comte, auguste - the positive philosophy vol III

Positive Philosophy/351

enough to embarrass the course both of intellectual and social progress. The fourth proposed work will be a systematic Treatise, also in one volume, upon the action of man on nature, a subject that has never, to my knowledge, been rationally treated as a whole. This great and interesting topic can only be handled as yet in general principle, for to treat it in its special applications would require the formation of a concrete science, and this is as yet premature. This work, like the last mentioned. is a natural sequel to the present Treatise, for it will illustrate the relations proper between science and art. The utter confusion that now exists as to the true spheres of theory and practice is assuredly one of the chief difficulties of our modern condition. There is therefore an urgent need for a treatise which seeks to found a standing harmony between the intellectual knowledge and the practical experience which are Galilee

necessary to the healthy life of the social organism.

The order in which these four proposed works can be undertaken may be varied by circumstances without affecting the essence of my scheme. If I were at all certain of being able to execute the whole series, I would follow the order just stated, which is that conceived twenty years ago, and is also the right order from the abstract point of view. But with the brief span of life before me, and the difficulties of existence, I shall no doubt be compelled to undertake first, during the next four or five years, the second of these works, the System of Sociology, as being both the largest and the most important. The fourth, on the action of man upon nature, is the least urgent; nor has the third, on education, the same claims for immediate execution. With regard to the first work, the philosophy of Mathematics, it offers very striking logical advantages; but its postponement would not involve serious evil, and the present race of geometrician are not at all eager for any philosophical handling of their science.

With this programme of labours to come, I now close this work, and I regard it as nothing but the introduction to the various tasks to which I hope to devote my life. Happy should I be, if my scheme be not fatally impeded by the humble and precarious form of material existence to which I am reduced in my forty-fifth year, after a life of toil. For I know that, in spite of my scrupulous discharge of all me professional duties, my means of support may be snatched from me by blind prejudices and passions which are unworthy of the world of science. [Of the four works projected as stated in the text, Auguste Comte published the Sociology, “System for Positive Polity,” four vols. in 1831–1834. A treatise on

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“Analytic Geometry” was published in 1843, and the “Subjective Synthesis,” vol. i, a treatise on the philosophy of Mathematics, in 1856. The second volume was left uncompleted at his death in 1857, and the projected works on education and the action of man on nature here not written though both subjects are incidentally treated in other works.— Translator, F. H.]

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