Chapter II: Part 2

We shall now briefly describe Comte's principal conceptions in sociology, his position in respect to which is held by himself, and by others, to raise him to the level of Descartes or Leibnitz. Of course the first step was to approach the phenomena of human character and social existence with the expectation of finding them as reducible to general laws as the other phenomena of the universe, and with the hope of exploring these laws by the same instruments of observation and verification as had done such triumphant work in the case of the latter. Comte separates the collective facts of society and history from the individual phenomena of biology; then he withdraws these collective facts from the region of external volition, and places them in the region of law. The facts of history must be explained, not by providential interventions, but by referring them to conditions inherent in the successive stages of social existence. This conception makes a science of society possible. What is the method? It comprises, besides observation and experiment (which is, in fact, only the observation of abnormal social states), a certain peculiarity of verification. We begin by deducing every well-known historical situation from the series of its antecedents. Thus we acquire a body of empirical generalisations as to social phenomena, and then we connect the generalisations with the positive theory of human nature. A sociological demonstration lies in the establishment of an accordance between the conclusions of historical analysis and the preparatory conceptions of biological theory. As Mr. Mill puts it:--'If a sociological theory, collected from historical evidence, contradicts the established general laws of human nature; if (to use M. Comte's instances) it implies, in the mass of mankind, any very decided natural bent, either in a good or in a bad direction; if it supposes that the reason, in average human beings, predominates over the desires or the disinterested desires over the personal,--we may know that history has been misinterpreted, and that the theory is false. On the other hand, if laws of social phenomena, empirically generalised from history, can, when once suggested, be affiliated to the known laws of human nature; if the direction actually taken by the developments and changes of human society can be seen to be such as the properties of man and of his dwelling-place made antecedently probable, the empirical generalisations are raised into positive laws, and sociology becomes a science.' The result of this method is an exhibition of the events of human experience in co-ordinated series that manifest their own graduated connection.

Next, as all investigation proceeds from that which is known best to that which is unknown or less well known, and as, in social states, it is the collective phenomenon that is more easy of access to the observer than its parts, therefore we must consider and pursue all the elements of a given social state together and in common. The social organisation must be viewed and explored as a whole. There is a nexus between each leading group of social phenomena and other leading groups; if there is a change in one of them, that change is accompanied by a corresponding modification of all the rest. 'Not only must political institutions and social manners on the one hand, and manners and ideas on the other, be always mutually connected; but further, this consolidated whole must be always connected by its nature with the corresponding state of the integral development of humanity, considered in all its aspects of intellectual, moral and physical activity' (_Comte_).

Is there any one element which communicates the decisive impulse to all the rest,--any predominating agency in the course of social evolution? The answer is that all the other parts of social existence are associated with, and drawn along by, the contemporary condition of intellectual development. The Reason is the superior and preponderant element which settles the direction in which all the other faculties shall expand. 'It is only through the more and more marked influence of the reason over the general conduct of man and of society that the gradual march of our race has attained that regularity and persevering continuity which distinguish it so radically from the desultory and barren expansion of even the highest animal orders, which share, and with enhanced strength, the appetites, the passions, and even the primary sentiments of man.' The history of intellectual development, therefore, is the key to social evolution, and the key to the history of intellectual development is the Law of the Three States.

Among other central thoughts in Comte's explanation of history are these:--The displacement of theological by positive conceptions has been accompanied by a gradual rise of an industrial _régime_ out of the military _régime;_--the great permanent contribution of Catholicism was the separation which it set up between the temporal and the spiritual powers;--the progress of the race consists in the increasing preponderance of the distinctively human elements over the animal elements;--the absolute tendency of ordinary social theories will be replaced by an unfailing adherence to the relative point of view, and from this it follows that the social state, regarded as a whole, has been as perfect in each period as the co-existing condition of humanity and its environment would allow.

The elaboration of these ideas in relation to the history of the civilisation of the most advanced portion of the human race occupies two of the volumes of the _Positive Philosophy_, and has been accepted by competent persons of very different schools as a masterpiece of rich, luminous, and far-reaching suggestion. Whatever additions it may receive, and whatever corrections it may require, this analysis of social evolution will continue to be regarded as one of the great achievements of human intellect. The demand for the first of Comte's two works has gone on increasing in a significant degree. It was completed, as we have said, in 1842. A second edition was published in 1864; a third some years afterwards; and while we write (1876) a fourth is in the press. Three editions within twelve years of a work of abstract philosophy in six considerable volumes are the measure of a very striking influence. On the whole, we may suspect that no part of Comte's works has had so much to do with this marked success as his survey and review of the course of history.

The third volume of the later work, the _Positive Polity_, treats of social dynamics, and takes us again over the ground of historic evolution. It abounds with remarks of extraordinary fertility and comprehensiveness; but it is often arbitrary; its views of the past are strained into coherence with the statical views of the preceding volume; and so far as concerns the period to which the present writer happens to have given special attention, it is usually slight and sometimes random. As it was composed in rather less than six months, and as the author honestly warns us that he has given all his attention to a more profound co-ordination, instead of working out the special explanations more fully, as he had promised, we need not be surprised if the result is disappointing to those who had mastered the corresponding portion of the _Positive Philosophy_. Comte explains the difference between his two works. In the first his 'chief object was to discover and demonstrate the laws of progress, and to exhibit in one unbroken sequence the collective destinies of mankind, till then invariably regarded as a series of events wholly beyond the reach of explanation, and almost depending on arbitrary will. The present work, on the contrary, is addressed to those who are already sufficiently convinced of the certain existence of social laws, and desire only to have them reduced to a true and conclusive system.'

What that system is it would take far more space than we can afford to sketch even in outline. All we can do is to enumerate some of its main positions. They are to be drawn not only from the _Positive Polity_, but from two other works,--the _Positivist Catechism: a Summary Exposition of the Universal Religion, in Twelve Dialogues between a Woman and a Priest of Humanity_; and second, _The Subjective Synthesis_ (1856), which is the first and only volume of a work upon mathematics announced at the end of the _Positive Philosophy_. The system for which the _Positive Philosophy_ is alleged to have been the scientific preparation contains a Polity and a Religion; a complete arrangement of life in all its aspects, giving a wider sphere to Intellect, Energy, and Feeling than could be found in any of the previous organic types,--Greek, Roman, or Catholic-feudal. Comte's immense superiority over such præ-Revolutionary Utopians as the Abbé Saint Pierre, no less than over the group of post-revolutionary Utopians, is especially visible in his firm grasp of the cardinal truth that the improvement of the social organism can only be effected by a moral development, and never by any changes in mere political mechanism, or any violences in the way of an artificial redistribution of wealth. A moral transformation must precede any real advance. The aim, both in public and private life, is to secure to the utmost possible extent the victory of the social feeling over self-love, or Altruism over Egoism. This is the key to the regeneration of social existence, as it is the key to that unity of individual life which makes all our energies converge freely and without wasteful friction towards a common end. What are the instruments for securing the preponderance of Altruism? Clearly they must work from the strongest element in human nature, and this element is Feeling or the Heart. Under the Catholic system the supremacy of Feeling was abused, and the intellect was made its slave. Then followed a revolt of Intellect against Sentiment. The business of the new system will be to bring back the Intellect into a condition, not of slavery, but of willing ministry to the Feelings. The subordination never was, and never will be, effected except by means of a religion, and a religion, to be final, must include a harmonious synthesis of all our conceptions of the external order of the universe. The characteristic basis of a religion is the existence of a Power without us, so superior to ourselves as to command the complete submission of our whole life. This basis is to be found in the Positive stage, in Humanity, past, present, and to come, conceived as the Great Being.

A deeper study of the great universal order reveals to us at
length the ruling power within it of the true Great Being, whose
destiny it is to bring that order continually to perfection by
constantly conforming to its laws, and which thus best represents
to us that system as a whole. This undeniable Providence, the
supreme dispenser of our destinies, becomes in the natural course
the common centre of our affections, our thoughts, and our
actions. Although this Great Being evidently exceeds the utmost
strength of any, even of any collective, human force, its
necessary constitution and its peculiar function endow it with
the truest sympathy towards all its servants. The least amongst
us can and ought constantly to aspire to maintain and even to
improve this Being. This natural object of all our activity, both
public and private, determines the true general character of the
rest of our existence, whether in feeling or in thought; which
must be devoted to love, and to know, in order rightly to serve,
our Providence, by a wise use of all the means which it furnishes
to us. Reciprocally this continued service, while strengthening
our true unity, renders us at once both happier and better.

The exaltation of Humanity into the throne occupied by the Supreme Being under monotheistic systems made all the rest of Comte's construction easy enough. Utility remains the test of every institution, impulse, act; his fabric becomes substantially an arch of utilitarian propositions, with an artificial Great Being inserted at the top to keep them in their place. The Comtist system is utilitarianism crowned by a fantastic decoration. Translated into the plainest English, the position is as follows: 'Society can only be regenerated by the greater subordination of politics to morals, by the moralisation of capital, by the renovation of the family, by a higher conception of marriage, and so on. These ends can only be reached by a heartier development of the sympathetic instincts. The sympathetic instincts can only be developed by the Religion of Humanity.' Looking at the problem in this way, even a moralist who does not expect theology to be the instrument of social revival, might still ask whether the sympathetic instincts will not necessarily be already developed to their highest point, before people will be persuaded to accept the religion, which is at bottom hardly more than sympathy under a more imposing name. However that may be, the whole battle--into which we shall not enter--as to the legitimateness of Comtism as a religion turns upon this erection of Humanity into a Being. The various hypotheses, dogmas, proposals, as to the family, to capital, etc. are merely propositions measurable by considerations of utility and a balance of expediencies. Many of these proposals are of the highest interest, and many of them are actually available; but there does not seem to be one of them of an available kind which could not equally well be approached from other sides, and even incorporated in some radically antagonistic system. Adoption, for example, as a practice for improving the happiness of families and the welfare of society, is capable of being weighed, and can in truth only be weighed by utilitarian considerations, and has been commended by men to whom the Comtist religion is naught. The singularity of Comte's construction, and the test by which it must be tried, is the transfer of the worship and discipline of Catholicism to a system in which 'the conception of God is superseded' by the abstract idea of Humanity, conceived as a kind of Personality.

And when all is said, the invention does not help us. We have still to settle what _is_ for the good of Humanity, and we can only do that in the old-fashioned way. There is no guidance in the conception. No effective unity can follow from it, because you can only find out the right and wrong of a given course by summing up the advantages and disadvantages, and striking a balance, and there is nothing in the Religion of Humanity to force two men to find the balance on the same side. The Comtists are no better off than other utilitarians in judging policy, events, conduct.

The particularities of the worship, its minute and truly ingenious re-adaptation of sacraments, prayers, reverent signs, down even to the invocation of a new Trinity, need not detain us. They are said, though it is not easy to believe, to have been elaborated by way of Utopia. If so, no Utopia has ever yet been presented in a style so little calculated to stir the imagination, to warm the feelings, to soothe the insurgency of the reason. It is a mistake to present a great body of hypotheses--if Comte meant them for hypotheses--in the most dogmatic and peremptory form to which language can lend itself. And there is no more extraordinary thing in the history of opinion than the perversity with which Comte has succeeded in clothing a philosophic doctrine, so intrinsically conciliatory as his, in a shape that excites so little sympathy and gives so much provocation. An enemy defined Comtism as Catholicism _minus_ Christianity, to which an able champion retorted by calling it Catholicism _plus_ Science. Hitherto Comte's Utopia has pleased the followers of the Catholic, just as little as those of the scientific spirit.

The elaborate and minute systematisation of life, proper to the religion of Humanity, is to be directed by a priesthood. The priests are to possess neither wealth nor material power; they are not to command, but to counsel; their authority is to rest on persuasion, not on force. When religion has become positive and society industrial, then the influence of the church upon the state becomes really free and independent, which was not the case in the Middle Age. The power of the priesthood rests upon special knowledge of man and nature; but to this intellectual eminence must also be added moral power and a certain greatness of character, without which force of intellect and completeness of attainment will not receive the confidence they ought to inspire. The functions of the priesthood are of this kind:--To exercise a systematic direction over education; to hold a consultative influence over all the important acts of actual life, public and private; to arbitrate in cases of practical conflict; to preach sermons recalling those principles of generality and universal harmony which our special activities dispose us to ignore; to order the due classification of society. To perform the various ceremonies appointed by the founder of the religion. The authority of the priesthood is to rest wholly on voluntary adhesion, and there is to be perfect freedom of speech and discussion; though, by the way, we cannot forget Comte's detestable congratulations to the Czar Nicholas on the 'wise vigilance' with which he kept watch over the importation of Western books.

From his earliest manhood Comte had been powerfully impressed by the necessity of elevating the condition of women (see remarkable passage in his letters to M. Valat, pp. 84-87). His friendship with Madame de Vaux had deepened the impression, and in the reconstructed society women are to play a highly important part. They are to be carefully excluded from public action, but they are to do many more important things than things political. To fit them for their functions, they are to be raised above material cares, and they are to be thoroughly educated. The family, which is so important an element of the Comtist scheme of things, exists to carry the influence of woman over man to the highest point of cultivation. Through affection she purifies the activity of man. 'Superior in power of affection, more able to keep both the intellectual and the active powers in continual subordination to feeling, women are formed as the natural intermediaries between Humanity and man. The Great Being confides specially to them its moral Providence, maintaining through them the direct and constant cultivation of universal affection, in the midst of all the distractions of thought or action, which are for ever withdrawing men from its influence.... Beside the uniform influence of every woman on every man, to attach him to Humanity, such is the importance and the difficulty of this ministry that each of us should be placed under the special guidance of one of these angels, to answer for him, as it were, to the Great Being. This moral guardianship may assume three types,--the mother, the wife, and the daughter; each having several modifications, as shown in the concluding volume. Together they form the three simple modes of solidarity, or unity with contemporaries,--obedience, union, and protection,--as well as the three degrees of continuity between ages, by uniting us with the past, the present, and the future. In accordance with my theory of the brain, each corresponds with one of our three altruistic instincts,--veneration, attachment, and benevolence.

How the positive method of observation and verification of real facts has landed us in this, and much else of the same kind, is extremely hard to guess. Seriously to examine an encyclopædic system, that touches life, society, and knowledge at every point, is evidently beyond the compass of such an article as this. There is in every chapter a whole group of speculative suggestions, each of which would need a long chapter to itself to elaborate or to discuss. There is at least one biological speculation of astounding audacity that could be examined in nothing less than a treatise. Perhaps we have said enough to show that after performing a great and real service to thought, Comte almost sacrificed his claims to gratitude by the invention of a system that, as such, and independently of detached suggestions, is markedly retrograde. But the world has strong self-protecting qualities. It will take what is available in Comte, while forgetting that in his work which is as irrational in one way as Hegel is in another.

THE END.

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.

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Transcriber's Notes:

The transcriber made the following changes to the text to correct obvious errors:

1. p. 347, "delighful" changed to "delightful"
2. p. 382, "'Superior in power of ..." no ending single quote

End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3), by John Morley