it remains to give some account of his more special and equally
ambitious attempt to create the Science of Sociology, or, as he
expresses it, to elevate the study of social phaenomena to the positive
state.
He regarded all who profess any political opinions as hitherto divided
between the adherents of the theological and those of the metaphysical
mode of thought: the former deducing all their doctrines from divine
ordinances, the latter from abstractions. This assertion, however,
cannot be intended in the same sense as when the terms are applied to
the sciences of inorganic nature; for it is impossible that acts
evidently proceeding from the human will could be ascribed to the agency
(at least immediate) of either divinities or abstractions. No one ever
regarded himself or his fellow-man as a mere piece of machinery worked
by a god, or as the abode of an entity which was the true author of what
the man himself appeared to do. True, it was believed that the gods, or
God, could move or change human wills, as well as control their
consequences, and prayers were offered to them accordingly, rather as
able to overrule the spontaneous course of things, than as at each
instant carrying it on. On the whole, however, the theological and
metaphysical conceptions, in their application to sociology, had
reference not to the production of phaenomena, but to the rule of duty,
and conduct in life. It is this which was based, either on a divine
will, or on abstract mental conceptions, which, by an illusion of the
rational faculty, were invested with objective validity. On the one
hand, the established rules of morality were everywhere referred to a
divine origin. In the majority of countries the entire civil and
criminal law was looked upon as revealed from above; and it is to the
petty military communities which escaped this delusion, that man is
indebted for being now a progressive being. The fundamental institutions
of the state were almost everywhere believed to have been divinely
established, and to be still, in a greater or less degree, of divine
authority. The divine right of certain lines of kings to rule, and even
to rule absolutely, was but lately the creed of the dominant party in
most countries of Europe; while the divine right of popes and bishops to
dictate men's beliefs (and not respecting the invisible world alone) is
still striving, though under considerable difficulties, to rule mankind.
When these opinions began to be out of date, a rival theory presented
itself to take their place. There were, in truth, many such theories,
and to some of them the term metaphysical, in M. Comte's sense, cannot
justly be applied. All theories in which the ultimate standard of
institutions and rules of action was the happiness of mankind, and
observation and experience the guides (and some such there have been in
all periods of free speculation), are entitled to the name Positive,
whatever, in other respects, their imperfections may be. But these were
a small minority. M. Comte was right in affirming that the prevailing
schools of moral and political speculation, when not theological, have
been metaphysical. They affirmed that moral rules, and even political
institutions, were not means to an end, the general good, but
corollaries evolved from the conception of Natural Rights. This was
especially the case in all the countries in which the ideas of
publicists were the offspring of the Roman Law. The legislators of
opinion on these subjects, when not theologians, were lawyers: and the
Continental lawyers followed the Roman jurists, who followed the Greek
metaphysicians, in acknowledging as the ultimate source of right and
wrong in morals, and consequently in institutions, the imaginary law of
the imaginary being Nature. The first systematizers of morals in
Christian Europe, on any other than a purely theological basis, the
writers on International Law, reasoned wholly from these premises, and
transmitted them to a long line of successors. This mode of thought
reached its culmination in Rousseau, in whose hands it became as
powerful an instrument for destroying the past, as it was impotent for
directing the future. The complete victory which this philosophy gained,
in speculation, over the old doctrines, was temporarily followed by an
equally complete practical triumph, the French Revolution: when, having
had, for the first time, a full opportunity of developing its
tendencies, and showing what it could not do, it failed so conspicuously
as to determine a partial reaction to the doctrines of feudalism and
Catholicism. Between these and the political metaphysics (meta-politics
as Coleridge called it) of the Revolution, society has since oscillated;
raising up in the process a hybrid intermediate party, termed
Conservative, or the party of Order, which has no doctrines of its own,
but attempts to hold the scales even between the two others, borrowing
alternately the arguments of each, to use as weapons against whichever
of the two seems at the moment most likely to prevail.
Such, reduced to a very condensed form, is M. Comte's version of the
state of European opinion on politics and society. An Englishman's
criticism would be, that it describes well enough the general division
of political opinion in France and the countries which follow her lead,
but not in England, or the communities of English origin: in all of
which, divine right died out with the Jacobites, and the law of nature
and natural rights have never been favourites even with the extreme
popular party, who preferred to rest their claims on the historical
traditions of their own country, and on maxims drawn from its law books,
and since they outgrew this standard, almost always base them on general
expediency. In England, the preference of one form of government to
another seldom turns on anything but the practical consequences which it
produces, or which are expected from it. M. Comte can point to little of
the nature of metaphysics in English politics, except "la métaphysique
constitutionnelle," a name he chooses to give to the conventional
fiction by which the occupant of the throne is supposed to be the source
from whence all power emanates, while nothing can be further from the
belief or intention of anybody than that such should really be the case.
Apart from this, which is a matter of forms and words, and has no
connexion with any belief except belief in the proprieties, the severest
criticism can find nothing either worse or better, in the modes of
thinking either of our conservative or of our liberal party, than a
particularly shallow and flimsy kind of positivism. The working classes
indeed, or some portion of them, perhaps still rest their claim to
universal suffrage on abstract right, in addition to more substantial
reasons, and thus far and no farther does metaphysics prevail in the
region of English politics. But politics is not the entire art of social
existence: ethics is a still deeper and more vital part of it: and in
that, as much in England as elsewhere, the current opinions are still
divided between the theological mode of thought and the metaphysical.
What is the whole doctrine of Intuitive Morality, which reigns supreme
wherever the idolatry of Scripture texts has abated and the influence of
Bentham's philosophy has not reached, but the metaphysical state of
ethical science? What else, indeed, is the whole _a priori_ philosophy,
in morals, jurisprudence, psychology, logic, even physical science, for
it does not always keep its hands off that, the oldest domain of
observation and experiment? It has the universal diagnostic of the
metaphysical mode of thought, in the Comtean sense of the word; that of
erecting a mere creation of the mind into a test or _norma_ of external
truth, and presenting the abstract expression of the beliefs already
entertained, as the reason and evidence which justifies them. Of those
who still adhere to the old opinions we need not speak; but when one of
the most vigorous as well as boldest thinkers that English speculation
has yet produced, full of the true scientific spirit, Mr Herbert
Spencer, places in the front of his philosophy the doctrine that the
ultimate test of the truth of a proposition is the inconceivableness of
its negative; when, following in the steps of Mr Spencer, an able
expounder of positive philosophy like Mr Lewes, in his meritorious and
by no means superficial work on Aristotle, after laying, very justly,
the blame of almost every error of the ancient thinkers on their
neglecting to _verify_ their opinions, announces that there are two
kinds of verification, the Real and the Ideal, the ideal test of truth
being that its negative is unthinkable, and by the application of that
test judges that gravitation must be universal even in the stellar
regions, because in the absence of proof to the contrary, "the idea of
matter without gravity is unthinkable;"--when those from whom it was
least to be expected thus set up acquired necessities of thought in the
minds of one or two generations as evidence of real necessities in the
universe, we must admit that the metaphysical mode of thought still
rules the higher philosophy, even in the department of inorganic nature,
and far more in all that relates to man as a moral, intellectual, and
social being.
But, while M. Comte is so far in the right, we often, as already
intimated, find him using the name metaphysical to denote certain
practical conclusions, instead of a particular kind of theoretical
premises. Whatever goes by the different names of the revolutionary, the
radical, the democratic, the liberal, the free-thinking, the sceptical,
or the negative and critical school or party in religion, politics, or
philosophy, all passes with him under the designation of metaphysical,
and whatever he has to say about it forms part of his description of the
metaphysical school of social science. He passes in review, one after
another, what he deems the leading doctrines of the revolutionary school
of politics, and dismisses them all as mere instruments of attack upon
the old social system, with no permanent validity as social truth.
He assigns only this humble rank to the first of all the articles of the
liberal creed, "the absolute right of free examination, or the dogma of
unlimited liberty of conscience." As far as this doctrine only means
that opinions, and their expression, should be exempt from _legal_
restraint, either in the form of prevention or of penalty, M. Comte is a
firm adherent of it: but the _moral_ right of every human being, however
ill-prepared by the necessary instruction and discipline, to erect
himself into a judge of the most intricate as well as the most important
questions that can occupy the human intellect, he resolutely denies.
"There is no liberty of conscience," he said in an early work, "in
astronomy, in physics, in chemistry, even in physiology, in the sense
that every one would think it absurd not to accept in confidence the
principles established in those sciences by the competent persons. If it
is otherwise in politics, the reason is merely because, the old
doctrines having gone by and the new ones not being yet formed, there
are not properly, during the interval, any established opinions." When
first mankind outgrew the old doctrines, an appeal from doctors and
teachers to the outside public was inevitable and indispensable, since
without the toleration and encouragement of discussion and criticism
from all quarters, it would have been impossible for any new doctrines
to grow up. But in itself, the practice of carrying the questions which
more than all others require special knowledge and preparation, before
the incompetent tribunal of common opinion, is, he contends, radically
irrational, and will and ought to cease when once mankind have again
made up their minds to a system of doctrine. The prolongation of this
provisional state, producing an ever-increasing divergence of opinions,
is already, according to him, extremely dangerous, since it is only when
there is a tolerable unanimity respecting the rule of life, that a real
moral control can be established over the self-interest and passions of
individuals. Besides which, when every man is encouraged to believe
himself a competent judge of the most difficult social questions, he
cannot be prevented from thinking himself competent also to the most
important public duties, and the baneful competition for power and
official functions spreads constantly downwards to a lower and lower
grade of intelligence. In M. Comte's opinion, the peculiarly complicated
nature of sociological studies, and the great amount of previous
knowledge and intellectual discipline requisite for them, together with
the serious consequences that may be produced by even, temporary errors
on such subjects, render it necessary in the case of ethics and
politics, still more than of mathematics and physics, that whatever
legal liberty may exist of questioning and discussing, the opinions of
mankind should really be formed for them by an exceedingly small number
of minds of the highest class, trained to the task by the most thorough
and laborious mental preparation: and that the questioning of their
conclusions by any one, not of an equivalent grade of intellect and
instruction, should be accounted equally presumptuous, and more
blamable, than the attempts occasionally made by sciolists to refute the
Newtonian astronomy. All this is, in a sense, true: but we confess our
sympathy with those who feel towards it like the man in the story, who
being asked whether he admitted that six and five make eleven, refused
to give an answer until he knew what use was to be made of it. The
doctrine is one of a class of truths which, unless completed by other
truths, are so liable to perversion, that we may fairly decline to take
notice of them except in connexion with some definite application. In
justice to M. Comte it should be said that he does not wish this
intellectual dominion to be exercised over an ignorant people. Par from
him is the thought of promoting the allegiance of the mass to scientific
authority by withholding from them scientific knowledge. He holds it the
duty of society to bestow on every one who grows up to manhood or
womanhood as complete a course of instruction in every department of
science, from mathematics to sociology, as can possibly be made general:
and his ideas of what is possible in that respect are carried to a
length to which few are prepared to follow him. There is something
startling, though, when closely looked into, not Utopian or chimerical,
in the amount of positive knowledge of the most varied kind which he
believes may, by good methods of teaching, be made the common
inheritance of all persons with ordinary faculties who are born into the
world: not the mere knowledge of results, to which, except for the
practical arts, he attaches only secondary value, but knowledge also of
the mode in which those results were attained, and the evidence on which
they rest, so far as it can be known and understood by those who do not
devote their lives to its study.
We have stated thus fully M. Comte's opinion on the most fundamental
doctrine of liberalism, because it is the clue to much of his general
conception of politics. If his object had only been to exemplify by that
doctrine the purely negative character of the principal liberal and
revolutionary schools of thought, he need not have gone so far: it would
have been enough to say, that the mere liberty to hold and express any
creed, cannot itself _be_ that creed. Every one is free to believe and
publish that two and two make ten, but the important thing is to know
that they make four. M. Comte has no difficulty in making out an equally
strong case against the other principal tenets of what he calls the
revolutionary school; since all that they generally amount to is, that
something ought not to be: which cannot possibly be the whole truth, and
which M. Comte, in general, will not admit to be even part of it. Take
for instance the doctrine which denies to governments any initiative in
social progress, restricting them to the function of preserving order,
or in other words keeping the peace: an opinion which, so far as
grounded on so-called rights of the individual, he justly regards as
purely metaphysical; but does not recognise that it is also widely held
as an inference from the laws of human nature and human affairs, and
therefore, whether true or false, as a Positive doctrine. Believing with
M. Comte that there are no absolute truths in the political art, nor
indeed in any art whatever, we agree with him that the _laisser faire_
doctrine, stated without large qualifications, is both unpractical and
unscientific; but it does not follow that those who assert it are not,
nineteen times out of twenty, practically nearer the truth than those
who deny it. The doctrine of Equality meets no better fate at M. Comte's
hands. He regards it as the erection into an absolute dogma of a mere
protest against the inequalities which came down from the middle ages,
and answer no legitimate end in modern society. He observes, that
mankind in a normal state, having to act together, are necessarily, in
practice, organized and classed with some reference to their unequal
aptitudes, natural or acquired, which demand that some should be under
the direction of others: scrupulous regard being at the same time had to
the fulfilment towards all, of "the claims rightfully inherent in the
dignity of a human being; the aggregate of which, still very
insufficiently appreciated, will constitute more and more the principle
of universal morality as applied to daily use... a grand moral
obligation, which has never been directly denied since the abolition of
slavery" (iv. 51). There is not a word to be said against these
doctrines: but the practical question is one which M. Comte never even
entertains--viz., when, after being properly educated, people are left
to find their places for themselves, do they not spontaneously class
themselves in a manner much more conformable to their unequal or
dissimilar aptitudes, than governments or social institutions are likely
to do it for them? The Sovereignty of the People, again,--that
metaphysical axiom which in France and the rest of the Continent has so
long been the theoretic basis of radical and democratic politics,--he
regards as of a purely negative character, signifying the right of the
people to rid themselves by insurrection of a social order that has
become oppressive; but, when erected into a positive principle of
government, which condemns indefinitely all superiors to "an arbitrary
dependence upon the multitude of their inferiors," he considers it as a
sort of "transportation to peoples of the divine right so much
reproached to kings" (iv. 55, 56). On the doctrine as a metaphysical
dogma or an absolute principle, this criticism is just; but there is
also a Positive doctrine, without any pretension to being absolute,
which claims the direct participation of the governed in their own
government, not as a natural right, but as a means to important ends,
under the conditions and with the limitations which those ends impose.
The general result of M. Comte's criticism on the revolutionary
philosophy, is that he deems it not only incapable of aiding the
necessary reorganization of society, but a serious impediment thereto,
by setting up, on all the great interests of mankind, the mere negation
of authority, direction, or organization, as the most perfect state, and
the solution of all problems: the extreme point of this aberration being
reached by Rousseau and his followers, when they extolled the savage
state, as an ideal from which civilization was only a degeneracy, more
or less marked and complete.