comte, auguste - the positive philosophy vol III

Positive Philosophy/161

reformation which had cost so much. The repugnance extends beyond official Protestantism, to the least orthodox dissenting sects, which, proud of their comparative freedom, cling the more earnestly to the doctrines they have retained, and which therefore hold in especial horror such an irresistible concurrence of philosophical opinions as dispenses at once with all this laborious Protestant transition. In Catholic countries, on the other hand, where the people had any intellectual liberty left at all, the only refuge from complete mental despotism was in the negative philosophy, systematically extended. The centre of the intellectual and social movement was therefore transferred to Catholic countries, and especially to France. The whole of Christendom was concerned in the entire reformatory movement; but its purely Protestant periods were conducted by Germany, Holland, and England, in succession, while France was destined to illustrate its last revolutionary phase. With the change of the centre of philosophic movement, came a change of its organs. We may assign to this period the rise as a class of the scholars, or men of letters, who now took the place of the heads of faculties, or doctors properly so called; in the same way that the lawyers provisionally assumed the social authority before held by the judges. The change took place as a matter of necessity from the adhesion of the universities to the retrograde system, after having been the first movers in the critical direction. This kind of defection, which began in Protestant countries, soon spread to Catholic nations, where the Parliaments and universities were seen, at the end of the seventeenth century, to leave as much horror of intellectual freedom and as much attachment to the retrograde coalition as the official administrators of legalized Protestantism in reformed countries. Meantime, the universities were giving an education less and less doctrinal and more and more literary, and were sending forth, in every country. a great number of men who, having neither positivity enough for true scientific culture, nor a logical training for the philosophical profession, in its true sense, nor imagination to qualify the for the poetic career, and yet deciding upon an intellectual vocation of some kind, were led to form that highly equivocal class of modern European society, which have no express mental function, and are known by the names of men of letters, authors. All circumstances being, in their case as in that of the layovers, unfavourable to the generation of deep convictions,—even of such obscure metaphysical convictions as very ancient doctor had of his own,—these modern scholars could not be the agents by whom the negative philosophy should be

162/Auguste Comte

systematically wrought out: but, when it was once founded by genuine philosophers, they were the men to direct its propagation, in a manner more active, more varied, and more effectual than could have been adopted by a more truly philosophical order of minds. Their defects were favourable to their work. Their want of profound conviction lessened the absolute character of their propositions; and their versatility enabled them to meet the existing social need of partial stimulation in various directions. Such an intellectual condition would be truly monstrous if it were regarded as permanent; but it was adapted to the requisitions of the last stage of the spiritual disorganization

By this time the emancipation had proceeded so far that the mere existence of anti-theological discussion brought after it the certainty of propagation of the philosophical movement, the only hindrance to which was the horror with which men were taught to regard the organs of emancipation,—a horror which must presently give way before familiarity. The advocates of the old theology confirmed the tendency to scepticism by themselves subordinating faith to reason in their appeals on behalf of the entire body of doctrine; and from the very nature of religious conceptions, whose power results altogether from their spontaneousness, nothing can preserve them from destruction when they have once become the subject of discussion, whatever triumph they may at first obtain. Thus the spirit of controversy peculiar to monotheism, and especially to the Catholic form of it, must be historically regarded as au evidence of the continuous decline of the theological philosophy. The innumerable demonstrations of the existence of God, so ostentatiously disseminated since the twelfth century, prove that bold doubts on that subject were in existence, and the defence tended to increase them, both by the weakness of mans of the extremely various arguments, and by the very decision of others, which suggested the logical sin that had been committed all along in admitting corresponding opinions, without being able to support them be such victorious proofs. Pascal seems to me to have been the only philosopher of the theological school who really understood or at least clearly pointed out, the danger of controversial demonstrations, such as abounded in his time: and when he stated his view, the consequence was that theology was reproached with receding before reason, after having long appealed to its arbitration. This was especially true in regard to the famous arguments derived from the scheme of natural phenomena. Pascal regarded these as particularly indiscreet, though dogmatic theology derived its chief evidences thence for several

Positive Philosophy/163

centuries, little suspecting that a further study of nature would disclose the extreme imperfection of the economy which inspired a blind and absolute admiration, before it could be explored in the positive spirit.

We thus see how the way was cleared for the propagation of the negative doctrine,—for its transmission from the pure thinkers to the authors who were to popularize it. We may discern how the title of philosopher had been lowered before it could be applied to these last, to whom the art of expression was more important than the power of thinking; but the intellectual and social need of their office assigns a place in history to the most important of their class, with Voltaire at their head,— the singularly admirable combination of secondary intellectual qualities in his mind presenting so largely the appearance of strength and genius. In its passage from the thins to the writers the negative philosophy assumed a wearer character, both in accommodation to the feebler rationality of the new organs and for the salve of the universal propagation of the movement The school of Voltaire brought the doctrine of Spinoza, Hobbes, and Bayle to a stop at dews, properly so called, which was sufficient for the entire destruction of the religious system, while it was less alarming. It suited that school, in their logical weakness, to prolong for their own use the inconsistency of Protestantism, by which religion is destroyed in the name of the religious principle so as to include within the movement the most timid believers. The intellectual and social mischief of their method is evident now in the encouragement thereby given to convenient hypocrisy, and by the confusion it has caused in the popular mind about the real direction of the movement, which it is supposed by many pretended thinkers may be stopped at deism. In like manner their predecessors supposed it might be stopped at the Socinian phase, at the Calvinistic, and even at the Lutheran,—no failure having conveyed any instruction to successive sects. The absurdity reached its height when the movement of emancipation was expected to stop at the least substantial and durable of all theological states. It does not fall within my purpose to examine the methods of propagation employed by the school of Voltaire; but I may just point out that their work was less hindered than might be supposed by the negative character of their doctrine. The absence of common convictions, and the presence of as many views as there were men, were of little consequence when the work to be done was that of destroying what they all alike disbelieved. Their intellectual differences and moral and social rivalries might how ever have discredited their world, as they had that of Protestantism, but for Diderot’s

164/Auguste Comte

happy expedient of the Encyclopedic enterprise, which might serve as a centre for the most divergent efforts, and give some appearance of a philosophical system to the aggregate of these incoherent speculations. There is no need to dwell on the powerlessness of the conception directed by the metaphysical spirit alone, and wholly unfit to give an idea of Bacon’s great original project either as to spirit or method. The carrying out of that project is even yet premature, being in no way related to a negative philosophy, and impracticable till a truly positive philosophy shall have obtained its due ascendancy.

Such is the historical view of the most decisive and prolonged part of the philosophical movement appointed to the eighteenth century. When we consider the superficial or sophistical nature of the attacks aimed against the old system, and the weak logic and the irrational direction with which they are chargeable, we shall see that nothing, but miracle could have accounted for their success, if they had not been in accordance with the needs of modern society, as it stood at the end of four centuries of change. The efforts of the destructive school, which would have exerted but little influence some centuries before, were now countenanced and sustained by eminent contemporaries of every order, whether they tool; any active part in them or not. The original sanction which the negative philosophy had given to the temporal dictatorship happily concealed its revolutionary tendencies from commonplace statesmen, who can estimate none but immediate material consequences; but it is impossible to suppose that the political genius of Frederick the Great was blind to the bearings of the intellectual movement. The constant protection afforded by so competent a judge to the propagation of the movement could arise only from a strong conviction of the provisional necessity of a negative phase like that of his time, in preparation for the natural organization of a rational and pacific philosophy, such as had ever been, from the time of the Roman conquest, the object of aspiration of all superior men, of all castes and conditions.

It only remains for me now to notice very briefly the political action of the negative philosophy,—the preparation for the great revolutionary outburst which was sure to occur whenever the spiritual disorganization should have gone so far as to turn attention upon the temporal. The new philosophical school had appealed to the intellect of men, however feebly and frivolously. The new political school appealed to the passions of men, and thence derived such strength as it obtained. I need not say that its advent and its action were inevitable. Hobbes had favoured the tem-

Positive Philosophy/165

poral dictatorship so far as to advocate its being left intact,—provision- ally, of course, and as long as there was work to do in the spiritual department; and when the critical spirit had finished the wore of destruction there, it was so far exhausted, or alarmed at the prospect of total anarchy, that it passed on somewhat feebly to the attack on temporal institutions, and showed little firmness against serious resistance. As philosophy extended to the multitude, the philosophical class consisted of minds more and more ordinary, united to characters less and less lofty, and fully inclined to reconcile, each in his own case, the honours of an easy mental emancipation with the profit of an indulgent political approbation, according to the example set by many of their Protestant precursors. At the same time, the temporal rule was becoming more and more retrograde and corrupt, through the growing incapacity of royalty and the progressive demoralization of the aristocracy, which had abdicated its original and honourable function. In this state of things the critical philosophy would have been of less social use, as it was more urgently needed, if Rousseau had not roused men by convincing them that moral and political regeneration was the true end of the philosophical movement, which would otherwise end in mere fruitless intellectual agitation. Rousseau brought to the task only his sophisms and his passions, which closely belonged to each other. His nature was more that of the artist than the philosopher; and the work of framing the revolutionary philosophy into a political system was left to another order of minds. This had been partly done before, and some sober minded men were employed upon it now; but the audacious outbreak of Rousseau, with his great paradox, was necessary to direct social indignation upon the general vices of the old social organization. while it not the less involved the principle of all possible social disturbance by the barbarous negation of Society itself. To understand the service reused amidst fearful mischiefs, we must consider that political philosophy was then so imperfect that the best minds conceived of no other improvement than by means of modifications of the old system, whose very conditions of existence were extinct. Thus all chance of reorganization seemed to be thrown away, and the movement to be abortive in its last stage, when the anarchical school of Rousseau intervened, to open an issue to the great negative process which had been carried on for so long, and must now be brought to its revolutionary crisis. Such is the sad necessity which condemns social conceptions to gain ground only through the antagonism of empirical colors till the ascendancy of the positive philosophy

166/Auguste Comte

shall have rationalized this last great order of human speculations. One noticeable feature in this temporal application of the negative

philosophy is its retrograde tendency in spiritual matters, which connected it rather with the Protestant, than with the philosophical movement, though it took its origin from the latter. In the philosophical school, systematic deism was merely a provisional concession, preparatory to entire theological emancipation: whereas, in the political school, deism was the basis of the social Utopia, and the only security against total anarchy. The growing tendency of this natural disposition was to bring back the school to Socinianism, or even to Calvinism, in its strict sense, in proportion to the sense of the social inanity of a religion without a worship and a priesthood. Thus we see how the two chief schools of the last century were led by their respective opposite instincts to regard deism as a temporary station, whence the one may go forward and the other backward, amidst the ruin of the old religious system, and here we find the explanation of the different impression made be the two schools on the sacerdotal instinct of our time, notwithstanding the apparent conformity of their theological dogmas.

The political school of the negative doctrine is usually supposed to be represented by Rousseau; but we must not overlook the participation in it of the political sect of the Economists, who bore a large share in the disorganization of the ancient social system. Without repeating what I have said before or anticipating what I shall have to say in the next chapter, I must just observe here that the revolutionary action of the Economists consisted in the proof that they offend to rulers themselves that governments cannot direct industrial progress,—an all-important point, because, military activity having declined, Governments were thus deprived of their chief temporal prerogative, and, with it, of the last habitual pretext for war, which had by that time become essentially commercial in character. Notwithstanding its absurdities and exaggerations, this school rendered, in this way, unquestionable services to the task of the last century. Its chief influence is attributable to the work of Adam Smith and it was the offspring of Protestantism, through the industrial superiority of Protestant nations, but its chief development took place, together with the rest of the negative philosophy, in France. It is curious that the first professorships of this pretended science were established in Spain, and in the least advanced parts of Italy; so curiously were its revolutionary origin and tendency concealed under special forms which made it acceptable to the existing powers, which it in fact re-

Positive Philosophy/167

garded only as a useful administrative instrumentality. Yet it sanctioned the spirit of individualism and the state of no-government: and some of its professors deduce from it the superfluousness of all regular moral instruction, and all official encouragement of science and the fine arts; and, as I before remarked, the latest attacks on the institutions of property itself have arisen out of the metaphysics of political economy,— now that its proper office is accomplished, and that it tends, like other parts of the negative philosophy, to the anarchy which succeeds.

The intellectual and moral evils attendant on this phase of the negative philosophy will come under consideration hereafter. Here I need merely notify what they were, for the sake of historical completeness. The intellectual guides of the time were wanting in depth of conviction, and accordingly in rational consistency. The most important and difficult questions were delivered over to the minds the least qualified to treat of them; the social movement was in the hands of sophists and orators, and the passions were appealed to to settle difficulties which required the most careful intellectual management. The Catholic system became the subject of an undue hatred; and the Protestants longed to restore the early Christian times, and others, the polytheistic system,— a curious evidence of the last desire being an actual series of attempts to revive the reputation of Julian the Apostate. Again, there was a reproduction of the old Greek notion of a kind of metaphysical theocracy, under the form, in Protestant minds, of a reign of Saints, and in others, of a reign of Sages. There was, again, a decided aggravation of the tendency to set practice above theory,—to prefer immediate expedients to general principles, and to refer all social difficulties to temporal institutions for their cure; and hence arbitrary regulations, which were dignified with the name of laws, encroached upon the domain of morals and opinions. Such were the intellectual errors and extravagances of the time, in some of which the philosophical, and in others the political, school was most deeply involved, while neither school was irreproachable in regard to any one error. The moral errors are obvious enough. All the ancient bases of morality, public and private, were destroyed, and principles of conduct were delivered over to the estimate of individual consciences, which were but too apt to involve moral ideas in their hatred of the corresponding theological conceptions. Wise as were the moral Repossessions imparted by Catholicism, they could not withstand the dissolving action of such metaphysical discussion as that of the last century; and that we possess any morality at all beyond the

168/Auguste Comte

simplest rules applicable to the most obvious positions, and comprehensible by the rudest minds, is owing to the natural instinct of morality in Man, and the increasing influence of modern civilization. Between the moral impotence of a negative doctrine and the active vitiating influence of a sophistical doctrine, the philosophical schools of the last century exhibited a moral deterioration very like that of Epicurus, which indeed it was the fashion of the time to extol. We can see how the deistical movement developed the moral evils which grew out of the Protestant movement by urging to its ultimate limit the spiritual disorganization which was its universal principle. In such a result we see the proof of the temporary character of this pretended philosophy, formed as it was to destroy, while it was utterly unable to organize even the simplest human relations; and the more it triumphed in its political direction, the more conspicuous was its organic imbecility. Looking at the two philosophies, and seeing how the theological could not preserve the morality that the metaphysical destroyed, and how the process was hastened by the old morality being disgraced by the intellectual discredit of theology, we cannot but see that the only resource is in the positive philosophy which alone can satisfy the needs at once of order and of progress, in which the two former philosophies, taking them under their respective charge, have, when it became necessary to unite them, signally failed.

We have now contemplated the dissolution of the old system under the action of the revolutionary movement. In the next chapter we shall see how the elements of a new system had been forming and silently arising in the midst of the destruction, and we must endeavour to form that estimate of these materials of social reorganization which has hitherto been impracticable, for want of the doctrine which should guide the process, and to which we must look for the full termination of the transition stage, which was virtually fulfilled in the eighteenth century.

Chapter XI

Rise of The Elements of The Positive State.— Preparation For Social Reorganization

We have finished the irksome task of observing the process of dissolution of the old system of society during the last five centuries, and we may now turn to the pleasanter consideration of the reorganizing movement which was going on at the same time.

In fixing the date of the beginning of the new social formation, we

Positive Philosophy/169

must remember that there is an interval between the generation of new social classes and the first manifestation of their tendencies. Considered in this way, it is the opening of the fourteenth century that we must fix upon as the time when the organic industry of modern society began to assume a characteristic quality. All the chief talkers of civilization indeed concur in marking that era as the true origin of modern history. The industrial expansion was then signalized by the universal legal admission of communities as general and permanent elements of the political system, not only in Italy, where it had happened some time before, but throughout Western Europe, where the event was sanctioned by various titles in England, France, Germany, and Spain; and the fact is marked and confirmed by the vast insurrections which, in almost every country, and especially in France and England, testified, during the second half of the century, to the nascent force of the labouring classes against the powers which were, in the respective cases, specially opposed to them. At the same period the great institution of paid armies was established in Italy; and they, marking a phase of industrial life among modern peoples, are as important in the organic as in the critical connection. Such innovations as the use of the compass and of firearms coincide with other tokens of commercial activity. And the same impulsion is traceable in the department of the arts, which we can hardly carry back, in their modern further than Dante and Petrarch in poetry, and the works of their time in painting and music. The scientific movement is somewhat less evident; but this was the time when natural philosophy became a special study, under forms corresponding with prevailing opinions, as we see by the new interest excited by astronomy in the intellectual centres of Western Europe, by chemical researches, and even by the first sound anatomical observations that had ever been regularly instituted. The rise of philosophy, though the latest, and mixed up with the metaphysical spirit and the beginning of scholasticism, indicated the approach of a radical renovation, one symptom of which was the direction taken at that time by the controversy of the Realists and the Nominalists. From all the four points of view it thus appears that the. beginning of the fourteenth century is the date of the first development of modern civilization, as far as we may venture to assign dates to sociological processes, which are too gradual to have any natural connection with special dates, such as we introduce as aids to order of thought and precision of memory.

The development of new social elements was coincident with the

170/Auguste Comte

decay of the old ones in this way. Their early growth was both repressed and concealed under the contemptuous protection of the preponderant powers of the time, till those powers entered into mutual conflict; then the new elements, being necessarily called in as auxiliaries, could not but aid by their mere action the disorganization of which the conflict was a sign. To the same end, as the Catholic and feudal system was transient in its nature, its decline must begin from the moment of its highest splendour; for, its provisional office being fulfilled, its elements immediately began to lose at once the aim of their activity and the restraint which had curbed their mutual antipathy. From that precise moment the germs of the new system began to expand. When aggressive warfare was over, the human energy which was set free resorted to industrial interests for occupation; and when the monotheistic philosophy had obtained all the political ascendancy it could ever have, the highest minds, finding no more theological development to be looked for, obtained a worthy scope in a scientific or artistic career. Thus we see that there was nothing accidental or empirical in the coincidence of the rise of the new order of things with the decay of the old, but rather a precise accordance between the principles and the facts of the case.

As to the order which we should assign to the four kinds of develop- ment,—it is determined be the great law of the priority of the more general and simple over the now special and complex,—though the working of the law may not be recognized till it is revealed by distance of time. This law is not confined to the co-ordination of speculative conceptions, but extends to all positive modes of human activity, practical and individual, as well as theoretical and collective; and its final customary application will be in social classification, the character of which will be determined by the whole of its deductions. We shall see this fully in the next chapter,—and I mention it here only because I have to arrange my historical material by means of the principle.

The way in which it is to be applied, amidst the distracting speciality of the multitude of human occupations, is by drawing out a vast line comprehending all those occupations, from the most insignificant material acts to the sublimest speculations, aesthetic, scientific, or philosophical, in an ascending succession of generality and abstractness, in a normal view of their character; and therefore in a descending series of professions, according to the increasing complexity of their immediate purpose, and the more direct utility of their daily operations. Regarded as a whole, this vast series presents in its higher divisions a more emi-