Auguste Comte and Positivism — 11 - Part 2D

That there is a portion of truth at the bottom of all this, we should be the last to deny.

No respect is due to any employment of the intellect which does not tend to the good of mankind.

It is precisely on a level with any idle amusement, and should be condemned as waste of time, if carried beyond the limit within which amusement is permissible.

And whoever devotes powers of thought which could render to Humanity services it urgently needs, to speculations and studies which it could dispense with, is liable to the discredit attaching to a well-grounded suspicion of caring little for Humanity.

But who can affirm positively of any speculations, guided by right scientific methods, on subjects really accessible to the human faculties, that they are incapable of being of any use?

Nobody knows what knowledge will prove to be of use, and what is destined to be useless.

The most that can be said is that some kinds are of more certain, and above all, of more present utility than others.

How often the most important practical results have been the remote consequence of studies which no one would have expected to lead to them!

Could the mathematicians, who, in the schools of Alexandria, investigated the properties of the ellipse, have foreseen that nearly two thousand years afterwards their speculations would explain the solar system, and a little later would enable ships safely to circumnavigate the earth?

Even in M. Comte's opinion, it is well for mankind that, in those early days, knowledge was thought worth pursuing for its own sake.

Nor has the "foundation of Positivism," we imagine, so far changed the conditions of human existence, that it should now be criminal to acquire, by observation and reasoning, a knowledge of the facts of the universe, leaving to posterity to find a use for it.

Even in the last two or three years, has not the discovery of new metals, which may prove important even in the practical arts, arisen from one of the investigations which M. Comte most unequivocally condemns as idle, the research into the internal constitution of the sun?

How few, moreover, of the discoveries which have changed the face of the world, either were or could have been arrived at by investigations aiming directly at the object!

Would the mariner's compass ever have been found by direct efforts for the improvement of navigation?

Should we have reached the electric telegraph by any amount of striving for a means of instantaneous communication, if Franklin had not identified electricity with lightning, and Ampère with magnetism?

The most apparently insignificant archaeological or geological fact, is often found to throw a light on human history, which M. Comte, the basis of whose social philosophy is history, should be the last person to disparage.

The direction of the entrance to the three great Pyramids of Ghizeh, by showing the position of the circumpolar stars at the time when they were built, is the best evidence we even now have of the immense antiquity of Egyptian civilization.

[24] The one point on which M. Comte's doctrine has some colour of reason, is the case of sidereal astronomy: so little knowledge of it being really accessible to us, and the connexion of that little with any terrestrial interests being, according to all our means of judgment, infinitesimal.

It is certainly difficult to imagine how any considerable benefit to humanity can be derived from a knowledge of the motions of the double stars: should these ever become important to us it will be in so prodigiously remote an age, that we can afford to remain ignorant of them until, at least, all our moral, political, and social difficulties have been settled.

Yet the discovery that gravitation extends even to those remote regions, gives some additional strength to the conviction of the universality of natural laws; and the habitual meditation on such vast objects and distances is not without an aesthetic usefulness, by kindling and exalting the imagination, the worth of which in itself, and even its re-action on the intellect, M. Comte is quite capable of appreciating.

He would reply, however, that there are better means of accomplishing these purposes.

In the same spirit he condemns the study even of the solar system, when extended to any planets but those which are visible to the naked eye, and which alone exert an appreciable gravitative influence on the earth.

Even the perturbations he thinks it idle to study, beyond a mere general conception of them, and thinks that astronomy may well limit its domain to the motions and mutual action of the earth, sun, and moon.

He looks for a similar expurgation of all the other sciences.

In one passage he expressly says that the greater part of the researches which are really accessible to us are idle and useless.

He would pare down the dimensions of all the sciences as narrowly as possible.

He is continually repeating that no science, as an abstract study, should be carried further than is necessary to lay the foundation for the science next above it, and so ultimately for moral science, the principal purpose of them all.

Any further extension of the mathematical and physical sciences should be merely "episodic;" limited to what may from time to time be demanded by the requirements of industry and the arts; and should be left to the industrial classes, except when they find it necessary to apply to the sacerdotal order for some additional development of scientific theory.

This, he evidently thinks, would be a rare contingency, most physical truths sufficiently concrete and real for practice being empirical.

Accordingly in estimating the number of clergy necessary for France, Europe, and our entire planet (for his forethought extends thus far), he proportions it solely to their moral and religious attributions (overlooking, by the way, even their medical); and leaves nobody with any time to cultivate the sciences, except abortive candidates for the priestly office, who having been refused admittance into it for insufficiency in moral excellence or in strength of character, may be thought worth retaining as "pensioners" of the sacerdotal order, on account of their theoretic abilities.

It is no exaggeration to say, that M. Comte gradually acquired a real hatred for scientific and all purely intellectual pursuits, and was bent on retaining no more of them than was strictly indispensable.

The greatest of his anxieties is lest people should reason, and seek to know, more than enough.

He regards all abstraction and all reasoning as morally dangerous, by developing an inordinate pride (orgueil), and still more, by producing dryness (scheresse).

Abstract thought, he says, is not a wholesome occupation for more than a small number of human beings, nor of them for more than a small part of their time.

Art, which calls the emotions into play along with and more than the reason, is the only intellectual exercise really adapted to human nature.

It is nevertheless indispensable that the chief theories of the various abstract sciences, together with the modes in which those theories were historically and logically arrived at, should form a part of universal education: for, first, it is only thus that the methods can be learnt, by which to attain the results sought by the moral and social sciences: though we cannot perceive that M. Comte got at his own moral and social results by those processes.

Secondly, the principal truths of the subordinate sciences are necessary to the systematization (still systematization!

) of our conceptions, by binding together our notions of the world in a set of propositions, which are coherent, and are a sufficiently correct representation of fact for our practical wants.

Thirdly, a familiar knowledge of the invariable laws of natural phaenomena is a great elementary lesson of submission, which, he is never weary of saying, is the first condition both of morality and of happiness.

For these reasons, he would cause to be taught, from the age of fourteen to that of twenty-one, to all persons, rich and poor, girls or youths, a knowledge of the whole series of abstract sciences, such as none but the most highly instructed persons now possess, and of a far more systematic and philosophical character than is usually possessed even by them.

(N.

B.

--They are to learn, during the same years, Greek and Latin, having previously, between the ages of seven and fourteen, learnt the five principal modern languages, to the degree necessary for reading, with due appreciation, the chief poetical compositions in each.

) But they are to be taught all this, not only without encouraging, but stifling as much as possible, the examining and questioning spirit.

The disposition which should be encouraged is that of receiving all on the authority of the teacher.

The Positivist faith, even in its scientific part, is _la foi démontrable_, but ought by no means to be _la foi toujours démontrée_.

The pupils have no business to be over-solicitous about proof.

The teacher should not even present the proofs to them in a complete form, or as proofs.

The object of instruction is to make them understand the doctrines themselves, perceive their mutual connexion, and form by means of them a consistent and _systematized_ conception of nature.

As for the demonstrations, it is rather desirable than otherwise that even theorists should forget them, retaining only the results.

Among all the aberrations of scientific men, M. Comte thinks none greater than the pedantic anxiety they show for complete proof, and perfect rationalization of scientific processes.

It ought to be enough that the doctrines afford an explanation of phaenomena, consistent with itself and with known facts, and that the processes are justified by their fruits.

This over-anxiety for proof, he complains, is breaking down, by vain scruples, the knowledge which seemed to have been attained; witness the present state of chemistry.

The demand of proof for what has been accepted by Humanity, is itself a mark of "distrust, if not hostility, to the sacerdotal order" (the naïveté of this would be charming, if it were not deplorable), and is a revolt against the traditions of the human race.

So early had the new High Priest adopted the feelings and taken up the inheritance of the old.

One of his favourite aphorisms is the strange one, that the living are more and more governed by the dead.

As is not uncommon with him, he introduces the dictum in one sense, and uses it in another.

What he at first means by it, is that as civilization advances, the sum of our possessions, physical and intellectual, is due in a decreasing proportion to ourselves, and in an increasing one to our progenitors.

The use he makes of it is, that we should submit ourselves more and more implicitly to the authority of previous generations, and suffer ourselves less and less to doubt their judgment, or test by our own reason the grounds of their opinions.

The unwillingness of the human intellect and conscience, in their present state of "anarchy," to sign their own abdication, lie calls "the insurrection of the living against the dead."

To this complexion has Positive Philosophy come at last!

Worse, however, remains to be told.

M.

Comte selects a hundred volumes of science, philosophy, poetry, history, and general knowledge, which he deems a sufficient library for every positivist, even of the theoretic order, and actually proposes a systematic holocaust of books in general--it would almost seem of all books except these.

Even that to which he shows most indulgence, poetry, except the very best, is to undergo a similar fate, with the reservation of select passages, on the ground that, poetry being intended to cultivate our instinct of ideal perfection, any kind of it that is less than the best is worse than none.

This imitation of the error, we will call it the crime, of the early Christians--and in an exaggerated form, for even they destroyed only those writings of pagans or heretics which were directed against themselves--is the one thing in M. Comte's projects which merits real indignation.

When once M. Comte has decided, all evidence on the other side, nay, the very historical evidence on which he grounded his decision, had better perish.

When mankind have enlisted under his banner, they must burn their ships.

There is, though in a less offensive form, the same overweening presumption in a suggestion he makes, that all species of animals and plants which are useless to man should be systematically rooted out.

As if any one could presume to assert that the smallest weed may not, as knowledge advances, be found to have some property serviceable to man.

When we consider that the united power of the whole human race cannot reproduce a species once eradicated--that what is once done, in the extirpation of races, can never be repaired;

one can only be thankful that amidst all which the past rulers of mankind have to answer for, they have never come up to the measure of the great regenerator of Humanity; mankind have not yet been under the rule of one who assumes that he knows all there is to be known, and that when he has put himself at the head of humanity, the book of human knowledge may be closed.

Of course M. Comte does not make this assumption consistently.

He does not imagine that he actually possesses all knowledge, but only that he is an infallible judge what knowledge is worth possessing.

He does not believe that mankind have reached in all directions the extreme limits of useful and laudable scientific inquiry.

He thinks there is a large scope for it still, in adding to our power over the external world, but chiefly in perfecting our own physical, intellectual, and moral nature.

He holds that all our mental strength should be economized, for the pursuit of this object in the mode leading most directly to the end.

With this view, some one problem should always be selected, the solution of which would be more important than any other to the interests of humanity, and upon this the entire intellectual resources of the theoretic mind should be concentrated, until it is either resolved, or has to be given up as insoluble: after which mankind should go on to another, to be pursued with similar exclusiveness.

The selection of this problem of course rests with the sacerdotal order, or in other words, with the High Priest.

We should then see the whole speculative intellect of the human race simultaneously at work on one question, by orders from above, as a French minister of public instruction once boasted that a million of boys were saying the same lesson during the same half-hour in every town and village of France.

The reader will be anxious to know, how much better and more wisely the human intellect will be applied under this absolute monarchy, and to what degree this system of government will be preferable to the present anarchy, in which every theorist does what is intellectually right in his own eyes.

M.

Comte has not left us in ignorance on this point.

He gives us ample means of judging.

The Pontiff of Positivism informs us what problem, in his opinion, should be selected before all others for this united pursuit.

What this problem is, we must leave those who are curious on the subject to learn from the treatise itself.

When they have done so, they will be qualified to form their own opinion of the amount of advantage which the general good of mankind would be likely to derive, from exchanging the present "dispersive speciality" and "intellectual anarchy" for the subordination of the intellect to the _coeur_, personified in a High Priest, prescribing a single problem for the undivided study of the theoretic mind.

We have given a sufficient general idea of M. Comte's plan for the regeneration of human society, by putting an end to anarchy, and "systematizing" human thought and conduct under the direction of feeling.

But an adequate conception will not have been formed of the height of his self-confidence, until something more has been told.

Be it known, then, that M. Comte by no means proposes this new constitution of society for realization in the remote future.

A complete plan of measures of transition is ready prepared, and he determines the year, before the end of the present century, in which the new spiritual and temporal powers will be installed, and the regime of our maturity will begin.

He did not indeed calculate on converting to Positivism, within that time, more than a thousandth part of all the heads of families in Western Europe and its offshoots beyond the Atlantic.

But he fixes the time necessary for the complete political establishment of Positivism at thirty-three years, divided into three periods, of seven, five, and twenty-one years respectively.

At the expiration of seven, the direction of public education in France would be placed in M. Comte's hands.

In five years more, the Emperor Napoleon, or his successor, will resign his power to a provisional triumvirate, composed of three eminent proletaires of the positivist faith; for proletaires, though not fit for permanent rule, are the best agents of the transition, being the most free from the prejudices which are the chief obstacle to it.

These rulers will employ the remaining twenty-one years in preparing society for its final constitution; and after duly installing the Spiritual Power, and effecting the decomposition of France into the seventeen republics before mentioned, will give over the temporal government of each to the normal dictatorship of the three bankers.

A man may be deemed happy, but scarcely modest, who had such boundless confidence in his own powers of foresight, and expected so complete a triumph of his own ideas on the reconstitution of society within the possible limits of his lifetime.

If he could live (he said) to the age of Pontenelle, or of Hobbes, or even of Voltaire, he should see all this realized, or as good as realized.

He died, however, at sixty, without leaving any disciple sufficiently advanced to be appointed his successor.

There is now a College, and a Director, of Positivism; but Humanity no longer possesses a High Priest.