A General View of Positivism Or, Summary exposition of the System of Thought and Life · Auguste Comte
THE INFLUENCE OF POSITIVISM UPON WOMEN
Vast as is the moral importance of maternity, yet the position of wife has always been considered even more characteristic of woman’s nature; as shown by the fact that the words woman and wife are in many languages synonymous. Marriage is not always followed by children; and besides this, a bad wife is very seldom indeed a good mother. The first aspect then, under which Positivism considers Woman, is simply as the companion of Man, irrespective of her maternal duties. Viewed thus, Marriage is the most elementary and yet the most perfect mode of social life. It is the only association in which entire identity of interests is possible. In this union, to the moral completeness of which the language of all civilized nations bears testimony, the noblest aim of human life is realized, as far as it ever can be. For the object of human existence, as shown in the second chapter, is progress of every kind; progress in morality, that is to say in the subjection of Self-interest to Social Feeling, holding the first rank. Now this unquestionable principle leads us by a very sure and direct path to the true theory of marriage.
Different as the two sexes are by nature, and increased as that difference is by the diversity which happily exists in their social position, each is consequently necessary to the moral development of the other. In practical energy and in the mental capacity which usually accompanies it, Man is evidently superior to Woman. Woman’s strength, on the other hand, lies in Feeling. She excels Man in love, as Man excels her in force. It is impossible to conceive of a closer union than that which binds these two beings to the mutual service and perfection of each other, saving them from all danger of rivalry. The voluntary character too of this union gives it a still further charm, when the choice has been on both sides a happy one. In the Positive theory, then, of marriage, its principal object is considered to be that of completing and confirming the education of the heart by calling out the purest and strongest of human sympathies.
It is true that sexual instinct, which, in man’s case at all events, was the origin of conjugal attachment, is a feeling purely selfish. It is also true that its absence would in the majority of cases, diminish the energy of affection. But woman with her more loving heart, has usually far less need of this coarse stimulus than man. The influence of her purity reacts on man, and ennobles his affection. And affection is in itself so sweet, that when once it has been aroused by whatever agency, its own charm is sufficient to maintain it in activity. When this is the case, conjugal union becomes a perfect ideal of friendship; yet still more beautiful than friendship, because each possesses and is possessed by the other. For perfect friendship, difference of sex is essential, as excluding the possibility of rivalry. No other voluntary tie can admit of such full and unrestrained confidence. It is the source of the most unalloyed happiness that man can enjoy; for there can be no greater happiness than to live for another.
But independently of the intrinsic value of this sacred union, we have to consider its importance from the social point of view. It is the first stage in our progress towards that which is the final object of moral education, namely, universal love. Many writers of the so-called socialist school, look upon conjugal love and universal benevolence, the two extreme terms in the scale of affections, as opposed to each other. In the second chapter, I pointed out the falseness and danger of this view. The man who is incapable of deep affection for one whom he has chosen as his partner in the most intimate relations of life, can hardly expect to be believed when he professes devotion to a mass of human beings of whom he knows nothing. The heart cannot throw off its original selfishness, without the aid of some complete and enduring affection. And conjugal love, concentrated as it is upon one object exclusively, is more enduring and complete than any other. From personal experience of strong love we rise by degrees to sincere affection for all mankind; although, as the scope of feeling widens, its energy must decrease. The connexion of these two states of feeling is instinctively recognized by all; and it is clearly indicated by the Positive theory of human nature, which has now placed it beyond the reach of metaphysical attacks. When the moral empire of Woman has been more firmly established by the diffusion of Positivist principles, men will see that the common practice of looking to the private life of a statesman as the best guarantee of his public conduct had deep wisdom in it. One of the strongest symptoms of the general laxity of morals to which mental anarchy has brought us, is that disgraceful law passed in France thirty years ago, and not yet repealed; the avowed object of which was to surround men’s lives with a ‘wall’ of privacy; a law introduced by psychologist politicians who no doubt needed such a wall.[8]
Monogamy, then, is one of the most precious gifts which the Middle Ages have bequeathed to Western Europe. The striking superiority of social life in the West is probably due to it more than to any other cause. Protestant countries have seriously impaired its value by their laws of divorce. But this aberration will hardly be permanent. It is alien to the purer feelings of women and of the people, and the mischief done by it is limited to the privileged classes. France is now threatened with a revival of the metaphysical delusions of the Revolution, and it is feared by some that the disastrous example of Germany in this respect will be imitated. But all such tendencies, being utterly inconsistent with the habits of modern life, will soon be checked by the sounder philosophical principles which have now arisen. The mode of resistance to these errors which Positivism adopts will render the struggle most useful in hastening the adoption of the true theory of marriage. The spirit of Positivism being always relative, concessions may be made to meet exceptional cases, without weakening or contradicting the principle; whereas the absolute character of theological doctrine was incompatible with concession. The rules of morality should be general and comprehensive; but in their practical application exceptions have often to be made. By no philosophy but the Positive can these two conditions be reconciled.
Deep as is the satisfaction in this prolongation of the sacredness of marriage, it may be carried by those who recognize its value yet further. As the death of one did not destroy the bond, so neither should the death of both. Let, then, those whom death could not divide be laid in the same grave together. A promise of this solemn act of perpetuation might be given beforehand, when the organs of public opinion judged it merited. A man would find a new motive for public exertion, if it were felt to be a pledge that the memory of her whom he loved should be for ever coupled with his own. We have a few instances where this union of memories has taken place spontaneously, as in the case of Laura and Petrarch, and of Dante and Beatrice. Yet these instances are so exceptional, that they hardly help us to realize the full value of the institution proposed. There is no reason for limiting it to cases of extraordinary genius. In the more healthy state of society to which we are tending, where private and public life will be far more closely connected than they have been hitherto, this recompense of service may be given to all who have deserved it, by those who have come within their circle of influence.
Such, then, are the consolations which Positivist sympathy can give. They leave no cause to regret the visionary hopes held out by Christianity, hopes which now are as enfeebling to the heart as to the intellect. Here, as in all other respects, the moral superiority of Positivism is shown, for the comfort which it gives to the bereaved implies a strengthening of the tie. Christian consolation, of which so much has been said, rather encourages a second union. By so doing it seriously impairs the value of the institution; for a division of affection arises, which indeed seems hardly compatible with the vague utopia of a future life. The institutions of perpetual widowhood and of union in the tomb have found no place in any previous system, though both were wanting to make monogamy complete. Here, as elsewhere, the best reply which the new philosophy can give to ignorant prejudice or malignant calumny, is to take new steps forward in the moral advancement of Man. Thus the theory of marriage, as set forward by the Positivist, becomes totally independent of any physical motive. It is regarded by him as the most powerful instrument of moral education; and therefore as the basis of public or individual welfare. It is no overstrained enthusiasm which leads us to elevate the moral purity of marriage. We do so from rigorous examination of the facts of human nature. All the best results, whether personal or social, of marriage may follow, when the union, though more impassioned, is as chaste as that of brother and sister. The sexual instinct has no doubt something to do in most cases with the first formation of the passion; but it is not necessary in all cases to gratify the instinct. Abstinence, in cases where there is real ground for it on both sides, will but serve to strengthen mutual affection.
For instruction, theoretical and practical, as distinguished from education, masters are no doubt necessary. But moral education will be left entirely to women, until the time arrives for systematic teaching of moral science in the years immediately preceding majority. Here the philosopher is necessary. But the chief duties of the philosopher lie with adults; his aim being to recall them, individually or collectively, to principles impressed on them in childhood, and to enforce the right application of these principles to special cases as they may arise. That part of education which has the greatest influence on life, what may be called the spontaneous training of the feelings, belongs entirely to the mother. Hence it is, as I have already observed, of the greatest importance to allow the pupil to remain with his family, and to do away with the monastic seclusion of our public schools.
The peculiar fitness of women for inculcating these elementary principles of morality is a truth which every true philosopher will fully recognize. Women, having stronger sympathies than men, must be better able to call out sympathies in others. Men of good sense have always felt it more important to train the heart than the head; and this is the view adopted by Positive Philosophy. There is a danger of exaggerating the importance of system and of forgetting the conditions on which its utility depends; but the Positivist is preserved from this danger by the peculiar reality of his philosophy. In morals, even more than in other subjects, we can only systematize what has existed previously without system. The feelings must first be stimulated to free and direct action, before we attempt to bring them under philosophic discipline. And this process, which begins with birth, and lasts during the whole period of physical growth, should be left for women to superintend. So specially are they adapted for it, that failing the mother, a female friend, if well chosen, and if she can make herself sufficiently a member of the family, will in most cases do better than the father himself. The importance of the subject can only be appreciated by minds dominated, as women’s minds are, by feeling.
Women can see, what men can seldom see, that most actions, and certainly the actions of youth and childhood, ought not to be judged in themselves so much as by the tendencies which they show or by the habits to which they lead. Viewed with reference to their influence on character, no actions are indifferent. The simplest events in a child’s life may serve as an occasion for enforcing the fundamental principle by which the early as well as later stages of Positivist education should be directed; the strengthening of Social Feeling, the weakening of Self-love. In fact, actions of an unimportant kind are precisely those in which it is easiest to appreciate the feelings which prompted them; since the mind of the observer, not being occupied with the consequences of such actions, is more free to examine their source. Moreover, it is only by teaching the child to do right in small things that he can be trained for the hard inward struggle that lies before him in life; the struggle to bring the selfish instincts more and more completely under the control of his higher sympathies. In these respects the best tutor, however sympathetic his nature, will be always far inferior to a good mother. A mother may often not be able to explain the reason of the principle on which she acts, but the wisdom of her plans will generally show itself in the end. Without formal teaching, she will take every opportunity of showing her children, as no other instructor could show them, the joy that springs from generous feelings, and the misery of yielding to selfishness.
In all ages of transition, as in our own, there have been false and sophistical views of the social position of Woman. But we find it to be a natural law that Woman should pass the greater part of her life in the family; and this law has never been affected to any important extent. It has always been accepted instinctively, though the sophistical arguments against it have never yet been adequately refuted. The institution of the family has survived the subtle attacks of Greek metaphysics, which then were in all the vigour of their youth, and which were acting on minds that had no systematic principles to oppose to them. Therefore, profound as the intellectual anarchy of the present day may be, we need not be seriously alarmed when we see that nothing worse comes of it than shallow plagiarisms from ancient utopias, against which the vigorous satire of Aristophanes was quite enough to rouse general indignation. True, there is a more complete absence of social principles now, than when the world was passing from Polytheism to Monotheism; but our intellectual powers are more developed than they were then, and in moral culture our superiority is even greater.
Women in those times were too degraded to offer even the opposition of their silence to the pedants who professed to be taking up their cause; the only resistance offered was of a purely intellectual kind. But happily in modern times the women of the West have been free; and have consequently been able to manifest such unmistakable aversion for these ideas, and for the want of moral discipline which gives rise to them, that, though still unrefuted philosophically, their mischievous effects have been neutralized. Nothing but women’s antipathy has prevented the practical outrages which seem logically to follow from these subversive principles. Among our privileged classes the danger is aggravated by indolence; moreover, the possession of wealth has a bad influence on women’s moral nature. Yet even here the evil is not really very deep or widely spread. Men have never been seriously perverted, and women still less so, by flattery of their bad propensities. The really formidable temptations are those which act upon our better instincts, and give them a wrong direction. Schemes which are utterly offensive to female delicacy will never really be adopted, even by the wealthier classes, who are less averse to them than others. The repugnance shown to them by the people, with whom the mischief that they would cause would be irreparable, is far more decided. The life which working people lead makes it very clear to both sexes what the proper position of each should be. Thus it will be in the very class where the preservation of the institution of the family is of the greatest importance, that Positivists will find the least difficulty in establishing their theory of the social position of women, as consequent on the sphere of public and private duty which has been here assigned to them.
Looking at the relation of this theory to other parts of the Positive system, we shall see that it follows from the great principle which dominates every other social problem, the principle of separating spiritual and temporal power. That Woman’s life should be concentrated in her family, and that even there her influence should be that of persuasion rather than that of command, is but an extension of the principle which excludes the spiritual power from political administration. Women, as the purest and most spontaneous of the moral forces of society, are bound to fulfil with rigorous exactness all the conditions which the exercise of moral force demands. Effectually to perform their mission of controlling and guiding our affections, they must abstain altogether from the practical pursuits of the stronger sex. Such abstinence, even when the arrangements of society may leave it optional, is still more desirable in their case than in the case of philosophers. Active life, incompatible as it is with the clearness and breadth of philosophic speculation, is even more injurious to delicacy of feeling, which is women’s highest claim to our respect and the true secret of their influence. The philosophic spirit is incompatible with a position of practical authority, because such a position occupies the mind with questions of detail.
But to purity of feeling it is even more dangerous, because it strengthens the instincts of power and of gain. And for women it would be harder to avoid the danger of such a position than for men. Abounding as they do in sympathy, they are generally deficient in energy, and are therefore less able to withstand corrupting influences. The more we examine this important subject, the clearer it becomes that the present condition of women does not hamper them in their true work; that, on the contrary, it is well calculated to develop and even improve their highest qualities. The natural arrangements of society in this as in other respects are far less faulty than certain blind declaimers would have us believe. But for the existence of strong material forces, moral force would soon deteriorate, because its distinctive purpose would be gone. Philosophers and proletaries would soon lose their intellectual and moral superiority by the acquisition of power. On women its effect would be still more disastrous. From instances in the upper classes of society, where wealth gives them independence, and sometimes unfortunately even power, we see but too clearly what the consequences would be. And this is why we have to look to the poorer classes for the highest type of womanly perfection. With the people sympathy is better cultivated, and has a greater influence upon life. Wealth has more to do with the moral degradation of women among the privileged classes than even idleness and dissipation.
The direction, then, of progress in the social condition of woman is this: to render her life more and more domestic; to diminish as far as possible the burden of out-door labour; and so to fit her more completely for her special office of educating our moral nature. Among the privileged classes it is already a recognized rule that women should be spared all laborious exertion. It is the one point in the relations of the sexes in which the working classes would do well to imitate the habits of their employers. In every other respect the people of Western Europe have a higher sense of their duties to women than the upper classes. Indeed there are few of them who would not be ashamed of the barbarity of subjecting women to their present burdensome occupations, if the present state of our industrial system allowed of its abolition. But it is chiefly among the higher and wealthier classes that we find those degrading and very often fraudulent bargains, connected with unscrupulous interference of parents in the question of marriage, which are so humiliating to one sex and so corrupting to the other.
Among the working classes the practice of giving dowries is almost extinct; and as women’s true mission becomes more recognized, and as choice in marriage becomes less restricted, this relic of barbarism, with all its debasing results, will rapidly die out. With this view the application of our theory should be carried one step further. Women should not be allowed to inherit. If inheritance be allowed, the prohibition of dowries would be evaded in a very obvious manner by discounting the reversionary interest. Since women are to be exempt from the labour of production, capital, that is to say, the instruments of labour produced by each generation for the benefit of the next, should revert to men. This view of inheritance, so far from making men a privileged class, places them under heavy responsibilities. It is not from women that any serious opposition to it will proceed. Wise education will show them its value to themselves personally, as a safeguard against unworthy suitors. But, important as the rule is, it should not be legally enforced until it has become established on its own merits as a general custom, which every one has felt to conduce to the healthy organization of the Family as here described. [The education of women should be identical with that of men] Coming now to the subject of female education, we have only to make a further application of the theory which has guided us hitherto.
Since the vocation assigned by our theory to women is that of educating others, it is clear that the educational system which we have proposed in the last chapter for the working classes, applies to them as well as to the other sex with very slight alterations. Unencumbered as it is with specialities, it will be found, even in its more scientific parts, as suitable to the sympathetic element of the moderating power, as to the synergic element. We have spoken of the necessity of diffusing sound historical views among the working classes; and the same necessity applies to women; for social sympathy can never be perfectly developed, without a sense of the continuity of the Past, as well as of the solidarity of the Present. Since, then, both sexes alike need historical instruction as a basis for the systematization of moral truth, both should alike pass through the scientific training which prepares the way for social studies, and which moreover has as intrinsic a value for women as for men. Again, since the first or spontaneous stage of education is entirely to be left to women, it is most desirable that they should themselves have passed through the second or systematic stage. The only department with which they need not concern themselves, is what is called professional education. But this, as I have before observed, is not susceptible of regular organization. Professional skill can only be acquired by careful practice and experience, resting upon a sound basis of theory. In all other respects women, philosophers, and working men will receive the same education.
But while I would place the sexes on a level in this respect, I do not take the view of my eminent predecessor Condorcet, that they should be taught together. On moral grounds, which of course are the most important consideration, it is obvious that such a plan would be equally prejudicial to both. In the church, in the club, in the salon, they may associate freely at every period of life. But at school such intercourse would be premature; it would check the natural development of character, not to say that it would obviously have an unsettling influence upon study. Until the feelings on both sides are sufficiently matured, it is of the greatest importance that the relations of the two sexes should not be too intimate, and that they should be superintended by the watchful eye of their mothers.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.