comte, auguste - the positive philosophy vol III

Positive Philosophy/61

disposed towards the same culture, especially in the direction of the fine arts. Still, the germs of this intellectual and moral development were derived from theocratic societies, by means of colonization. Through the concurrence of these conditions there arose in Greece an entirely new class, destined to be the organ of mental progression, as being eminently speculative without being sacerdotal, and active without being engrossed by war. By a slight change of this antagonism, in both directions, the philosophers, upon of science, and artists, continued to be simply pontiffs more or less elevated in the sacerdotal hierarchy, or became humble servitors, charged with the instruction of great military families. Thus, though military activity was politically barren among the Greeks, it wrought in favour of human progression, independently of its special importance in rescuing from theocratic influences that little nucleus of freethinkers who were in some sort charged with the intellectual destinies of our race, and who would probably have been overwhelmed in theocratic degradation, but for the sublime achievements of Thermopylae, Marathon, Salamis, and of Alexander in his immortal career of conquest.

Of the operation of the Greek regime on the fine arts enough has been said for my purpose here. As to the scientific aspect, as a manifestation of a new intellectual element, largely affecting the rise of philosophy, we must fix our attention on the formation, nearly thirty centuries ago, of a contemplative class, composed of free men, intelligent and at leisure, with no determinate social function, and therefore more purely speculative than theocratic dignitaries, who were occupied in preserving or applying their predominant power. In imitation of their sacerdotal precursors, these sages or philosophers at first cultivated all the parts of the intellectual domain at once,—with the one exception that poetry was early separated from the other fine arts, in virtue of its more rapid expansion: but soon, that great division arose which furnished the basis of our scientific development, when the positive spirit began to manifest itself, amidst the philosophy, first theological and then metaphysical, which governed all ancient speculation. The first appearance of the true scientific spirit was naturally in the form of mathematical ideas,—the necessary origin, from their simplicity, generality, and abstract character, of rational positivism. It was by these qualities that mathematical ideas were the first to be withdrawn from the theological jurisdiction under which they had been only implicitly comprehended; and it was through them that purely arithmetical ideas were a subject of study be-

62/Auguste Comte

fore geometry was disengaged from the art of measurement, with which it was incorporated in theocratic speculation. The very name of the science, however, indicates a culture almost as ancient: and geometry, properly so called, could alone offer an adequate field for arithmetical, and yet more for algebraic pursuit. which could not at first be separated. Thence Thales derived the first true Geometry, which he presented in his fundamental theory of rectilinear figures, soon extended by the immortal discovery of Pythagoras, which might indeed have been derived from the theorems of Thales on proportional lines. if the power of abstract deduction had been sufficiently advanced, but which proceeded from the distinct principle of the direct study of areas. The well-known fact of Thales teaching the Egyptian priests to measure the height of their pyramids by the length of their shadows is, to the thoughtful, a symptom of vast significance, disclosing the true state of science, still absurdly exaggerated in favour of ancient theocracy, while it exhibits the intellectual progress already made when human progress began to deal, for purposes of scientific utility, with an order of phenomena which had hitherto been merely a subject of superstitious terror. From that date geometry rose, by the aid of the invention of conic sections, to the perfection which it exhibited in the genius of Archimedes, in whom we recognize the eternal type of the true geometer, and the originator of the fundamental methods to which we owe all subsequent progress. After him, I need specify (except perhaps Apollonius) only Hipparchus, the founder of trigonometry (after the preparation made by Archimedes), the inventor of the chief methods of celestial geometry, and the indicator of its practical relations, in regard to the ascertainment of time and place. Mathematical speculation then offered the only field for scientific activity, for reasons exhibited in the whole course of this work, and illustrated by the very name of the science indicating its exclusive positivity at that period. The study of life by the physician Hippocrates, and the works of Aristotle on animals, meritorious as they are, could not so affect the human mind as to render it adequate to sciences of such complexity as to require a systematic creation in a remote future.

With this advent of rational positivity came in that spirit of special research which at once distinguished the new order of speculations from the indeterminate contemplations of this philosophy. Our modern need is of new generalities, but the case of the ancients was very different. The pursuit of specialities then involved no political disadvantages; and it was the only means by which, independently of the common need of

Positive Philosophy/63

division of employments. the human mind could learn to penetrate the depths of any subject whatever. In short, the scientific spirit was not, ruder the theological regime, the chief ulterior element of the positive regime, but only destined for its remote preparation; and it must therefore be special in its character, or fail altogether: and there is in fact, no doubt that men of science, properly so called, began to appear as a separate class from the philosophers, at the memorable epoch distinguished under this point of view by the foundation of the museum of Alexandria, directly adapted to satisfy this new intellectual need, when progressive polytheism had achieved its final triumph over the stationary.

As for the purely philosophical development, it had for some time before its separation from the scientific, been influenced by the nascent positivity. This is shown by the marked intervention of metaphysics. Before astronomical study had begun to disclose the existence of natural laws, the human mind eager to escape from the exclusively theological regime, was searching among rudimentary mathematical conceptions for universal ideas of order and fitness, which, confused and illusory as they were, were a genuine first presentiment of the subjection of all phenomena to natural laws. This original loan of science to philosophy was the basis of the whole Greek metaphysics; and the metaphysical spirit followed upon mathematical discovery, passing from the mysteries of numbers to those of forms, as science proceeded from arithmetic to geometry, and at length comprehended both classes of ideas. Aristotle’s mighty world will always be the most admirable monument of this philosophy, and an immortal testimony to the intrinsic power of human reason in a period of extreme speculative imperfection, passing sagacious judgment on the sciences and fine arts, and omitting from his range of conceptions only the industrial arts, which were then thought beneath the notice of free citizens. When the Alexandrian establishment had separated philosophy into natural and moral, it obtained a more and more active social existence, and strove for ever increasing influence upon the government of mankind. Notwithstanding the strange extravagances of this new phase, it was as necessary as the first in preparation for the monotheistic regime, not only as precipitating the decline of polytheism, but as unconsciously supplying, as we shall see, a germ of spiritual re-organization. If we made a thorough examination into the series of speculations on the supreme good, we should discover a tendency to conceive of social economy in complete independence of all theological

64/Auguste Comte

philosophy. But such a hope could have none but a critical influence, like all that sprang from this philosophy, which was the active organ of an intellectual and moral anarchy very like our own. Its radical unfitness to be a basis of even mental, and much more social organization, is unquestionable, at the time of its chief spiritual activity, as we see by the continuous progress of universal and systematic doubt, leading every school from Socrates to Pyrrho and Epicurus to a denial of all external existence. This strange issue, directly incompatible with any idea of natural law, discloses the radical antipathy between the metaphysical spirit and the positive, from the time of the separation of philosophy from science; a separation which the good sense of Socrates saw to be impending, but without suspecting either the limits or the dangers involved. Its distinctive social action throughout its whole course, reprobated as it will ever be by posterity, was well represented by the noble Fabricius, when, spearing of Epicureanism, he regretted that such a moral philosophy as that did not prevail among the Samnites and the other enemies of Rome, because it would then be so easy to conquer them. Its intellectual action was scarcely more favourable; as we may judge by the fact that when the separation between philosophy and science had gone sufficiently far, the most eminent philosophers were ignorant of knowledge which was popularized in the school of Alexandria, as when the philosophy of Epicurus put forth those strange astronomical absurdities which the poet Lucretius piously repeated, half a century after the time of Hipparchus. In short, metaphysics desired to be so independent and absolute as to be emancipated from the only two powers that can organize,—theology and science.

The Roman civilization will not detain us so long as the Greek. It is more simple and marked; and its influence on modern society is more complete and evident. I may point out here, that in assigning the names Greek and Roman to certain phases of civilization, I am not deserting my abstract method of research, but rendering those names abstract, by making them the representatives of certain collective conditions. Antiquity presents many populations animated by military activity, but prevented by circumstances from fulfilling a career of conquest; and, on the other hand, inverse influences have favoured an opposite state. Each case must in its extreme, furnish an instance of preponderant political or intellectual superiority. The system of conquest could not be completely carried out by more than one power: and the spiritual action whic h was compatible with the age, must operate from a single centre first, what-

Positive Philosophy/65

ever the ulterior propagation might amount to. The further we examine, the more we shall see that there has been nothing fortuitous about this double process of human advancement, even in the places and times indicated by these representative names. As to the places, it is obvious that the two movements, political and intellectual, go forward in scenes sufficiently but not too remote, so that at the outset the one should not be absorbed or perverted by the other, while yet they should be able, after a certain progress had been made, to penetrate each other, so as to conduce and converge equally to the monotheistic regime of the Middle Ages, which we shall soon see to have issued from this memorable combination. As to the time, it is obvious that the mental progression of Greece must precede by some centuries the extension of the Roman dominion, the premature establishment of which would have radically impeded it by crushing the independent activity from which it arose: and if the interval had on the other hand, been too great, the universal propagation and social use would have failed, because the original movement, which could not be of any great duration, would have become too much weakened at the time of contact. On the other hand, when the first Cato insisted on the expulsion of the philosophers, the political danger from metaphysical contagion was pretty nearly gone by, since the Roman impulsion was by that time too decided to be really liable to such adulteration: but if a permanent contact had been possible two or three centuries earlier, it would certainly have been incompatible with the free and unmixed course of the spirit of conquest.

The more we study the Roman people, the more we see that it was indeed destined to universal empire, as its own poet said, and as every citizen perseveringly and exclusively desired. The nation freed itself from its theocratic beginning by the expulsion of its kings, but securing its own organization by means of the senatorial caste, in which the sacerdotal was subordinated to the military power. When this wise and energetic corporation of hereditary captains failed to yield to the people or the army such influence as might attach them to the system of conquest, the natural march of events had the needed effect. Generally speaking, the formation and improvement of the internal constitution, and the gradual extension of external dominion, depended on each other much more than on any mysterious superiority of design and conduct in the chiefs, whatever may have been the influence of individual political genius, to which a vast career was thus opened. The first cause of success was the convergence of all the means of education, direction, and execu-

66/Auguste Comte

tion towards one homogeneous and permanent end, more accessible than any other to all minds, and even to all hearts. The next cause was the gradual course of the progression. When we see this noble republic devoting three or four centuries to the solid establishment of its power in a radius of under a hundred miles, about the same time that Alexander was spreading out his marvellous empire in the course of a few years, it is not difficult to foresee the fate of the two empires, though the one usefully prepared the East for the succession of the other.

Another cause of success was the course of conduct steadily pursued towards the conquered nations; the principle being that of progressive incorporation. of the instinctive aversion to foreigners which elsewhere attended the military spirit. If the world, which resisted every other power, rather welcomed than withstood the Roman rule, it was owing to the new spirit of large and complete aggregation which distinguished it. When we compare the conduct of Rome towards vanquished, or rather incorporated peoples, with the dreadful vexations and insulting caprices that the Athenians (who were otherwise very attractive) heaped upon their tributaries, and even at times on their allies, we see that the Greeks aimed at making the most of a precarious sway, while the Romans were securely advancing towards universal supremacy. Never since that period has the political evolution been manifested in such fulness and unity, in the people and their leaders,—the end being kept in view. The moral development was in harmony with the same end,—the individual man being disciplined for military life, and domestic morality being unquestionably higher than in Greece. The most eminent Greeks wasted much of their leisure among courtesans; whereas among the Ottomans the social consideration and legitimate influence of women were largely increased, while their moral existence was more strictly confined to the purposes of their destination. The introduction of family names, unknown in Greece, is a sufficient testimony to the growth of the domestic spirit. Social morals also were in a rising state notwithstanding the hardness and cruelty to slaves, customary in that period, and the ferocity encouraged by the horrible nature of popular amusements, which shock the feeling of a modern time. The sentiment of patriotism was modified and ennobled by the best disposition towards the vanquished, and had something of the character of the universal charity soon to be proposed by monotheism. This remarkable nation presents the supreme case of the political government of morality; so that the morality may be divined by a direct consideration of the polity. Born to command in

Positive Philosophy/67

order to assimilate; destined to extinguish by its own ascendancy the barren military activity which threatened to disintegrate humanity; accepting only to discard the common tendencies of original civilization, this noble nation manifested, amidst its prodigious imperfections an assemblage of qualities adapted to its mission: a mission which, being fulfilled and incapable of reproduction, will immortalize the name of Rome to the remotest ages of political existence. The intellectual development could be no more than accessory; consisting in extending the mental action induced be Greek civilization; and this it accomplishment with an earnestness that contrasts well with the puerile jealousies which still farther divided the Greek mind. The Roman imitations were necessarily inferior to the Greek originals, but there were some exceptions to this inferiority especially in the historical department, as was natural. The decline of Rome testifies to the justice of our estimate of its mission. When its dominion could be extended no farther, this vast organism, having lost its moving principle, fell into dissolution; exhibiting It moral corruption without parallel in the history of society; for nowhere else has there existed such a concentration of means, in the form of power and wealth, in the absence of any end. The passage of the republic to imperial government, though evidently compelled by the circumstances which converted extension into preservation, was no re-organi- zation, but only a mode of chronic destruction of a system which must perish because it did not admit of regeneration. The emperors were mere popular chiefs, and, introducing no fresh principles of order, only accelerated the decline of the senatorial caste, on which everything depended, but whose function was now exhausted. When Caesar, one of the greatest of men sank under the alliance of metaphysical fanaticism with aristocratic rage, this foolish and odious murder had no other issue than raising to the leadership of the people against the senate men much less fit for the government of the world, and none of the changes which ensued ever admitted of any return. however temporary, to the genuine Roman organization, because its existence was inseparably connected with the gradual extension of conquest.

Having thus reviewed the three essential phases of ancient polytheism, we have only to indicate the tendency of the whole regime to produce the monotheistic order of the Middle Ages, by which the relative character of polytheism will be indisputably established.

In an intellectual view, the filiation is perfectly clear; the necessary and continuous destination of the Greek philosophy being to serve as

68/Auguste Comte

the organ of the irrevocable decline of polytheism, in preparation for the advent of monotheism. The only essential rectification of modern opinion required in this matter is to recognize, in this great speculative revolution, the latent influence of the nascent positive spirit in giving an intermediary character to this philosophy, which ceasing to be wholly theological, and unable as yet to be scientific, constitutes that temporary chronic malady, the metaphysical state. The confused sense of the necessary existence of natural laws, awakened by the introduction of geometrical and astronomical truths, was the only means of giving any philosophical consistence to that universal disposition to monotheism which arose from the steady progress of the spirit of observation, circumscribing supernatural intervention till it was condensed into a monotheistic centre. If no theological unity was possible amidst the instability, isolation, and discordance of primitive observations of nature, neither could reason be satisfied amidst the contradictions of a multitude of capricious divinities when the regularity of the external world was becoming more apparent as observation extended. I remarked before that the transition was facilitated by the belief in fate, as the god of immutability, to whom the other gods were subordinated more and more as the permanence of natural relations was revealed by accumulated experience. The irresistible conviction of such supremacy was the original and undisputed basis of a new mental regime, which has, at this day, become complete for the highest order of minds. The mode of transition cannot be questioned if we consider that the Providence of the monotheists is nothing else than the Fate of the polytheists, gradually inheriting and absorbing the prerogatives of all the other deities, and only assuming a more determinate and concrete character as a more active extension succeeded to the vague and abstract earlier conception. Absolute monotheism, as presented by metaphysical deists,—that is, the doctrine of one supernatural being, without mediators between him and Man,—is a mere abstraction, which can furnish no basis for any religious system of real efficacy, intellectual moral, or, above all, social. The popular idea of monotheism closely resembles the latest polytheistic conception of a multitude of supernatural beings, subjected directly, regularly, and permanently to the sway of a single will, by whit h their respective offices are appointed: and the popular instinct justly rejects as barren the notion of a god destitute of ministers. Thus regarded, the transition, through the idea of Fate, to the conception of Providence, is clear enough, as effected by the metaphysical spirit in its growth.

Positive Philosophy/69

Besides the reasons already assigned for the Greek philosophy having talon the lead, when the rest of the world was ready, we must bear in mind the accordance of the spirit of doubt and intellectual indecision with the tendencies of the contemporary social state. The military education of the Greeks, unprovided with an adequate object; the fluctuating state of their polity; and the perpetual contentions among peoples at once alike and mutually repugnant,—were all predisposing causes of the reception of the metaphysical philosophy, which in due time disclosed a congenial career to the Greek mind. It could never have obtained a footing in Rome while a single clear aim absorbed all the powers of the nation; nor did it, when that aim was accomplished. When Rome was mistress of the world, the conflicts of Greek rhetoricians and sophists never excited more than a factitious find of interest.

From the outset, as I observed before, the metaphysical philosophy contemplated some sort of government of society by mind, under the direction of some metaphysical system or other. This is shown by the convergence of all manner of discordant Utopias towards the same end. But the radical incapacity of metaphysics was so apparent when moral philosophy came to be applied to the conduct of society, that it became necessary to draw towards monotheism which was the centre of all important speculation, the only basis of the needed union, and the only fulcrum of genuine spiritual authority. Thus we see that in the grandest period of Roman empire, the various philosophical sects were more theologically inclined than for two or three centuries before, busily propagating monotheistic doctrine as the only intellectual basis of universal association. As science was then only nascent, and metaphysics could organize nothing but doubt. it was necessary to recur to, theology, for the sake of its social properties, which were to he cultivated on the monotheistic principle. The Roman sway was favourable to this process, both because it had organized wide intellectual communication, and because it exhibited within its bounds the whole collection of religious in all their barrenness, and thus called for a homogeneous religion such as monotheism: the only one which offered such dogmatic generality as would suit all the elements, of this vast agglomeration of nations.

The social aspect of this revolution, (the greatest the world has ever seen, except the one in progress,) also shows it to be a necessary result of that combination of Greek and Roman influence, at the period of their interpenetration, which Cato so unavailingly opposed. The fact of this combination throws much light on the division of the spiritual and

70/Auguste Comte

the temporal power, which appears paradoxical till its causes are understood. The speculative ambition of the metaphysical sects impelled them to aim at absolute dominion,—at guiding not only the opinions and morals of men, but their acts and practical affairs, by philosophers, who should have become supreme in authority. It was yet too early for the conception of a regular division between moral and political government: neither philosophers nor emperors dreamed of it. Thus, philosophy was in perpetual, though latent insurrection against a political system under which all social power was concentrated in the hands of military chiefs. Its professors, the independent thinkers who, without any regular mission, proposed themselves to the astonished but acquiescent public and magistracy as intellectual and moral guides in all the affairs of life, were, in their very existence, a germ of future spiritual power, apart from the temporal: and this is, in a social view, the mode in which Greek civilization participated in bringing about the new state of things. On the other hand, when Rome gradually conquered the world, nothing was further from her thoughts than ever giving up the system which was the basis of her greatness, and under which all sacerdotal power was in the hands of military chiefs: and yet, she contributed her share towards the formation of an independent spiritual power. It happened through her finding the impossibility of keeping together portions of her empire so various and remote by any temporal centralization, however stringent; and, again, by her military activity passing from the offensive to the defensive state, and parting off, for want of central aim, into independent principalities, requiring the advent of the spiritual power to unite them in a common bond. We shall see that this was the real origin of the feudality of the Middle Ages. A third way was that a universal morality became necessary, to, unite the nations which were brought forcible together while urged to mutual hatred by their respective forms of polytheism; and the need was met and satisfied by the communication of those higher and more general views and feelings which the conquering nobles had acquired by exercise and proof. In this way it appears that the political movement had as much share as the philosophical in causing that spiritual organization which distinguished the Middle Ages, and which owed its attribute of generality to the one movement, and that of morality to the other.

As nothing was fortuitous in this great revolution, but, on the contrary, every leading feature might be anticipated after due consideration of the conditions I have indicated, it may be interesting to observe what