General View of Positivism — Chapter 3 The Action Of Positivism Upon The Working Classes Part 5

[Travels of Apprentices] There is an excellent custom prevalent among the working men of France and creditable to their good sense, with which our educational scheme seems at first sight incompatible.

I refer to the custom of travelling from place to place during the last years of apprenticeship; which is as beneficial to their mind and character, as the purposeless excursions of our wealthy and idle classes are in most cases injurious.

But there is no necessity for its interfering with study, since it always involves long residence in the chief centres of production, where the workman is sure to find annual courses of lectures similar to those which he would otherwise have been attending at home.

As the structure and distribution of the philosophic body will be everywhere the same, there need be no great inconvenience in these changes.

For every centre not more than seven teachers will be required; each of whom will take the whole Encyclopædic scale successively.

Thus the total number of lectures will be so small as to admit of a high standard of merit being everywhere attained, and of finding everywhere a fair measure of material support.

So far from discouraging the travelling system, Positivism will give it a new character, intellectually and socially, by extending the range of travel to the whole of Western Europe, since there is no part of it in which the workman will not be able to prosecute his education.

The difference of language will then be no obstacle.

Not only would the sense of fraternity among Western nations be strengthened by such a plan, but great improvement would result esthetically.

The languages of Europe would be learnt more thoroughly, and there would be a keener appreciation of works of art, whether musical, pictorial, or architectural; for these can never be properly appreciated but in the country which gave them birth.

[Concentration of study] Judging by our present practice, it would seem impossible to include such a mass of important scientific studies, as are here proposed, in three hundred and sixty lectures.

But the length to which courses of lectures on any subject extend at present, is owing partly to the special or professional object with which the course is given, and still more to the discursive and unphilosophical spirit of most of the teachers, consequent on the miserable manner in which our scientific system is organized.

Such a regeneration of scientific studies as Positivism proposes, will animate them with a social spirit, and thus give them a larger and more comprehensive tendency.

Teachers will become more practised in the art of condensing, and their lectures will be far more substantial.

They will not indeed be a substitute for voluntary effort, on which all the real value of teaching depends.

Their aim will be rather to direct such effort.

A striking example, which is not so well remembered as it should be, will help to explain my meaning.

At the first opening of the Polytechnic School, courses of lectures were given, very appropriately named _Revolutionary Courses_, which concentrated the teaching of three years into three months.

What was in that case an extraordinary anomaly, due to republican enthusiasm, may become the normal state when a moral power arises not inferior in energy, and yet based upon a consistent intellectual synthesis, of which our great predecessors of the Revolution could have no conception.

Little attention has hitherto been given to the didactic value of Feeling.

Since the close of the Middle Ages, the heart has been neglected in proportion as the mind has been cultivated.

But it is the characteristic principle of Positivism, a principle as fertile in intellectual as in moral results, that the Intellect, whether we look at its natural or at its normal position, is subordinate to Social Feeling.

Throughout this course of popular education, parents and masters will seize every suitable occasion for calling Social Feeling into play; and the most abstruse subjects will often be vivified by its influence.

The office of the mind is to strengthen and to cultivate the heart; the heart again should animate and direct the mental powers.

This mutual influence of general views and generous feelings will have greater effect upon scientific study, from the esthetic culture previously given, in which such habits of mind will have been formed, as will give grace and beauty to the whole life.

[Governmental assistance not required, except for certain special institutions, and this only as a provisional measure] When I speak of this education as specially destined for the people, I am not merely using words to denote its comprehensiveness and philosophic character.

It is, in my opinion, the only education, with the exception of certain special branches, for which public organization is needed.

It should be looked on as a sacred debt which the republic owes to the working classes.

But the claim does not extend to other classes, who can easily pay for any special instruction that they may require.

Besides such instruction will be only a partial development of the more general teaching, or an application of it to some particular purpose.

Therefore if the general training be sound, most people will be able to prosecute accessory studies by themselves.

Apprenticeship to any business involves very little, except the practice of it.

Even in the highest arts, no course of systematic instruction is necessary.

The false views now prevalent on the subject are due to the unfortunate absence of all general education, since the decay of Catholicism.

The special institutions founded in Europe during the last three centuries, and carefully remodelled in France by the Convention, are only valuable as containing certain germs of truth, which will be found indispensable when general education is finally reorganized.

But important as they may be from a scientific aspect, their practical utility, which seems to have been the motive for establishing them, is exceedingly doubtful.

The arts which they were intended to promote could have done perfectly well without them.

I

include in these remarks such institutions as the Polytechnic School, the Museum of Natural History, etc. Their value, like that of all good institutions of modern times, is purely provisional.

Viewed in this light, it may be worth our while to reorganize them.

Positivist principles, discarding all attempts to make them permanent, will be all the better able to adapt them to their important temporary purpose.

Indeed there are some new institutions which it might be advisable to form; such, for instance, as a School of Comparative Philology, the object of which would be to range all human languages according to their true affinities.

This would compensate the suppression of Greek and Latin professorships, which is certainly an indispensable measure.

But the whole of this provisional framework would no doubt disappear before the end of the nineteenth century, when a system of general education will have been thoroughly organized.

The present necessity for a provisional system should lead to no misconception of its character and purpose.

Working men are the only class who have a real claim upon the State for instruction; and this, if wisely organized, dispenses with the necessity of special institutions.

The adoption of these views would at once facilitate and ennoble popular education.

Nations, provinces, and towns will vie with one another in inviting the best teachers that the spiritual authorities of Western Europe can supply.

And every true philosopher will take pride in such teaching, when it becomes generally understood that the popular character of his lectures implies that they shall be at the same time systematic.

Members of the new spiritual power will in most cases regard teaching as their principal occupation, for at least a considerable portion of their public life.

[We are not ripe for this system at present; and Government must not attempt to hasten its introduction] What has been said makes it clear that any organization of such education as this at the present time would be impossible.

However sincere the intentions of governments to effect this great result might be, any premature attempt to do it would but injure the work, especially if they put in a claim to superintend it.

The truth is that a system of education, if it deserve the name, presupposes the acceptance of a definite philosophical and social creed to determine its character and purpose.

Children cannot be brought up in convictions contrary to those of their parents; indeed, the influence of the parent is essential to the instructor.

Opinions and habits that have been already formed may subsequently be strengthened by an educational system; but the carrying out of any such system is impossible, until the principles of combined action and belief have been well established.

Till then the organization that we propose can only be effected in the case of individuals who are ripe for it.

Each of these will endeavour to repair the faults and deficiencies of his own education in the best way he can, by the aid of the general doctrine which he accepts.

Assuming that the doctrine is destined to triumph, the number of such minds gradually increases, and they superintend the social progress of the next generation.

This is the natural process, and no artificial interference can dispense with it.

So far, then, from inviting government to organize education, we ought rather to exhort it to abdicate the educational powers which it already holds, and which, I refer more especially to France, are either useless or a source of discord.

There are only two exceptions to this remark, namely, primary education, and special instruction in certain higher branches.

Of these I have already spoken.

But with these exceptions, it is most desirable that government, whether municipal or central, should surrender its unreasonable monopoly, and establish real liberty of teaching; the condition of such liberty being, as I said before, the suppression of all annual grants whatsoever for theological or metaphysical purposes.

Until some universal faith has been accepted on its own merits, all attempts made by Government to reform education must necessarily be reactionary; since they will always be based on some one of the retrogressive creeds which it is our object to supersede altogether.

It is with adults, then, that we must deal.

We must endeavour to disseminate systematic convictions among them, and thus open the door to a real reform of education for the next generation.

The press and the power of free speech offer many ways of bringing about this result.

The most important of these would be a more or less connected series of popular lectures on the various positive sciences, including history, which may now be ranked among them.

Now for these lectures to produce their full effect, they must even when treating of the most elementary point in mathematics, be thoroughly philosophic and consequently animated by a social spirit.

They must be entirely independent of government, so as not to be hampered by any of the authorized views.

Lastly, there is a condition in which all the rest are summed up.

These lectures should be Occidental, not simply National.

What we require is a free association of philosophers throughout Western Europe, formed by the voluntary co-operation of all who can contribute efficiently to this great preliminary work; their services being essentially gratuitous.

It is a result which no system but Positivism is capable of effecting.

By its agency that coalition between philosophers and the working classes, on which so much depends, will speedily be established.

While the work of propagating Positivist convictions is going on in the free and unrestricted manner here described, the spiritual authority will at the same time be forming itself, and will be prepared to make use of these convictions as the basis for social regeneration.

Thus the transitional state will be brought as nearly as possible into harmony with the normal state; and this the more in proportion as the natural affinity between philosophers and workmen is brought out more distinctly.

The connexion between Positivist lectures and Positivist clubs will illustrate my meaning.

While the lectures prepare the way for the Future, the clubs work in the same direction by judging the Past, and advising for the Present; so that we have at once a beginning of the three essential functions of the new spiritual power.

We have now a clear conception of popular education in its provisional, and in its normal state.

Long before the normal state can be realized, the mutual action of philosophers and workmen will have done great service to both.

Meeting with such powerful support from the people, the rising spiritual power will win the respect if not the affection of their rulers, even of those among them who are now the most contemptuous of every influence but that of material power.

Their excess of pride will often be so far humbled that they will invite its mediation in cases where the people have been roused to just indignation.

The force of numbers seems at first so violent as to carry all before it; but in the end it usually proves far inferior to that of wealth.

It cannot exist for any length of time without complete convergence of opinion and feeling.

Hence, a spiritual power has very great weight in controlling or directing its action.

Philosophers will never, indeed, be able to manage the working classes as they please, as some unprincipled agitators have imagined; but when they exercise their authority rightly, whether it be in the cause of Order or that of Progress, they will have great power over their passions and conduct.

Such influence can only spring from long cherished feelings of gratitude and trust, due not merely to presumed capacity but to services actually rendered.

No one is a fit representative of his own claims; but the philosopher may honourably represent the cause of working men before the governing classes; and the people will in their turn compel their rulers to respect the new spiritual power.

By this habitual exchange of services the aspirations of the people will be kept clear of all subversive tendencies, and philosophers will be led to abandon the folly of seeking political power.

Neither class will degrade itself by making its own interest the chief consideration: each will find its own reward in keeping to the nobler course of its own social duty.

[Intellectual attitude of the people.

Emancipation from theological belief] To complete this view of the political attitude which Positivism recommends to the working class, I have now to speak of the intellectual and moral conditions which that attitude requires, and on which the character of their spiritual leaders depends.

What is wanted is only a more perfect development of tendencies which already exist in the people, and which have already shown themselves strong in Paris, the centre of the great Western movement.

Intellectually the principal conditions are two; Emancipation from obsolete beliefs, and a sufficient amount of mental culture.

The emancipation of the working classes from theology is complete, at least in Paris.

In no other class has it so entirely lost its power.

The shallow deism, which satisfies so many of our literary men, finds little favour with the people.

They are happily unversed in studies of words and abstractions, without which this last stage in the process of emancipation speedily comes to an end.

We only require a stronger expression of popular feeling on this point, so as to avoid all deception and false statement as to the intellectual character of the reorganization that is going on.

And the freedom that we are now enjoying will admit of these feelings being unmistakably manifested, especially now that they have the new philosophy for their exponent.

A distinct declaration of opinion on this subject is urgently needed on social grounds.

That hypocritical affectation of theological belief against which we have to fight, is designed to prevent, or at least has the effect of preventing, the just enforcement of popular claims.

These unscrupulous attempts to mystify the people involve their mental subjection.

The result is, that their legitimate aspirations for real progress are evaded, by diverting their thoughts towards an imaginary future state.

It is for the working classes themselves to break through this concerted scheme, which is even more contemptible than it is odious.

They have only to declare without disguise what their intellectual position really is; and to do this so emphatically as to make any mistake on the part of the governing classes impossible.

They will consequently reject all teachers who are insufficiently emancipated, or who in any way support the system of theological hypocrisy, which, from Robespierre downwards, has been the refuge of all reactionists, whether democrat or royalist.

But there are teachers of another kind, who sincerely maintain that our life here on earth is a temporary banishment, and that we ought to take as little interest in it as possible.

A prompt answer may be given to such instructors as these.

They should be requested to follow out their principle consistently, and to cease to interfere in the management of a world which is so alien to what, in their ideas, is the sole aim of life.

[From metaphysical doctrines] Metaphysical principles have more hold on our working classes than theological; yet their abandonment is equally necessary.

The subtle extravagances by which the German mind has been so confused, find, it is true, little favour in Catholic countries.

But even in Paris the people retains a prejudice in favour of metaphysical instruction, though happily it has not been able to obtain it.

It is most desirable that this last illusion of our working classes should be dissipated, as it forms the one great obstacle to their social action.

One reason for it is that they fall into the common error of confounding knowledge with intelligence, and imagine in their modesty that none but instructed men are capable of governing.

Now this error, natural as it is, often leads them to choose incompetent leaders.

A truer estimate of modern society would teach them that it is not among our literary, or even our scientific men, proud as they may be of their attainments, that the largest number of really powerful intellects are to be found.

There are more of them among the despised practical class, and even amongst the most uninstructed working men.

In the Middle Ages this truth was better known than it is now.

Education was thought more of than instruction.

A knight would be appreciated for his sagacity and penetration, and appointed to important posts, though he might be extremely ignorant.

Clear-sightedness, wisdom, and even consistency of thought, are qualities which are very independent of learning; and, as matters now stand, they are far better cultivated in practical life than in scholastic study.

In breadth of view, which lies at the root of all political capacity, our literary classes have certainly shown themselves far below the average.

[Their mistaken preference of literary and rhetorical talent to real intellectual power] And now we come to another and a deeper reason for the prejudice of which I am speaking.

It is that they make no distinction between one kind of instruction and another.

The unfortunate confidence which they still bestow on literary men and lawyers shows that the prestige of pedantry lingers among them longer than the prestige of theology or monarchy.

But all this will soon be altered under the influence of republican government, and the strong discipline of a sound philosophical system.

Popular instinct will soon discover that constant practice of the faculty of expression, whether in speech or in writing, is no guarantee for real power of thought; indeed that it has a tendency to incapacitate men from forming a clear and decided judgment on any question.

The instruction which such men receive is utterly deficient in solid principles, and it almost always either presupposes or causes a total absence of fixed convictions.

Most minds thus trained, while skilled in putting other men’s thoughts into shape, become incapable of distinguishing true from false in the commonest subjects, even when their own interest requires it.

The people must give up the feeling of blind respect which leads them to intrust such men with their higher interests.

Reverence for superiors is doubtless indispensable to a well-ordered state; only it needs to be better guided than it is now.

What then, working men may ask, is the proper training for themselves, and consequently for those who claim to guide them?

The answer is, systematic cultivation of the Positive spirit.

It is already called into exercise by their daily occupations; and all that is wanted is to strengthen it by a course of scientific study.

Their daily work involves a rudimentary application of the Positive method: it turns their attention to many most important natural laws.

In fact, the workmen of Paris, whom I take as the best type of their class, have a clearer sense of that union of reality with utility by which the Positive spirit is characterized, than most of our scientific men.

The speciality of their employment is no doubt disadvantageous with respect to breadth and coherence of ideas.

But it leaves the mind free from responsibility, and this is the most favourable condition for developing these qualities to which all vigorous intellects are naturally disposed.

But nothing will so strongly impress on the people the importance of extending and organizing their scientific knowledge, as their interest in social questions.

Their determination to rectify a faulty condition of society will suggest to them that they must first know what the laws of Social life really are;

knowledge which is obviously necessary in every other subject.

They will then feel how impossible it is to understand the present state of society, without understanding its relation on the one hand with the Past, and on the other with the Future.

Their desire to modify the natural course of social phenomena will make them anxious to know the antecedents and consequences of these phenomena, so as to avoid all mischievous or useless interference.

They will thus discover that Political Art is even more dependent than other arts, upon its corresponding Science.

And then they will soon see that this science is no isolated department of knowledge, but that it involves preliminary study of Man and of the World.

In this way they will pass downwards through the hierarchic scale of Positive conceptions, until they come back to the inorganic world, the sphere more immediately connected with their own special avocations.

And thus they will reach the conclusion that Positivism is the only system which can satisfy either the intellectual or material wants of the people, since its subject-matter and its objects are identical with their own, and since, like themselves, it subordinates everything to social considerations.

All that it claims is to present in a systematic form principles which they already hold instinctively.

By co-ordinating these principles of morality and good sense, their value, whether in public or in private questions, is largely increased; and the union of the two forms of wisdom, theoretical and practical wisdom, is permanently secured.

When all this is understood, the people will feel some shame at having entrusted questions of the greatest complexity to minds that have never quite comprehended the difference between a cubic inch and a cubic foot.

As to men of science, in the common acceptation of the word, who are so respected by the middle classes, we need not be afraid of their gaining much influence with the people.

They are alienated from them by their utter indifference to social questions;

and before these their learned puerilities fade into insignificance.

Absorbed in the details of their own special science, they are quite incapable of satisfying unsophisticated minds.

What the people want is to have clear conceptions on all subjects, _des clartés de tout_, as Molière has it.

Whenever the savants of our time are drawn by their foolish ambition into politics, ordinary men find to their surprise that, except in a few questions of limited extent and importance, their minds have become thoroughly narrow under the influence of the specializing system of which they are so proud.

Positivism explains the mystery, by showing that, since the necessity for the specializing system now no longer exists, it naturally results if prolonged, in a sort of academic idiocy.

During the last three centuries it did real service to society, by laying down the scientific groundwork for the renovation of Philosophy projected by Bacon and Descartes.

But as soon as the groundwork was sufficiently finished to admit of the formation of true Science, that is, of Science viewed relatively to Humanity, the specializing method became retrograde.

It ceased to be of any assistance to the modern spirit; and indeed it is now, especially in France, a serious obstacle to its diffusion and systematic working.

The wise revolutionists of the Convention were well aware of this when they took the bold step of suppressing the Academy of Sciences.

The beneficial results of this statesman-like policy will soon be appreciated by our workmen.

The danger lest, in withdrawing their confidence from metaphysicians or literary men, they should fall into the bad scientific spirit, is not therefore very great.

With the social aims which they have in view, they cannot but see that generality in their conceptions is as necessary as positivity.

The Capitalist class by which industry is directed, being more concentrated on special objects, will always look on men of pure science with more respect.

But the people will be drawn by their political leanings towards philosophers in the true sense of that word.

The number of such men is but very small at present; but it will soon increase at the call of the working classes, and will indeed be recruited from their ranks.

[Moral attitude of the people.

The workman should regard himself as a public functionary]