A General View of Positivism Or, Summary exposition of the System of Thought and Life · Auguste Comte
THE RELATION OF POSITIVISM TO ART
The origin of all our faculties of expression is invariably esthetic; for we do not express till after we have felt strongly. Feeling had, in primitive times at all events, far more to do with these faculties than Thought, being a far stronger stimulant to external demonstration. Even in the most highly wrought languages, where, in consequence of social requirements, reason has to a great extent encroached upon emotion, we see evidence of this truth. There is a musical element in the most ordinary conversation. Listening carefully to a lecture on the most abstruse mathematical problem, we shall hear intonations which proceed obviously from the heart rather than the head, and which are indications of character even in the most unimpassioned speaker. Biology at once explains this law, by teaching that the stimulus to the muscles used in expression, whether vocal or gesticulatory, comes principally from the affective region of the brain; the specu-region being too inert to produce muscular contraction for which there is no absolute necessity. Accordingly, Sociology regards every language as containing in its primitive elements all that is spontaneous and universal in the esthetic development of Humanity; enough, that is, to satisfy the general need of communicating emotion. In this common field the special arts commence, and they ultimately widen it.
But the operation is the same in its nature, whether carried on by popular instinct or by individuals. The final result is always more dependent on feeling than on reason, even in times like these, when the intellect has risen in revolt against the heart. Song, therefore, comes before Speech; Painting before Writing; because the first things we express are those which move our feelings most. Subsequently the necessities of social life oblige us to employ more frequently, and ultimately to develop, those elements in painting or in song, which relate to our practical wants and to our speculative faculties so far as they are required for supplying them; these forming the topics of ordinary communication. Thus the emotion from which the sign had originally proceeded becomes gradually effaced; the practical object is alone thought of, and expression becomes more rapid and less emphatic. The process goes on until at last the sign is supposed to have originated in arbitrary convention; though, if this were the case, its universal and spontaneous adoption would be inexplicable. Such, then, is the sociological theory of Language, on which I shall afterwards dwell more fully. I connect it with the whole class of esthetic functions, from which in the lower animals it is not distinguished. For no animal idealizes its song or gesture so far as to rise to anything that can properly be called Art.
Pacisque imponere morem, (Impose the law of peace.) [Nor under the Mediaeval system] Mediaeval society, notwithstanding irrational prejudices to the contrary, would have been far more favourable to the fine arts, could it have continued longer. I do not speak, indeed, of its dogmas; which were so incompatible with Art, as to lead to the strange inconsistency of giving a factitious sanction to Paganism in the midst of Christianity. By holding personal and chimerical objects before us as the end of life, Monotheism discouraged all poetry, except so far as it related to our individual existence. This, however, was idealized by the mystics, whose beautiful compositions penetrated into our inmost emotions, and wanted nothing but greater perfection of form. All that Catholicism effected for Art in other respects was to secure a better position for it, as soon as the priesthood became strong enough to counteract the intellectual and moral defects of Christian doctrine. But the social life of the Middle Ages was far more esthetic than that of antiquity. War was still the prevailing occupation; but by assuming a defensive character, it had become far more moral, and therefore more poetic. Woman had acquired a due measure of freedom; and the free development of home affections were thus no longer restricted.
During the decline of Chivalry, Art received indirectly an additional impulse from the movement of social decomposition which has been going on rapidly for the last five centuries. In this movement all mental and social influences gradually participated. Negativism, it is true, is not the proper province of Art; but the dogmas of Christianity were so oppressive to it, that its efforts to shake off the yoke were of great service to the cause of general emancipation. Dante’s incomparable work is a striking illustration of this anomalous combination of two contradictory influences. It was a situation unfavourable for art, because every aspect of life was rapidly changing and losing its character before there was time to idealize it. Consequently the poet had to create his own field artificially from ancient history, which supplied him with those fixed and definite modes of life which he could not find around him. Thus it was that for several centuries the Classical system became the sole source of esthetic culture; the result being that Art lost much of the originality and popularity which had previously belonged to it. That great masterpieces should have been produced at all under such unfavourable circumstances is the best proof of the spontaneous character of our esthetic faculties. The value of the Classical system has been for some time entirely exhausted; and now that the negative movement has reached its extreme limits there only remained one service (a service of great temporary importance) for Art to render, the idealization of Doubt itself. Such a phase of course admitted of but short duration. The best examples of it are the works of Byron and Goethe, the principle value of which has been, that they have initiated Protestant countries into the unrestricted freedom of thought which emanated originally from French philosophy.
Thus history shows that the esthetic development of Humanity has been the result of spontaneous tendencies rather than of systematic guidance. The mental conditions most favourable to it have never been fulfilled simultaneously with its social conditions. At the present time both are alike wanting. Yet there is no evidence that our esthetic faculties are on the decline. Not only has the growth of art proceeded in spite of every obstacle, but it has become more thoroughly incorporated into the life of ordinary men. In ancient times it was cultivated only by a small class. So little was it recognized as a component part of social organization, that it did not even enter into men’s imaginary visions of a future existence. But in the Middle Ages the simplest minds were encouraged to cultivate the sense of beauty as one of the purest delights of human life; and it was held out as the principal occupation of the celestial state. From that time all classes of European society have taken an increasing interest in these elevating pleasures, beginning with poetry, and thence passing to the special arts, especially music, the most social of all. The influence of artists, even when they had no real claim to the title, has been on the increase; until at last the anarchy of the present time has introduced them to political power, for which they are utterly unqualified.
As being the only rallying point now possible for fixed convictions, without which life can have no definite or permanent character, Positivism is on this ground alone indispensable to all further development of modern Art. If the poet and his readers are alike devoid of such convictions, no idealization of life, whether personal, domestic, or social, is in any true sense possible. No emotions are fit subjects for Art unless they are felt deeply, and unless they come spontaneously to all. When society has no marked intellectual or moral feature, Art, which is its mirror, can have none either. And although the esthetic faculty is so innate in us that it never can remain inactive, yet its culture becomes in this case vague and objectless. The fact therefore that Positivism terminates the Revolution by initiating the movement of organic growth is of itself enough to prove its beneficial influence upon Art. Art, indeed, would profit by any method of reorganization, whatever its nature. But the principle on which Positivism proposes to reconstruct is peculiarly favourable to its growth. The opinions and the modes of life to which that principle conducts are precisely those which are most essential to esthetic development.
A more esthetic system cannot be imagined than one which teaches that Feeling is the basis on which the unity of human nature rests; and which assigns as the grand object of man’s existence, progress in every direction, but especially moral progress. It may seem at first as if the tendency of the new philosophy was merely to make us more systematic. And systematization is assuredly indispensable; but the sole object of it is to increase our sympathy and our synergic activity by supplying that fixity of principle which alone can lead to energetic practice. By teaching that the highest happiness is to aid in the happiness of others, Positivism invites the poet to his noblest function, the culture of generous sympathies, a subject far more poetic than the passions of hatred and oppression which hitherto have been his ordinary theme. A system which regards such culture as the highest object cannot fail to incorporate Poetry as one of its essential elements, and to give to it a far higher position than it has ever held before.
Science, although it be the source from which the Positive system emanates, will be restricted to its proper function of supplying the objective basis for human prevision; thus giving to Art and Industry, which must always be the principal objects of our attention, the foundation they require. Positivism, substituting in every subject the relative point of view for the absolute, regarding, that is, every subject in its relation to Humanity, would not prosecute the study of the True beyond what is required for the development of the Good and the Beautiful. Beyond this point, scientific culture is a useless expenditure of time, and a diversion from the great end for which Man and Society exist. Subordinate as the ideal must ever be to the real, Art will yet exercise a most salutary influence upon Science, as soon as we cease to study Science in an absolute spirit. In the very simplest phenomena, after reaching the degree of exactness which our wants require, there is always a certain margin of liberty for the imagination; and advantage may very well be taken of this to make our conceptions more beautiful and so far more useful. Still more available is this influence of the Beautiful on the True in the highest subjects, those which directly concern Humanity. Minute accuracy being here more difficult and at the same time less important, more room is left for esthetic considerations. In representing the great historical types, for instance, Art has its place as well as Science. A society which devotes all its powers to making every aspect of life as perfect as possible, will naturally give preference to that kind of intellectual culture which is of all others the best calculated to heighten our sense of perfection.
It will familiarize the humblest working man or woman from childhood with all the beauties of the best poets; not those of his own nation merely, but of all the West. To secure the genuineness and efficiency of esthetic development, attention must first be given to the poets who depict our own modern society. Afterwards, as I have said, the young Positivist will be advised to complete his poetical course, by studying the poets who have idealized antiquity. But his education will not be limited to poetry, it will embrace the special arts of sound and form, by which the principal effects of poetry are reproduced with greater intensity. Thus the contemplation and meditation suggested by Art, besides their own intrinsic charm, will prepare the way for the exercise of similar faculties in Science. For with the individual, as with the species, the combination of images will assist the combination of signs: signs in their origin being images which have lost their vividness. As the sphere of Art includes every subject of human interest, we shall become familiarized, during the esthetic period of education, with the principal conceptions that are afterwards to be brought before us systematically in the scientific period. Especially will this be true of historical studies. By the time that the pupil enters upon them, he will be already familiar with poetic descriptions of the various social phases, and of the men who played a leading part in them.
A vague presentiment of the proper function of Art in regulating public festivals was shown empirically by the Revolutionists. But all their attempts in this direction proved notorious failures; a signal proof that politicians should not usurp the office of spiritual guides. The intention of a festival is to give public expression to deep and genuine feeling; spontaneousness therefore is its first condition. Hence it is a matter with which political rulers are incompetent to deal; and even the spiritual power should only act as the systematic organ of impulses which already exist. Since the decline of Catholicism we have had no festivals worthy of the name; nor can we have them until Positivism has become generally accepted. All that governments could do at present is to exhibit unmeaning and undignified shows before discordant crowds, who are themselves the only spectacles worth beholding. Indeed the usurpation of this function by government is in many cases as tyrannical as it is irrational; arbitrary formulas are often imposed, which answer to no pre-existing feeling whatever. Evidently the direction of festivals is a function which more than any other belongs exclusively to the spiritual power, since it is the spiritual power which regulates the tendencies of which these festivals are the manifestation. Here its work is essentially esthetic. A festival even in private, and still more in public life, is or should be a work of art; its purpose being to express certain feelings by voice or gesture, and to idealize them. It is the most esthetic of all functions, since it involves usually a complete combination of the four special arts, under the presidence of the primary art, Poetry. On this ground governments have in most cases been willing to waive their official authority in this matter, and to be largely guided by artistic counsel, accepting even the advice of painters and sculptors in the default of poets of real merit.
Modern poets, finding little to inspire them in their own times, and driven back into ancient life by the classical system, have already idealized some of the past phases of Humanity. Our great Corneille, for instance, is principally remembered for the series of dramas in which he has so admirably depicted various periods of Roman history. In our own times where the historical spirit has become stronger, novelists, like Scott and Manzoni, have made similar though less perfect attempts to idealize later periods. Such examples, however, are but spontaneous and imperfect indications of the new field which Positivism now offers to the artist; a field which extends over the whole region of the Past and even of the Future. Until this vast domain had been conceived of as a whole by the philosopher, it would have been impossible to bring it within the compass of poetry. Now theological and metaphysical philosophers were prevented by the absolute spirit of their doctrines from understanding history in all its phases, and were totally incapable of idealizing them as they deserved. Positivism, on the contrary, is always relative; and its principal feature is a theory of history which enables us to appreciate and become familiar with every mode in which human society has formed itself.
No sincere Monotheist can understand and represent with fairness the life of Polytheists or Fetichists. But the Positivist poet, accustomed to look upon all past historical stages in their proper filiation, will be able so thoroughly to identify himself with all, as to awaken our sympathies for them, and revive the traces which each individual may recognize of corresponding phases in his own history. Thus we shall be able thoroughly to enter into the esthetic beauty of the Pagan creeds of Greece and Rome, without any of the scruples which Christians could not but feel when engaged on the same subject. In the Art of the Future all phases of the Past will be recalled to life with the same distinctness with which some of them have been already idealized by Homer and Corneille. And the value of this new source of inspiration is the greater that, at the same time that it is being opened out to the artist, the public is being prepared for its enjoyment. An almost exhaustless series of beautiful creations in epic or dramatic art may be produced, which, by rendering it more easy to comprehend and to glorify the Past in all its phases, will form an essential element, on the one hand, of our educational system, and on the other, of the worship of Humanity.
Indeed, so esthetic is the spirit of Positive education, that no special training for Art will be needed, except that which is given spontaneously by practice. There is no other profession which requires so little direct instruction; the tendency of it in Art being to destroy originality, and to stifle the fire of genius with technical erudition. Even for the special arts no professional education is needed. These, like industrial arts, should be acquired by careful practice under the guidance of good masters. The notorious failure of public institutions established for the purpose of forming musicians and painters, makes it unnecessary to dwell further upon this point. Not to speak of their injurious effects upon character, they are a positive impediment to true genius. Poets and artists, then, require no education beyond that which is given to the public, whose thoughts and emotions it is their office to represent. Its want of speciality makes it all the more fit to develop and bring forward real talent. It will strengthen the love of all the fine arts simultaneously; for the connexion between them is so intimate that those who make it a boast that their talent is for one of them exclusively will be strongly suspected of having no real vocation for any. All the greatest masters, modern no less than ancient, have shown this universality of taste. Its absence in the present day is but a fresh proof that esthetic genius does not and cannot exist in times like these, when Art has no social purpose and rests on no philosophic principles. If even amateurs are expected to enjoy Art in all its forms, is it likely that composers of real genius will restrict their admiration to their own special mode of idealization and expression?
Looking at the two essential functions of the spiritual power, education and counsel, it is not difficult to see that what they require is a combination of poetic feeling with scientific insight. We look for a measure of both these qualities in the public; therefore men who are devoid of either of them cannot be fit to be its spiritual guides. That they take the name of philosophers in preference to that of poets, is because their ordinary duties are more connected with Science than with Art but they ought to be equally interested in both. Science requires systematic teaching, whereas Art is cultivated spontaneously, with the exception of the technical branches of the special arts. It must be remembered that the highest esthetic functions are not such as can be performed continuously. It is only works of rare excellence which are in the highest sense useful: these, once produced, supply an unfailing source of idealization and expression for our emotions, whether in public or in private. It is enough, if the interpreter of these works and his audience have been so educated as to appreciate what is perfect, and reject mediocrity. Organs of unusual power will arise occasionally, as in former times, from all sections of society, whenever the need of representing new emotions may be felt. But they will come more frequently from the philosophic class in whose character, when it is fully developed, Sympathy will be as prominent a feature as System.
Diderot would no doubt have been a great poet in a time more favourable to art; and Goethe, under different political influences, might have been an eminent philosopher. All scientific discoverers in whom the inductive faculty has been more active than the deductive, have given manifest proof of poetic capacity. Whether the powers of invention take an abstract or a concrete direction, whether they are employed in discovering truth or in idealizing it, the cerebral function is always essentially the same. The difference is merely in the objects aimed at; and as these alternate according to the circumstances of the time, they cannot both be pursued simultaneously. The remarkably synthetic character of Buffon’s genius may be looked on historically as an instance of fusion of the scientific and esthetic spirit. Bossuet is even a more striking instance of a mind equally capable of the deepest philosophy and of the sublimest poetry, had the circumstances of his life given him a more definite impulse in either direction.
It is then not unreasonable to expect, notwithstanding the opinion usually maintained, that the philosophical class will furnish poets of the highest rank when the time calls for them. To pass from scientific thought to esthetic thought will not be difficult for minds of the highest order; for in such minds there is always a natural inclination towards the work which is most urgently required by their age. To meet the technical conditions of the arts of sound and form, it will be necessary to provide a few special masters, who, in consideration of the importance of their services to general education, will be looked upon as accessory members of the new spiritual power. But even here the tendency to specialities will be materially restricted. This exceptional position will only be given to men of sufficient esthetic power to appreciate all the fine arts; and they should be capable of practising at least the three arts of form simultaneously, as was done by Italian painters in the sixteenth century.
An additional proof of the esthetic capacity of the moderating power in works of less difficulty, but admitting of greater frequency, will be furnished by its feminine element. In the special arts, or at least in the arts of form, but little can be expected of them, because these demand more technical knowledge than they can well acquire, and, moreover, the slow process of training would spoil the spontaneousness which is so admirable in them. But for all poetic composition which does not require intense or prolonged effort, women of genius are better qualified than men. This they should consider as their proper department intellectually, since their nature is not well adapted for the discovery of scientific truth. When women have become more systematically associated with the general movement of society under the influence of the new system of education, they will do much to elevate that class of poetry which relates to personal feelings and to domestic life. Women are already better judges of such poetry than men; and there is no reason why they should not excel them in composing it. For the power of appreciating and that of producing are in reality identical; the difference is in degree only, and it depends greatly upon culture.
The popular element of the spiritual power has not so well marked an aptitude for art, since the active nature of their occupations hardly admits of the same degree of intellectual life. But there is a minor class of poems, where energy of character and freedom from worldly cares are the chief sources of inspiration, for which working men are better adapted than women, and far more so than philosophers. When Positivist education has extended sufficiently to the People of the West, poets and musicians will spontaneously arise, as in many cases they have already risen, to give expression to its own special aspirations. But independently of what may be due to individual efforts, the People as a whole has an indirect but most important influence upon the Progress of Art, from the fact of being the principal source of language.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.