comte, auguste - the positive philosophy vol III

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diately to a general Providence, must be less disposed to respect the intervention of the sacerdotal body, whose mystic head has been much lowered in rank. We cannot imagine, at this day, the immense difficulty of every kind that Catholicism had to encounter in organizing the separation of the two authorities; and therefore we can form no judgment of the various resources required by the struggle; among which resources this apotheosis is conspicuous, tending as it did to raise the Church in the eyes of monarchs; while, on the other hand, a rigorous divine unity would have favoured, in an inverse way, too great a concentration of the social ascendancy. We accordingly find in history a varied and decisive manifestation of the obstinate predilection among the kings in general for the heresy of Arius, in which their class instinct confusedly discerned a way to humble the papal independence and to favour the social sway of temporal authority. The same political efficacy attached to the doctrine of the Real Presence, which, intellectually strange as it is, is merely a prolongation of the preceding dogma. By it, the humblest priest is invested with a perpetual power of miraculous consecration, which must give him dignity in the eyes of rulers who, whatever might be their material greatness, could never aspire to such sublime operations. Besides the perpetual stimulus thus administered to faith, such a belief made the minister more absolutely indispensable: whereas, amidst simpler conceptions and a less special worship, temporal rulers might then, as since, have found means to dispense with sacerdotal intervention, on condition of an empty orthodoxy. If we proceeded from the dogma to consider the Catholic worship in the same way, we should find that (apart from the moral instrumentality in regard to individual and social action which it afforded) it had the same political bearing. The sacraments, in their graduated and well combined succession, roused in each believer, at the most important periods of his life, and through its regular course, the spirit of the universal system, by signs specially adapted to the character of each position. In an intellectual view, the mass offers a most unsatisfactory spectacle, appearing to human reason to be merely a sort of magical operation, terminated by the fulfilment of a pure act of spirit-raising, real though mystical: but in a social view, we see in it a happy invention of the theological spirit, suppressing universally and irrevocably the bloody sacrifices of polytheism, by diverting the instinctive need of sacrifice which is inherent in every religious regime, and which was in this case daily gratified by the voluntary immolation of the most precious of imaginable victims.

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What I have said may suggest some conception of the importance of attending to the dogma and worship of the Catholic church in considering its operation on the destiny of society. The more closely we study Catholicism in the Middle Ages, the better we shall understand the interest of the controversies amidst which minds of a high order built up the wonderful organization of their church. The indefatigable labours of so many scholars and pontiffs in opposition to Arianism, which would have destroyed their sacerdotal independence, their struggles against Manicheism, which threatened the very basis of their economy, by substituting dualism for unity; and many other well-known controversies, had as serious and profound a purpose, even of a political kind, as the fiercest contests of our time, which may perhaps appear hereafter quite as strange to philosophers who will overlook the serious social interests involved in the ill-conceived questions that at present abound. The slightest knowledge of ecclesiastical history will confirm the suggestion of philosophy that there must have been some grave meaning in controversies pursued through many centuries by the best minds of the time, amidst the vivid interest of all civilized nations: and there is truth in the remark of Catholic historians, that all heresies of any great importance were accompanied by serious moral or political error,—the logical filiation of which it would generally be easy to establish by considerations analogous to those that I have applied in a few leading cases.

This brief sketch is all that my objects allow me to give of the spiritual organism which was gradually wrought out through a course of ten centuries, by methods, various but united in aim, from St. Paul, who first conceived the general spirit of it, to Hildebrand, who systematized its social constitution; the intermediate period having been well occupied by the concurrence of all the noblest men of whom their race could then boast,—Augustine, Ambrosius, Jerome, Gregory, etc., etc.,—whose unanimous tendency to the establishment of a general unity, however impeded by the mediocrity of the common order of kings, was usually supported by sovereigns of high political ability,—such as Charlemagne and Alfred. From the spiritual organism we may now pass to the temporal, and having done with the political, we shall then be prepared for an analysis of the moral and mental character of the monotheistic regime.

Historical interpreters of the temporal condition of the Middle Ages are apt to assign a far too accidental character to it, by exaggerating the influence of the Germanic invasions. It would be easy to show, first, in answer to this, that the condition of society had so little of the fortuitous

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about it that it might have been actually anticipated (if the necessary knowledge had been obtainable) from the Roman system, modified by the Catholic; and that the feudal system would have arisen without any invasions: and, again, it may be shown that the invasions themselves were a necessary result of the final extension of the Roman dominion. After our late study of the progressive greatness of that dominion, and of its limitations, we easily perceive that the Roman empire must be bounded on one side by the great oriental theocracies, which were too remote and too uncongenial for incorporation; and on another side, and especially westwards, by nations, hunters or shepherds, who, not beings settled down, could not be effectually conquered: so that about the time of Trajan and the Antonines, the system had acquired all the extension it could bear, and might soon expect a reaction. As to the reaction,—it is evident that there can be no real conquest where the agricultural and sedentary mode of life does not exist among the vanquished, as well as the conquerors; for a nomade tribe, driven to seek refuge by removal, will be for ever passing to and fro between its refuge and its old haunts, and the return will be vigorous in proportion to the gradualism of the process of dislodging them from successive territories. In this way, the invasions were no more accidental than the conquests which provoked them; for the gradual driving back, by rendering the conditions of nomade existence more and more irksome, ended be greatly quickening the transition from nomade to agricultural life. The readiest method was to seize on the nearest favourable and prepared territory, whose owners, weakened in proportion to the extension. of the empire, became more and more incapable of resistance. The process was as gradual as that of conquest, though we are apt to suppose otherwise from taking into the account none but the successful final invasions: but the truth is, that invasion had begun, on a large scale, several centuries before Rome attained the summit of its greatness; though its success could not be of a permanent nature till the vigour of the empire, at its heart, began to be exhausted. So natural was this progressive result of the situation of the political world, that it occasioned large concessions, long before the fifth century; such as the incorporation of barbarians in the Roman armies, and the abandonment of certain provinces, on condition that new rivals should be kept in check. Pledged as I am to treat only of the advanced rank of humanity, it was yet necessary to say thus much of the reacting power, because from it mainly the military activity of the Middle Ages took its rise.

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Though the military system was carried on through the Middle Ages, it then essentially changed its character as the civilized world found itself in a new position. Military activity lost its offensive character, and assumed that defensive office which all judicious historians point out as the characteristic quality of the feudal system. This change, powerfully facilitated by Catholicism, was, however, a necessary result of antecedent circumstances, like Catholicism itself. When the Roman extension was complete, it became a primary care to preserve its dominions; and the increasing pressure of the nations which had resisted conquest made such defence continually more urgent in importance. The military regime must thenceforward undergo that transformation into what is called the feudal system, by making political dispersion prevail over a concentration which was becoming continually more difficult as its aim was disappearing: for the dispersion agreed with a system of defence which required the direct and special participation of individuals; whereas, conquest had supposed the thorough subordination of all partial movements to the directing authority. Then was the time when the military chief, always holding himself in readiness for a territorial defence which yet did not require perpetual activity, found himself in possession of independent power in a portion of territory which he was able to protect, with the aid of his military followers whom it was his daily business to govern, unless his power enabled him to reward them with inferior concessions of the same kind, which, again, might in time become susceptible of further division, according to the spirit of the system. Thus, without any Germanic invasion, there was, in the Roman system, a tendency to dismemberment through the disposition of the Governors in general to preserve their territorial office, and, to secure for it that hereditary succession which was the natural prolongation and the most certain pledge of their independence. The tendency was evident even in the East, which was comparatively untouched by invasion. The memorable concentration wrought by Charlemagne was the natural, though temporary result of the general prevalence of feudal methods, achieving the political separation of the West from the empire, which was thenceforth remanded to the East, and preparing for the future propagation of the feudal system, without being able to restrain the dispersive tendency which constituted its spirit. The one remaining attribute of the feudal condition, that which relates to the modification of the lot of slaves, was another result of the change in the military system, which could not but occasion the transmutation of the ancient slavery into serfage, which

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was consolidated and perfected by the influence of Catholicism, as we shall presently see. As the importation of slaves declined with the decline of conquest, and finally came to an end, the internal traffic in slaves relaxed,—their owners being disposed to make an hereditary property of them in proportion to the difficulty of obtaining new supplies. When slaves became thus attached to families and their lands, they became, in fact, serfs. Thus, whichever way we look at it, it appears that the feudal system would have arisen without any aid from barbaric invasion, which could do no more than accelerate its establishment, and thus we get rid of that appearance of fortuity which has disguised, even to the most sagacious minds, the true character of this great social change.

Before I proceed to consider the temporal characteristics of the feudal system, I must just point out the effect of the spiritual institution in preparing for it, and moderating the difficulties of the transition. From its station at the most general point of view the Catholic authority saw the impending certainty of the Germanic invasions, and had nobly prepared to soften the shock by means of courageous missions to the expected invaders: and when they came, the northern nations found awaiting them a powerful clergy ready to restrain their violence towards those whom they vanquished, and from among whom the ranks of that clergy had been recruited. The moral energy and the intellectual rectitude of the conquerors were more favourable to the action of the Church than the sophistical spirit and corrupt manners of the enervated Romans, while, on the other hand, their comparative remoteness from the monotheistic state of mind, and their contempt for the conquered race, were difficulties in the way of the civilizing influence of Catholicism. It was the function of the spiritual body to fuse the respective favourable qualities of the conflicting races, and to aid their subsidence into the system which was to ensue.

The influence of Catholicism on each of the three phases under which the great temporal change to the feudal system presents itself is evident enough. It aided the transformation of offensive into defensive war by its own predominant desire to unite all Christian nations into one great political family, guided by the Church. By its intervention, it obviated many wars,—actuated, no doubt, by a desire to prevent all diminution of its authority over the military chiefs, as well as by the principles and spirit proper to itself. All great expeditions common to the Catholic nations were in fact of a defensive character, and destined to put an end to successive invasions which might become habitual: such, for instance,

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as the wars of Charlemagne against the Saxons and the Saracens, and, at a later time, the Crusades, which were intended as a barrier against the invasion of Mohammedanism.—Again: Catholicism aided the breaking up of the temporal power into small territorial sovereignties, favouring the transmutation of life-interests into hereditary fiefs, and organizing the relation of the principles of obedience and protection, as the basis of the new social discipline. Excluding the hereditary principle in its own structure, it countenanced it here, not under the form of custom or caste, but from a deep sense, however indistinct, of the true social needs of the age. Capacity was the title to power in the Church. On the land, capacity was best secured by that permanent attachment to the soil and to local traditions which secured stability at the same time, and involved the admission of the hereditary principle. The training of the local ruler must be in his home, where he could be specially prepared for his future office, form his ideas and manners, and become interested in the welfare of his vassals and serfs; and all this could not be done without the hereditary principle, the great advantage of which consists in the moral preparation of the individual for his social function. In regulating the reciprocal obligations of the feudal tenure, the beneficent influence of Catholicism is unquestionable. It wrought by that admirable combination, unknown to antiquity, of the instinct of independence and the sentiment of devotedness which established the social superiority of the Middle Ages, when it exhibited a new spectacle of the dignity of human nature among privileged families who were few at first, but who served as a type to all classes, as they successively emerged into freedom.— Again: Catholicism influenced the transmutation of slavery into serfage. The tendency of monotheism to modify slavery is visible even in Mohammedanism, notwithstanding the confusion between the temporal and the spiritual power which it still involves. It is therefore eminently conspicuous in the Catholic system, which interposes a salutary spiritual authority between the master and his slave, or the lord and his serf an authority which is equally respected by both, and which is continually disposed to keep them up to their mutual duty. Traces of this influence may be observed even now, through a comparison of negro slavery in Protestant and Catholic America; the superiority of the lot of the negro in the latter case being a matter of constant remark by impartial investigators, though unhappily the Romish clergy are not clear of participation in this great modern error, so repugnant to its whole doctrine and constitution. From the earliest days, the Catholic power has tended,

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everywhere and always, to the abolition of slavery, which, when the system of conquest had closed, was no longer a necessary condition of political existence, and became a mere hindrance to social development; and not the less because this tendency has been disguised and almost annulled, on occasion, through certain obstacles peculiar to a few Catholic nations.

These three characteristics of the temporal organization of the Middle Ages seemed to be summed up in the institution of Chivalry. Whatever were the abuses attendant upon it, it is impossible to deny its eminent utility during an interval when the central power was as yet inadequate to the direct regulation of internal order in so new a state of society. Though Mohammedanism had, even before the Crusades, originated something like the noble associations by which Chivalry affords a natural corrective of insufficient individual protection, it is certain that their free rise is attributable to the Middle Age spirit; and we discern in it the wisdom of Catholicism converting, a mere means of military education into a powerful social instrumentality. The superiority of merit to birth, and even to the highest authority, which was a principle calf these affiliations, is quite in the Catholic spirit. We must however bear in mind the dangers involved in this institution, and especially the peril to the fundamental principle of the regime when the exigencies of the Crusades created those exceptional orders of European chivalry which united the monastic to the military character, for the purposes of their enterprise. As a natural consequence, this union of qualities bred a monstrous ambition, which dreamed of that very concentration of spiritual and temporal power that the spirit of the age had been occupied in dissolving. The Templars, for instance, were instinctively formed into a find of conspiracy against royalty and the papacy at once; and kings and popes had to lay aside their disputes and unite for the destruction of their common foe. This was, it seems to me, the only serious political danger that social order had to encounter in the Middle Ages. That social order was, in fact, so remarkably correspondent with the contemporary civilization, that it sustained itself by its own weight as long as the correspondence lasted.

Here then we see the feudal system to be, in a temporal sense, the cradle of modern society. It set society forward towards the great aim of the whole European polity,—the gradual transformation of the military into the industrial life. Military activity was then employed as a barrier to the spirit of invasion, which, if not so checked, would have stopped

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the social progress; and the result was obtained when, at length, the peoples of the North and East were compelled, by their inability to find settlements elsewhere, to undergo at home their final transition to agricultural and stationary life, morally guaranteed by their conversion to Catholicism. Thus the progression which the Roman system had started was carried on by the feudal system. The Roman assimilated civilized nations, and the feudal consolidated that union by urging barbarous peoples to civilize themselves also. The feudal system, regarded as a whole, took up war at its defensive stage, and having sufficiently developed it, left it to perish, for want of material and object. Within national limits its influence had the same tendency, both by restricting military activity to a diminishing caste, whose protective authority became compatible with the industrial progress of the nascent working class, and by modifying the warlike character of the chiefs themselves, which gradually changed from that of defender to that of proprietor of territory, in preparation for becoming by-and-by the mere dictator of vast agricultural enterprise, unless indeed it should degenerate into that of Courtier. The great universal tendency, in short, of the economy was to the final abolition of slavery and serfage, and afterwards, the civil emancipation of the industrial class, when the time of fitness should arrive.

From the political, I next proceed to the moral aspect of the monotheistic regime.

As the social establishment of universal morality was the chief destination of Catholicism, some may wonder that I did not take up my present topic at the close of my account of the Catholic organization, without waiting till I had exhibited the temporal order. But I think I am placing the subject in the truest historical light by showing that it belongs to the whole system of political organization proper to the Middle Ages, and not to one of its elements alone. If Catholicism first secured to morality the social ascendancy which is its due, feudalism, as a result of the new social situation, introduced precious germs of a lofty morality peculiar to itself, which Catholicism expanded and improved, but without which it could have had no complete success. Both issuing from antecedent circumstances, Catholicism was the active and rational organ of a progression naturally occasioned by the new phase which human development had assumed. The military and national morality of antiquity, subordinate to polity, had given place to a more pacific and universal morality, predominant over polity, in proportion as the system of conquest became changed into one of defence. Now, the social glory

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of Catholicism,—a glory which mankind will gratefully commemorate when all theological faiths shall have become matters of mere historical remembrance,—is that it developed and regulated to the utmost a tendency which it could not have created. It would be to exaggerate most mischievously the influence, unhappily only too feeble, of any doctrines on human life, to attribute to them the power of so changing the essential mode of human existence. If Catholicism had been transplanted untimely among nations which had not achieved the preparatory progress, its social influence would not have been sustained by the moral efficacy which distinguished it in the Middle Ages. Mohammedanism is an illustration of this. Its morality, derived from Christianity, and no less pure, is far from having produced the same results, because its subjects were insufficiently prepared for a monotheism which was, in their case, far from spontaneous, and altogether premature. We must not then judge of Middle Age morality from the spiritual point of view, without the temporal; and we must moreover avoid any attempt to give precedence to either element, each being indispensable, and the two therefore inseparable.

A great error of the metaphysical school is that of attributing the moral efficacy of Catholicism to its doctrine alone, apart from its organization, which is indeed supposed to have an opposite tendency. It is enough, in answer to this, to refer to what I have already said of the action of the Catholic organization, and to the moral inefficacy of Mohammedanism, and of Greek or Byzantine Catholicism, which, with abundance of doctrinal power, have socially failed for want of a spiritual organization. hike them, Catholicism would have produced its morality in feeble formulas and superstitious practices, suitable to the vague and unconnected character of theological doctrine, if it had not provided for the constant active intervention of an independent and organized spiritual power, which constituted the social value of the religious system. In order to estimate what this operation was, I will briefly consider first how the doctrines of Catholicism wrought in a moral view, apart from their corresponding organization.

The most important question, in this connection, is whether the moral influence of Catholicism in the Middle Ages was owing to its doctrines being the organs for the constitution of certain common opinions, which, when once established, must have permanent moral power from their universality; or whether, according to the popular view, the results are ascribable to personal hope, and yet more, fear, with regard to a future

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life, which Catholicism applied itself to co-ordinate and fortify more completely than any other religion has ever attempted to do, precisely by avoiding all dogma on the subject, and leaving every one s imagination to create the rewards and punishments which would be most effectual in his case. The question can, it is obvious, be decided only by observation of exceptional cases, in which general opinion and religious precepts are in opposition; for, when they co-operate, it is impossible to know how much influence to assign to the one or the other. Rare as are these exceptional cases, there are enough in every age of Catholicism to satisfy us in regard to the great axiom of social statics,—that public prejudices are habitually more active than religious precepts, when any antagonism arises between these two moral forces, which are usually form a convergent. The instance adduced by Condorcet—that of the duel—appears to me sufficiently decisive. This custom, imposed by military morals, induced pious knights to brave the strongest religious condemnation in the most brilliant ages of the Church whereas, at this day, we see the duel spontaneously disappearing by degrees under the strengthening sway of industrial morals, notwithstanding the entire practical decay of religious prohibition. This one instance will guide the reader in his search for analogous cases, all of which will be found more or less illustrative of the tendency in human nature to brave a remote danger, however fearful, rather than immediate discredit in a fixed and unanimous public opinion. It seems, at first sight, as if nothing could counterbalance the power of religious terror directed upon an eternal future; but it is certain that, by the very element of eternity, the threat loses its force, and there have always been strong minds which have inured themselves to it by familiarity, so as not to be trammelled by it in the indulgence of their natural impulses. Every continued sensation becomes, by our nature, converted into indifference; and when Milton introduces alternation in the punishment of the damned, doomed “from beds of burning fire to starve in ice,” the idea of the Russian bath raises a smile, and reminds us that the power of habit extends to alternation, however abrupt, if it be but sufficiently repeated. The same energy which urges to grave crimes fortifies minds against such a future doom, which may also be considered very uncertain, and is always becoming familiarized by lapse of time; and, in the case of ordinary people, while there was absolution in the distance as there always was, it was easier to violate religions precepts to the moderate extent their character of mind required, than to confront public prejudice. Without going further into