General View of Positivism — Chapter 5 The Relation Of Positivism To Art Part 1

[Positivism when complete is as favourable to imagination, as, when incomplete, it was unfavourable to it] The essential principles and the social purpose of the only philosophy by which the revolution can be brought to a close, are now before us.

We have seen too that energetic support from the People and cordial sympathy from Women are necessary to bring this philosophic movement to a practical result.

One further condition yet remains.

The view here taken of human life as regenerated by this combination of efforts, would be incomplete if it did not include an additional element, with which Positivism, as I have now to show, is no less competent to deal.

We have spoken already of the place which Reason occupies in our nature; its function being to subordinate itself to Feeling for the better guidance of the Active powers.

But in the normal state of our nature it has also another function; that of regulating and stimulating Imagination, without yielding passive obedience to it.

The esthetic faculties are far too important to be disregarded in the normal state of Humanity; therefore they must not be omitted from the system which aims to introduce that state.

There is a strong but groundless prejudice that in this respect at least Positivism will be found wanting.

Yet it furnishes, as may readily be shown, the only true foundation of modern Art, which, since the Middle Ages, has been cultivated without fixed principles or lofty purpose.

The reproach that Positivism is incompatible with Art arises simply from the fact that almost every one is in the habit of confounding the philosophy itself with the scientific studies on which it is based.

The charge only applies to the positive spirit in its preliminary phase of disconnected specialities, a phase which scientific men of the present day are making such mischievous efforts to prolong.

Nothing can be more fatal to the fine arts than the narrow views, the overstraining of analysis, the abuse of the reasoning faculty, which characterize the scientific investigation of the present day; to say nothing of their injurious effects upon moral progress, the first condition of esthetic development.

But all these defects necessarily disappear when the Positive spirit becomes more comprehensive and systematic; which is the case as soon as it embraces the higher subjects in the encyclopædic scale of sciences.

When it reaches the study of Society, which is its true and ultimate sphere, it has to deal with the conceptions of Poetry, as well as with the operations of Feeling: since its object must then be to give a faithful and complete representation of human nature under its individual, and still more under its social, aspects.

Hitherto Positive science has avoided these two subjects: but their charm is such that, when the study of them has been once begun, it cannot fail to be prosecuted with ardour; and their proper place in the constitution of Man and of Society will then be recognized.

Reason has been divorced for a long time from Feeling and Imagination.

But, with the more complete and systematic culture here proposed, they will be re-united.

To those who have studied the foregoing chapters with attention, the view that the new philosophy is unfavourable to Art, will be obviously unjust.

Supposing even that there were no important functions specially assigned to the fine arts in the Positive system, yet indirectly, the leading principles of the system, its social purpose, and the influences by which it is propagated, are all most conducive to the interests of Art.

To demonstrate, as Positivism alone of all philosophies has done, the subordination of the intellect to the heart, and the dependence of the unity of human nature upon Feeling, is to stimulate the esthetic faculties, because Feeling is their true source.

To propound a social doctrine by which the Revolution is brought to a close, is to remove the principal obstacle to the growth of Art, and to open a wide field and a firm foundation for it, by establishing fixed principles and modes of life; in the absence of which Poetry can have nothing noble to narrate or to inspire.

To exhort the working classes to seek happiness in calling their moral and mental powers into constant exercise, and to give them an education, the principal basis of which is esthetic, is to place Art under the protection of its natural patrons.

But one consideration is of itself sufficient for our purpose.

We have but to look at the influence of Positivism upon Women, at its tendency to elevate the social dignity of their sex, while at the same time strengthening all family ties.

Now of all the elements of which society is constituted, Woman certainly is the most esthetic, alike from her nature and her position; and both her position and her nature are raised and strengthened by Positivism.

We receive from women, not only our first ideas of Goodness, but our first sense of Beauty; for their own sensibility to it is equalled by their power of imparting it to others.

We see in them every kind of beauty combined; beauty of mind and character as well as of person.

All their actions, even those which are unconscious, exhibit a spontaneous striving for ideal perfection.

And their life at home, when free from the necessity of labouring for a livelihood, favours this tendency.

Living as they do for affection, they cannot fail to feel aspirations for all that is highest, in the world around them first, and then also in the world of imagination.

A doctrine, then, which regards women as the originators of moral influence in society, and which places the groundwork of education under their charge, cannot be suspected of being unfavourable to Art.

Leaving these prejudices, we may now examine the mode in which the incorporation of Art into the modern social system will be promoted by Positivism.

In the first place systematic principles of Art will be laid down, and its proper function clearly defined.

The result of this will be to call out new and powerful means of expression, and also new organs.

I may observe that the position which Art will occupy in the present movement of social regeneration is already an inauguration of its final function; as we saw in the analogous cases of the position of women and of the working classes.

[Esthetic talent is for the adornment of life, not for its government] But before touching on this question it will be well to rectify a prevalent misconception on the subject, one of the many consequences of our mental and moral anarchy.

I refer to the exaggeration of the influence of Art; an error which, if uncorrected, would vitiate all our views with regard to it.

All poets of real genius, from Homer to Corneille, have always considered their work to be that of beautifying human life, and so far, of elevating it.

Government of human life they had never supposed to fall within their province.

Indeed no sane man would lay it down as a proposition that Imagination should control the other mental faculties.

It would imply that the normal condition of the intellect was insanity;

insanity being definable as that state of mind in which subjective inspirations are stronger than objective judgments.

It is a static law of our nature, which has never been permanently suspended, that the faculties of Representation and Expression should be subordinate to those of Conception and Co-ordination.

Even in cerebral disturbances the law holds good.

The relation with the external world is perverted, but the original correlation of the internal mental functions remains unaffected.

The foolish vanity of the later poets of antiquity led some of them into errors much resembling those which now prevail on this point.

Still in Polytheistic society artists were at no time looked upon as the leading class, notwithstanding the esthetic character of Greek and Roman religion.

If proofs were necessary, Homer’s poems, especially the Odyssey, would show how secondary the influence of the fine arts was upon society, even when the priesthood had ceased to control them.

Plato’s Utopia, written when Polytheism was in its decline, represented a state in which the interference of poets was systematically prevented.

Mediaeval Monotheism was still less disposed to overrate the importance of Art, though its true value was recognized more generally than it had ever been before.

But with the decline of Catholicism, germs of errors showed themselves, from which even the extraordinary genius of Dante was not free.

The revolutionary influences of the last five centuries have developed these errors into the delirium of self-conceit exhibited by the poets and literary men of our time.

Theology having arrived at its extreme limits before any true conception of the Positive state could arise, the negative condition of the Western Republic became aggravated to an unheard-of extent.

Rules and institutions, which had formerly controlled the most headstrong ambition, fell rapidly into discredit.

And as the principles of social order disappeared, artists and especially poets, the leading class among them, stimulated by the applause which they received from their uninstructed audience, fell into the error of seeking political influence.

Incompatible as all mere criticism must be with true poetry, modern Art since the fourteenth century has participated more and more actively in the destruction of the old system.

Until, however, Negativism had received its distinct shape and character from the revolutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the influence of Art for destructive purposes was secondary to that exercised by metaphysicians and legists.

But in the eighteenth century, when negativism began to be propagated boldly in a systematic form, the case was changed, and literary ambition asserted itself more strongly.

The speculative thinkers who had hitherto formed the vanguard of the destructive movement, were replaced by mere litterateurs, men whose talents were of a poetical rather than philosophical kind, but who had, intellectually speaking, no real vocation.

When the crisis of the Revolution came, this heterogeneous class took the lead in the movement, and naturally stepped into all political offices; a state of things which will continue until there is a more direct and general movement of reorganization.

[The political influence of literary men a deplorable sign and source of anarchy] This is the historical explanation, and at the same time the refutation, of the subversive schemes so prevalent in our time, of which the object is to establish a sort of aristocracy of literary pedants.

Such day-dreams of unbridled self-conceit find favour only with the metaphysical minds who cannot sanction exceptional cases without making them into an absolute rule.

If philosophers are to be excluded from political authority, there is still greater reason for excluding poets.

The mental and moral versatility which makes them so apt in reflecting the thoughts and feelings of those around them, utterly unfits them for being our guides.

Their natural defects are such as nothing but rigorous and systematic education can correct; they are, therefore, certain to be peculiarly prominent in times like these when deep convictions of any kind are so rare.

Their real vocation is to assist the spiritual power as accessory members; and this involves their renouncing all ideas of government, even more strictly than philosophers themselves.

Philosophers, though not themselves engaging in politics, are called upon to lay down the principles of political action; but the poet has very little to do with either.

His special function is to idealize and to stimulate; and to do this well, he must concentrate his energies exclusively upon it.

It is a large and noble field, amply sufficient to absorb men who have a real vocation for it.

Accordingly, in the great artist of former times we see comparatively few traces of this extravagant ambition.

It comes before us in a time when, owing to the absence of regular habits of life and fixed convictions, art of the highest order is impossible.

The poets of our time either have not realized or have mistaken their vocation.

When Society is again brought under the influence of a universal doctrine, real poetry will again become possible; and such men as those we have been speaking of will turn their energies in a different direction.

Till then they will continue to waste their efforts or to ruin their character in worthless political agitation, a state of things in which mediocrity shines and real genius is left in the background.

In the normal state of human nature, Imagination is subordinate to Reason as Reason is to Feeling.

Any prolonged inversion of this natural order is both morally and intellectually dangerous.

The reign of Imagination would be still more disastrous than the reign of Reason;

only that it is even more incompatible with the practical conditions of human life.

But chimerical as it is, the mere pursuit of it may do much individual harm by substituting artificial excitement, and in too many cases affectation of feeling, in the place of deep and spontaneous emotion.

Viewed politically, nothing can be worse than this undue preponderance of esthetic considerations caused by the uncontrolled ambition of artists and litterateurs.

The true object of Art, which is to charm and elevate human life, is gradually lost sight of.

By being held out as the aim and object of existence, it degrades the artist and the public equally, and is therefore certain to degenerate.

It loses all its higher tendencies, and is reduced either to a sensuous pleasure, or to a mere display of technical skill.

Admiration for the arts, which, when kept in its proper place, has done so much for modern life, may become a deeply corrupting influence, if it becomes the paramount consideration.

It is notorious what an atrocious custom prevailed in Italy for several centuries, simply for the sake of improving men’s voices.

Art, the true purpose of which is to strengthen our sympathies, leads when thus degraded to a most abject form of selfishness; in which enjoyment of sounds or forms is held out as the highest happiness, and utter apathy prevails as to all questions of social interest.

So dangerous is it intellectually, and still more so morally, for individuals, and above all, for societies to allow esthetic considerations to become unduly preponderant; even when they spring from a genuine impulse.

But the invariable consequence to which this violation of the first principles of social order leads, is the success of mediocrities who acquire technical skill by long practice.

Thus it is that we have gradually fallen under the discreditable influence of men who were evidently not competent for any but subordinate positions, and whose preponderance has proved as injurious to Art as it has been to Philosophy and Morality.

A fatal facility of giving expression to what is neither believed nor felt, gives temporary reputation to men who are as incapable of originality in Art as they are of grasping any new principle in science.

It is the most remarkable of all the political anomalies caused by our revolutionary position;

and the moral results are most deplorable, unless when, as rarely happens, the possessor of these undeserved honours has a nature too noble to be injured by them.

Poets are more exposed to these dangers than other artists, because their sphere is more general and gives wider scope for ambition.

But in the special arts we find the same evil in a still more degrading form; that of avarice, a vice by which so much of our highest talent is now tainted.

Another signal proof of the childish vanity and uncontrolled ambition of the class is, that those who are merely interpreters of other men’s productions claim the same title as those who have produced original works.

Such are the results of the extravagant pretensions which artists and literary men have gradually developed during the last five centuries.

I have dwelt upon them because they constitute at present serious impediments to all sound views of the nature and purposes of Art.

My strictures will not be thought too severe by really esthetic natures, who know from personal experience how fatal the present system is to all talent of a high order.

Whatever the outcry of those personally interested, it is certain that in the true interest of Art the suppression of mediocrity is at least as important as the encouragement of talent.

True taste always implies distaste.

The very fact that the object is to foster in us the sense of perfection, implies that all true connoisseurs will feel a thorough dislike for feeble work.

Happily there is this privilege in all masterpieces, that the admiration aroused by them endures in its full strength for all time; so that the plea which is often put forward of keeping up the public taste by novelties which in reality injure it, falls to the ground.

To mention my own experience, I may say that for thirteen years I have been induced alike from principle and from inclination, to restrict my reading almost entirely to the great Occidental poets, without feeling the smallest curiosity for the works of the day which are brought out in such mischievous abundance.

[Theory of Art] Guarding ourselves, then, against errors of this kind, we may now proceed to consider the esthetic character of Positivism.

In the first place, it furnishes us with a satisfactory theory of Art; a subject which has never been systematically explained; all previous attempts to do so, whatever their value, having viewed the subject incompletely.

The theory here offered is based on the subjective principle of the new philosophy, on its objective dogma, and on its social purpose; as set forward in the two first chapters of this work.

[Art is the idealized representation of Fact] Art may be defined as an ideal representation of Fact; and its object is to cultivate our sense of perfection.

Its sphere therefore is co-extensive with that of Science.

Both deal in their own way with the world of Fact; the one explains it, the other beautifies it.

The contemplations of the artist and of the man of science follow the same encyclopædic law; they begin with the simple objects of the external world; they gradually rise to the complicated facts of human nature.

I

pointed out in the second chapter that the scientific scale, the scale, that is, of the True, coincided with that of the Good: we now see that it coincides with that of the Beautiful.

Thus between these three great creations of Humanity, Philosophy, Polity, and Poetry, there is the most perfect harmony.

The first elements of Beauty, that is to say, Order and Magnitude, are visible in the inorganic world, especially in the heavens; and they are there perceived with greater distinctness than where the phenomena are more complex and less uniform.

The higher degrees of Beauty will hardly be recognized by those who are insensible to this its simplest phase.

But as in Philosophy we only study the inorganic world as a preliminary to the study of Man; so, but to a still greater extent, is it with Poetry.

In Polity the tendency is similar but less apparent.

Here we begin with material progress; we proceed to physical and subsequently to intellectual progress; but it is long before we arrive at the ultimate goal, moral progress.

Poetry passes more rapidly over the three preliminary stages, and rises with less difficulty to the contemplation of moral beauty.

Feeling, then, is essentially the sphere of Poetry.

And it supplies not the end only, but the means.

Of all the phenomena which relate to man, human affections are the most modifiable, and therefore the most susceptible of idealization.

Being more imperfect than any other, by virtue of their higher complexity, they allow greater scope for improvement.

Now the act of expression, however imperfect, reacts powerfully upon these functions, which from their nature are always seeking some external vent.

Every one recognizes the influence of language upon thoughts: and surely it cannot be less upon feelings, since in them the need of expression is greater.

Consequently all esthetic study, even if purely imitative, may become a useful moral exercise, by calling sympathies and antipathies into healthy play.

The effect is far greater when the representation, passing the limits of strict accuracy, is suitably idealized.

This indeed is the characteristic mission of Art.

Its function is to construct types of the noblest kind, by the contemplation of which our feelings and thoughts may be elevated.

That the portraiture should be exaggerated follows from the definition of Art; it should surpass realities so as to stimulate us to amend them.

Great as the influence is of these poetic emotions on individuals, they are far more efficacious when brought to bear upon public life: not only from the greater importance of the subject matter, but because each individual impression is rendered more intense by combination.

[Poetry is intermediate between Philosophy and Polity]