A General View of Positivism Or, Summary exposition of the System of Thought and Life · Auguste Comte
THE INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER OF POSITIVISM
This, then, is the external basis of our synthesis, which includes the moral and practical faculties, as well as the speculative. It rests at every point upon the unchangeable Order of the world. The right understanding of this order is the principal subject of our thoughts; its preponderating influence determines the general course of our feelings; its gradual improvement is the constant object of our actions. To form a more precise notion of its influence, let us imagine that for a moment it were really to cease. The result would be that our intellectual faculties, after wasting themselves in wild extravagancies, would sink rapidly into incurable sloth; our nobler feelings would be unable to prevent the ascendancy of the lower instincts; and our active powers would abandon themselves to purposeless agitation. Men have, it is true, been for a long time ignorant of this Order. Nevertheless we have been always subject to it; and its influence has always tended, though without our knowledge, to control our whole being; our actions first, and subsequently our thoughts, and even our affections. As we have advanced in our knowledge of it, our thoughts have become less vague, our desires less capricious, our conduct less arbitrary.
And now that we are able to grasp the full meaning of the conception, its influence extends to every part of our conduct. For it teaches us that the object to be aimed at in the economy devised by man, is wise development of the irresistible economy of nature, which cannot be amended till it is first studied and obeyed. In some departments it has the character of fate; that is, it admits of no modification. But even here, in spite of the superficial objections to it which have arisen from intellectual pride, it is necessary for the proper regulation of human life. Suppose, for instance, that man were exempt from the necessity of living on the earth, and were free to pass at will from one planet to another, the very notion of society would be rendered impossible by the licence which each individual would have to give way to whatever unsettling and distracting impulses his nature might incline him. Our propensities are so heterogeneous and so deficient in elevation, that there would be no fixity or consistency in our conduct, but for these insurmountable conditions. Our feeble reason may fret at such restrictions, but without them all its deliberations would be confused and purposeless.
We are powerless to create: all that we can do in bettering our condition is to modify an order in which we can produce no radical change. Supposing us in possession of that absolute independence to which metaphysical pride aspires, it is certain that so far from improving our condition, it would be a bar to all development, whether social or individual. The true path of human progress lies in the opposite direction; in diminishing the vacillation, inconsistency, and discordance of our designs by furnishing external motives for those operations of our intellectual, moral and practical powers, of which the original source was purely internal. The ties by which our various diverging tendencies are held together would be quite inadequate for their purpose, without a basis of support in the external world, which is unaffected by the spontaneous variations of our nature.
But, however great the value of Positive doctrine in pointing out the unchangeable aspects of the universal Order, what we have principally to consider are the numerous departments in which that order admits of artificial modifications. Here lies the most important sphere of human activity. The only phenomena, indeed, which we are wholly unable to modify are the simplest of all, the phenomena of the Solar System which we inhabit. It is true that now that we know its laws we can easily conceive them improved in certain respects; but to whatever degree our power over nature may extend, we shall never be able to produce the slightest change in them. What we have to do is so to dispose our life as to submit to these resistless fatalities in the best way we can; and this is comparatively easy, because their greater simplicity enables us to foresee them with more precision and in a more distinct future. Their interpretation by Positive science has had a most important influence on the gradual education of the human intellect: and it will always continue to be the source from which we obtain the clearest and most impressive sense of Immutability. Too exclusively studied they might even now lead to fatalism; but controlled as their influence will be henceforward by a more philosophic education, they may well become a means of moral improvement, by disposing us to submit with resignation to all evils which are absolutely insurmountable.
At the same time we have to remember that this increased possibility of human intervention in certain parts of the External Order necessarily coexists with increased imperfection, for which it is a valuable but very inadequate compensation. Both features alike result from the increase of complexity. Even the laws of the Solar System are very far from perfect, notwithstanding their greater simplicity, which indeed makes their defects more perceptible. The existence of these defects should be taken into careful consideration; not indeed with the hope of amending them, but as a check upon unreasoning admiration. Besides, they lead us to a clearer conception of the true position of Humanity, a position of which the most striking feature is the necessity of struggling against difficulties of every kind. Lastly, by observing these defects we are less likely to waste our time in seeking for absolute perfection, and so neglecting the wiser course of looking for such improvements as are really possible.
In all other phenomena, the increasing imperfection of the economy of nature becomes a powerful stimulus to all our faculties, whether moral, intellectual or practical. Here we find sufferings which can really be alleviated to a large extent by wise and well-sustained combination of efforts. This consideration should give a firmness and dignity of bearing, to which Humanity could never attain during her period of infancy. Those who look wisely into the future of society will feel that the conception of man becoming, without fear or boast, the arbiter, within certain limits, of his own destiny, has in it something far more satisfying than the old belief in Providence, which implied our remaining passive. Social union will be strengthened by the conception, because every one will see that union forms our principal resource against the miseries of human life. And while it calls out our noblest sympathies, it impresses us more strongly with the importance of high intellectual culture, being itself the object for which such culture is required. These important results have been ever on the increase in modern times; yet hitherto they have been too limited and casual to be appreciated rightly, except so far as we could anticipate the future of society by the light of sound historical principles.
Art, so far as it is yet organized, does not include that part of the economy of nature which, being the most modifiable, the most imperfect, and the most important of all, ought on every ground to be regarded as the principal object of human exertions. Even Medical Art, specially so called, is only just beginning to free itself from its primitive routine. And Social Art, whether moral or political, is plunged in routine so deeply that few statesmen admit the possibility of shaking it off. Yet of all the arts, it is the one which best admits of being reduced to a system; and until this is done it will be impossible to place on a rational basis all the rest of our practical life. All these narrow views are due simply to insufficient recognition of the fact, that the highest phenomena are as much subject to laws as others. When the conception of the Order of Nature has become generally accepted in its full extent, the ordinary definition of Art will become as comprehensive and as homogeneous as that of Science; and it will then become obvious to all sound thinkers that the principal sphere of both Art and Science is the social life of man.
I have now described the fundamental condition of the Positive Synthesis. Deriving its subjective principle from the affections, it is dependent ultimately on the intellect for its objective basis. This basis connects it with the Economy of the external world, the dominion of which Humanity accepts, and at the same time modifies. I have left many points unexplained; but enough has been said for the purpose of this work, which is only the introduction to a larger treatise. We now come to the essential difficulty that presented itself in the construction of the Synthesis. That difficulty was to discover the true Theory of human and social Development. The first decisive step in this discovery renders the conception of the Order of Nature complete. It stands out then as the fundamental doctrine of an universal system, for which the whole course of modern progress has been preparing the way. For three centuries men of science have been unconsciously co-operating in the work. They have left no gap of any importance, except in the region of Moral and Social phenomena. And now that man’s history has been for the first time systematically considered as a whole, and has been found to be, like all other phenomena, subject to invariable laws, the preparatory labours of modern Science are ended. Her remaining task is to construct that synthesis which will place her at the only point of view from which every department of knowledge can be embraced.
In my _System of Positive Philosophy_ both these objects were aimed at. I attempted, and in the opinion of the principal thinkers of our time successfully, to complete and at the same time co-ordinate Natural Philosophy, by establishing the general law of human development, social as well as intellectual. I shall not now enter into the discussion of this law, since its truth is no longer contested. Fuller consideration of it is reserved for the third volume of my new treatise. It lays down, as is generally known, that our speculations upon all subjects whatsoever, pass necessarily through three successive stages: a Theological stage, in which free play is given to spontaneous fictions admitting of no proof; the Metaphysical stage, characterized by the prevalence of personified abstractions or entities; lastly, the Positive stage, based upon an exact view of the real facts of the case. The first, though purely provisional, is invariably the point from which we start; the third is the only permanent or normal state; the second has but a modifying or rather a solvent influence, which qualifies it for regulating the transition from the first stage to the third. We begin with theological Imagination, thence we pass through metaphysical Discussion, and we end at last with positive Demonstration. Thus by means of this one general law we are enabled to take a comprehensive and simultaneous view of the past, present, and future of Humanity.
In my _System of Positive Philosophy_, this law of Filiation has always been associated with the law of Classification, the application of which to Social Dynamics furnishes the second element requisite for the theory of development. It fixes the order in which our different conceptions pass through each of these phases. That order, as is generally known, is determined by the decreasing generality, or what comes to the same thing, by the increasing complexity of the phenomena; the more complex being naturally dependent upon those that are more simple and less special. Arranging the sciences according to this mutual relation, we find them grouped naturally in six primary divisions[2]; Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Sociology. Each passes through the three phases of developments before the one succeeding it. Without continuous reference to this classification the theory of development would be confused and vague.
The theory thus derived from the combination of this second or statical law with the dynamical law of the three stages, seems at first sight to include nothing but the intellectual movement. But my previous remarks will have shown that this is enough to guarantee its applicability to social progress also; since social progress has invariably depended on the growth of our fundamental beliefs with regard to the economy that surrounds us. The historical portion of my _Positive Philosophy_ has proved an unbroken connexion between the development of Activity and that of Speculation; on the combined influence of these depends the development of Affection. The theory therefore requires no alteration: what is wanted is merely an additional statement explaining the phases of active, that is to say, of political development. Human activity, as I have long since shown, passes successively through the stages of Offensive warfare, Defensive warfare, and Industry. The respective connexion of these states with the preponderance of the theological, then metaphysical, or the positive spirit leads at once to a complete explanation of history. It reproduces in a systematic form the only historical conception which has become adopted by universal consent; the division, namely, of history into Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern.
It will be felt, I think, that the principal difficulty of the Positive Synthesis was met by my discovery of the laws of development, if we bear in mind that while that theory completes and co-ordinates the objective basis of the system, it at the same time holds it in subordination to the subjective principle. It is under the influence of this moral principle that the whole philosophical construction should be carried on. The inquiry into the Order of the Universe is an indispensable task, and it comes necessarily within the province of the intellect; but the intellect is too apt to aim in its pride at something beyond its proper function, which consists in unremitting service of the social sympathies. It would willingly escape from all control and follow its own bent towards speculative digressions; a tendency which is at present favoured by the undisciplined habits of thought naturally due to the first rise of Positivism in its special departments. The influence of the moral principle is necessary to recall it to its true function; since if its investigations were allowed to assume an absolute character, and to recognize no limit, we should only be repeating in a scientific form many of the worst results of theological and metaphysical belief.
The Universe is to be studied not for its own sake, but for the sake of Man or rather of Humanity. To study it in any other spirit would not only be immoral, but also highly irrational. For, as statements of pure objective truth, our scientific theories can never be really satisfactory. They can only satisfy us from the subjective point of view; that is, by limiting themselves to the treatment of such questions as have some direct or indirect influence over human life. It is for social feeling to determine these limits; outside which our knowledge will always remain imperfect as well as useless, and this even in the case of the simplest phenomena; as astronomy testifies. Were the influence of social feeling to be slackened, the Positive spirit would soon fall back to the subjects which were preferred during the period of its infancy; subjects the most remote from human interest, and therefore also the easiest. While its probationary period lasted, it was natural to investigate all accessible problems without distinction; and this was often justified by the logical value of many problems that, scientifically speaking, were useless. But now that the Positive method has been sufficiently developed to be applied exclusively to the purpose for which it was intended, there is no use whatever in prolonging the period of probation by these idle exercises. Indeed the want of purpose and discipline in our researches is rapidly assuming a retrograde character. Its tendency is to undo the chief results obtained by the spirit of detail during the time when that spirit was really essential to progress.
Here, then, we are met by a serious difficulty. The construction of the objective basis for the Positive synthesis imposes two conditions which seem, at first sight, incompatible. On the one hand we must allow the intellect to be free, or else we shall not have the full benefit of its services; and, on the other, we must control its natural tendency to unlimited digressions. The problem was insoluble, so long as the study of the natural economy did not include Sociology. But as soon as the Positive spirit extends to the treatment of social questions, these at once take precedence of all others, and thus the moral point of view becomes paramount. Objective science, proceeding from without inwards, falls at last into natural harmony with the subjective or moral principle, the superiority of which it had for so long a time resisted. As a mere speculative question it may be considered as proved to the satisfaction of every true thinker, that the social point of view is logically and scientifically supreme over all others, being the only point from which all our scientific conceptions can be regarded as a whole. Yet its influence can never be injurious to the progress of other Positive studies; for these, whether for the sake of their method or of their subject matter, will always continue to be necessary as an introduction to the final science. Indeed the Positive system gives the highest sanction and the most powerful stimulus to all preliminary sciences, by insisting on the relation which each of them bears to the great whole, Humanity.
Thus the foundation of social science bears out the statement made at the beginning of this work, that the intellect would, under Positivism, accept its proper position of subordination to the heart. The recognition of this, which is the subjective principle of Positivism, renders the construction of a complete system of human life possible. The antagonism which, since the close of the Middle Ages, has arisen between Reason and Feeling, was an anomalous though inevitable condition. It is now for ever at an end; and the only system which can really satisfy the wants of our nature, individually or collectively, is therefore ready for our acceptance. As long as the antagonism existed, it was hopeless to expect that Social Sympathy could do much to modify the preponderance of self-love in the affairs of life. But the case is different as soon as reason and sympathy are brought into active co-operation. Separately, their influence in our imperfect organization is very feeble; but combined it may extend indefinitely. It will never, indeed, be able to do away with the fact that practical life must, to a large extent, be regulated by interested motives; yet it may introduce a standard of morality inconceivably higher than any that has existed in the past, before these two modifying forces could be made to combine their action upon our stronger and lower instincts.
Positive science may deal either with objects themselves as they exist, or with the separate phenomena that the objects exhibit. Of course we can only judge of an object by the sum of its phenomena; but it is open to us either to examine a special class of phenomena abstracted from all the beings that exhibit it, or to take some special object, and examine the whole concrete group of phenomena. In the latter case we shall be studying different systems of existence; in the former, different modes of activity. As good an example of the distinction as can be given is that, already mentioned, of Meteorology. The facts of weather are evidently combinations of astronomical, physical, chemical, biological, and even social phenomena; each of these classes requiring its own separate theories. Were these abstract laws sufficiently well known to us, then the whole difficulty of the concrete problem would be so to combine them, as to deduce the order in which each composite effect would follow. This, however, is a process which seems to me so far beyond our feeble powers of deduction, that, even supposing our knowledge of the abstract laws perfect, we should still be obliged to have recourse to the inductive method.
Now the investigation of the economy of nature here contemplated is evidently of the abstract kind. We decompose that economy into its primary phenomena, that is to say, into those which are not reducible to others. These we range in classes, each of which, notwithstanding the connexion that exists between all, requires a separate inductive process; for the existence of laws cannot be proved in any one of them by pure deduction. It is only with these simpler and more abstract relations that our synthesis is directly concerned: when these are established, they afford a rational groundwork for the more composite and concrete researches. The great complexity of concrete relations makes it probable that we shall never be able to co-ordinate them perfectly. In that case the synthesis would always remain limited to abstract laws. But its true object, that of supplying an objective basis for the great synthesis of human life, will none the less be attained. For this groundwork of abstract knowledge would introduce harmony between all our mental conceptions, and thereby would make it impossible to systematize our feelings and actions, which is the object of all sound philosophy. The abstract study of nature is therefore all that is absolutely indispensable for the establishment of unity in human life.
It serves as the foundation of all wise action; as the _philosophia prima_, the necessity of which in the normal state of humanity was dimly foreseen by Bacon. When the abstract laws exhibiting the various modes of activity have been brought systematically before us, our practical knowledge of each special system of existence ceases to be purely empirical, though the greater number of concrete laws may still be unknown. We find the best example of this truth in the most difficult and important subject of all, Sociology. Knowledge of the principal statical and dynamical laws of social existence is evidently sufficient for the purpose of systematizing the various aspects of private or public life, and thereby of rendering our condition far more perfect. Should this knowledge be acquired, of which there is now no doubt, we need not regret being unable to give a satisfactory explanation of every state of society that we find existing throughout the world in all ages. The discipline of social feeling will check any foolish indulgence of the spirit of curiosity, and prevent the understanding from wasting its powers in useless speculations; for feeble as these powers are, it is from them that Humanity derives her most efficient means of contending against the defects of the External Order. The discovery of the principal concrete laws would no doubt be attended by the most beneficial results, moral as well as physical; and this is the field in which the science of the future will reap its richest harvest. But such knowledge is not indispensable for our present purpose, which is to form a complete synthesis of life, effecting for the final state of humanity what the theological synthesis effected for its primitive state. For this purpose Abstract philosophy is undoubtedly sufficient; so that even supposing that Concrete philosophy should never become so perfect as we desire, social regeneration will still be possible.
Social Philosophy, therefore, ought on every ground to be preceded by Natural Philosophy in the ordinary sense of the word; that is to say by the study of inorganic and organic nature. It is reserved for our own century to take in the whole scope of science; but the commencement of these preparatory studies dates from the first astronomical discoveries of antiquity. Natural Philosophy was completed by the modern science of Biology, of which the ancients possessed nothing but a few statical principles. The dependence of biological conditions upon astronomical is very certain. But these two sciences differ too much from each other and are too indirectly connected to give us an adequate conception of Natural Philosophy as a whole. It would be pushing the principle of condensation too far to reduce it to these two terms. One connecting link was supplied by the science of Chemistry which arose in the Middle Ages. The natural succession of Astronomy, Chemistry, and Biology leading gradually up to the final science, Sociology, made it possible to conceive more or less imperfectly of an intellectual synthesis. But the interposition of Chemistry was not enough: because, though its relation to Biology was intimate, it was too remote from Astronomy.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.