so rich in enjoyments, that it can afford to forego the cultivation of
all those which address themselves to what M. Comte terms the egoistic
propensities. On the contrary, we believe that a sufficient
gratification of these, short of excess, but up to the measure which
renders the enjoyment greatest, is almost always favourable to the
benevolent affections. The moralization of the personal enjoyments we
deem to consist, not in reducing them to the smallest possible amount,
but in cultivating the habitual wish to share them with others, and with
all others, and scorning to desire anything for oneself which is
incapable of being so shared. There is only one passion or inclination
which is permanently incompatible with this condition--the love of
domination, or superiority, for its own sake; which implies, and is
grounded on, the equivalent depression of other people. As a rule of
conduct, to be enforced by moral sanctions, we think no more should be
attempted than to prevent people from doing harm to others, or omitting
to do such good as they have undertaken. Demanding no more than this,
society, in any tolerable circumstances, obtains much more; for the
natural activity of human nature, shut out from all noxious directions,
will expand itself in useful ones. This is our conception of the moral
rule prescribed by the religion of Humanity. But above this standard
there is an unlimited range of moral worth, up to the most exalted
heroism, which should be fostered by every positive encouragement,
though not converted into an obligation. It is as much a part of our
scheme as of M. Comte's, that the direct cultivation of altruism, and
the subordination of egoism to it, far beyond the point of absolute
moral duty, should be one of the chief aims of education, both
individual and collective. We even recognize the value, for this end, of
ascetic discipline, in the original Greek sense of the word. We think
with Dr Johnson, that he who has never denied himself anything which is
not wrong, cannot be fully trusted for denying himself everything which
is so. We do not doubt that children and young persons will one day be
again systematically disciplined in self-mortification; that they will
be taught, as in antiquity, to control their appetites, to brave
dangers, and submit voluntarily to pain, as simple exercises in
education. Something has been lost as well as gained by no longer giving
to every citizen the training necessary for a soldier. Nor can any pains
taken be too great, to form the habit, and develop the desire, of being
useful to others and to the world, by the practice, independently of
reward and of every personal consideration, of positive virtue beyond
the bounds of prescribed duty. No efforts should be spared to associate
the pupil's self-respect, and his desire of the respect of others, with
service rendered to Humanity; when possible, collectively, but at all
events, what is always possible, in the persons of its individual
members. There are many remarks and precepts in M. Comte's volumes,
which, as no less pertinent to our conception of morality than to his,
we fully accept. For example; without admitting that to make "calculs
personnels" is contrary to morality, we agree with him in the opinion,
that the principal hygienic precepts should be inculcated, not solely or
principally as maxims of prudence, but as a matter of duty to others,
since by squandering our health we disable ourselves from rendering to
our fellow-creatures the services to which they are entitled. As M.
Comte truly says, the prudential motive is by no means fully sufficient
for the purpose, even physicians often disregarding their own precepts.
The personal penalties of neglect of health are commonly distant, as
well as more or less uncertain, and require the additional and more
immediate sanction of moral responsibility. M. Comte, therefore, in this
instance, is, we conceive, right in principle; though we have not the
smallest doubt that he would have gone into extreme exaggeration in
practice, and would have wholly ignored the legitimate liberty of the
individual to judge for himself respecting his own bodily conditions,
with due relation to the sufficiency of his means of knowledge, and
taking the responsibility of the result.
Connected with the same considerations is another idea of M. Comte,
which has great beauty and grandeur in it, and the realization of which,
within the bounds of possibility, would be a cultivation of the social
feelings on a most essential point. It is, that every person who lives
by any useful work, should be habituated to regard himself not as an
individual working for his private benefit, but as a public functionary;
and his wages, of whatever sort, as not the remuneration or
purchase-money of his labour, which should be given freely, but as the
provision made by society to enable him to carry it on, and to replace
the materials and products which have been consumed in the process. M.
Comte observes, that in modern industry every one in fact works much
more for others than for himself, since his productions are to be
consumed by others, and it is only necessary that his thoughts and
imagination should adapt themselves to the real state of the fact. The
practical problem, however, is not quite so simple, for a strong sense
that he is working for others may lead to nothing better than feeling
himself necessary to them, and instead of freely giving his commodity,
may only encourage him to put a high price upon it. What M. Comte really
means is that we should regard working for the benefit of others as a
good in itself; that we should desire it for its own sake, and not for
the sake of remuneration, which cannot justly be claimed for doing what
we like: that the proper return for a service to society is the
gratitude of society: and that the moral claim of any one in regard to
the provision for his personal wants, is not a question of _quid pro
quo_ in respect to his co-operation, but of how much the circumstances
of society permit to be assigned to him, consistently with the just
claims of others. To this opinion we entirely subscribe. The rough
method of settling the labourer's share of the produce, the competition
of the market, may represent a practical necessity, but certainly not a
moral ideal. Its defence is, that civilization has not hitherto been
equal to organizing anything better than this first rude approach to an
equitable distribution. Rude as it is, we for the present go less wrong
by leaving the thing to settle itself, than by settling it artificially
in any mode which has yet been tried. But in whatever manner that
question may ultimately be decided, the true moral and social idea of
Labour is in no way affected by it. Until labourers and employers
perform the work of industry in the spirit in which soldiers perform
that of an army, industry will never be moralized, and military life
will remain, what, in spite of the anti-social character of its direct
object, it has hitherto been--the chief school of moral co-operation.
Thus far of the general idea of M. Comte's ethics and religion. We must
now say something of the details. Here we approach the ludicrous side of
the subject: but we shall unfortunately have to relate other things far
more really ridiculous.
There cannot be a religion without a _cultus._ We use this term for want
of any other, for its nearest equivalent, worship, suggests a different
order of ideas. We mean by it, a set of systematic observances, intended
to cultivate and maintain the religious sentiment. Though M. Comte
justly appreciates the superior efficacy of acts, in keeping up and
strengthening the feeling which prompts them, over any mode whatever of
mere expression, he takes pains to organize the latter also with great
minuteness. He provides an equivalent both for the private devotions,
and for the public ceremonies, of other faiths. The reader will be
surprised to learn, that the former consists of prayer. But prayer, as
understood by M. Comte, does not mean asking; it is a mere outpouring of
feeling; and for this view of it he claims the authority of the
Christian mystics. It is not to be addressed to the Grand Etre, to
collective Humanity; though he occasionally carries metaphor so far as
to style this a goddess. The honours to collective Humanity are reserved
for the public celebrations. Private adoration is to be addressed to it
in the persons of worthy individual representatives, who may be either
living or dead, but must in all cases be women; for women, being the
_sexe aimant_, represent the best attribute of humanity, that which
ought to regulate all human life, nor can Humanity possibly be
symbolized in any form but that of a woman. The objects of private
adoration are the mother, the wife, and the daughter, representing
severally the past, the present, and the future, and calling into active
exercise the three social sentiments, veneration, attachment, and
kindness. We are to regard them, whether dead or alive, as our guardian
angels, "les vrais anges gardiens." If the last two have never existed,
or if, in the particular case, any of the three types is too faulty for
the office assigned to it, their place may be supplied by some other
type of womanly excellence, even by one merely historical. Be the object
living or dead, the adoration (as we understand it) is to be addressed
only to the idea. The prayer consists of two parts; a commemoration,
followed by an effusion. By a commemoration M. Comte means an effort of
memory and imagination, summoning up with the utmost possible vividness
the image of the object: and every artifice is exhausted to render the
image as life-like, as close to the reality, as near an approach to
actual hallucination, as is consistent with sanity. This degree of
intensity having been, as far as practicable, attained, the effusion
follows. Every person should compose his own form of prayer, which
should be repeated not mentally only, but orally, and may be added
to or varied for sufficient cause, but never arbitrarily. It may be
interspersed with passages from the best poets, when they present
themselves spontaneously, as giving a felicitous expression to the
adorer's own feeling. These observances M. Comte practised to the memory
of his Clotilde, and he enjoins them on all true believers. They are to
occupy two hours of every day, divided into three parts; at rising, in
the middle of the working hours, and in bed at night. The first, which
should be in a kneeling attitude, will commonly be the longest, and the
second the shortest. The third is to be extended as nearly as possible
to the moment of falling asleep, that its effect may be felt in
disciplining even the dreams.
The public _cultus_ consists of a series of celebrations or festivals,
eighty-four in the year, so arranged that at least one occurs in every
week. They are devoted to the successive glorification of Humanity
itself; of the various ties, political and domestic, among mankind; of
the successive stages in the past evolution of our species; and of the
several classes into which M. Comte's polity divides mankind. M. Comte's
religion has, moreover, nine Sacraments; consisting in the solemn
consecration, by the priests of Humanity, with appropriate exhortations,
of all the great transitions in life; the entry into life itself, and
into each of its successive stages: education, marriage, the choice of a
profession, and so forth. Among these is death, which receives the name
of transformation, and is considered as a passage from objective
existence to subjective--to living in the memory of our
fellow-creatures. Having no eternity of objective existence to offer,
M. Comte's religion gives it all he can, by holding out the hope of
subjective immortality--of existing in the remembrance and in the
posthumous adoration of mankind at large, if we have done anything to
deserve remembrance from them; at all events, of those whom we loved
during life; and when they too are gone, of being included in the
collective adoration paid to the Grand Etre. People are to be taught to
look forward to this as a sufficient recompense for the devotion of a
whole life to the service of Humanity. Seven years after death, comes
the last Sacrament: a public judgment, by the priesthood, on the memory
of the defunct. This is not designed for purposes of reprobation, but of
honour, and any one may, by declaration during life, exempt himself from
it. If judged, and found worthy, he is solemnly incorporated with the
Grand Etre, and his remains are transferred from the civil to the
religious place of sepulture: "le bois sacré" qui doit entourer chaque
temple de l'Humanité."
This brief abstract gives no idea of the minuteness of M. Comte's
prescriptions, and the extraordinary height to which he carries the
mania for regulation by which Frenchmen are distinguished among
Europeans, and M. Comte among Frenchmen. It is this which throws an
irresistible air of ridicule over the whole subject. There is nothing
really ridiculous in the devotional practices which M. Comte recommends
towards a cherished memory or an ennobling ideal, when they come
unprompted from the depths of the individual feeling; but there is
something ineffably ludicrous in enjoining that everybody shall practise
them three times daily for a period of two hours, not because his
feelings require them, but for the premeditated, purpose of getting his
feelings up. The ludicrous, however, in any of its shapes, is a
phaenomenon with which M. Comte seems to have been totally unacquainted.
There is nothing in his writings from which it could be inferred that he
knew of the existence of such things as wit and humour. The only writer
distinguished for either, of whom he shows any admiration, is Molière,
and him he admires not for his wit but for his wisdom. We notice this
without intending any reflection on M. Comte; for a profound conviction
raises a person above the feeling of ridicule. But there are passages in
his writings which, it really seems to us, could have been written by no
man who had ever laughed. We will give one of these instances. Besides
the regular prayers, M. Comte's religion, like the Catholic, has need of
forms which can be applied to casual and unforeseen occasions. These, he
says, must in general be left to the believer's own choice; but he
suggests as a very suitable one the repetition of "the fundamental
formula of Positivism," viz., "l'amour pour principe, l'ordre pour base,
et le progrès pour but." Not content, however, with an equivalent for
the Paters and Aves of Catholicism, he must have one for the sign of the
cross also; and he thus delivers himself:[23] "Cette expansion peut être
perfectionnée par des signes universels.... Afin de mieux développer
l'aptitude nécessaire de la formule positiviste à représenter toujours
la condition humaine, il convient ordinairement de l'énoncer en touchant
successivement les principaux organes que la théorie cérébrale assigne à
ses trois éléments." This _may_ be a very appropriate mode of expressing
one's devotion to the Grand Etre: but any one who had appreciated its
effect on the profane reader, would have thought it judicious to keep it
back till a considerably more advanced stage in the propagation of the
Positive Religion.
As M. Comte's religion has a _cultus_, so also it has a clergy, who are
the pivot of his entire social and political system. Their nature and
office will be best shown by describing his ideal of political society
in its normal state, with the various classes of which it is composed.
The necessity of a Spiritual Power, distinct and separate from the
temporal government, is the essential principle of M. Comte's political
scheme; as it may well be, since the Spiritual Power is the only
counterpoise he provides or tolerates, to the absolute dominion of the
civil rulers. Nothing can exceed his combined detestation and contempt
for government by assemblies, and for parliamentary or representative
institutions in any form. They are an expedient, in his opinion, only
suited to a state of transition, and even that nowhere but in England.
The attempt to naturalize them in France, or any Continental nation, he
regards as mischievous quackery. Louis Napoleon's usurpation is
absolved, is made laudable to him, because it overthrew a representative
government. Election of superiors by inferiors, except as a
revolutionary expedient, is an abomination in his sight. Public
functionaries of all kinds should name their successors, subject to the
approbation of their own superiors, and giving public notice of the
nomination so long beforehand as to admit of discussion, and the timely
revocation of a wrong choice. But, by the side of the temporal rulers,
he places another authority, with no power to command, but only to
advise and remonstrate. The family being, in his mind as in that of
Frenchmen generally, the foundation and essential type of all society,
the separation of the two powers commences there. The spiritual, or
moral and religious power, in a family, is the women of it. The
positivist family is composed of the "fundamental couple," their
children, and the parents of the man, if alive. The whole government of
the household, except as regards the education of the children, resides
in the man; and even over that he has complete power, but should forbear
to exert it. The part assigned to the women is to improve the man
through his affections, and to bring up the children, who, until the age
of fourteen, at which scientific instruction begins, are to be educated
wholly by their mother. That women may be better fitted for these
functions, they are peremptorily excluded from all others. No woman is
to work for her living. Every woman is to be supported by her husband or
her male relations, and if she has none of these, by the State. She is
to have no powers of government, even domestic, and no property. Her
legal rights of inheritance are preserved to her, that her feelings of
duty may make her voluntarily forego them. There are to be no marriage
portions, that women may no longer be sought in marriage from interested
motives. Marriages are to be rigidly indissoluble, except for a single
cause. It is remarkable that the bitterest enemy of divorce among all
philosophers, nevertheless allows it, in a case which the laws of
England, and of other countries reproached by him with tolerating
divorce, do not admit: namely, when one of the parties has been
sentenced to an infamizing punishment, involving loss of civil rights.
It is monstrous that condemnation, even for life, to a felon's
punishment, should leave an unhappy victim bound to, and in the wife's
case under the legal authority of, the culprit. M. Comte could feel for
the injustice in this special case, because it chanced to be the
unfortunate situation of his Clotilde. Minor degrees of unworthiness may
entitle the innocent party to a legal separation, but without the power
of re-marriage. Second marriages, indeed, are not permitted by the
Positive Religion. There is to be no impediment to them by law, but
morality is to condemn them, and every couple who are married
religiously as well as civilly are to make a vow of eternal widowhood,
"le veuvage éternel." This absolute monogamy is, in M. Comte's opinion,
essential to the complete fusion between two beings, which is the
essence of marriage; and moreover, eternal constancy is required by the
posthumous adoration, which is to be continuously paid by the survivor
to one who, though objectively dead, still lives "subjectively." The
domestic spiritual power, which resides in the women of the family, is
chiefly concentrated in the most venerable of them, the husband's
mother, while alive. It has an auxiliary in the influence of age,
represented by the husband's father, who is supposed to have passed the
period of retirement from active life, fixed by M. Comte (for he fixes
everything) at sixty-three; at which age the head of the family gives up
the reins of authority to his son, retaining only a consultative voice.
This domestic Spiritual Power, being principally moral, and confined to
a private life, requires the support and guidance of an intellectual
power exterior to it, the sphere of which will naturally be wider,
extending also to public life. This consists of the clergy, or
priesthood, for M. Comte is fond of borrowing the consecrated
expressions of Catholicism to denote the nearest equivalents which his
own system affords. The clergy are the theoretic or philosophical class,
and are supported by an endowment from the State, voted periodically,
but administered by themselves. Like women, they are to be excluded from
all riches, and from all participation in power (except the absolute
power of each over his own household). They are neither to inherit, nor
to receive emolument from any of their functions, or from their writings
or teachings of any description, but are to live solely on their small
salaries. This M. Comte deems necessary to the complete
disinterestedness of their counsel. To have the confidence of the
masses, they must, like the masses, be poor. Their exclusion from
political and from all other practical occupations is indispensable for
the same reason, and for others equally peremptory. Those occupations
are, he contends, incompatible with the habits of mind necessary to
philosophers. A practical position, either private or public, chains the
mind to specialities and details, while a philosopher's business is with
general truths and connected views (vues d'ensemble). These, again,
require an habitual abstraction from details, which unfits the mind for
judging well and rapidly of individual cases. The same person cannot be
both a good theorist and a good practitioner or ruler, though
practitioners and rulers ought to have a solid theoretic education. The
two kinds of function must be absolutely exclusive of one another: to
attempt them both, is inconsistent with fitness for either. But as men
may mistake their vocation, up to the age of thirty-five they are
allowed to change their career.
To the clergy is entrusted the theoretic or scientific instruction of
youth. The medical art also is to be in their hands, since no one is fit
to be a physician who does not study and understand the whole man, moral
as well as physical. M. Comte has a contemptuous opinion of the existing
race of physicians, who, he says, deserve no higher name than that of
veterinaires, since they concern themselves with man only in his animal,
and not in his human character. In his last years, M. Comte (as we learn
from Dr Robinet's volume) indulged in the wildest speculations on
medical science, declaring all maladies to be one and the same disease,
the disturbance or destruction of "l'unité cérébrale." The other
functions of the clergy are moral, much more than intellectual. They are
the spiritual directors, and venerated advisers, of the active or
practical classes, including the political. They are the mediators in
all social differences; between the labourers, for instance, and their
employers. They are to advise and admonish on all important violations
of the moral law. Especially, it devolves on them to keep the rich and
powerful to the performance of their moral duties towards their
inferiors. If private remonstrance fails, public denunciation is to
follow: in extreme cases they may proceed to the length of
excommunication, which, though it only operates through opinion, yet if
it carries opinion with it, may, as M. Comte complacently observes, be
of such powerful efficacy, that the richest man may be driven to produce
his subsistence by his own manual labour, through the impossibility of
inducing any other person to work for him. In this as in all other
cases, the priesthood depends for its authority on carrying with it the
mass of the people--those who, possessing no accumulations, live on the
wages of daily labour; popularly but incorrectly termed the working
classes, and by French writers, in their Roman law phraseology,
proletaires. These, therefore, who are not allowed the smallest
political rights, are incorporated into the Spiritual Power, of which
they form, after women and the clergy, the third element.