon upon which it depends.[198] He also indicated the
distinction between strong states and weak states, and the “reduction”
of images by actual perceptions. “If our images could offer as much
intensity, he says, as our external sensations, our mental state would
not allow of any consistency. The appreciation of what is without would
be troubled by this conflict with what is within....” Hence a theory of
hallucination and insanity.[199]
The theory of perception which Comte opposes to the abstract sensualism
of the ideologists is allied to his general conception of the relations
between the subject and the object. Our internal operations are never
anything but the direct or indirect prolongation of our external
impressions. But “reciprocally, the latter are always complicated
by the others, even in the most elementary cases.” The sensation,
which appears simple, is already the result of a very complex
combination.[200] For no sensations are really perceived except after
reiterated impressions. If the mind is ever passive, it can only be the
first time. For the second, it is already prepared by the preceding
one, combined with the whole of previous acquisitions. And Comte
insists upon “the habitual participation of reasoning in the operations
which are attributed to sensation alone.” The activity belonging to the
mind enters into all its actions, even the smallest of them.
Mental pathology scarcely exists, owing to the lack of the scientific
spirit among specialists for the diseases of the mind. Still if
Broussais’ principle be true, that is to say, if morbid phenomena are
produced according to the same laws which govern normal phenomena,
what advantage might not scientific men derive from the observation of
mental diseases? They are privileged cases which nature supplies for
them, real experiments, where that which is inseparable in the normal
state appears disassociated. What light might be thrown by this means
upon many physiological and even anatomical questions, in particular
in what concerns the sentiment of the _ego_ (diseases of personality,
aboulia, etc.), and the faculties of expression, isolated from the
faculties of conception (diseases of speech).
Animal psychology would not be less instructive. All the affective
and intellectual faculties are common to men and higher animals, save
perhaps the highest intellectual aptitudes. Even this exception is
a doubtful one, if without prejudice we compare the actions of the
highest animals with those of the least developed savages. We should
study the habits and the mind of wild animals. We should observe the
changes which are produced in them by domestication. Here again almost
everything has to be done afresh.[201]
IV.
In spite of whatever may have been said, Comte then has a psychology.
And, what is more, this psychology is in a sense not far removed
from that of the Scottish school and of the Eclectics although he
so much fought against their methods. The points of contact are
numerous and important. In both doctrines the psychical phenomena are
referred to faculties and these are represented as “dispositions,”
innate “properties.” In both, the essential psychological problem
appears to be the determination of the number and the relations of
these faculties, whose action variously combined produces psychical
phenomena: before everything, it is a question of not considering as
an elementary faculty that which as a matter of fact results from the
combination of several faculties, or inversely. Finally in both, it is
claimed to establish this doctrine of the innate faculties upon the
observation of human nature.
Comte himself had seen that, at any rate in the case of Condillac’s
criticism, he was in accordance with the eclectics. On this point he
only refused to grant them originality. According to him they merely
popularised, in obscure and emphatic declamations, what physiologists
like Charles Bonnet, Cabanis, and chiefly Gall and Spurzheim had long
before stated on this subject in a far clearer and especially in a far
more exact manner. For his part Garnier, the author of the _Traité
des Facultés de l’âme_ had clearly seen the relations of eclecticism
to Gall’s doctrine, and had studied them in a work entitled _De la
Phrénologie et de la Psychologie comparées_ which appeared in 1839.
Why then does Comte attack the eclectics with such persistence and
such violence, if, indeed, the results of his psychology are not very
far removed from what they say?--It is because in reality, beneath the
apparent resemblance of doctrine, a difference of method as serious
as can be conceived is concealed. For Cousin, and especially for the
Cousin we know before 1830, psychology is not an end in itself. It
is a means which he uses to rise to the study of being in itself and
of the Absolute. The “ego” which he analyses is independent of the
organism. This is what Comte condemns as a retrogression. “Some men,
not recognizing the present and irrevocable direction of the human
mind, have endeavoured for ten years to transplant German metaphysics
into our midst, and to constitute, _under the name of psychology_,
a so-called science entirely independent of physiology, superior
to it, and to which should exclusively belong the study of moral
phenomena.”[202] And this attempt at reaction takes place at the very
moment when the works of Cabanis and of Gall have brought this study
upon the positive path!
It is needless to say that, in Comte’s system, psychical phenomena are
subordinated, as far as their conditions of existence are concerned,
to all the orders of more general natural phenomena. Comte should then
have followed Cabanis and Gall, as a matter of course. But he thought
that to establish the science of the “transcendent functions,” the
biological point of view was insufficient. In this case anatomical
considerations are only a kind of reduplication and transcription
of physiological considerations. As Maine de Biran said, in terms
curiously like Comte’s, “a distinction of places assigned to the
exercise of each faculty must necessarily be itself referred to another
pre-established division of the faculties.... Hypothesis thus grafted
upon hypothesis of a different order would not much contribute to throw
light upon the analysis of our intellectual functions.”[203] Only,
instead of appealing, like Maine de Biran, to reflection, Comte rises
from the biological to the sociological point of view He recognises
that the subjective method alone is suitable for the science of
psychical phenomena, but, in place of the _metaphysical subjective
method_, by means of which the “_ego_” is deluded into the belief that
it analyses its operations, and grasps its own activity, he will make
use of the _positive subjective method_. The subject which he will
analyse will be the human mind, or better, the human soul considered
in its continuous evolution, that is to say in its religions, in its
sciences, in its philosophy, in its language and in its art. Here is
matter for a psychology which will no longer be chimerical, but real,
which will be positive, in a word, like the biology upon which it
depends and of which it is the fulfilment.
If we leave aside the conception of the “faculties” which Comte
accepted rather hastily at the hands of the Scottish school and of
Gall, and the “cerebral table” which he believed to be once for all
constructed, his psychology contained more than one important and
fertile seed. To the eclectic psychology, which is not positive,
Comte substituted two sciences which are such. In the first place,
an experimental science of the psychical phenomena studied in their
relation to their organic conditions: it is the physiological
psychology of which no one to-day questions the legitimacy. Then,
by the introduction of the sociological point of view, Comte opened
the way to a whole series of studies which begin to be developed,
(social psychology, ethnical psychology, psychology of the masses,
etc). It is often said that sociological laws have their foundation in
psychological laws. But the reverse is no less true. The psychological
laws, at least the mental and moral laws, are, at the same time,
sociological laws, since they are only revealed in the study of the
intellectual history of the human species. “We must not explain
humanity by man, but man by humanity.” To the “Τγνῶθι σεαυτόν” of
ancient psychology, the positive method substitutes this precept: “To
know yourself, know history.” Man only becomes conscious of himself,
when he becomes aware of his place in the evolution of Humanity.
FOOTNOTES:
[180] Correspondance de Comte, et de John Stuart Mill, p. 162 (27
février 1843.) p. 365 (21 oct. 1844).
[181] Pol. pos., IV, Appendix, p. 218.
[182] Lettres à Valat, p. 89-91.
[183] Cours, III. 614-16.
[184] Cours, III, 618-19.
[185] Cours, III, 601-2; 621-22.
[186] Cours, III, 611.
[187] Lettres à Valat, p. 134 (8 septembre 1824).
[188] Cours, III, 631-2.--Gall, Anatomie and physiologie du système
nerveux, Paris 1810, II, 6-7.
[189] Cours, III, 626-7.
[190] Cours, III, 666-8.
[191] Cours, III, 654-5.
[192] Cours, III, 15-26.
[193] Pol. pos., I, 729.
[194] Pol. pos., I, 671-2.
[195] Pol. pos., I, 672-3.
[196] Pol. pos., I, 731-2.
[197] Cours, III, 596-8; Pol. pos. I, 598-9.
[198] Pol. pos. I, 727.
[199] Pol. pos. II, 383.
[200] Pol. pos. I, 712-14.
[201] Cours, III, 660.
[202] Pol. pos., IV, Appendice, p. 218.
[203] Maine de Biran, _œuvres inédites_ (éd. Cousin), II, 55-58.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
THE TRANSITION FROM ANIMALITY TO HUMANITY.
ART AND LANGUAGE
Of the philosophers who flourished before the rise of the positive
doctrine, the greater number assumed as a postulate in the comparative
study of man and animals, that there was between them a difference of
nature, and not merely one of degree. Whatever fundamental difference
be attributed to reason, language, moral sense, religion, etc., the
“human kingdom” is conceived for the most part as superior to the
animal kingdom and as clearly separated from it. Taking their stand
upon an analysis of the present state of the human conscience, those
philosophers recognise an order of “moral realities,” to which animals
have no access. Thus they give to the science of Man a privileged
object which separates it from the group of the natural sciences.
The positive method admits neither this postulate, nor the consequences
which are drawn from it. In general this method is characterised by the
substitution of the objective to the anthropocentric point of view, and
also by the substitution of observation to imagination. It does not
suddenly change its orientation when it comes to the study of man. The
positive method is not therefore concerned with knowing what idea man
forms of himself to-day and of his relations with other living beings.
Into this idea enter elements of religious and metaphysical origin,
whose presence is explained by historical reasons. The question is to
observe the nature of man in his _real_ relations with other beings.
Man, so considered, at once takes his place again at the top of the
zoological scale.
The problem will then be set in the following terms: Given that man is
included in the animal series, of which he is the highest term, but
still a term, to account for the differences which to-day place him
so high above the term immediately below him. This is taking the very
reverse attitude of nearly all the philosophers, whose main difficulty
is to give an account of the likenesses which exist between man and
animals. It is the position which Darwin will take in his _Descent of
Man_.
Comte takes his stand upon two postulates. The first affirms the
fundamental identity of the essential functions in man and animals.
Since the whole of the moral and intellectual functions constitutes the
necessary complement of animal life properly so-called, it would be
difficult to conceive that all those functions which are fundamental
should not, by this very fact be “common, at various degrees, to
all the higher animals, and perhaps even to the entire group of the
vertebrata.”[204] The animal functions are as a blossoming out of
organic life, destined in the first place to make this life more
perfect and more complex: in the same way, the intellectual and moral
functions are, originally, as it were, another blossoming out of animal
life, and must consequently be found, at least as a possibility,
wherever animal life has reached a certain degree of development.
This postulate, according to Comte, is sufficiently established
by biology, by means of the comparative method. All the principal
characteristics which pride and ignorance set up as absolute privileges
of our species, also appear, more or less rudimentary, in the majority
of the higher animals.[205] The mistake was made because metaphysical
ideology and psychology place intelligence foremost in the study of
psychical functions. Intelligence indeed puts to-day an immense
distance between man and animals. But a more accurate psychology
recognises that the most energetic, the most “fundamental” of mental
functions are the affective functions, since, in default of the
impulse given by them, intelligence itself would not be developed. The
analogy between man and the animals at once appears: for the affective
functions are common to them both. It is the same with the intellectual
functions, when allowance is made for the development they have assumed
in man. In a word, if the dynamical superiority of the human species
over the other species is strong, its statical superiority is weak.
The problem consists in finding how, to such an apparently unimportant
difference in the organs, such a considerable difference in the
functions corresponds.[206]
Here comes in the second postulate: “The fundamental constitution of
man is invariable.” _Evolution but not transformation_: this great
principle, transmitted by biology to sociology, dominates the latter
science entirely. In the course of the long history which leads
humanity from savage animality to positive civilisation,[207] nothing
absolutely new appears. Everything which manifests itself little by
little, pre-existed in the nature of man--in a potential state it is
true; and this state would perhaps never have ceased if a number of
favourable conditions had not occurred together.
The mental functions, which are indispensable to organic and to
animal life properly so called, quickly attained the degree of
development without which the species would have disappeared. On
the contrary, the highest “fundamental dispositions” of our nature
remained latent for a long time, and only manifested themselves by
degrees. But if their development has been slow, it is, in return,
continuous and indefinite. And these dispositions tend to preponderate,
although the “inversion” of the primitive economy can never become
complete. Humanity emerges progressively from animality. The highest
civilization is then, at bottom, entirely in conformity with nature:
for it is only the manifestation more and more marked of the most
characteristic properties of our species. In this sense, our social
solution must be understood “as the extreme term of a progression
continued uninterruptedly throughout the whole living kingdom from the
most simple forms of vegetable life, the predominance of the organic
functions becoming less and less exclusive, in order in the first place
to make room for the predominance of the animal functions properly so
called, and finally for that of the intellectual and moral functions,
whose development is the very definition of humanity.”[208]
Thus, the chain of being is uninterrupted. But Comte, as we know,
did not accept Lamarck’s hypothesis. He believed in the fixity of
species. Undoubtedly he admits in a measure which science will some
day fix, acquisitions slowly incorporated into organisms by heredity.
But he does not think that they will go so far as to transform
species. The whole evolution of man must then be explained by its
original constitution. Indeed, Comte here maintains, as everywhere
in nature, the perfect correspondence between the statical and the
dynamical point of view. The case of man cannot be an exception to this
encyclopædic law, which is verified in all the orders of phenomena from
the most simple to the most complex. As the whole line of the curve
corresponds to the equation, so the whole development of humanity must
correspond to the “fundamental nature” of man. On this condition alone
is sociology possible as a science. Now positive sociology exists:
therefore the postulate is justified.
II.
The theory of the relation between man and animals thus finds itself
deduced from the general principles of positive philosophy. But it can
also be verified _a posteriori_, through the criticism of the arguments
of the adverse theory by means of observation and experience.
The first of these arguments and the one which in general makes the
greatest impression, contrasts the instinct of animals with the
intelligence of man. It represents instinct as blind and fatal, and
intelligence as free and progressive. But this antithesis cannot
withstand the examination of facts. Instinct is called too hastily
a “fatal tendency of animals to the mechanical execution of actions
which are uniformly determined by corresponding circumstances, and not
requiring nor even admitting of any education properly so-called.” This
fatal tendency does not exist. It is a gratuitous supposition, perhaps
a remnant of the Cartesian theory concerning the automatism of animals.
Georges Leroy, in his charming _Lettres sur les animaux_, has shown
that in the mammals and in the birds of our districts, the fixity in
the construction of habitations, in the habits of hunting, in the mode
of migration, etc., only existed for naturalists who never left their
study, or for inattentive observers.[209]
Undoubtedly, habits may become hereditary. But here we only have a
phenomenon common to men and animals, and those habits are modified
if the circumstances which have produced them come to change.
It is in this sense alone that we can admit M. de Blainville’s
formula: “L’instinct est la raison fixée, la raison est l’instinct
mobile.” We must especially understand that instinct is not opposed
to intelligence. What ought we really to indicate by instinct? A
spontaneous impulse in a direction determined, independently of any
foreign influence.” But in this sense, the word applies to the activity
of any faculty whatever, to the intellectual faculties as well as to
the others. There is no contrast between instinct and intelligence.
We say of a child that he has the “instinct” of music, of drawing, of
calculation, etc. In this sense man has certainly as many and more
instincts than animals. If, on the other hand, we call intelligence the
faculty of modifying our conduct according to the circumstances of each
case, animals are, like man, more or less intelligent and reasonable.
Otherwise they would be doomed to disappear very quickly.
But animals have no language! Another error in observation. The higher
animals have a certain degree of language corresponding to the nature
and to the extent of their relations. This language is no more fixed
than the so-called instincts. The language of each social species is
characterised by an arrest of development precisely like the society
which this species tended to found. The limits of its progress, beyond
which indeed it does not go, result from the whole of the obstacles
which it encounters, in consequence of the competition with the other
species, and particularly with the human species, without naming those
limits which the imperfection of organs may create.[210]
Many animals are capable of experiencing needs without regard to a
useful purpose. For instance, they like to exercise their animal
functions for the pleasure of doing so, that is to say, to play. Some
among them experience æsthetic impressions. They are also, without
the slightest doubt, capable of altruistic feelings. Sometimes these
feelings show themselves in the shape of domestic affection, and tend
to make a solitary life unbearable to the individual. Family life then
becomes permanent. Sometimes an animal devotes itself to the service of
a superior race. Do we know to what lengths the progress of altruism
would go in certain animal species, if their intelligence could have
been more developed, and if their surroundings had allowed of their
more extensive social progress?[211]
Finally, animals even possess a rudiment of religion, if by this we
understand an endeavour to interpret the phenomena which strike them.
When sufficiently developed to manifest, where there is sufficient
leisure, a certain speculative activity, they reach spontaneously,
in the same way as we do ourselves, a kind of low fetichism, which
consists in supposing that external bodies are animated by will and
by passions.[212] “A child, a savage, a dog, a monkey, seeing a watch
for the first time, will see in it a kind of animal.” But Comte at
once adds that the chief difference between man and animals lies in
the impossibility for the latter to emerge from the lowest degree of
fetichism, and to rise to a real religion. No animal society “combines
sociability with intelligence sufficiently ever to constitute a
religious association.”[213] Comte would probably have approved of M.
de. Quatrefages’ definition in which he calls man a religious animal.
The decisive step was taken on the day when man’s intellect passed from
fetichism to astrolatry.[214] That “great creation of the gods” was the
first trial in purely speculative activity made by his mind. The whole
subsequent development of humanity arose from this.
Thus, the arguments which claim to establish an insuperable distance
between man and animals, generally rest upon imperfectly observed
facts. On the contrary, in animals, we find the more or less visible
rudiments of everything which has evolved so magnificently in humanity.
We cannot describe in detail how and why this species has become, so
to speak, incomparable and incommensurable with the others. It must
have got the upperhand, not in virtue of this and that particular
advantage, (although an important one), such as the upright position or
the possession of a hand, but on account of the co-operation of many
favourable conditions, of which the totality allowed, so to speak, of
an almost indefinite development. From a certain moment, there was a
definite stoppage in the social evolution of the other species, and
the progress of the human species was decisive. We cannot estimate the
initial influence of the various conditions according to the present
development of the several human faculties, for this development is
especially due to the social life of which those conditions allowed.
Each superiority of man may have been very little defined originally.
Time, the action of the other higher functions, exercise, heredity
have played their part here. The “human attributes” must then have
grown constantly, ever consolidating the “ascendency” which they had
determined. At the same time the corresponding attributes must have
diminished in the rival species, as they were brought to a standstill
in their development. Undoubtedly, by degrees, the interval has widened
until it has become a gap so broad and so deep as to make it impossible
to imagine how it could ever have been crossed. But biology and
sociology help us to judge better. We must see this, in some detail, in
connection with the important question of language.
III.
The theory of language, during the eighteenth century, had been one of
the favourite subjects of philosophical speculation; in general, it
had proceeded in this matter, by way of abstract and logical analysis.
It chiefly saw in language a product of the intellectual faculties of
man. But, already, from the second half of the century, this conception
had been attacked in Germany by the school which began the reaction
against the “philosophers,” and in which the most illustrious name
is that of Herder. In France the traditionalist school felt that here
one of the weak points of the philosophy of the eighteenth century
was being touched. It insisted upon the characters of language which
this philosophy did not explain. Comte knew the works of this school,
and, in particular, those of M. de Bonald, whom he calls an “energetic
thinker.”[215] But his method differs from theirs, and he only agrees
with them in the critical part of their doctrine.
If the theory of language, says Comte, is encumbered with insoluble
questions, the fault lies in the method made use of by the
metaphysicians. They have only considered man’s language, in its state
of highest complication. They have attributed excessive importance to
the signs of articulate human language, they have exaggerated the part
played by reflection, and misunderstood that of spontaneity. Condillac
especially and his school attributed far too much importance to the
“disponibilité” of signs.[216] The scientific method will not isolate
humanity from the other species which it dominates. It will connect
the positive study of language with biology and with sociology: with
biology more particularly for the question of origin; with sociology
in so far as the development of language depends upon the reaction of
social life upon domestic life.
The starting-point of the theory is a fact of experience. Every
strong emotion is accompanied by the impulse to manifest it, and
this expression reacts upon the emotion itself. Many species exhibit
this.[217] Singing and mimicking, or rather cries and gestures, are
often used by them, as by man, not only to relieve the passions,
but to excite them more. For instance, anger in carnivorous animals
grows to exasperation, through the external signs which the animal
gives of it. Comte is in accordance with the observations of Bell
and of Gratiolet. The movements which co-operate in expression, he
says, coincide in general with those which are made use of in action.
Moreover, in the human species, for the most part, the individual
expresses his affections in order to satisfy them better, by inducing
his fellow-creatures to second him. It is an appeal to sympathy. If
then the expression results from the feeling, it tends, conversely
to develop and to consolidate it. The origin of language is thus
affective, that is to say _æsthetic_, since “we only express ourselves
after having felt strongly.” Language therefore translates feelings
before thoughts, and this is what the followers of the ideologist
theory did not see. Even to-day, in our most developed language, we can
still trace this origin. It reveals itself by the musical accent of the
slightest speech. Expression is always inspired and maintained by some
affection, even in cases where it is apparently limited to a simple
scientific or technical exposition. The affective source of language,
dissimulated as it is by the intellectual operations of which it is the
instrument, reveals itself in the inflexions of the voice.
Language is made up of signs. According to what has just been said,
natural signs are spontaneously produced by the play of the emotions.
As a voluntary manifestation language is always artificial. The
involuntary signs have been gradually divided into their component
parts and simplified, while remaining intelligible. All artificial
signs, says Comte, even in our species, spring from a voluntary
“imitation” of the natural signs which are spontaneously produced. In
this way both the formation and the interpretation of these signs are
explained.[218]
Hobbes used to define a sign as a constant relation between two
phenomena, seen by the subject. The two phenomena are here a state
of consciousness and a motion. Sometimes the state of consciousness
determines the motion, sometimes the motion causes the reappearance
of the state of consciousness. The institution of a system of signs
is a means of “connecting the within with the without.” Language is
thus for man a means of making the series of his intellectual states
participate in the regularity which characterises external order. The
logical function of language therefore springs from its very essence
in which the phenomena of the objective world and the phenomena
which belong to the feeling and thinking subject are joined. It is
equivalent to a system for rendering the mental life objective.[219]
Being thus made objective, these phenomena can henceforth be preserved
and communicated, without man or the animals having had each an end
in view, since the institution of the first signs is involuntary, and
arises from “the combination between the muscular and nervous systems.”
External order here acts as a regulator, even before thought has
grasped it.
The signs which are spontaneously produced are not all transformed into
voluntary signs. Those which appeal to sight or to hearing present
special advantages for this use, and as a matter of fact, the two
classes of signs are concurrently used by the higher animals. Gestures
and cries are the origin of what later becomes the system of artificial
signs. By degrees, the communication of emotions gives way to the
expression of thoughts. Among very civilised populations it even came
to be believed that song had come from speech. But, on the contrary,
speech came from song. To be convinced of this a glance at the animal
world is sufficient.
Up to this point the theory of language has been biological, and the
acquired facts can thus be summed up: 1, Man does not express his
thought in order to communicate it, but he communicates because he
expresses it. 2, What is first expressed is emotion, not thought.
By degrees language becomes intellectualized, as the mental life
itself. 3, Expression is spontaneous and primary. It arises from the
relation between the nervous and muscular systems. In the progressive
transformation where, from being involuntary, the signs gradually
become voluntary, they are at once causes and effects.
The essential condition for this transformation to take place is
social life. Undoubtedly, language appears very quickly, as soon as
individuals of the same species find themselves in constant relations
with one another. Each one learns to attribute the character of signs
to the movements which accompany his emotions. Similar beings in whom
the same phenomena take place, become equally capable of interpreting
those signs. From this moment a language is born; and this is true for
the animal species as for man. But human evolution follows an evolution
which is peculiar to itself, and which determines that of language. Our
language would not have far exceeded the period in which it especially
expresses emotions, if human societies had remained purely domestic
groupings, without any other organisation than that of the family. “The
institution of human language,” says Comte, “appears, in sociology, as
the chief continuous instrument of the necessary reaction of political
upon domestic life.”[220]
Henceforth we can picture to ourselves, in its broad outlines, the
prehistoric evolution of language. Originally it comprised gestures
and cries. Gestures predominated in the first place as being more
immediately expressive. By degrees they took a second place. As the
natural signs became divided up so as to become artificial, the
superiority of vocal signs appeared. Among other reasons it was due
to the “spontaneous correspondence” between the voice and hearing
which allows everyone to develop his own education. We hear young
children practising for long hours, playing with the articulate sounds
which they begin to emit. From this more or less organised singing,
still a melody of vocal signs, poetry was born. Finally from poetry,
much later, springs, what is commonly called prose, that is, the
use of non-rhythmic phrases. Three great evolutions in the history
of humanity: how many centuries have not been required for their
accomplishment!
Writing is to drawing what speaking is to singing. Originally it
was not an artifice invented to help vocal language. Here again the
ideological theory aggravates the part played by reflection. Man was
obeying an instinct when by drawing he reproduced the familiar objects
which met his gaze, occupied his imagination, and caused his strongest
and most frequent emotions. Gradually, these spontaneous endeavours
at imitation assumed the character of signs, became divided up and
simplified, and finally were co-ordinated with vocal sounds which
themselves had gone through a separate evolution.
Thus language and art have a common origin, which is the _æsthetic_,
that is to say, the affective expression. Comte does not separate these
two terms. He takes the word “æsthetic” at once in its etymological
and in its modern sense. Our movements, at first involuntary, then
voluntary, translate our impressions and react upon them, because they
spring from them; that is the humble source from which everything else
is derived. With animals it only gives rise to inarticulate vocal
sounds, and to a more or less expressive mimicry. In man, it is the
principle of language and of art. The latter begins by being a simple
imitation. Then the reproduction of objects is perfected. It becomes
more faithful “by bringing out better the chief features which were
at first obscured by an empirical mixture.” “Idealisation” consists
in this. Finally “expression” properly so called is developed, and
“style.”[221]
Thus, if we call language the whole of the means suitable for the
transmission beyond ourselves of our various impressions, this whole
forms a system in which the most customary and least expressive
portion, language, was at first mingled with the portion which bears
the name of art, taking art in its most primitive elements: song and
drawing. These two parts became differentiated in evolution. Our social
requirements have continually increased the use and extension of the
vocal and visual signs which are made use of in active life and in
speculative thought. These signs have become simpler and simpler and
even abstract: to such an extent that their origin ended by being
considered the result of a convention.[222]
The primitive parentage of language and of art accounts for many
facts which current theories do not explain. For instance, language
is not only created but preserved by the people. Grammarians, “even
more absurd than logicians,”[223] in general have understood nothing
about it. Their claim to authority is amusing. But it is to popular
spontaneity, at once conservative and progressive, that our languages
owe their admirable rectitude. The basis of each language collects
what is essential and universal in the æsthetic evolution of humanity.
Hence the magic charm of poetry, the most ancient of all the arts.
Words possess a power of evoking images from which the artist draws
inexhaustible effects. Often during the long childhood of human reason
even the power of words must have seemed to be supernatural: _Nomina
Numina_. By dint of considering language as ideologists and logicians,
we have forgotten that its nature is emotional and æsthetic. However,
even to-day the mysterious power of words has not disappeared. How
great is the action of forms of prayer on tender souls, even when faith
has deserted them! Next to action itself, language is the most powerful
of the exciting causes of feeling, and religions are well aware of
this fact. They know how to make use of it to conquer or to retain
souls.
IV.
The logical function of language is the only one which has been
studied by philosophers; that is, by the “ontologists” and the
“metaphysicians.” But even their study has remained incomplete.
Condillac and his school have solely considered the language which
lends itself to logical analysis. Consequently, they only saw a single
kind of combination which may be called the logic of signs. But, in
reality, the logic of signs rests upon the logic of images, and this
one on the logic of feelings. The so-called logicians thus conceive
a narrow and false idea of our intellectual mechanism, when they
concentrate all their attention “upon the most voluntary, but the least
powerful of the three essential modes of which the mental combination
admits.”[224]
The logic of feelings is the art “of facilitating the combination
of notions according to the connection between the corresponding
emotions.” It is the most instinctive: it is the source of all the
great inspirations of our intelligence. We can think nothing which
contradicts it, or even which is not implied in it. But it has two
grave defects. Its elements are not precise enough, and it is not at
our disposal. It only operates under certain given conditions, and
the appearance of these conditions does not rest with us. We see it
at work, for instance, among animals, who occasionally provoke our
admiration for the marvels suggested to them by this logic which is
so closely bound up with the emotions. The logic of images, though
less strong, is more free and precise than the logic of feelings.
Nevertheless if we only had these two we should still be incapable
of realising combinations conceived and prepared by us. This office
belongs to the logic of signs. For to us almost entirely belongs the
disposal of these signs, and it is this which has allowed of the
development of abstract language and of the sciences.
But we must not separate this last logic from the two others. The
laws of our nature always cause the logical use of feelings and
images to prevail over that of signs. Undoubtedly, the union between
signs and thoughts may become direct, and moreover in the case of
abstract notions, it could not be otherwise. Thus our inner world
is artificially united to the outer world. We have an abstract and
symbolical representation of it, without going through the feelings, or
even, strictly speaking, through the images. But this relation has far
less consistency than the one which is established by the involuntary
intervention of images and of feelings. As the abstract sign has its
origin in the sign appreciated by the senses, which itself proceeds
from the relation of the muscular system with the nervous system; so,
the relations between signs have their origin in the relations between
images, and these, in their turn, proceed from the relations between
feelings.
The facility with which we manipulate signs hides this truth from us:
it is none the less certain that these signs are united to our thoughts
in a far less intimate and less spontaneous manner than the feelings
and even the images.
The positive theory further allows us, not indeed to solve, but to
adjourn the question of a universal language. Indeed are we concerned
with a purely scientific language? Mathematical analysis in part
fulfils this _desideratum_. It allows us to express the laws of the
simplest phenomena by symbols which are at everyone’s disposal. But if
it is a question of a complete language, destined to be in common use
among all men, who does not see that this conception is incompatible
with the present state of humanity? How could we establish a universal
language, while allowing the prevalence of “divergent beliefs and of
hostile customs.”[225] The unification of tongues will arise from the
unification of peoples. When the latter has been realised, under the
action of positive philosophy, the other will follow as a necessary
consequence.
Moreover, from the present time, a universal language exists! It
is Art, “the only form of language which is universally understood
at once in the whole of our species.”[226] Truly this universal
language has its dialects. Comte’s remark is none the less strikingly
accurate. The masterpieces of Greek sculpture, Rembrandt’s paintings,
Beethoven’s symphonies are accessible to millions of human beings who
have never known a word of Greek, of Dutch, or of German. To teach
all children music and drawing, as Comte requires in his positivist
plan of education, is not to make them participate in the luxury
of “accomplishments.” It is placing within their reach works which
appeal to the whole of humanity; it is giving them a stronger sense
of the solidarity which is the essential characteristic of human
society; finally it is teaching them the universal language of which
they possess the instinctive rudiments, and whence have sprung the
very languages which to-day appear as frigid systems of symbols and
graphic representations. Is it not fair to allow them the enjoyment of
a patrimony as ancient perhaps as humanity herself? Somewhere, Comte
compares language to property.[227] Like it, language has facilitated
acquisitions and preserved social wealth. But it has an advantage over
property, that of admitting of equal possession by all at the same
time. Art presents this advantage no less than language. Works of art
are the common property of the whole of humanity and no one should be
deprived of that inheritance.
FOOTNOTES:
[204] Cours, III. 661.
[205] Pol. pos., I, 602.
[206] Pol. Pos., I. 638-9.
[207] Cours, I. 81.
[208] Cours, IV, 498-500.
[209] Cours, III, 624-5.
[210] Pol. pos. II, 229-30.
[211] Pol. pos. I, 613-4.
[212] Cours, V. 30.
[213] Pol. pos. II, 348-9.
[214] Cours, V, 100-1.
[215] Cours, III, 563.
[216] Pol. Pos. II, 248-52.
[217] Pol. Pos. I, 722-3.
[218] Pol. Pos. II, 226.
[219] Pol. Pos. II, 220-1.
[220] Pol. Pos. II, 217.
[221] Pol. pos. I, 288-9.
[222] Pol. pos., II, 250-1.
[223] Pol. pos., II, 254-6.
[224] Pol. pos., II, 240-1.
[225] Pol. pos., II, 260-2.
[226] Pol. pos., II, 237.
[227] Pol. pos., II, 254-6.
CHAPTER II
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON SOCIAL SCIENCE
Social science had at first been called social physics by Comte. Later
on he invented the name of “sociology”[228] for it. It stands at the
summit of the encyclopædic ladder of the sciences. Accordingly, it
offers certain characteristics which the other sciences do not present.
Undoubtedly, by the definition of its object and by its method, it is
perfectly homogeneous with the rest of positive knowledge. Sociology
studies the laws of social phenomena as mathematics inquires into the
laws of geometrical phenomena. In this sense, between these extreme
sciences there are no other differences than those which arise from
the diversity of the phenomena which are studied. But mathematics, and
the other fundamental sciences, excepting sociology, are distinctly
preliminary. Sociology is final. Each of the preliminary sciences
should be cultivated only in the measure necessary in order that the
following one may in turn assume the positive form. Social science,
which is not preparatory to any other, establishes the principles
of morals and of politics. It is, as has been seen, the key-stone
of positive philosophy. It is in it, and through it, that positive
philosophy acquires the universality which hitherto it had lacked.
Finally, there is a last difference which Comte likes to think he is
successfully removing; the other sciences are more or less formed;
everything has to be done for social science. Not that many trials have
not been attempted. Comte does not ignore them, and he prides himself
upon doing justice to his precursors. He goes back to Aristotle, in
whom he admires an incomparable scientific and philosophical genius.
In him he sees the inventor of social statics. His _Politics_ are
still read with profit.[229] But Aristotle could have no idea of a
sociology, and in particular of positive social dynamics. For that he
lacked (without speaking of the fundamental sciences which excepting
mathematics were yet to be born), a sufficiently wide and varied
knowledge of history and the idea of progress.
Montesquieu was in advance of his time, when, by the insight of his
genius, he generalised the idea of natural law so as to bring under
it the political, judicial, economical, and, generally speaking, all
social phenomena. He really conceives the idea of social science. But
the execution did not respond to the conception. How could Montesquieu
have succeeded, since he was still without two indispensable elements:
in the first place, the positive science of man from the biological
point of view, and then the idea of progress, a vital necessity for
every positive philosophy of history? Having failed to apprehend the
fundamental laws of social dynamics, Montesquieu made too much use
of the comparative method. Consequently, he took secondary laws for
essential laws, such as the laws relating to the influence of climate.
In the same way he has exaggerated the importance of various forms of
political constitution.[230]
Condorcet came after Montesquieu and Turgot, and had been formed in the
school of d’Alembert. He came nearer than anyone to the social science
which was to be founded. He understood admirably that the evolution of
the human race, considered as a single being, is subject to laws. He
brought the idea of progress into full daylight. But, nevertheless,
positive sociology does not owe to him its origin. He shared the
prejudice of his time on the subject of the indefinite perfectibility
of man; this prejudice was only to disappear before the positive
science of intellectual and moral man. Moreover, in the heat of the
revolutionary conflict, he misunderstood the concrete reality of the
progress, whose abstract necessity he had so well realised. By painting
the centuries preceding the XVIII. century, in the darkest colours, he
made the progressive evolution of humanity a kind of miracle, “doubly
inadmissible in a doctrine which does not imply a Providence.”[231]
But soon Cabanis and Gall bring forward the positive theory of the
moral and intellectual faculties of man. The French revolution throws a
vivid light upon the period which separates us from the Middle Ages. At
last, the theorists of the counter-Revolution show that the philosophy
of the XVIII. century, if it excelled in the power of demolishing,
was incapable of reconstructing, and they also show that order must
be inseparable from progress. Comte regards himself as a Condorcet
who has profited by these lessons of experience. He has worked with
Saint-Simon, he has read De Maistre. In short, he is possessed of all
the necessary elements for the foundation of sociology.
At the moment when he undertakes it, theological and metaphysical
philosophy is still dominant over the contemporary conception of social
facts. In it imagination is not subordinated to observation. Men do
not apply themselves to the analysis of facts in order to discover
their relations and their laws; they prefer to construct philosophies
of history, which appear as non-scientific hypotheses, that is to
say, which are not verifiable. Absolute results are sought for, as
if in this order of facts, as in all the others, the absolute was not
inaccessible. From the practical point of view, nobody doubts that
man can modify social facts as he pleases, and that his action can be
exercised there without any definite limits being placed upon it. It is
supposed, in a word, that political society has no laws which regulate
its natural development.
The same prejudices and the same false ideas have already predominated
in the past on the subject of the more simple phenomena, which
afterwards became objects of positive science. Should not this analogy
cause philosophers to conceive “the rational hope of also succeeding
in the dissipation of those errors of conception and of method in the
system of political ideas.”[232] Nothing is more natural than that
the science of the most complex phenomena should be the last to reach
the positive stage. It would even have been impossible for it to have
been otherwise. Finally, beyond the difficulties which belong to the
complexity of its object, sociology had to overcome others, which arise
from political passions. Problems of this kind are indifferent to no
one. In them the interests of each one are involved, and they influence
even without our knowledge, the direction taken by our thoughts.
Political parties excel in framing plausible theories adapted to their
requirements. Thus a constant effort at disinterestedness is necessary
on the part of any one who purposes to take up the science of abstract
politics.
At any rate, if these reasons make us understand that sociology should
make its appearance last among the fundamental sciences, none of them
imply that it would not have arisen in its turn. On the contrary,
beside “vital physics” and “inorganic physics,” “social physics”
was one day to take its place. From 1824, Comte had a very clear
idea of this. We do not see, he says, why the phenomena which the
development of a social species presents should not have laws like the
others, why these laws should not be capable of being discovered by
observation, like those of the other phenomena, with this reservation
only that the nature of this section of philosophy makes its study more
difficult. “I will make it felt by the very fact that there are laws as
determined for the development of the human species as for the falling
of a stone.”[233] Comte later on attenuated the rigidity of these
expressions. He recognised that the social phenomena were of all others
the most “modifiable.” But he none the less maintained that they were
ruled by laws.
II.