An editor cannot make it a rule to accept criticisms of considerable
length which have reference to a remark incidentally made in a book
review. The present case, however, although it belongs in this category,
is of a peculiar nature. First, the remark on Littré was made by the
editor himself, and accordingly he feels personally responsible for it;
secondly, it contains a brief delineation of Littré’s character as a man
and as a philosopher in the way in which he is usually regarded by the
most prominent historians of philosophy. Mr. Belrose presents Littré in
quite a new light and quotes passages in corroboration of his conception
of Littré which are perhaps not generally known, for they are buried in
articles of the positivistic journal _La Philosophie Positive_, and this
journal enjoyed neither a long life nor a large circulation; nor is it
to be had in any of the libraries accessible to me. Seventeen editorial
articles were republished in bookform, (_La Science. Au point de vue
philosophique, par_ É. LITTRÉ. Paris, 1873), but the article “The Three
Philosophies” is not among them.
If Mr. Belrose’s conception of Littré proves to be true, I shall not
only gladly correct my own wrong view of Littré, but I wish also to call
attention to the fact that he has been misrepresented by almost all and
certainly by the best and most painstaking philosophical historians.
I cannot however in the main points accede to Mr. Belrose’s view and will
have to sustain my former opinion that M. Littré was an agnostic. He
made it a matter of principle to suspend his opinion on some of the most
fundamental philosophical problems, which he considered as inaccessible.
His positivism, accordingly, differs _toto cœlo_ from the positivism
presented in _The Monist_. His philosophy, like that of Comte, is so far
as I understand it, a policy of let-metaphysics-alone. It gives up the
struggle with metaphysics as a hopeless undertaking. Therefore, I should
say, Littré’s positivism has not conquered metaphysics, and although it
lets metaphysics alone, metaphysics plays an important part in it. Littré
is an agnostic and like every agnostic that believes in the unknowable, a
metaphysician without knowing it.
The doctrine of the three stages of knowledge, viz., the theological,
metaphysical, and positive stages, appears to me of less importance. The
doctrine of the three stages is at the same time not properly a Comtean
idea; Comte adopted it from Turgot, the great statesman and one of the
greatest men as a thinker and also as a character that ever lived and who
is too little appreciated as such.
The main doctrine of Comte’s positivism is the doctrine that first and
final causes cannot be known, and we must abandon our search for them;
that human knowledge is limited to the middle, while the two ends are
inaccessible. These insoluble questions, he declares, have made no
progress from the beginning. Mr. Lewes in his book “Comte’s Philosophy of
the Sciences” expresses this agnosticism in the following words (p. 31):
“Our province is to study her [nature’s] laws, to trace her processes,
and, thankful that we can so far penetrate the divine significance of the
universe, be content—as Locke wisely and modestly says—to sit down in
quiet ignorance of all _transcendent_[61] subjects.”
This idea has so far as I am aware never been given up by Littré; it
remained the basis of his belief in the unknowable and his works abound
in expressions that concerning the main problems of life, “the positive
philosophy will neither assert nor deny anything.”
Littré concludes the last article of his volume “La Science” with the
following words:
“Le domaine ultérieur est celui des choses qui ne peuvent
pas être connues. La science positive professe de n’y rien
nier, de n’y rien affirmer; en un mot, elle ne connaît pas
l’inconnaissable, mais elle en constate l’existence. Là est la
philosophie suprême; aller plus loin est chimérique, aller moin
loin est déserter notre destinée.”
This quotation alone, I think, settles the first main point at issue.
Now I maintain that Comte’s view of causation where he refers to first
and final causes is fundamentally wrong; causation is transformation
and causality is the formula under which we comprehend the changes of
matter and energy that take place. The expressions first and final causes
are misnomers (see “Fundamental Problems,” the chapter The Problem of
Causality). First cause is either the starting point of a series of some
longer chain of causes and effects, or as the term is generally applied
or rather misapplied, stands for the last ground or reason, i. e. the
answer given to the ultimate question why?, which is the most general
_raison d’être_ that would explain and contain all the other and less
general _raisons d’être_ regarding the nature of existence. The term
final cause, again, means either the last cause in a series of causes or
(and so it is generally used) it is a misnomer for purpose; and the final
cause supposed to be inaccessible to human comprehension is the purpose
of the existence of the world at large. I object to there being three
kinds of causes. There is one kind of causality only, and the causes of
this causality in all the causal processes with which we are confronted
are perfectly intelligible.
The problem of the first cause of the origin of our world, viz. the
solar system and the milky way, was attacked first by Kant and later by
Laplace, and the latter, without knowing of Kant’s solution, solved it
in the main in the same way. All recent investigations stand upon this
Kant-Laplace hypothesis so called, having added corrections only as to
details. Shall we declare that these labors are vain and gratuitous
efforts of vague speculations? Littré says, with reference to such
speculations, concerning the past and future states of the world (le
monde):
“La dissémination primordiale de la matière qui devait le
composer, la dissémination future de la matière qui le compose,
dépassant toute expérience, dépassent toute conjecture.”
If I misunderstand Littré, it appears to me a pardonable mistake.
Yet is not the problem as to the origin of the world at large, why
matter and energy exist at all, insolvable? Littré says that the
positive cosmogonies, such as the doctrine of evolution do not touch
the absolute; they have nothing to do with first and final causes. He
says: “Les cosmogonies positives la [i. e. la place des cosmogonies
religieuses] remplissent, non pas qu’elles aient la prétention ni le
pouvoir de pénétrer dans l’absolu et d’embrasser, les causes premières et
finales.”—l. c., p. 560.
That kind of causality which is sometimes called “ontological,” having
reference to the existence, not of single things as transformations from
other things, but of the world at large and formulated in such questions
as how did the universe itself, the world as a whole, originate, is
properly speaking no causality, it is not a question concerning a cause,
but concerning a _raison d’être_. However without haggling about the
words cause and _raison d’être_, this ontological causality so called
is by no means beyond human comprehension. The ontological question
has found a very definite answer in the formulation of the law of the
conservation of matter and energy; which declares that existence at
large did not originate, the total amount of matter as well as of energy
existed always and will exist always. It has not been created; it is
uncreatable and indestructible; it is eternal.
Littré is quite explicit in declaring that the positive philosophy lets
alone all theological and metaphysical problems. It is neither atheistic
nor theistic, and does not side with either materialism or spiritualism.
He says:
“Ni spiritualiste, ni matérialiste, la philosophie positive
écarte de la science générale les débats que la science
particulière a depuis long temps et à son grand profit
rejetés.”—Preface d’un disciple in Comte’s “Course de Phil.
pos.” p. xxvii.
Littré characterises as the main object of the positive philosophy, “to
give to philosophy the positive method of the sciences, to the sciences
the idea of the unity of philosophy.” He says: “Ainsi fut accompli ce
qu’on doit appeler l’œuvre philosophique du dix-neuvième siècle, donner
à la philosophie la méthode positive des sciences, aux sciences l’idée
d’ensemble de la philosophie.” Preface, p. viii.
I am in perfect agreement with Littré that this is the object of
positivism; but, if I understand Littré correctly, I disagree from his
conception of the positive method. He limits the positive method to what
he calls “experience,” and excludes every notion of the _a priori_.
Littré apparently misunderstood the proper meaning of Kant’s idea of
the _a priori_, for he used as a matter of course the _a priori_ method
wherever it was indispensable, so for instance in mathematics and in the
application of mathematics.
Mr. Belrose says:
[Littré] “solved your basic problem of philosophy [i. e. what is the
origin of the _a priori_] in a paragraph.”
The problem of the _a priori_ reasoning is the question “Why can we
know certain things before we have tested them by experiment? Man has
not arrived by experience but by pure reasoning at the conclusion that
the sum of the angles of every plane triangle has 180 degrees. How is
he justified in declaring _a priori_ that the angles of a certain plane
triangle make up 180 degrees, although he has not measured them?” This
problem is the fundamental problem of the scientific or positive method;
it is the same problem which Mr. Charles S. Peirce discusses in his
article (see pp. 321 et seqq. of the present number of _The Monist_), for
the problem of apriority is identical with the question of necessity.
Littré has, so far as I know, never discussed the problem of apriority
and necessity. He has simply rejected the idea of the _a priori_ as
the method of a false metaphysics, which is incompatible with the _a
posteriori_ method of positive science. The passage quoted by Mr. Belrose
most certainly does _not_ contain a solution of the problem. Littré
declares therein that every chemical action is equivalent to a certain
quantity of heat; and again this heat is equivalent to a certain quantity
of motion. Thus, he says, thought is connected with mathematical modes
of which it becomes conscious. Thought, he adds, is not an equivalent of
heat or motion, for equivalence is not identity, but it is connected with
mathematical conditions. This means that that kind of brain-action which
represents conscious thought, depends upon definite proportions. But
what in all the world has this idea to do with the problem of apriority?
The phrase “mathematical modes” (which is misleading in this passage) is
an unfortunate expression for “proportions” and we must add that Littré
is mistaken when he says that the nervous substance when it becomes
luminous, becomes conscious of these mathematical modes with which it is
connected. Aside from “luminous” being simply an allegorical expression
for conscious, it is wrong to say that the nervous substance becomes
conscious of the mathematical modes of heat as they are proportioned in
the brain. A sentient being knows through sensation nothing about the
mechanism or the mechanical proportions of its own sentient structure.
Sensation is the act of a becoming conscious not of the sentient
structure itself but of the meaning which this sentient structure has
acquired, and a consciousness of the mathematical modes which according
to Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences ought to be the beginning of
knowledge develops at a very late period. Any explanation of the origin
of _a priori_, be it ever so brief, would lead us too far away from the
points of our controversy. It is sufficient here to point out that the
passage quoted by Mr. Belrose, contains no solution of the problem of
our knowledge and certitude of mathematical, arithmetical, and other
purely formal laws. On the contrary, this very passage is replete with
error; it is a misstatement of facts and does not even bring to light the
difficulties of the problem.
Littré was prejudiced against the _a priori_, and his prejudice induced
him to underrate its importance. I read in one of Littré’s passages
quoted by Mr. Belrose:
“If it [thought] attempts to go out metaphysically into space,
it is reduced to combining subjectively its own elements, turns
in a circle without issue and falls back upon itself.”
The _a priori_ method of thought subjectively combining its own elements,
is by no means a turning in a circle without issue so that in the end it
will fall back upon itself. The _a priori_ method of thought subjectively
combining its own elements is employed by arithmetic, mathematics, and
logic, and we are confronted with the astonishing fact that rules, or
formulas, or calculations which were made by pure thought subjectively
combining its own elements, are applicable and hold good as reliable
guides in our experiments. If there were no _a priori_, how could we
foretell or, what is more still, how could we predetermine the course
of nature? The _a priori_ has been wrongly employed by the so-called
metaphysical philosophers to give us information about the substance and
essence of the world. But the misapplication of the _a priori_ is no
reason for denouncing it as radically wrong.
The existence of the _a priori_ is an undeniable fact. Kant was
right in recognising it in its sweeping importance, yet he was wrong
in his interpretation of the _a priori_, which according to his
transcendentalism was based exclusively upon a peculiarity of the mind
and not upon the nature of things. The positivists in France did not only
object to the wrong interpretation of the transcendentalists but also
denied the existence of the _a priori_. Accepting the principle that
every knowledge must ultimately be a statement of facts, the question
How is the _a priori_ to be based upon facts? became in my conception of
philosophy the burning problem which was next in order as a conciliation
between Kant and Comte.
The French positivists, foremost among them Comte and Littré, have not
given us an explanation of what is true and false in the theological
and metaphysical notions of first and final causes, of the _a priori_
of God, of substance, of force, etc.; they have simply abandoned the
investigation of these ideas which are after all the most important tools
in the household of the human mind for scientific and ethical purposes;
and thus they have, in spite of their positivism in questions of detail,
retained the metaphysical method of _a priori_ reasoning which is quite
legitimate in the formal science but out of place concerning facts. Take
for instance the following argument concerning the materiality of things:
“Là, c’est à dire dans les sciences positives, on ne connaît
aucune propriété sans matière, non point parce que, _a priori_,
on y a l’idée préconçue qu’il n’existe aucune substance
spirituelle indépendante, mais parce que, _a posteriori_,
on n’a jamais rencontré la gravitation sans corps pesant,
la chaleur sans corps chaud, l’électricité sans corps
électrique, l’affinité sans substances de combinaison, la
vie, la sensibilité, la pensée, sans être vivant, sentant et
pensant.”—_La Science_, p. 307.
I do not mean to say that there are immaterial or spiritual substances,
but I should say that any purely _a posteriori_ argument in favor of
their non-existence is insufficient. Would Littré mean that a Zulu
should declare that ice cannot exist because he has never seen water
frozen as hard as a stone? Any amount of experience, i. e. all _a
posteriori_ evidence, is in parts and will out of itself never acquire
universal validity.
How strongly Littré is still implicated in the metaphysical method of
applying _a priori_ ideas to _a posteriori_ experiences can be learned
from the following statement:
“Le monde est constitué par la matière et par les forces de
la matière: la matière dont l’origine et l’essence nous sont
inaccessible; les forces qui sont immanentes à la matière. Au
delà de ces deux termes, matière et force, la science positive
ne connaît rien.” Preface, p. ix.
The metaphysical ideas, matter and force, are _a priori_ notions of
mystical entities or things in themselves, and thus it appears natural
that experience should know nothing of them. But real matter and actual
force are not unknowable existences. They can be known. We know something
of them and positive science is engaged in broadening and deepening this
knowledge. Says Littré:
“Les propriétés physiques sont manifestes en toute substance,
dans quelque état qu’elle soit, isolée ou non isolée, et
s’exercent sur les masses; les propriétés, n’apparaissent
qu’entre deux substances, ont besoin de la binarité et
s’exercent sur les molécules; enfin les propriétés vitales
dépassant la binarité, ne sont compatibles qu’avec un état
moléculaire plus composé.” Preface, p. x.
One of the fundamental principles of positivism, as I conceive it,
is the definition of knowledge as a description of facts or of their
properties. We call certain properties of the facts (i. e. the objects
of our experience) matter and others force. When we say that we do or do
not know a certain phenomenon we mean that we have or have not as yet
succeeded in placing them properly in that system of thought-symbols of
which our mind consists. Yet there is no sense in speaking of matter and
force as being unknowable while the properties of matter and force are
said to be manifest and appearing under certain conditions.
I have presented the main reasons why I still hold that there is a
radical difference between Littré’s view of positivism and my own.
Littré is an agnostic and he was an agnostic before that name had been
invented. His objection to metaphysicism consists in the doctrine not
that the object of metaphysics is a chimerical non-existence, but that
the object of metaphysics exists yet it cannot be known. Thus Littré is
as much a metaphysician as those philosophers whom he censures for their
metaphysical views. He does not censure them for believing that the
metaphysical exists, but for believing that it is knowable and attempting
to investigate its nature.
As to the hierarchy of the sciences I shall simply quote a few extracts
from Eugen Dühring’s criticism of Comte. Dühring says (_Krit. Gesch. der
Phil._, p. 486):
“If Comte’s _positivism_ were nothing more than what we have
here laid down, its main contents would, strange enough,
consist in _negativity_. The criticism of a certain kind of
metaphysics, viz. of an ontology phantastical to a greater or
lesser extent, would form its most significant character. The
other element which consists in presenting a hierarchy and
unitary conjunction of some of the sciences which are called
positive in the usual sense of the term, cannot pretend to
be philosophy in the higher sense of the word or even to be
useful for science. A general view of knowledge, whether it
consists of six or sixty volumes, does not add the least iota
to the contents of our knowledge.... We cannot expect that a
specialist should be pleased with a hierarchical sketch of his
science, especially if the delineations are filled out with
details of which he would be a better judge.”
It is true, and I concur in this with the French positivists, that a
positive philosophy must be a systematic arrangement of knowledge. But I
conceive it to be the philosopher’s work, not to take an inventory of the
sciences, but to define the fundamental concepts of scientific enquiry
and to elucidate the methods of cognition. Such fundamental concepts
are the ideas, truth and criterion of truth, cause and effect, mind,
thought, knowledge, ethics, etc. Concepts are the tools of thought and
the practice of using them correctly has to be learned.
Positivism is not the original invention of a world-system, but the
systematising of statements of facts so as to produce a world-system.
The old philosophers gave us first a world-system, from which and in
accord with which they defined their views of truth, cognition, cause,
etc. They began to build their philosophy from the top down. Positivism
begins from the bottom and is building up to the top with the assistance
of the special sciences. A positive philosophy is inseparable from, but
it cannot be replaced by, the sciences. The field of philosophy is to
superintend the method and the plan of building, so as to compare the
details and bear in mind the unity of the whole. In this sense Dühring
says in criticising Comte (p. 486):
“However, concerning the form of the connections of methodical
reflections, something can be done. Yet it must be possible
to separate everything of such a kind and also new insights,
so as to constitute a special branch of knowledge. Otherwise
they will escape the specialists’ attention.... Not only Comte
but all philosophers given to the idea of systematisation and
construction of particular knowledge have made attempts in
this direction which at most may range as sketches or popular
presentations in a higher sense.”
Concerning Littré’s view of Comte’s religious vagaries Dühring says (p.
483):
“His [Comte’s] biographer, the Academician Littré of Paris,
and also Stuart Mill are right in considering ‘The Course of
Positive Philosophy’ as the main and fundamental work which is
decisive as a contribution of his and a source of instruction
to the world. However, they are very one-sided when they
overlook that the philosopher even in his vagaries exhibited a
universality of mind which remains superior to the standpoint
of either Littré or Mill.”
I agree with Mr. Belrose that Comte’s religion as he conceived it
consists of vagaries, but the main idea of developing the religions
of the past which, as Littré says, are not false but only incomplete
religions, into a religion that shall be in accord with the science of
our day is no vagary, but a great and an important ideal.
Far be it from me to belittle Littré because I disagree from him in
some fundamental questions. He was in his time, he is still, and will
remain for ever a star of first magnitude in our philosophical galaxy.
That which I consider as his errors does not detract from his greatness.
Were not Kant’s mistakes in a similar way closely interwoven with his
greatest merits? It is flattering to me that Mr. Belrose finds an
agreement between his master’s and my views concerning the basic problem
of philosophy, but I cannot discover it. Yet I gladly acknowledge that
there exists an agreement of aim, and this agreement of aim which finds
its truest expression in the word “positivistic” is perhaps of greater
importance than the agreement of views.