philosophical effort of the XVIII. century ends, and from the ardent
traditionalist for whom this very century is the abhorred period of
error and of moral perversion. He undertakes, not indeed to reconcile
them (who can reconcile things which exclude each other?), but to
found a more comprehensive doctrine in which he will combine what he
has received from the one and the other. As such his own task appears
to him, and he does not believe it to be above his power; he feels
himself in a position to avoid the mistakes which his predecessors
were bound to make. Condorcet had a clear idea of social science;
but that did not prevent him from misunderstanding the real onward
movement of the human mind, and only to estimate his own century justly
at the expense of preceding periods. De Maistre in his turn, no less
prejudiced, though in another way, does not understand history any
better. To restore society, to re-establish it in the state in which
it was in the XIII. century, he goes to absurd lengths. He claims to
take no notice of the advance of civilisation, and of the development
of the sciences. Condorcet, who brought to light the idea of progress,
understood nothing in the Middle Ages. De Maistre, who so clearly saw
the excellence of the Middle Ages, denies the glaring fact of progress.
Both are excusable, because they were still too close to the French
Revolution to grasp its full meaning. In the heart of the fray they
were still partially blinded. Comte, who sees things from a greater
distance, also sees them from a higher standpoint. He especially has
at his disposal an instrument which neither Condorcet nor de Maistre
possessed: he has completed the positive method, and he applies it
to the science of historical phenomena. In a word, he has founded
Sociology.
If he did not push social science as far forward as he believed, at any
rate he was right in thinking that his originality lay in this attempt.
The problem was clearly set: to blend into a new and positive science
the social ideas proceeding from the speculation of the XVIII. century
with the historical truths brought to light by the adversaries of this
philosophy. The solution given by Comte is the very soul of his system.
By a twofold and vigorous effort, he created “social physics.” On the
one hand, he carries to the past the idea of progress which Condorcet
could only apply to the future, and this allowed him to institute a
positive philosophy of history. At the same time, he projects into the
future that spiritual order which de Maistre had only seen in the past,
and this furnishes him with the frame for his “social reorganisation”.
This philosophy of history, which no longer contains anything
metaphysical, is social dynamics; this “reorganisation” of society, by
means of a spiritual power, will be the positive polity.
FOOTNOTES:
[286] Cours, VI, 457.
[287] Cours, V, 4-5.
[288] Cours, V, 360-1: VI, 50.
[289] Cours, V, 318.
[290] Cours, V, 124-7.
[291] Cours, VI, 148.
[292] Cours, VI, 156-7.
[293] Cours, VI, 248.
[294] Cours, VI, 194.
[295] Cours, V, 325.
[296] Pol. pos., II, 121-131.
[297] Cours, V, 306 sq.
[298] Cours, V, 362.
[299] Cours, V, 335.
[300] Pol. pos., II.
[301] Cours, V, 541-5.
[302] Correspondance de Comte et de John Stuart Mill, p. 458 (14,
juillet 1845.)
[303] Pol. pos., IV, Appendice, p. 193.
[304] Cours, V, 413.
[305] Cours, VI, 23.
[306] Cours, V, 414.
[307] Cours, V, 314-16.
[308] Cours, V, 431-33; 467-8; 511-13.
[309] Cours, V, 531.
[310] Cours, V, 435.
[311] Cours, VI, 236.
[312] Cours, V, 589.
[313] Pol. pos., IV, Appendice, p. 180-1.
[314] Cours, VI, 36.
[315] Cours, IV, 60.
[316] Cours, IV, 159.
[317] Cours, IV, 75 sq.
[318] Cours, IV, 40.
[319] Cours, IV, 100.
[320] Cours, IV, 46.
[321] Cours, IV, 46.
BOOK IV
CHAPTER I
THE PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS
In Comte’s system Ethics occupies an intermediate place between
theoretical philosophy and politics. Ethics rests upon the philosophy
as Politics rests on the principles of Ethics.
Ethics is not an abstract speculative science; it does not therefore
belong to the hierarchy of the fundamental sciences. It is true that,
at the end of his life, Comte added a seventh to the six sciences of
the early list,[322] which precisely was ethics, that is to say the
science of the laws which govern the emotions, passions, desires, etc.,
of man considered as an individual. But here it is more a question of
ethical psychology than of ethics understood in the sense usual with
philosophers. The latter, in Comte’s eyes, never constituted the object
of a special science. As a matter of fact, either the laws of moral
phenomena are studied, and this research, founded upon the positive
knowledge of individual and collective human nature, forms a part
of sociology. Or, starting from the knowledge of these laws, we ask
ourselves what would be the best use for the power possessed by man
of modifying phenomena; in this case it is an art whose rules must be
determined. But for these rules to be rationally established, social
science itself must be rationally founded. Thus, from the practical
as from the speculative point of view, positive ethics depends upon
sociology.
I.
In the XVIII. cent. Comte distinguishes three schools of Ethics: the
utilitarian school, especially represented in his view by Helvetius;
the Kantian School, which he knows through Cousin; and finally the
philosophy of the moral sentiment; that is to say, the Scottish school;
by none of the three is he fully satisfied. The Utilitarianism of
Helvetius rests upon an inadequate psychology, which distorts human
nature by denying against all evidence the existence of altruistic
inclinations. He involuntarily tends to “reduce all the social
relations to low coalitions of private interests.” The ethics of
duty, as presented by Cousin, at any rate, organises “a kind of
mystification, in which the so-called permanent disposition of each
one to direct his conduct according to the abstract idea of duty would
end in a small number of clever schemers taking advantage of the human
race.” These remarks, in Comte’s mind address themselves less to the
doctrine than to the person of Cousin. Finally the Scottish school was
nearer to the truth than the others, since it admitted the existence
of the altruistic tendencies beside the selfish ones. But it lacked
precision and strength.
These various schools of ethics had a common failing by which they
stood condemned as erroneous: they were constituted before the science
of human nature had become positive. Thus utilitarian morality is
quite deducible from a psychology such as that of Condillac: but
this “metaphysical” psychology treated man chiefly as a reasoning
and calculating being, and misunderstood the preponderance of the
affective faculties. In the same way, the “german,” that is to say
Cousin’s philosophy, represents the _ego_ as being free, of an absolute
freedom, and as being subjected to no law whatever: hence a strange and
metaphysical system of ethics of duty.
Theological doctrines of ethics hitherto have been very superior
to those which have been produced by philosophical speculation. The
reason for this is simple. Without any scientific apparatus, religion
implies a far more exact psychology than that of philosophers up to
the present time. It deals with man “concrete” and real. It was bound
not to misunderstand the relative importance of his faculties, and the
respective power of his inclinations and his passions. The priest very
often has a better knowledge of men than the metaphysician.
Comte especially admires Christian morality or, more precisely, the
teaching of this morality as it was given by the Catholic church in
the Middle Ages. “All the different branches of this morality have
received most important improvements from Catholicism.” In saying “Love
thy neighbour as thyself,” in making charity the supreme virtue, in
fighting against selfishness as the source of all vices, Christian
morality has taught what above all other things must be engraved upon
men’s hearts. Positive philosophy will use the same language. “For
anyone who has gone deeply into the study of humanity, universal love
as Catholicism conceived it is still more important than the intellect
itself in the economy of our individual or social existence, because to
the gain of each one and of all, love makes use even of the least of
our mental faculties, while selfishness disfigures or paralyses even
the best dispositions.”[323]
But the greatest merit of Catholicism has been that it considered
ethics as “the first of social necessities.” Everything is subordinated
to it: it is subordinated to nothing. It dominates the entire life
of man so as ceaselessly to direct and control all his actions. In
ancient society, morals depended upon politics. In Christian society
even politics borrows its principles from morals. That was the finest
triumph of “Catholic wisdom,” which instituted a spiritual power
independent of the temporal power.
Unfortunately this pure and lofty morality has linked its destinies
with those of Catholicism. Now, Catholicism has been unable to keep
pace with the progress of the intellect and of the positive method.
At first it gave proof of “admirable liberality.” Later it became
indifferent, and then hostile, to scientific progress. Finally it
showed itself to be “retrograde,” when it had to struggle for its own
existence. Catholic dogmas underwent a decomposition the necessary
stages of which have been already described[324] as it was bound to
happen, and as a matter of fact did happen, the morality itself came
to be affected by the attacks which were loosening the foundations of
dogma. The work of criticism, after having successively ruined all the
foundations of the old intellectual system, was subsequently to attack
those of ethics. So we see the family, marriage, heredity, “assailed by
senseless sects.”[325] To be sure, private morality depends upon other
conditions than those of unanimous opinions immovably established.
Natural feeling speaks in it. Nevertheless it is not beyond the reach
of “corrosive discussion,” when opinions of this kind are lacking, but
public morality is all the more threatened. Here, without naming them,
but clearly pointing them out, Comte attacks the schools of Saint-Simon
and Fourier. “While dreaming about reorganisation of society they only
developed the most dangerous anarchy.” Saint-Simonism endeavoured to
ruin the family which the revolutionary storm, “with a few exceptions,”
had respected. Fourierism denies the most general and the commonest
principle of individual morality: the subordination of the passion to
reason.
Must we then go back, as the retrograde school would have us do, and
in order to save morality base it once again upon revealed religion?
But the remedy, if it be not worse than the disease, is at least
powerless to cure it. How could the religious dogmas be used as a
support for morality when they cannot sustain themselves? What, in
the future, can we expect from beliefs which have not withstood the
progress of reason? Far from being able to furnish a solid basis for
morality to-day, religious beliefs tend more and more to become doubly
detrimental to it. On the one hand they are opposed to the human mind
placing it on a more solid foundation; and, on the other hand, they are
not active enough, even among those who believe in them, to exert a
marked influence upon conduct. The clearest result of these dogmas is
to inspire the greater number of men who are still imbued with them,
with an instinctive and insurmountable hatred of those who have shaken
them off.
II.
Being founded upon positive science, Comte’s ethics will reproduce its
essential characteristics. In the first place it will be “real,” that
is to say it will rest upon observation and not upon imagination. It
will consider man as he is and not as he fancies himself to be. It will
then rest, not upon the abstract analysis which he may make of his own
heart, but upon the proofs given by humanity of its inclinations and
of the usual motives for its actions, during the centuries made known
to us by history. In a word, through the use of an objective and truly
scientific method, it will avoid serious causes for mistakes.
Being positive, this morality will be relative. For the immediate and
necessary consequence of the relativity of knowledge is the relativity
of morality. Kant, whom Comte himself called “the last of his great
precursors,” attempted to preserve an absolute character for ethics: it
is because, at bottom, he also preserved metaphysics. The moral law,
says Kant, is universally valid for every free and reasonable being.
But the only species of beings of this kind which we know, the human
species, is developed in time according to the laws of a necessary
progress. At every stage in this development it was not possessed of
an equal aptitude for understanding a moral law. The most we can say
is that, with time, the aptitude becomes greater and greater. Then,
the existence of our species depends upon a great number of natural
conditions--astronomical, physical, biological, sociological. If these
conditions were different, which is not an absurd hypothesis, our
morality would be different also. It is then relative at once to our
situation and to our organisation.”
The idea of a relative morality is still a source of anxiety to many
minds, who take it to be a preliminary step towards the negation of all
morality. They think that, either good is absolute or the distinction
between good and evil vanishes; there is no middle course. However,
history shows that there is a way out of such deadlocks. Was not a
similar dilemma put on the subject of knowledge? Was it not even said:
either truth is absolute, or there is not truth at all? The dilemma was
a false one. The human mind has become accustomed to relative truths;
and an analogous solution will end by being also accepted for ethics.
The acknowledgment of its relativity will not be any more fatal for it
than it has been for science.
As the distinction between the true and the false subsists, although
good is no longer conceived as absolute and immutable, so the
distinction between good and evil subsists, although good is no longer
conceived as a supreme theological or metaphysical reality, but as a
“progress” towards an end indefinitely approached but never reached.
The evolution of morality corresponds to that of knowledge. Both go
through successive phases, of which each one implies the preceding
ones, and preserves while modifying them. There are then “goods” as
there are “truths,” provisional and temporary. Positive philosophy can
thus give a reason for moral ideas, sometimes so poor and even so
horrible, upon which humanity formerly lived. It does not judge the
ethics of the past as compared with the ideals of to-day. It gives full
justice to the theological and philosophical ethics which it replaces,
and of which it proclaims itself the legitimate heir.
Finally it claims neither to be moral nor original in morality. Already
positive science is “a prolongation of public reason.” In its nature it
does not differ from simple commonsense, to which it owes its essential
ideas: only in science these ideas assume a more systematic definition,
and an abstract character which allows us to make the most thorough
use of them. In the same way systematic morality is a prolongation of
spontaneous morality.[326] It simply disengages the principles which,
as a matter of fact, have directed the moral development of humanity.
Does it follow from this that it only has, so to speak, an interest for
curiosity, and that moral progress takes place of itself as rapidly
and as completely as possible, even if philosophical reflection is not
applied to it? But Comte has already replied to this form of inept
sophism. What is true of the evolution of humanity in general is true
of the moral evolution included in it. This evolution allows of crises,
of diseases, of stoppages in development, etc. It is then not at all
a matter of indifference that systematic morality should bring out
strongly the end towards which man’s efforts must tend, according to
his nature and to the whole of the conditions in which he is placed. By
throwing light upon its advance it helps progress as effectually as it
is in man’s power to help it.
III.
In its positive form the enunciation of the moral problem is as much
as possible to make the sympathetic instincts predominate over the
selfish impulses, “sociability over personality.”[327]
That human nature admits of sympathetic instincts, or, according to the
name given them by Comte, _altruistic_ instincts, is not a postulate
but a fact. Positive psychology proves it. It is one of the solid
portions of Gall’s doctrine. To be convinced of this it is enough to
observe men, children, and even animals. Without these instincts,
moreover, society would not subsist. Metaphysicians who considered
man as a being acting chiefly through reasoning, may have imagined a
society founded upon the expressed or tacit consent of the contracting
parties. In reality, before all things men obey their inclinations. If
they live in society, it is assuredly because their affective faculties
lead them to it. Without inborn altruistic tendencies there can be no
society and no morality.
But biology has proved that, since organic life preponderates
over animal life, the selfish instincts are naturally stronger
than the sympathetic ones. How could the latter succeed first in
counter-balancing and then in dominating the former? This problem
would have no solution if the progressive ascendency of the altruistic
instincts, very weak originally, were not favoured by two orders of
conditions, the one subjective, the other objective, whose action is
unceasingly felt.
The following development of domestic and social affection is, in
the first place, the result of the fact that man lives in society,
and, consequently, in continual relation with his neighbours and his
fellows. For, as we know, habitual exercise favours the development
of organs and of functions. Further, the natural inferiority of the
altruistic inclinations is compensated for by their aptitude for
“indefinite extension.” They can grow in all the members of a group at
the same time. Far from their being obstacles in each other’s way,
the stronger altruism in one awakens and encourages nascent altruism
in others. On the contrary, forms of selfishness tend to exclude each
other. Save in the case of a more or less durable coalition, their
rival claims clash with each other, to the peril of social peace.
They are bound to make mutual concessions. They are never altogether
repressed; however, social life obliges them to dissimulate and to
restrain their most violent outbursts.
Add to this that the benevolent affections find in themselves their own
satisfaction, and that this satisfaction is inexhaustible. We tire of
acting, said Comte, we even tire of thinking; we never tire of loving.
The affections which it is sweetest to experience have also a tendency
to occupy a larger and larger place in the heart of man. Moreover the
question for them is not to take the place of egoism but to hold it
more and more in check. If human nature evolves it is, as we know,
without any essential transformation. The preponderance of selfishness
in us is connected with organic reasons which are beyond our power
and which will never change. To wish to uproot egoism is folly; _qui
veut faire l’ange fait la bête_. Whatever efforts we make, we cannot
permanently change the relations between our altruistic and egoistic
instincts. The latter will always be the strongest. But we can regard
this change as an ideal which we shall approach always without ever
actually reaching it.[328]
Finally, it is rare that our selfish instincts do not awaken some
altruistic feeling as a counter-result. For example, the sexual
instinct determines the development of maternal love. The desire to
impose one’s will generates devotion to the common weal. Once the
benevolent affection has arisen it persists and grows, and, after the
selfish instinct has ceased to operate, it is sometimes sought after
for its own sake. This fact, says Comte, greatly facilitates the
“solution of the great human problem.”[329]
This solution would however remain exceedingly uncertain and very
precarious if its only guarantee were the whole of the subjective
conditions which have just been analysed. For, in order that it may
become established and last, this group of conditions itself requires
what Comte calls an “objective basis.” The moral order within us must
be united to the order of the world outside ourselves.
It is true that, including the altruistic ones, our inclinations
tend to become spontaneously developed. But it is also true that the
external world tends constantly to modify them, through the medium
of the impressions which it makes upon us. For the development of
these inclinations is necessarily affected by the direction of our
conceptions and by the success of our undertakings. Now both are ever
becoming more subordinated to external order, since the end of science
is to know this order, and that of the useful arts is to modify it. In
this way, independently of ourselves, order tends in a twofold manner
to regulate our instincts, “either by the excitement resulting from
the notions which it procures, or by exercise corresponding to the
efforts which it demands.”[330] In a word, the laws of the “_milieu_”
in which we live act like a regulation upon our inclinations. Although
an indirect one, the influence of these laws upon them becomes in the
long run irresistible.
And further, in order to be felt, this action does not require that we
should have a more or less clear knowledge of it. Even at the time when
man knew almost nothing of the laws of nature, his activity was more
or less controlled by them. The ends sought after by man have always
depended upon his moral and physical nature: the reason of the failure
or the success of his efforts have always been found in the natural
laws. Gradually positive knowledge was developed. Man became conscious
of the order by which he is himself surrounded, of which he feels
himself to be a portion, and in which his intellect collaborates in a
measure difficult to determine but yet certain. The external regulator
which, whatever our will may be, imposes itself upon our activity is
thus revealed to our mind. The last degree to be reached is that it
should finally be accepted by our feeling. This is precisely the result
obtained by positive philosophy. For it makes us know our individual
and social nature. It has shown us that humanity must not be explained
by man, but man by humanity. It has explained the growing development
of social life and that of altruism, which is at once its condition and
its consequence. We now understand that our benevolent affections find
themselves “spontaneously in conformity with the natural laws which
govern the development of society.”[331]
Thus it is the continual pressure of external order which makes our
egotistic instincts capable of being trained. They would undoubtedly
get the mastery, if our sympathetic inclinations did not find without,
in the laws of nature, a constant support which reason ends by
understanding.
Moral perfection would be harmony realised among all men, by their
mutual goodwill, according to the principle: _Live for others_, and,
at the same time, harmony realised in each individual soul, by the
subjection of egoism to the altruistic sentiments. But this harmony is
not what is produced in the first place. On the contrary, war rages
between the social groups, discord between the members of the same
groups, the passions in each individual soul. Sometimes one, sometimes
another of our tendencies influences us, according to circumstances
whose details vary to infinity. No stable order of subordination is
established among our tendencies: human nature, considered by itself,
does not contain any principle which could maintain such an order.
Left to itself, the human soul would remain in the state called
by Spinoza “fluctuation.” The moral problem would have no durable
solution. Hence the necessity of a “universal brake,” to make sure of
the development of the altruistic tendencies. This brake is no other
than the inevitable and continual pressure of the order of the world
upon our conduct, and in the long run, _upon our motives_.
When the human mind wishes to direct its own phenomena, it
instinctively seeks, in the general system of intelligible facts which
constitutes the world, a group of well combined data, in order to
refer its own less stable phenomena to it. We have already seen an
example of this kind in the formation of language. Man “consolidates”
his thought by coordinating it with a combination of signs which
themselves are movements, and, as such, are subject to the general
laws of the universe. In ethics we find something analogous. The main
artifice in moral perfection, writes Comte, lies in diminishing the
inconsistency, indecision and divergency in our purposes, by connecting
our moral and practical intellectual habits with external motives. The
mutual links between our various tendencies are incapable of securing
their stability, until they have found an immovable fulcrum outside
themselves. To endure, the harmony of the soul must be realised by
itself as founded on reason, that is to say, upon the order of the
world.
IV.
What place must we assign to this positive ethics, in the usual
classification of ethical doctrines? It is often considered as a
theory of the moral sentiment. And, as a matter of fact, Comte himself
characterises his ethics by “the direct preponderance of the social
feeling.” In its origin also it belongs to this group. Comte makes use
of Adam Smith and of Hume, when he affirms the existence of inborn
altruistic tendencies within the soul. He indicates these tendencies,
in his _Cerebral Table_, under the general name of “sympathy,” which
comes from the Scottish school. Establish these altruistic feelings, he
says, and morality is given, take them away, and morality disappears.
But these philosophers did not push analysis any further. They
neglected to inquire how morality is developed in fact, although
the altruistic tendencies are less powerful than the others. Comte
reproaches the ethics of the Scottish school with its superficial
character and its lack of systematic strictness. He praises their
psychology which is less incomplete than that of their contemporaries;
he is not satisfied with their theory of human activity. If the
existence of sympathetic inclinations is a fact, their evolution must
none the less be explained. The latter only becomes intelligible
through the continued action of the objective order upon the soul of
man, an action which becomes all the more decisive as man becomes more
conscious of it, by the discovery of the laws of nature.
Thus, in order to give an account of human morality, Comte adds a
rational element to the feeling-elements. Undoubtedly it is not an _a
priori_ element. But it is that which for Comte is the substitute of
the _a priori_ in metaphysical doctrines: that is the invariableness
of the laws of phenomena, which makes the world intelligible. From the
speculative point of view this intelligibility, under the name of “the
principle of laws,” is the basis of our science. From the practical
point of view, the order of the world alone can guarantee the lasting
harmony of our inclinations. In this way it becomes the foundation of
morality.
In spite of the more than evident differences of all kinds which
separate Comte from Malebranche and from Leibnitz, it then appears that
in his philosophy as in theirs, the idea of _order_ is made use of
to pass from the domain of knowledge to that of action. Undoubtedly,
with Comte, from theological or metaphysical this idea has become
positive. He does not intend to go beyond experience, and affirms
nothing which cannot be verified as a fact. But, like the philosophers
his predecessors, he is none the less anxious to find the unity of
the soul beneath the diversity of its modes of activity, and to show
that theoretical reason and practical reason are one and the same.
Malebranche solved the problem by appealing to the idea of divine
perfection, expressed everywhere by order. Comte explains that the
pressure exercised by external order generates order in our mind (which
moreover collaborates in it), then, as a consequence, in our feelings
and finally in our actions. The stoics had already said something
similar on this subject. Briefly, Comte’s ethics may be presented as
the positive form of the ethics of universal order.
Shall we then say that, being sentimental and rational at once, this
morality is not definite in character? Is it merely an eclectic attempt
at conciliation?--Eclecticism in a certain sense would not frighten
Comte. Positive philosophy flatters itself on being just in regard
to its predecessors. It takes pleasure in praising each of them for
the portion of truth which it contains. But, in the present case
there is no occasion for it to be eclectic. It suffices for it to be
relative, and, since it is a question of moral and social things, to
appeal to history. Thus we see that the sentimental and the rational
principles in no way exclude each other. From the historical point
of view, that is to say, if we consider the genesis of morality, the
latter finds birth in the sympathetic _feelings_ which man, like many
other animals, experiences, and which are spontaneously developed in
domestic affection and in social life. How is it that subsequently this
morality evolves, that friendly relations grow indefinitely in relative
importance, in spite of the inborn strength of selfishness, that
humanity, in a word, should gradually rise above animality? Without
any doubt, that is due to the development of _intelligence_, itself
bound up with the efforts which man is obliged to make to adapt himself
to the “_milieu_” in which he lives.
Instinctive in its animal origin, morality becomes rational in its
human evolution. We can say as much of language, of art, of science,
and even of religion. All this was in embryo in the primitive nature
of man, since nothing absolutely new ever appears in it. All this
only manifested itself under pressure from external order, which,
consciously or unconsciously, is always being exercised. Only when we
know this order, we can make use of our science to turn the natural
forces to our own ends, which in themselves are rational. It is in this
way that systematic morality is substituted to spontaneous morality.
If we were more intelligent, says Comte, it would be equivalent to our
being more moral. Understanding better the intimate connection which
in a thousand ways, at every moment, binds each one of us to the whole
of our fellows, we should more surely observe the precept: “Live for
others.” And, if we were more moral, it would be equivalent to our
being more intelligent. We would then act precisely as a more open and
a deeper intelligence than our own would lead us to act. Now, we cannot
become more moral by an immediate modification of our inclinations.
Positive psychology has established that we exercise no direct action
upon the affective part of our nature. But we can endeavour to become
more intelligent: every successful effort that we make to understand
the order of nature affords us the means of making fresh attempts.[332]
In this indirect manner morality can grow. Finally, it grows still more
surely, when the intellect has understood that it does not contain
its end within itself, that it must be subordinated to the heart, and
that the only happiness compatible with the nature of man is found in
devotion and in love.
FOOTNOTES:
[322] Pol. pos., II, 436-7; III, 46-50; IV, 233, Catéchisme
positiviste, 57-59, 121-123.
[323] Cours, V, 345-6.
[324] Cours, IV, 103-8.--See Book III, chapter V.
[325] Cours, IV, 104.
[326] Pol. pos., I, 9.
[327] Pol. pos., I, 92.
[328] Catéchisme positiviste, p. 10.
[329] Catéchisme positiviste, p. 138.
[330] Pol. pos., II. 26-30.
[331] Pol. pos., I, 23.
[332] Pol. Pos., IV, appendix, p. 18.
CHAPTER II
SOCIAL ETHICS
“Live for others”: such is the supreme formula of positive ethics.
Feeling bears witness to its justice; science discloses its
far-reaching importance and its deep consequences. But this formula
is not only applied in a general way to the natural society formed by
men among themselves, a society in which Comte even includes animals
capable of affection and of devotion, whose services deserve our
gratitude. The moral law finds a precise application in the definite
relations established among men by civic society, that is to say in
the rights and in the mutual duties of individuals. If it be true that
ethics and politics are distinct from each other, politics is none
the less closely subordinated to ethics. The spiritual power does not
govern; however it directs those who govern as well as those who are
governed. It is this power which gives to all the sum of common beliefs
and feelings which enable Society to live. Thus to ethics belongs the
task of determining the principles according to which positive politics
will regulate the relations between men.
Now, as a matter of fact, these relations are in a very unsettled
condition to-day. Public order is unstable, revolutions are
frequent, suffering is excessive. Are we to lay the blame upon
public institutions? They are rather an effect than a cause. In
order to understand the present condition it is necessary to grasp
the law of the general evolution of humanity, and in particular
that of European Society. It then becomes apparent that the actual
disturbances proceed from the great conflict inaugurated by the
French revolution. This conflict is still going on. The old régime
has not yet quite disappeared, and the régime which is to take its
place is not yet organised. The struggle is prolonged between the
theologico-metaphysical spirit and the positive spirit, between
revealed belief which is becoming weaker and demonstrated belief which
is being formed, and finally between the old economic landmarks and an
industrial activity whose laws have not yet been discovered.
The relations between masters and workmen are at the present time
“anarchical.” The advance of industry, as it grows, oppresses the
majority of those whose co-operation in it is indispensable. And the
ever more strongly marked division between “brains and hands” is far
more due to the political incapacity, the social thoughtlessness,
and especially to the blind selfishness of the masters than to the
inordinate demands of the workmen.[333] The capitalists have not dreamt
of organising a liberal education for the people to defend it against
the seductions of the revolutionary propaganda. They seem to fear that
the people should receive instruction. As far as they can, they take
the place of the ancient chiefs whose social rank they covet. But they
do not inherit their generosity. They do not understand that “noblesse
oblige.” In this way the great masters of industry too often tend to
utilise their political influence to the detriment of the public, to
appropriate important monopolies and to take the advantage of the power
of capital to make the claims of the masters predominate over those
of the workers, without any regard for equity, since the right of
coalition which is allowed to the former is refused to the latter.
Comte saw the _bourgeoisie_ at work during Louis-Philippe’s reign,
and he passes severe judgment upon it. Its political conceptions,
he says, refer not to the aim and exercise of power, but especially
to its possession. It regards the revolution as terminated by the
establishment of the parliamentary _régime_, whereas this is only an
“equivocal halting place.” A complete social reorganisation is not less
feared by this middle class than by the old upper classes. Although
filled with the critical spirit of the XVIII. century, even under a
Republican form it would prolong a system of theological hypocrisy,
by means of which the respectful submission of the masses is insured,
while no strict duty is imposed upon the leaders.[334] This is hard
upon the proletariat, whose condition is far from improving. It
“establishes dungeons for those who ask for bread.”[335] It believes
that these millions of men will be able to remain indefinitely
“encamped” in modern society without being properly settled in it with
definite and respected rights.[336] The capital which it holds in its
hands, after having been an instrument of emancipation, has become one
of oppression. It is thus that, by a paradox difficult to uphold, the
invention of machinery, which _a priori_, one would be led to believe,
would soften the condition of the proletariat, has, on the contrary,
been a new cause of suffering to them, and has made their lot a doubly
hard one.[337]
Here, in brief, we have a formidable indictment against the middle
classes, and in particular against the political economy which has
nourished them. Comte has in view sometimes the classical economists of
the end of the XVIII. century, sometimes their orthodox successors in
the XIX. Those of the XVIII. he regards as having collaborated in the
great revolutionary work. They took part in the diffusion of critical
doctrines and of negative philosophy. In this capacity they have, no
doubt, rendered certain services. They contributed to the decomposition
of the old régime. Political economy had succeeded in convincing the
governments themselves of their unfitness to direct the commercial and
industrial movement.[338]
The affinities between the philosophers and the economists of the
XVIII. century are evident enough: is it necessary to recall the spirit
of “individualism” of the economists, and their characteristic tendency
to restrict the functions of government as much as possible? Despite
the efforts of a great number among them, conservatives by temperament
or by political tendencies, the logical consequences of their
principles were bound to come to light. Thus “the superfluity of all
regular moral teaching, the suppression of all official encouragement
of science and the fine arts; even the recent attacks against the
fundamental institution of property find their origin in economical
metaphysics.” It was with this doctrine as with the other parts of
negative philosophy; after having accomplished its work of destruction,
it sought to transform its critical principles into organic ones,
without realising that this amounted to repudiating beforehand any
positive organisation.
The famous formula, “Laissez faire, laissez passer,” is no more a
real principle in political economy than liberty itself is one in
politics properly so-called. Comte vigorously opposes the dogma of
non-intervention. Because in some particular and secondary cases
political economy has ascertained “the natural tendencies of societies
in the direction of a certain necessary order, it concluded from this
that any special institution is useless.” But this order is extremely
imperfect. The knowledge of sociological laws will give us the power
of improving it, as we already do in the case of medicine and surgery.
Merely to admit the degree of order which is spontaneously established
in practice is equivalent to “a solemn dismissal in the case of every
difficulty which arises.” Look at the social crisis brought about by
the development of machinery. In reply to the just and urgent claims
of the workmen suddenly deprived of their means of livelihood, and
unable in a day to find another, our economists can only repeat, “with
merciless pedantry,” their barren aphorism about absolute industrial
liberty. To all complaints they dare to answer that it is a question of
time! And this to men who require food to-day! “Such a theory proclaims
its own social impotence.”[339]
And so neither is political economy a science yet, nor, so far, are
economists men of science. Originally being nearly all barristers
or men of letters, they were strangers to the idea of scientific
observation, to the precise notion of a natural law, and finally to
the sense of what constitutes a demonstration. If we make an exception
of Adam Smith and of a few others, how could they apply the positive
method which they did not know to the most difficult cases of analysis?
Destutt de Tracy placed political economy between logic and ethics. And
this was not without reason: for it is nearer to metaphysics than to
positive science. In it, work preserves its personal character, schools
contend with each other, the discussions as to the elementary notions
of value, of utility, etc., savour of scholasticism. The very idea of
studying economical phenomena separately is not scientific, since the
various “social series” are interdependent, and since in sociology
more particular laws depend upon more general laws.[340] There is no
scientific study of economical facts unless we first look at them from
the sociological point of view. We can no more isolate the laws which
regulate the material existence of societies than we can describe man
as an essentially calculating being, only actuated by the motive of
personal interest.
The same objections naturally hold good against the adversaries of the
economists, since, in general, socialists and communists have confined
themselves to an analogous conception of their science. However, while
criticising them, Comte recognises the fact that they have established
some truths. Everything they say is not false. Thus, they justly claim
the right for the government to intervene in economical relations. And,
if it be absurd to wish to abolish private property, as certain sects
demanded, it is very true that property is of a social nature, and
that it is necessary to regulate it.[341] To endow it with an absolute
character is, says Comte, an “anti-social” theory. No property can
be created, nor even transmitted, by its mere possessor without the
concurrence of society. Thus always and everywhere the community has
intervened in the exercise of the right of property. The tax makes the
public a partner in every private fortune.
In discussing the essential problems of property, the communists
(whom Comte confuses with the socialists), to-day render an important
service. The very dangers called forth by the solution they propose
concur in fixing the general attention upon this great subject,
“without which the metaphysical empiricism and the aristocratic
selfishness of the leading classes would cause it to be set aside or
disdained.” Merely to state the problem without the solution with which
the communists associate it, would not suffice. Our weak intellect
does not fasten upon a question for long, unless a reply to it, be it
true or false, which we must accept or reject is forthcoming at the
same time. Moreover, are the communist “aberrations” more useless,
and at bottom, more dangerous than the current illusion according to
which the Revolution is ended by the establishment of the parliamentary
_régime_?[342]
But, this being admitted the innovating schools have all fallen into
grave mistakes. In general, being devoid of the historic sense, and on
the other hand, ignoring the principles of social statics, they do not
see that man’s action upon social phenomena is only usefully exercised
within certain limits. The idea that a revolution can, in a moment,
transform the _régime_ of property and all the social conditions
which depend upon it is destined to disappear, when the “positive
mode of thought” shall have extended to the social phenomena in the
same way as it has to all others. Then the “extravagant proposals”
of the socialists will find no adherents, and the demand for what is
recognised as impossible will no longer be made by anyone.[343]
Finally, Comte reproaches communism with its tendency to restrain
individuality. This objection, coming from him, is remarkable, for it
has very often been made in his own case. As an organiser of despotism,
John Stuart Mill has compared him to Ignatius of Loyola. But Comte
reminds us that, according to him, the collective organism, or society,
differs from the individual organisms, or living beings, by the fact
that in it the elements live an independent life. The problem consists
in conciliating, as much as possible, this free division with the
convergence of the activities. Neither of the two must be sacrificed
to the other. To restrain individualities would tend to destroy the
dignity of man by doing away with his responsibility, while the want
of independence, and the subjection to a community indifferent to him
would make life intolerable. “Such is the immense danger of all utopias
which sacrifice real liberty to an anarchical equality, or even to an
exaggerated fraternity.”[344] On this point, positive philosophy on its
own account takes up again the “decisive criticism” of communism made
by our economists.
II.
Positive philosophy does not confine itself to refuting the orthodox
economists and the socialists by the help of their own arguments. In
its turn it takes up all the questions raised by them, and, for their
solution, takes its stand upon the results obtained by sociology.
In the first place it states the problem of “social reorganisation”
in its most general form. Socialists, in the same way as their
adversaries, are only concerned with riches as if they were the only
ill-divided and ill-administered social forces. But there are others.
The reform of economical conditions depends, in conclusion, upon that
of morals. Before all things then we must “reorganise” morals. We
must determine the rights and mutual duties of citizens, and inspire
everyone with the feeling of his duty and with respect for the rights
of others.
The two ideas of right and of duty are not dealt with by Comte in the
same manner. He accepts the idea of duty without subjecting it to a
special criticism. Duty is the rule of action prescribed to each one
both by feeling and by reason. It is our duty to do what we recognise
as most suitable to our individual and social nature. On the contrary,
the idea of right “disappears” in the positive state. The word “right”
must be removed from political language, in the same way as the word
“cause” is from philosophical language. They are two metaphysical
notions. Everyone has duties, and towards all. No one has any right
properly so-called. “The idea of right is as false as it is immoral,
because it presupposes an absolute individuality.”[345]
These formulæ called forth strong protests, particularly from M.
Renouvier and his disciples. Indeed, in the constitution of civil
society, they appear to neglect justice entirely, to establish the
relations between men merely upon charity and feeling. However, if we
look into it closely, Comte’s thought as is often the case, has been
forced and warped, by its expression. But the comparison between the
ideas of right and of cause suggested by him, satisfactorily throws a
light upon his meaning.
Positive science has given up the search after causes, in order to
confine itself to establishing the invariable relations between
phenomena. But these relations correspond to what was formerly called
causal action. They represent what was real in this supposed action.
The only difference--but it is important--consists in the fact that the
human mind has forsaken the absolute point of view for the relative
one, and is henceforth content to establish the connection between
phenomena, without imagining “connecting entities” according to
Malebranche’s strong expression.
The idea of right has gone through an analogous transformation. In the
same way as the idea of cause, it was theological for a long time, and
then metaphysical. In antiquity it was closely allied to religion. In
modern times the rights of peoples, and even the rights of individuals,
are conceived according to the ancient standard of the rights of
princes and masters. But, having become established by triumphing over
the rights of princes, the rights of peoples and individuals ultimately
rest, as they did, upon a supernatural and mystical basis. The rights
which every citizen claims are the change in small coin of the absolute
right formerly possessed by the sovereign who represented the whole
nation. Having become metaphysical in the XVIII. century, the idea of
absolute, intangible, indefeasible right, which attaches to the human
person, has been most useful for the decomposition of the old _régime_.
But, once this work has been accomplished, it cannot be made use of
in the work of reorganisation any more than the other metaphysical
principles. Positive philosophy admits nothing absolute. Everything
in society is at once subject to conditions, and places conditions
upon all things. Nothing is unconditional; and sociology teaches that
we must go not from the individual to society, but from society to the
individual.
In consequence, here again we must give up endeavouring to transform a
critical principle into an organic one. Undoubtedly rights will remain,
as the constant connections between phenomena subsist. But we shall
cease to base these rights upon a metaphysical conception of human
nature, in the same way as we have ceased to refer the connections
between phenomena to metaphysical entities called causes. Instead of
making individual duties consist in the respect of universal rights,
we shall conceive inversely the rights of each one as the result of
the duties of others towards him. In a word, duty is established
before right. This principle is of the highest importance in Comte’s
eyes. In it he sees an expression and a proof of the predominance of
the positive over the metaphysical spirit, and of the subordination
of politics to ethics. He likes to say that “the consideration of
duty is bound up with the spirit of the whole.” On the contrary, the
consideration of right, if it be conceived as absolute, leads to a
denial of all government and of all social organisation.
The new philosophy will tend more and more to replace “the vague and
stormy discussion of rights, by the calm and strict determination of
respective duties.” Henceforth, the problem raised by the communists
assumes a new aspect. That there should be powerful industrial masters
is only an evil if they use their power to oppress the men who depend
upon them. It is a good thing, on the contrary, if these masters
know and fulfil their duties. It is of little consequence to popular
interests in whose hands capital is accumulated, so long as the use
made of it is beneficial to the social masses.[346] Now this essential
condition “depends far more upon moral than upon political measures.”
The latter can undoubtedly prevent the accumulation of riches in a
small number of hands, at the risk of paralysing industrial activity.
But these “tyrannical” proceedings would be far less efficacious than
the universal reproof inflicted by positive ethics upon a selfish
use of the riches possessed. The reproof would be all the more
irresistible, because of the fact that the very people who would have
to submit to it could not challenge its principle, inculcated in all
by the common moral education.” It is thus that in the Middle Ages,
excommunication was not less feared by the princes who incurred it than
it was by the peoples who witnessed it.
Once common education was established, under the direction of the
spiritual power, the tyranny of the capitalist class would be no more
to be feared. Rich men would consider themselves as the moral guardians
of public capital. It is not here a question of charity. Those who
possess will have the “duty” of securing, first, education and then
work for all.
These ideas seem perhaps paradoxical and chimerical. But, says Comte,
this is because modern society has not yet got its system of morality.
Industrial relations which have become immensely developed in it are
abandoned to a dangerous empiricism, instead of being systematised
according to _moral_ laws. War, more or less openly declared, alone
regulates the relations between capital and labour. In a normal state
of humanity these relations, on the contrary, are “organised.” Strength
does not generate oppression. Every citizen is a “public functionary,”
whose well-defined functions determine at once his obligations and
his claims (that is to say his rights). Property is a function like
any other, and not a privilege. It serves for the formation and
administration of capital by means of which each generation prepares
the work of the next. Those who hold it must not turn it from its
public use to their own individual advantage.[347]
In the same way as the capitalists, the workers are public
functionaries, and they perform a no less important service.
Independently of their salary, they are deserving social gratitude.
Our customs already admit of this feeling in the case of the liberal
professions in which the salary does not dispense with gratitude. This
feeling will have to be extended to all work which contributes to the
common weal. The service of humanity, says Comte, is a gratuitous
one. The salary, whatever it may be, only pays for the material part
in every office. It serves to repair the consumption demanded by the
organ and the function. As to the essence of service itself it allows
of no other reward than the very satisfaction of performing it, and the
gratitude which it arouses.[348]
Consequently in a “truly organised” society (note this expression
which M. de Bonald often uses), the vulgar distinction between public
and private functionaries is destined to disappear. As, in an army,
even the private soldier has his own dignity which comes from the
close solidarity of the military organisation, and from this fact,
that all share the same honour in it; so, when positive education has
made evident to all the part played by each one in the social work,
professions which are humblest to-day will become ennobled.[349] The
industrial _régime_ of to-day, which shows us little else than the
conflict of rival egoisms, is an anarchical _régime_, or, to put it
better, an “absence of _régime_.”
Modern society has not yet got its morals. It will form them gradually,
in the same way as military society did. Military life, more than
any other, is ruled by the predominating selfish inclinations.
Nevertheless, as it could only be developed by the spirit of
union, this condition alone sufficed for it to determine admirable
devotion.[350] Why should it not be the same in industrial life which
rests upon the peaceful and constructing instinct? Otherwise, if the
present “anarchy” of morals were to last, modern society would remain
below the level of the Middle Ages, which really was organised by
its spiritual power. It would even be below the level of military
societies. What would be the use of substituting monopoly to conquest,
and a despotism based upon the right of the richest to the despotism
resting upon the right of the strongest?[351]
Everything then depends upon the common moral education, which itself
depends upon the establishment of a spiritual power. The superiority of
the positive doctrine lies in the fact that it has restored this power.
The innovating schools all wish to secure normal education and regular
work for the proletariat. But they want both at once, or work before
education. Positivism wishes to organise education _first_.[352]
Naturally, in positive education duties will be presented in their
social aspect. Thus the elementary virtues of temperance, of chastity,
etc., are recommended by positive morality;--but not from the point of
view of their usefulness to the individual. Even if “an exceptionally
constituted nature should shield the individual from the consequences
of intemperance or debauchery,” soberness and continence would be
no less strictly required of him as being indispensable for the
fulfilment of his social duties.[353] In the same way, the object of
domestic morality is not to form “a selfishness shared by several,”
but to develop the sympathetic affections which, from the family
will gradually extend to the social group, and then to humanity.
The principle is to get man into the habit of subjecting himself to
humanity, even in his smallest actions, and in all his thoughts.
Once this point is reached, modern society will spontaneously become
organised and the positive _régime_ will of itself be established.
FOOTNOTES:
[333] Cours, VI, 376.
[334] Pol. pos. I, 128-9.
[335] Cours, V, 357.
[336] Pol. pos., II, 410-12.
[337] Cours, VI, 268-9.
[338] Cours, V, 608; Pol. pos. III, 585.
[339] Cours, IV, 218-24.
[340] Cours, IV, 212-15.
[341] Pol. pos. I, 154.
[342] Pol. pos. I, 160-3.
[343] Cours, IV, 97-9.
[344] Pol. pos. I, 159.
[345] Cours, VI, 480; Pol. pos. I, 361-3; II, 87.
[346] Cours, VI, 543-6.
[347] Pol. pos. 156-64.
[348] Pol. pos. II, 409.
[349] Cours, VI, 511-15.
[350] Pol. pos. II, 16.
[351] Pol. pos. IV, Appendice, p. 211.
[352] Pol. pos. I, 169.
[353] Pol. pos. I, 97-8.
CHAPTER III
THE IDEA OF HUMANITY
In this world there is nothing absolute, everything is relative;
Comte wrote this to his friend Valat as early as 1818.[354] But as a
matter of fact, there exists a supreme reality to which all others
are subordinated, the idea of which is the principle of a rational
conception of the world. Comte calls this reality _humanity_. Instead
of being the ultimate end of all thought and all action “in itself,” it
is the ultimate end “for us.” But this difference simply signifies that
the new philosophy leaves the metaphysical for the positive point of
view. With these limitations the idea of humanity “corresponds” to the
old idea of the absolute. It takes its place and fulfils its religious
part. It is truly, if one dares to say so, a “relative absolute.”
In Comte’s doctrine, the idea of humanity is presented under several
successive aspects, or, to put it better, the development of his system
has brought to light, in turns, the various attributes of this “Great
Being.” In his first career, Comte prefers to consider humanity as an
object of science. In his second career, it rather appears to him as
an object of adoration and of love. Here we can follow the progress of
the mystical and religious feeling which, especially from 1846, filled
his thoughts and modified his language, his philosophical doctrine,
nevertheless, remaining essentially the same.
I.
We must not, says Comte, define Humanity by man, but on the contrary
man by Humanity. In general this formula is understood in a moral and
social sense. It is understood as a condemnation of “individualism,”
and one of the directing principles of the positivist _régime_. This
interpretation is not a false one, and consequences of this kind can
indeed be drawn from Comte’s formula. But they are only consequences.
The immediate object of the formula is not to subordinate the
individual to the multitude. In the first place it expresses a fact. If
we consider a man by himself, positive science only allows us to define
him as an animal, in whom as in all others, the end of animal life is
to insure organic life. Do we wish to define him by what is essentially
human in him, that is to say, by intellect and sociability? One must
then pass from the consideration of the individual to that of the
species. From the strictly biological point of view M. Bonald’s saying
must be reversed; we must say that man is an organism served by an
intellect. It is only if we leave the biological for the social point
of view, if we look upon the human species as a single “immense and
eternal” individual (a conception which is justified by the continued
development of intelligence and sociability),[355] that we can consider
the voluntary and systematic subordination of vegative to animal life
as the ideal type towards which civilised humanity is tending. We can
then make use of this subordination to refine it. In a word, we are
really men only _by our participation of humanity_.
The essential attributes of this “immense and eternal social unity” are
solidarity and continuity.[356] These attributes are at once social and
moral and it could have no others. The attributes of the theological
and metaphysical absolute had reference to the categories of substance,
of cause, of time, of space, etc. It was one, simple, infinite, etc.,
all often incomprehensible and contradictory expressions of this idea
that the supreme principle is “absolute.” On the contrary, positive
philosophy admits that in the scale of beings, dependence grows with
dignity. Humanity, which is the most “complex” and the “noblest” of all
beings known to us, is therefore also the most dependent. Its existence
will necessarily end with that of the planet which it inhabits. Its
unity is one of “collection.” It is imperfect and subject to crises of
all kinds. Such as it is, however, science and morality show us in it
the highest term which our mind can reach, the loftiest ideal which our
heart can love, and finally the object most worthy of our devotion.
Human solidarity has been studied by statical sociology. We have
seen with what admiration the social _consensus_ inspired Comte, a
consensus, according to him, even closer and more intimate than the
vital _consensus_. Positive education will develop the feeling of
solidarity and make it the principle of moral instruction. Every
individual in all his ways of thinking and acting, will be imbued with
two convictions which imply one another. In the first place he will
know that he is only really a man by his participation in humanity,
since his intelligence and his morality are essentially social things.
He will also know that the life of humanity is in part made up of
what he brings to it, and that each of his actions, independently of
his will has a social interest and a social counterpart. Once we are
thoroughly persuaded that we live in humanity and by humanity, we shall
also become convinced that we must live for humanity. Malebranche said
that God is the _locus_ of intellects: Comte would readily say that
humanity is the _locus_ of good wills.
As, in sociology, dynamics is more important than statics, so among
the attributes of humanity, continuity is placed above solidarity.
Not only are the individuals and the peoples of the same epoch bound
by a common solidarity, but the successive generations co-operate
in the same work. Each one has its “determined participation” in
it: and their combination in time produces “a still nobler and more
perfect conception of human unity.” This is the conception which Comte
admired so much in Condorcet, which he borrowed from him, and which he
developed in the positive idea of progress.
Humanity so understood will inspire us with the strongest feelings of
gratitude. Do we not owe to her all that is good, precious and human in
us? Man will see “co-operators” in the men of all time.[357] Each of
us has to reflect only upon his physical, intellectual and moral being
to realise what he owes to the whole of his predecessors. The man who
would think himself independent of others could not even formulate this
error (which in Comte’s eyes becomes blasphemy) without contradicting
himself; for is not language itself a collective and social work?[358]
History will become the “sacred science” of humanity. To put it more
simply, it will be the ever clearer consciousness which humanity
will have of itself, through the study of its intellectual and moral
activity in the past. Gradually, with the progress of the historical
spirit, the idea of an evolution subject to laws, the idea of “order
conceived as capable of development,” will become substituted to the
prejudice which attributes to man boundless power of action upon social
facts. It will become apparent that the part played by each generation
in the common work of humanity is necessarily a very small one, as
compared with what is transmitted to it by previous generations. To
refuse this inheritance would be to refuse to be what we are: it would
be an absurd and immoral pretention, and, moreover, entirely fruitless.
It is impossible for man to disown humanity without ceasing to exist.
He necessarily represents, while he lives, a long past of intellectual
and moral efforts. And this is the most essential attribute of human
life, although we meet with more or less developed solidarity also
among other animal species. But continuity belongs to humanity alone.
In a word, according to Comte’s fine formula: “Humanity is made up more
of the dead than of the living.”
However, neither the “yoke” which presses upon the living with all
the weight of history and of prehistoric times, nor the _consensus_
which makes of humanity a great “collective organism” take from
man his liberty of action. The consequence of human solidarity and
continuity is not a kind of fatalism. Individuals remain responsible.
We must regard them neither as the wheels in a machine, nor as the
cells in an organism, nor as the members of an animal colony. Humanity
is not a polyp. This comparison, says Comte, “shows a very imperfect
philosophical appreciation of our social solidarity, and a great
biological ignorance of the kind of existence peculiar to polypi.”[359]
It likens a voluntary and deliberate association to an involuntary
and indissoluble participation. Humanity, as a collective organism,
stands out, on the contrary, as distinct by its own characteristics
from animal colonies. In these colonies, the individuals are physically
bound together and physiologically independent. In humanity, the
individuals are independent physically, and are only bound together in
space and in time by their highest functions.
Thus this “immense organism” is especially distinguished from other
beings in that it is made up of separable elements, of which each one
can feel its own co-operation, can will it, or even withhold it, so
long as it remains a direct one.[360] The individual undoubtedly cannot
“unhumanise” himself: that is too evident. But he retains a partial
independence. As he can collaborate in the collective work by free
consent, he is also free to impede it in the measure of his strength.
Briefly, although the evolution of the Great Being is subject to laws,
every individuality, far from being annulled,[361] plays its part and
can have its merit in it. The very knowledge of sociological laws is a
rule for human activity and not a tyranny.
II.
In the latter part of his life, Comte drew out precisely the features
of what he henceforth called the new Great Being. Although we were not
here to undertake to write an account of positive religion, we must
nevertheless, in a few words, indicate the form which this supreme idea
ended by assuming in Comte’s mind.
Firstly, humanity is not conceived simply as the sum of all the
individuals or human groups present, past and future. For all men
are necessarily born children of humanity; but all do not become her
servants. Many remain in the condition of parasites. All those who are
not or were not “sufficiently assimilable,”[362] all those who were
only a burden to our species, do not form a part of the Great Being. A
selection takes place among men. Some finally enter into humanity never
to leave it; others leave it never to return. The selection takes place
according to the life they have preferred. Those who have lived in the
purely biological sense of the word, that is to say, those in whom the
higher faculties have been made to serve the organic function, those
whom with brutal energy Comte calls “producteurs de fumier,”[363] will
only have been part of humanity in a transitory manner. Death for them,
as for their anatomical system, will be an end without further appeal.
Those in whom the “sublime inversion” has been accomplished, or at
least those who have made an effort to subordinate the organic to the
higher functions, those finally who have worked for a pre-eminently
human end: to make the intellect predominate over the inclinations,
and altruism over egoism; those having lived for humanity will always
live in her. human end: to make the intellect predominate over the
inclinations, and altruism over egoism; those having lived for humanity
will always live in her.
As the conduct of each one can only be finally judged after his death,
humanity is essentially made up of the dead and “the admission of the
living within her will hardly ever be more than provisional.”[364] Each
generation, while it lives, furnishes the indispensable physiological
substratum for the exercise of the superior human functions. But this
privilege which momentarily distinguishes it from the others, soon
slips away from it, as it slipped away from the preceding ones, and
from the men of which they were composed; they alone who are worthy of
it are incorporated into humanity. Moreover, they are only incorporated
in it by their noblest elements. Death causes them to pass through a
“purification.”
This theory allows Comte to attain at the same time two results, which
he considers equally desirable. In the first place, the religious idea
of humanity remains in perfect accordance with the idea given of it
by biology and sociology. Humanity conceived as the Great Being, is
a kind of hypostasis of the functions by which man tends to become
distinguished from the animal. It is the progressive realisation
through time, of the intellectual and moral potentialities contained
in human nature: it is also its ideal impersonation. In this last
sense, it becomes an object of love and adoration. Thus, the positivist
religion naturally leads to a “commemoration” of great men, the
benefactors of humanity. Here we have one of the ideas which were
defined very early in Comte’s mind.
On the other hand, the desire for immortality is very strong in the
heart of man. On principle Comte recognised at any rate a provisional
value in all that arises spontaneously from human nature. In science
he saw a prolongation of “public reason,” in systematic morality a
development of spontaneous morality. He was thus led to take into
account the almost irresistible tendency which impels man to desire
to triumph over death.[365] This tendency, up to the present time,
has satisfied itself by means of illusions. But beliefs of this kind
have become incompatible with the progress of our mental evolution.
Moreover, the social efficacy of hopes and fears concerning the future
life has been much exaggerated. As a matter of fact, says Comte (and
the science of religions bears him out on this point), the tendency to
desire, and consequently to accept the idea of an ultimate survival,
existed for a long time before it was made use of to support religious
beliefs or to preserve public order. Here, again, positive philosophy
does not deny, does not destroy: it transforms. To the chimerical
and vulgar notion of _objective_ immortality, it substitutes the
notion, which is alone acceptable, of _subjective_ immortality. The
same doctrine which takes from us the consolations so dear to past
generations, gives us an adequate compensation, by allowing each one to
hope that he may be united to the Great Being.
“To continue to live in others,” is a very real mode of existence.[366]
It is the only one which we can hope for after death; but it is also
the only one which we ought to desire, if it be true that what most
constitutes ourselves in us does not consist in the individual in the
biological sense of the word, but truly in intelligence and good will,
that is to say, in the social and human element. He who has only lived
for himself, who has selfishly sought for life, has lost it: for death
takes him away altogether. He who has lived for others, he who has not
sought life for himself, has found it: for he survives in others. In
the religions of the past, salvation was found in union with God: in
the positive religion, salvation is found in union with humanity.
Once incorporated in the Great Being, the individual becomes
inseparable from it.[367] Being from that time withdrawn from the
influence of all the physical laws, he only remains subjected to the
higher laws which regulate directly the evolution of humanity. Being
even withdrawn from the influence of the laws of time and space,
he can live again at the same time in several organisms. Do we not
see that the thought of a poet, of an artist, of a man of science
revives in a great number of living men at the same time on the most
distant points of the globe? Subjective immortality, renewed by an
uninterrupted sequence of successive resurrections, will last as long
as humanity itself. “To live with the dead,” says Comte “constitutes
one of our most precious privileges.”[368] But, in the same way, the
dead live with us. They live in us, and those who have been most truly
men, those who have made humanity by the effort of their intellect
and their will, they are within us the best and most lasting part of
ourselves. For, when our generation disappears, it is this part of us
which will survive. We shall also survive in the measure in which we
have contributed to the increase of this inheritance, in the measure
in which we shall have deserved well of our contemporaries and our
successors. The present life is a trial. The “subjective” life, that
is to say, incorporation into humanity, is at once a liberation and a
reward for those who have passed victoriously through this trial.[369]
We see to what extent the old moral and religious ideal subsists in
the positive conception. We are little surprised at this, when we know
that, towards the end of his life, Comte made the _Imitation_ his daily
reading.
It is then towards the idea of humanity as their centre that the
scientific, social and religious ideas of Auguste Comte converge. If
this convergence be perfect, his work is accomplished. Henceforth
mental and moral anarchy is cured; political and religious anarchy
is about to disappear. Unity will be everywhere re-established.
This is already done in the understanding, since henceforth all our
conceptions are homogenous, that is to say positive, since the same
method is made use of in all our researches, since finally the whole
sum of the sciences is regulated from the social point of view. Unity
is also accomplished in the whole soul, since the intellect, henceforth
conscious of its laws and of its essential functions, subjects itself
to the heart, to be directed by love. Finally, unity will be brought
about in society, since a new spiritual power, possessed of universally
admitted principles, will give to all men and women a common education,
will teach them all the same morality, and will rally them all within
a same religion of love and goodness. The harmony which is realised in
the individual soul is the symbol and, as it were, the guarantee of
the harmony which will be established in the social body. Undoubtedly,
obstacles remain to be overcome. The positive spirit must still
struggle to become altogether universal. The old mental _régime_ will
not disappear without struggles which, Comte foresees, will be both
formidable and bloody. But these crises, however acute they may be,
cannot prevent the human evolution from taking place in accordance with
its law.
FOOTNOTES:
[354] Lettres à Valat, p. 54, (15 mai 1818).
[355] Cours, III, 232 sq.
[356] Cours, IV, 810-11; Pol. pos. I, 363-5.
[357] Cours, IV, 365.
[358] Pol. pos. I, 221.
[359] Cours, IV, 351.
[360] Pol. pos., II, 59.
[361] Pol. pos., I, 341.
[362] Pol. pos., I, 411.
[363] Catéchisme positiviste, p. 30-31.
[364] Pol. pos., I, 411.
[365] Discours sur l’esprit positif, 75-6.
[366] Pol. pos., I, 346-7.
[367] Pol. pos. II, 60-62.
[368] Pol. pos., 262.
[369] Pol. pos., IV, 36.
CONCLUSION
At the end of the _Cours de philosophie positive_ Comte has himself
summed up the results which he believed himself to have established. In
the first place it is, from the intellectual point of view (which at
first takes precedence of all others, although, in the positive state,
the mind must be subject to the heart), a “perfect mental coherence
which, as yet, has never been able to exist in a like degree,” not
even in the primitive period when man explained the phenomena of
nature by the action of wills. For already, in this period, although
imperceptibly, the positive spirit was making itself felt, while,
in the positive period, nothing will subsist of the theological and
metaphysical mode of thought. From the moral point of view, which
comes next, the agreement of minds upon speculative problems, and in
particular upon the relations between man and humanity, will allow of
a common education, which will bring about ardent moral conviction
in all. Powerful “public prejudices” will develop, and with them,
such irresistible fulness of conviction, according to Comte, that
Humanity will be able to realise what our penal system is incapable of
achieving: to prevent instead of punishing, at least in the majority
of cases. From the political point of view, the two spiritual and
temporal powers will be duly separated, and a lasting organisation will
at once insure order and progress. Finally, from the æsthetic point
of view, a new art will appear. No longer an aristocratic and learned
art like the one which has been with us since the Renaissance, but an
art closely connected with the convictions and the life of all, which
will be accessible and familiar to all, as was the case with the art of
the Middle Ages. The positive conception of man and of the world, will
become an “inexhaustible spring” of poetical beauty.
All these results will be ordered, protected and sanctified by the
positive religion, or religion of Humanity, of which Auguste Comte, in
his “second career” established the dogma, the worship and the _régime_.
Without entering into the details of this religious construction we see
that, like the ethics and the politics, it depends upon the “perfect
mental coherence” founded, in the first place, by positive philosophy.
In its turn, this perfect mental coherence, reduces itself to the unity
of the understanding, whose necessary and sufficient conditions are
“homogeneity of doctrine and unity of method.” Now, when Comte began
to write, this homogeneity and this unity already existed for all the
categories of natural phenomena. The moral and social phenomena alone
were still an exception. In conclusion everything was reduced to this
question: “can moral and social facts be studied in the same way as the
other natural phenomena?” If not, we must be resigned to the indefinite
duration of the disorder of minds, and consequently of the disorder
of customs and institutions. But, if the contrary is true, then the
human understanding reaches the unity to which it aspires. Is sociology
impossible? then we have no politics and no religion. Is sociology
founded? then all the rest is based upon it.
Thus, the creation of social science is the decisive moment in Comte’s
philosophy. Everything starts from it and comes back to it. As in
Platonism, all paths lead to the theory of ideas, so, from all the
avenues of positivism we see sociology. Here, as in a common centre,
are joined the philosophy of the sciences, the theory of knowledge,
the philosophy of history, psychology, ethics, politics and religion.
Here, in a word, is realised the unity of system, a unity which, in
Comte’s eyes, is the best proof of its truth.
If, in sociology, we chiefly consider the end which Comte proposes to
attain by its means, it is true that this doctrine is principally a
political one, and the very title of Comte’s second great work bears
this out. But, considered in itself, it is essentially a speculative
effort, and the principle of a philosophy in the proper sense of the
term. What Kant called a totality of experience is made possible by the
creation of social science.
Before Comte, this totality had been attempted many times. But
those who attempted it started from this postulate that philosophy
is specifically distinct from scientific knowledge proper. Whether
philosophy were dogmatic or critical, whether it had bearings upon the
essence of things or rather upon the laws of the mind, it none the less
presented characteristics of its own, which seemed to separate it from
positive science, and even allowed it to dominate over this science,
and to “explain” its principles. Comte rejects this postulate. He is
going to endeavour to see if, by taking the contrary postulate as his
foundation, he will not succeed better than his predecessors.
In order to reject the postulate admitted by philosophers before
him, he appeals at the same time to arguments founded on facts and
demonstration; but we must notice that, in his doctrine, these two
orders of arguments logically reduce themselves to one another. Indeed
he says, up to the present time no philosophy which commands acceptance
by all minds has been established. Idealisms, materialisms, pantheisms
from all sources and in every shape have never done more than ruin
the doctrines opposed to them, without becoming finally established
themselves. Those systems claimed to give a rational knowledge of that
which by nature is beyond the reach of science. They prided themselves
upon explaining the essence, the cause, the end and the order of the
phenomena of the universe. Thus they could only build up temporary
conceptions which were undoubtedly indispensable at the time but which
were doomed to die. Metaphysics is never anything but a rationalised
theology which is weakened by this very fact, and deprived of what
constituted its strength during the period when it was an object of
belief.
But in the name of what principle can Comte discern what is and what is
not “beyond the reach of science?” In order to justify a distinction
of this kind should he not before everything begin by a criticism of
the human mind, that is to say by a theory of knowledge similar to
that proposed by Kant in his “Criticism of Pure Reason”? M. Renouvier
endeavours to show that, through the absence of this preliminary
criticism, with which Comte dispensed, his philosophy remains
superficial. Mr. Max Muller expressly says that there is no need to
take into account a philosophical doctrine which proceeds as if the
“Criticism of Pure Reason” had not been written.
On the whole the objection reduces itself to reproaching Comte with
not having attempted to do what he considered to be impracticable:
namely, not to have determined the intellectual laws by the analysis
of the mind reflecting upon itself. But, it is said, by what right
does he affirm that this is impossible? Because, like all the others,
these laws can only be discovered by means of the observation of facts,
and because the only method which is suitable for the discovery of
intellectual facts is the sociological method: the nature of these
facts being such that, especially from the dynamic point of view,
they can only be grasped in the evolution of humanity. The theory of
knowledge demanded by M. Renouvier and Mr. Max Muller is not wanted
in positive philosophy. It is not seen in this philosophy, because it
is not presented in its traditional form. It is there none the less;
but, instead of consisting in an analysis _a priori_ of thought, as
a preliminary to philosophy, it is not separated from the philosophy
itself. It is one of the many aspects of sociology.
In the positive doctrine, as in all the others, there are
dialectics--dialectics which are no longer abstract and logical, but
real and historical. They do not seek to see the laws of the human
mind through an effort at reflection in which the mind, beneath the
phenomena, apprehends its very essence. They endeavour to discover
these laws in the necessary sequence of periods which constitute the
progress of the human mind. They, in their turn, study the “universal
subject” whose forms, categories and principles have been determined
by Kant _a priori_. But this universal subject is no longer reason
grasping itself, so to speak, outside and above the conditions of time
and of experience: it is the human mind becoming conscious of the laws
of its activity through the study of its own past. Instead of the
“absolute ego” of “impersonal reason,” or of the “conscience of the
understanding,” positive philosophy analyses the intellectual history
of humanity. It has then neither ignored nor neglected the problem. It
has put it in new terms, and has been obliged to deal with it by a new
method.
The critic is free to point out the defects of this method and the
insufficiency of these terms. But, to reproach positive philosophy
with not having dealt with the problem in the usual form in which it
is taken by metaphysicians, and, for this reason, to put it aside
unexamined, is to commit a kind of “petitio principii.” If Comte
abstains from attempting an abstract theory of knowledge, he gives
philosophical reasons for his refusal to do so. Before condemning
him, it is but right to examine them. Had he done what M. Renouvier
and Mr. Max Muller reproach him with having omitted, he would have
contradicted himself. There would have been no reason for the existence
of his system. He claimed to have reformed the very conception of
philosophy: can we reproach him with the fact that his conception does
not coincide with the view preferred by his adversaries? Briefly that
which, according to Comte, characterises positive philosophy, is that
it no longer requires for its constitution what in the judgment of M.
Renouvier and Mr. Max Muller on the contrary, is indispensable. Are
they or is he in the right? The question cannot evidently be solved
by the mere affirmation of those interested. The examination of the
doctrines themselves is necessary.
II.
The position taken by Comte may be briefly defined in a few words.
Seeing that philosophy, such at least as it had been conceived until
the XIX. century, could not assume the characteristics of science, he
asks himself whether one would not succeed better by endeavouring to
give the characteristics of science to philosophy. Like Kant, he might
have compared the revolution he was attempting to that accomplished by
Copernicus in astronomy, had he not preferred to present it as prepared
and gradually brought about by the very “progress” of science and
philosophy.
According to his own expression then he endeavours “to transform
science into philosophy.” But on what conditions will the
transformation be effected? If science were to lose in it its
characteristics of positiveness, of reality, and of relativity, to
assume those of a metaphysical doctrine, this change would be neither
desirable nor possible. The transformation will simply consist in
giving to science the philosophical character which it does not yet
possess, namely universality. While thus acquiring a new property,
positive science should lose none of those which it already possesses,
and which constitute its value.
Thus, in the “transformation of science into philosophy,” what is
transformed at bottom is not science which remains itself while
becoming general from being special: it is philosophy rather which
is transformed. The latter will henceforth undoubtedly be conceived
as the highest and most comprehensive form of positive knowledge,
but as constituting a part of that knowledge. It has been said that
Comte does away with philosophy, by reducing it to being merely the
“generalisation of the highest results of the sciences.” This is not a
proper interpretation of his thought. Up to the present time the duties
performed by the philosophical doctrines have been indispensable.
Comte intends that his system shall fulfil them in future. Beside
science properly so-called, which is always special, philosophy which
represents the “point of view of the whole” must arise. On this
condition alone can the government of minds and the “perfect logical
coherence” become possible.
Philosophy will then not merely be a “generalisation of the highest
results of the sciences.” The synthesis of the sciences must be brought
about according to a principle to which they will be all related. It
must really be a “summing up of experience.” But if this philosophy
thus coalesces with science it must also be _real_ like it, and
all real knowledge is necessarily positive and relative. In short,
the distinction between science and philosophy implies no specific
difference between these two kinds of speculation. On the contrary,
there exists between them homogeneity of doctrine and unity of method.
Therein lies the novelty of Comte’s system. The question was, without
leaving the scientific point of view, to discover a single universal
conception of the whole of Reality as we find it in experience. The
solution of this problem was found on the day when Comte created
social science. For indeed, in the first place, sociology makes the
positive method universal by extending it to the highest order of
natural phenomena accessible to us. Moreover, once it is established as
a special science, _ipso facto_ it assumes the character of a universal
science, and consequently of a philosophy. Under a certain aspect,
sociology is the sixth and last of the fundamental sciences. Under
another aspect it is the only science, since the other sciences may be
regarded as great sociological facts, and since the whole of what is
given to us is subordinated to the supreme idea of humanity.
Such is the way in which the transformation of science into philosophy
takes place. If it dates from the foundation of sociology, it is
because, once this last positive science has been created, nothing
remains in nature of which we conceive the possibility of obtaining an
absolute knowledge. “The relative character of scientific conception is
necessarily inseparable from the true notion of natural laws, in the
same way as the chimerical tendency to absolute knowledge spontaneously
accompanies whatever use we make of the logical fictions or of
metaphysical entities.”[370]
Considered as a whole, the object of positive science, according to
Comte, necessarily coincides with that of philosophy. For both of them
it is the whole of the reality given to us. The human mind cannot exert
itself in a vacuum. What it might draw from itself, without the help of
experience, (if such a conception be not absurd), is purely fictitious,
and has no objective value. If then the human mind remains attached to
a metaphysical philosophy, this can only be in so far as the mind still
conceives the whole or a part of reality from the absolute point of
view, that is to say in so far as it still fails to understand that the
laws of phenomena alone are within its reach, and persists in seeking
the essence and the first or final cause for some among them. There
was a time when the whole of reality was so understood. The conception
of the world was then entirely metaphysical or partly theological. But
the human mind has gradually constituted the positive science, first
of the more simple and more general phenomena, and then of the more
complicated ones. Finally the most complex of all, that is to say, the
moral and social phenomena alone remained untouched by the scientific
form. Let us suppose that this last order of facts is conquered by
the positive method: the metaphysical mode of thought being no longer
possessed of real objects, _ipso facto_ disappears. At the same time
the positive mode of thought becomes universal, and positive philosophy
is founded.
In this way two great connected facts which occupy a considerable
place in the philosophical history of our century are explained. We
understand: 1. that the fate of metaphysics appears to be closely bound
up with that of psychology, of ethics of the philosophy of history
and of the moral sciences in general, while the connection between
physics, for instance and metaphysics seems to be very weak; 2. that
the foundation of sociology determines that of positive philosophy. So
long as psychology speculates upon the nature of the soul and upon the
laws of thought; ethics, upon the final cause of man, the philosophy
of history, upon the final cause of humanity; metaphysics remains
standing. Indeed it seems better able than positive knowledge to lead
the human mind to a conception of the whole of the real. It appears
to be all the more appropriate for doing this in that the point of
view of the Absolute can be easily made to harmonise with the point of
view of the Universal, in the same way as the conception of substance,
whatever it may be, leads without any difficulty to the conception of
the unity of substance. But, from the day when we no longer should seek
anything but the laws of psychical, moral and social facts, refraining
from any hypothesis as to causes and essences, (a method already made
use of for all the other categories of phenomena), three results would
be obtained at a single blow: metaphysical philosophy would disappear,
social science would be created, and positive philosophy would be
founded.
According to the essential law of social dynamics, the metaphysical
stage is never anything but a transitory one between the theological
and the positive stages. The human intellect could not pass immediately
from the former to the latter. The metaphysical stage which can assume
an endless number of forms and of degrees, insensibly leads it from
one to the other. Metaphysical philosophy partakes of the theological
in so far as it claims to “explain” the totality of the Real by means
of a first principle, and of the positive, in so far as it endeavours
to demonstrate its “explanations,” and to bring them into accordance
with the real knowledge already acquired. It originates in theology
and it ends in science. But, however near it may come to positive
knowledge, its original theological brand is never effaced. Were
they compelled to choose between the theological and the positive
doctrines, metaphysicians would certainly adopt the former. The essence
of metaphysical philosophy is to tend towards the absolute, whilst
positive philosophy only seeks the relative. In favouring the progress
of positive science, metaphysical philosophy was working to make itself
useless.
To those then who reproach him with not leaving any function proper to
philosophy, Comte would answer that, in his doctrine, philosophy is
on the contrary better defined and more fully constituted than in any
other. Indeed metaphysical philosophy has never been anything but a
compromise, destined to satisfy more or less, the needs of theological
explanation and of rational science. But positive philosophy is pure
and unalloyed with heterogenous elements. It gives to the whole of
experience all the intelligibility which we can hope for, through
the discovery of laws, and, in particular, of the encyclopædic laws.
By making humanity the supreme end at once of our speculation and
of our activity, it furnishes morality and politics with a definite
basis, and gives religion an object. In this way, according to Comte,
positive philosophy is more truly a philosophy than metaphysics,
since it secures the homogeneity of knowledge and the “perfect mental
coherence,” and it is also more truly religious since, as its final
conclusion, it shows that the end of the intellect itself lies in
devotion to humanity.
III.
Every new philosophical doctrine is in general guided by a double
tendency. At the same time it seeks to establish its originality and
to find out its antecedents. In order to reach the former result, it
criticises preceding and contemporary doctrines, and shows that, better
than any of the others, it succeeds in “summing up experience.” But, at
the same time, it discovers a pedigree for itself in history which is
never very difficult to establish.
Like the others, positive philosophy fulfils this twofold requirement,
in such measure, however, as its particular nature and the definition
of its object reasonably allow. Properly speaking, it does not
undertake to refute the metaphysical systems which it deems itself
destined to replace. Those systems in refuting positive philosophy,
are faithful to their principle; and positive philosophy is faithful
to its own principle in not following their example. It suffices for
it to “locate” them in the general evolution of the human mind, and
to show, according to this law of evolution, how the very necessity
which brought them into being is also the cause of their disappearance.
Their office is fulfilled, their part is ended. It matters little that
they should seek to prolong an ebbing existence; cases of survival
may slacken the rate of progress, but they are powerless to arrest
it. And so positive philosophy is the only one which can be perfectly
just towards its adversaries. “It ceases,” says Comte, “being critical
in regard to the whole of the past.” In order to be established, it
does not require to combat and to supplant the philosophies which
have preceded it. With itself, it places all doctrines in history. It
substitutes the historical genesis to abstract dialectics.
Undoubtedly Comte recognises a long series of his precursors properly
so-called, in the double line of philosophers and scientific men who
have contributed to the progress of the positive spirit from Aristotle
and Archimedes to Condorcet and Gall. But positive philosophy, none the
less, looks upon itself as heir to all the philosophies, even to those
which are most opposed to its principle. For they, like the others,
have been necessary moments in the progress which was to end in the
positive system.
Thus considered in its relation to the metaphysical speculation
which preceded it, this system does not refute it, for it is
neither necessary nor even possible for it to do so. Neither does
it incorporate it within itself, for it could not do so without a
formal contradiction. Still, according to Comte’s own confession, it
proceeds from metaphysics as much as from science properly so-called.
In what then does this relation consist, if positive philosophy neither
opposes nor adopts previous doctrines?--It _transposes_ them. What its
predecessors had studied from the absolute point of view, it projects
upon the relative plane.
As we proceeded we have noted more than one of these _transpositions_.
It may perhaps not be useless to make a recapitulation of them here,
without, however, claiming for it perfect completeness.
_Metaphysical Philosophy._ _Positive Transpositions._
I. Distinction between I. Distinction between the statical
potentiality and reality. and the dynamical points of
view, or between order and progress.
II. Principle of finality. II. Principle of the conditions
of existence.
III. Theory of innateness. III. Definition of human
nature as immutable, evolution
creating nothing, but bringing
out the latent potentialities in
that nature.
IV. The idea of the universe. IV. The idea of the world.
V. All the phenomena of V. The idea of humanity is
the universe are related to the only really universal conception,
one another. because the conditions of
existence of human societies are
in a necessary relation, not only
with the laws of our organisation,
but also with all the physical
and chemical laws of our planet,
and the mechanical laws of the
solar system.
VI. The Aristotelian theory VI. Science consists in substituting
of science, (knowledge rational prevision to the
through causes, _a priori_), empirical establishment of facts.
and Cartesian theory, (deductive
knowledge starting from the
simple).
VII. The principles of VII. Geometry and mechanics
mathematics are synthetical _a are natural sciences, and pure
priori_ propositions. (Kant). analysis can never establish their
principles.
VIII. The order of the universe VIII. The conduct of man
is the basis of moral order: is regulated externally by the
(Stoics, Spinoza, Leibnitz). whole of the laws of the world in
which he lives.
IX. The history of humanity IX. The evolution of humanity
is directed by a providential is accomplished according to a
wisdom. law.
X. The notion of a natural X. The various orders of
law does not necessarily natural phenomena are irreducible
imply a mechanism. and nevertheless convergent,
the real becoming richer at each
new degree.
XI. Theory of the immortality XI. Theory of the “subjective
of the soul. existence,” or of survival in the
consciousness of others.
XII. Rational theology. XII. The positive science of
Humanity.
This list might easily be prolonged. Once again it shows us that, in
the history of philosophy as in history in general, the result of the
most apparently radical revolutions is not so much to abolish as to
transform. Thus, Kant’s philosophy might seem to be entirely opposed to
that of Leibnitz. Yet we see that the metaphysics of Leibnitz is to be
found almost in its entirety in Kant. Of this dogmatic philosophy Kant
has preserved the doctrine. He only rejected its dogmatism; which, as
a matter of fact, was of capital importance. In the same way, positive
philosophy has often been presented as the formal negation of the
philosophy which preceded it. When we verify this, we nearly always
find them both concerned with the same problems, and often reaching
analogous solutions. Here again it is only a question of transposition;
an extremely serious one it is true, on account of all that it implies.
Errors of interpretation are very often due to a lack of historical
perspective. Once they have been formulated and adopted by current
opinion they are difficult to rectify. Time is needed in order that
beneath superficial differences, deep seated resemblances may appear.
During many years Kant was in all sincerity looked upon as a sceptic in
France. Those who criticised him could not conceive how any one could
give up metaphysical dogmatism, without at the same time abandoning
the doctrines which had been cast in the metaphysical form before
Kant. In the same way, in the eyes of most of his adversaries, Comte’s
system must have appeared as the very negation of philosophy, because
the terms “philosophy” and “relative” seemed incompatible to them. But
this system, which is an effort to realise, from the point of view of
positive science, the unity of the understanding, and the “perfect
logical coherence,” in reality ends by putting the traditional problems
of philosophy in a form suitable to the spirit of our age.
IV.
If the relationship between Comte’s philosophy and the doctrines
which preceded it is sufficiently evident, it does not follow that
this philosophy has brought with it nothing new. On the contrary, the
“transposition” of problems and the constant effort to substitute the
relative to the absolute point of view, entails serious consequences
with very far reaching effects. Some of these were at once apparent,
and first served to characterise positive philosophy in the eyes of
the public. Others, more remote, but no less important, appeared more
slowly.
The negative consequences almost alone attracted attention at first.
The chief characteristic of the new philosophy seemed to be the denial
of the legitimacy and even of the possibility of metaphysics in all its
forms: rational psychology, the philosophical theory of matter and of
life, rational theology, etc. It seemed also to deny the possibility
of introspective psychology, of ethics in its traditional form, as
well as of logic. In a word, one after another, it excluded all the
parts of what constituted a “course of philosophy.” No wonder, then, if
this doctrine which took the name of “positive” appeared to be chiefly
negative.
However, in reality, the negation only affected the so-called
“rational” or “philosophical sciences.” Comte reproached them with what
Aristotle calls τὸ κένως ζητεῖν. Stringently applying the principle of
the relativity of knowledge, he refused to admit anything absolute. He
was therefore perfectly true to himself in rejecting doctrines founded
upon metaphysical principles. But this entirely negative aspect of
his philosophy is very far from being the one according to which we
can best understand it. Truly speaking, it is only preparatory, and
historians have often committed the mistake of allowing people to
believe that it is essential. “_We only destroy what we replace_,” said
Comte.
The question was not to ruin but to transform the psychological, moral
and social sciences. As we have seen, positive philosophy does not deny
the possibility of a psychology.
On the contrary, it establishes that psychical phenomena, like the
others, are subject to laws, and that these laws must be looked for by
the positive method. It only rejects the psychology of the ideologists
as abstract, and that of Cousin as metaphysical. It claims that, in
presence of the phenomena which he is studying, the psychologist should
assume the same attitude as the biologist or the physicist, that
any search after cause or essence should be carefully avoided, that
any metaphysical or ethical after-thought should be set aside. Then
a science of physical phenomena will be established; still it will
only be able to study the highest mental functions in the “universal
subject,” in humanity. If we wish to do so, we may continue to call it
by its traditional name, although it is to the old psychology only what
the chemistry of our day is to alchemy.
A similar transformation gives rise to social science. Here again,
the indispensable condition for the scientific knowledge of facts and
of laws is a new attitude of mind in presence of these facts. We must
set aside what interests us subjectively in them, and consider what
is “specifically social” in them, just as the physiologist studies
what is “specifically biological” in the phenomena of the organism.
M. Durkheim, as a real heir of Auguste Comte, reasonably maintains
that this is a condition _sine qua non_ of positive sociology. This
only exists as a science if there are facts which are properly social,
subject to special laws, besides the more general laws of nature
which rule them also, and if these facts, by constant objective
characteristics, are sufficiently distinct from the phenomena called
psychological.
Positive psychology is now already constituted. Positive sociology is
being formed. The science of language, the science of religions, the
history of art are also assuming a positive form. The movement which
has begun, and of which we only see the beginnings, will probably
extend much further than we think. It supposes at least a provisional
separation between the scientific interest and the political, moral
and religious interests. Being already constituted for a considerable
part of our knowledge, this separation for the remainder is still
distasteful to the traditional habits of the majority of minds. We are
accustomed to speculate upon physical or chemical nature with perfect
disinterestedness as to the metaphysical consequences of the results
which we may obtain. For we are convinced that the laws of these
phenomena do not necessarily imply any consequences of this kind, or
that they can be almost indifferently brought into accord with any form
of metaphysics we may be pleased to adopt. What do physics, chemistry,
natural philosophy _prove_, as to the destiny of man or the supreme
cause of the universe? Nothing, and it does not occur to us to be
surprised at it. We consider that these sciences are in accordance with
their definition if they give us a knowledge of the laws of phenomena,
and if this knowledge enables us within certain limits to exercise a
rational and efficacious action upon nature.
Are we in the same position in what concerns psychology and the
moral and social sciences? This is doubtful. The very name of “moral
sciences” is significant enough on this point. We cannot refrain from
thinking that these sciences “prove” something outside themselves. For
several of the schools of this century, psychology is still the path
that leads to metaphysics. Spirituality and the immortality of the
soul seem to have a direct interest in it. In a more or less conscious
manner orthodox political economy has found itself “proving” the
legitimacy of the modern capitalist _régime_, and has represented it as
being in conformity with the immutable laws of nature. The historical
materialism of Marx “proves” the necessity of collectivism. History too
often serves national interests, or political parties.
Comte’s most interesting and fertile leading idea is that the sciences
conceived in this way are still in their infancy and do not deserve
their name. Those who take them up should, in the first place,
convince themselves of the fact that they prove no more in favour of
spiritualism or materialism, of protection or of free exchange, than
physics or chemistry prove in favour of the unity or the plurality
of substances in the universe. In the school of the more advanced
sciences men may be taught to distinguish between the objects of
positive research and the metaphysical or practical questions. They
will see also that the human mind did not begin by making this
distinction in the case of inorganic and of living nature. For a long
time it could only think of physical phenomena religiously. Without
the admirable effort of the Greek men of science and philosophers, we
might yet find ourselves in this period, and positive philosophy might
still be awaiting the hour of its birth. To-day this philosophy has
come into being. In order to prove finally established, it requires
that individual and social human nature should become the object
of a science as disinterested as physics and biology have already
become. From that day alone will the “Social sciences” be definitely
constituted.
It is true that since in a certain way the object of these sciences is
ourselves, it seems paradoxical to look upon them in the same way as
if it were a question of salts or of crystals. We persist in believing
that any knowledge of this order, as soon as it is acquired, admits
of immediate applications to our condition or conduct. But this is an
illusion. Is not the importance of the “_milieu_” in which we find
ourselves, and of the forces which affect us from without for our
welfare and even for our preservation which depends upon them at every
moment, a simple matter of evidence? Nevertheless, we seek a purely
abstract, scientific knowledge of the laws of phenomena, because we
know that our effective power upon natural forces is subordinate to
science. In the same way we separate physiology from therapeutics
and medicine, and we especially await the progress of these from
physiology. So in the same way, pædagogy, rational economy, politics,
and in general all the social arts in the future will be subordinated
to the theoretical science of the individual and social nature of man,
when this science has been constituted by means of a purely positive
method, and is no longer expected to “prove” anything but its laws.
This may perhaps be the work of centuries. We are only witnessing
its early beginnings. We still have only a vague idea of a polity
founded upon science; and we do not yet know what individual and
social psychology will yield as a positive science. Comte anticipated
results which could not be immediate. This is yet another feature
which he has in common with Descartes, to whom we have so often had
occasion to compare him. Having conceived a certain mathematical ideal
of physical science, Descartes pictured the problems of nature, and
especially of living nature, as being infinitely less complex than they
are. Our scientific men to-day no longer venture to put to themselves
the biological questions whose solution appeared to Descartes to be
comparatively easy. In the same way, Auguste Comte, having recognised
that moral and social phenomena should be objects of science, just as
those of inorganic and living nature, believed this new science to be
far more advanced by his own labours than it was in reality.
It is easy to understand his mistake. He was anxious to proceed to
the “social reorganisation,” in view of which he was constructing
his philosophy. Then, given the conception he had formed of social
science, he was bound to think that the discovery of the great dynamic
law of the three States was sufficient to finally constitute it. In
his eyes “the hardest part of the work was done.” Sociologists at
present believe that almost everything remains to be done. But, here
again, we may renew the comparison between Descartes and Comte. In
the work of both, without much difficulty, we can distinguish what
is done by the scientific man properly so-called and what is done by
the philosopher. It is the same with Comte the sociologist as with
Descartes the physicist. Their hypotheses have met with the fate common
to scientific labours, of which Comte himself has so well set forth the
necessary transitoriness. The other portion of their work, more general
in character, is possessed of more enduring qualities. In this sense,
and setting aside his political and religious views, which belong to
another order, the speculative philosophy of Comte is living still, and
pursues its evolution even within the minds of those who are engaged
in opposing it.
THE END.
_W. Jolly & Sons, Printers, Albany Press, Aberdeen._
FOOTNOTES:
[370] Cours, IV, 237.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation, in particular the inconsistent punctuation of
the footnotes, remains unchanged.
Opening or closing quotation marks are frequently omitted. Where these
are obvious they have been inserted, otherwise they have been left
unchanged.
In Book I Chapter VI, part II the quotion “the work of the species
gradually developed in the long sequence of centuries.” is referenced
as a footnote, but no footnote is present.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.