PART I.
PART II.
PART I.
THE
COURS DE PHILOSOPHIE POSITIVE.For
some time much has been said, in England and on the Continent,
concerning "Positivism" and "the Positive Philosophy."
Those phrases, which during the life of the eminent thinker who
introduced them had made their way into no writings or discussions
but those of his very few direct disciples, have emerged from the
depths and manifested themselves on the surface of the philosophy
of
the age. It is not very widely known what they represent, but it is
understood that they represent something. They are symbols of a
recognised mode of thought, and one of sufficient importance to
induce almost all who now discuss the great problems of philosophy,
or survey from any elevated point of view the opinions of the age,
to
take what is termed the Positivist view of things into serious
consideration, and define their own position, more or less friendly
or hostile, in regard to it. Indeed, though the mode of thought
expressed by the terms Positive and Positivism is widely spread,
the
words themselves are, as usual, better known through the enemies of
that mode of thinking than through its friends; and more than one
thinker who never called himself or his opinions by those
appellations, and carefully guarded himself against being
confounded
with those who did, finds himself, sometimes to his displeasure,
though generally by a tolerably correct instinct, classed with
Positivists, and assailed as a Positivist. This change in the
bearings of philosophic opinion commenced in England earlier than
in
France, where a philosophy of a contrary kind had been more widely
cultivated, and had taken a firmer hold on the speculative minds of
a
generation formed by Royer-Collard, Cousin, Jouffroy, and their
compeers. The great treatise of M. Comte was scarcely mentioned in
French literature or criticism, when it was already working
powerfully on the minds of many British students and thinkers. But,
agreeably to the usual course of things in France, the new
tendency,
when it set in, set in more strongly. Those who call themselves
Positivists are indeed not numerous; but all French writers who
adhere to the common philosophy, now feel it necessary to begin by
fortifying their position against "the Positivist school."
And the mode of thinking thus designated is already manifesting its
importance by one of the most unequivocal signs, the appearance of
thinkers who attempt a compromise or
juste milieu
between it and its opposite. The acute critic and metaphysician M.
Taine, and the distinguished chemist M. Berthelot, are the authors
of
the two most conspicuous of these attempts.The
time, therefore, seems to have come, when every philosophic thinker
not only ought to form, but may usefully express, a judgment
respecting this intellectual movement; endeavouring to understand
what it is, whether it is essentially a wholesome movement, and if
so, what is to be accepted and what rejected of the direction given
to it by its most important movers. There cannot be a more
appropriate mode of discussing these points than in the form of a
critical examination of the philosophy of Auguste Comte; for which
the appearance of a new edition of his fundamental treatise, with a
preface by the most eminent, in every point of view, of his
professed
disciples, M. Littré, affords a good opportunity. The name of M.
Comte is more identified than any other with this mode of thought.
He
is the first who has attempted its complete systematization, and
the
scientific extension of it to all objects of human knowledge. And
in
doing this he has displayed a quantity and quality of mental power,
and achieved an amount of success, which have not only won but
retained the high admiration of thinkers as radically and
strenuously
opposed as it is possible to be, to nearly the whole of his later
tendencies, and to many of his earlier opinions. It would have been
a
mistake had such thinkers busied themselves in the first instance
with drawing attention to what they regarded as errors in his great
work. Until it had taken the place in the world of thought which
belonged to it, the important matter was not to criticise it, but
to
help in making it known. To have put those who neither knew nor
were
capable of appreciating the greatness of the book, in possession of
its vulnerable points, would have indefinitely retarded its
progress
to a just estimation, and was not needful for guarding against any
serious inconvenience. While a writer has few readers, and no
influence except on independent thinkers, the only thing worth
considering in him is what he can teach us: if there be anything in
which he is less wise than we are already, it may be left unnoticed
until the time comes when his errors can do harm. But the high
place
which M. Comte has now assumed among European thinkers, and the
increasing influence of his principal work, while they make it a
more
hopeful task than before to impress and enforce the strong points
of
his philosophy, have rendered it, for the first time, not
inopportune
to discuss his mistakes. Whatever errors he may have fallen into
are
now in a position to be injurious, while the free exposure of them
can no longer be so.We
propose, then, to pass in review the main principles of M. Comte's
philosophy; commencing with the great treatise by which, in this
country, he is chiefly known, and postponing consideration of the
writings of the last ten years of his life, except for the
occasional
illustration of detached points.When
we extend our examination to these later productions, we shall
have,
in the main, to reverse our judgment. Instead of recognizing, as in
the Cours de Philosophic Positive, an essentially sound view of
philosophy, with a few capital errors, it is in their general
character that we deem the subsequent speculations false and
misleading, while in the midst of this wrong general tendency, we
find a crowd of valuable thoughts, and suggestions of thought, in
detail. For the present we put out of the question this signal
anomaly in M. Comte's intellectual career. We shall consider only
the
principal gift which he has left to the world, his clear, full, and
comprehensive exposition, and in part creation, of what he terms
the
Positive Philosophy: endeavouring to sever what in our estimation
is
true, from the much less which is erroneous, in that philosophy as
he
conceived it, and distinguishing, as we proceed, the part which is
specially his, from that which belongs to the philosophy of the
age,
and is the common inheritance of thinkers. This last discrimination
has been partially made in a late pamphlet, by Mr Herbert Spencer,
in
vindication of his own independence of thought: but this does not
diminish the utility of doing it, with a less limited purpose,
here;
especially as Mr Spencer rejects nearly all which properly belongs
to
M. Comte, and in his abridged mode of statement does scanty justice
to what he rejects. The separation is not difficult, even on the
direct evidence given by M. Comte himself, who, far from claiming
any
originality not really belonging to him, was eager to connect his
own
most original thoughts with every germ of anything similar which he
observed in previous thinkers.The
fundamental doctrine of a true philosophy, according to M. Comte,
and
the character by which he defines Positive Philosophy, is the
following:—We have no knowledge of anything but Phaenomena; and our
knowledge of phaenomena is relative, not absolute. We know not the
essence, nor the real mode of production, of any fact, but only its
relations to other facts in the way of succession or of similitude.
These relations are constant; that is, always the same in the same
circumstances. The constant resemblances which link phaenomena
together, and the constant sequences which unite them as antecedent
and consequent, are termed their laws. The laws of phaenomena are
all
we know respecting them. Their essential nature, and their ultimate
causes, either efficient or final, are unknown and inscrutable to
us.M.
Comte claims no originality for this conception of human knowledge.
He avows that it has been virtually acted on from the earliest
period
by all who have made any real contribution to science, and became
distinctly present to the minds of speculative men from the time of
Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo, whom he regards as collectively the
founders of the Positive Philosophy. As he says, the knowledge
which
mankind, even in the earliest ages, chiefly pursued, being that
which
they most needed, was
foreknowledge:
"savoir, pour prevoir." When they sought for the cause, it
was mainly in order to control the effect or if it was
uncontrollable, to foreknow and adapt their conduct to it. Now, all
foresight of phaenomena, and power over them, depend on knowledge
of
their sequences, and not upon any notion we may have formed
respecting their origin or inmost nature. We foresee a fact or
event
by means of facts which are signs of it, because experience has
shown
them to be its antecedents. We bring about any fact, other than our
own muscular contractions, by means of some fact which experience
has
shown to be followed by it. All foresight, therefore, and all
intelligent action, have only been possible in proportion as men
have
successfully attempted to ascertain the successions of phaenomena.
Neither foreknowledge, nor the knowledge which is practical power,
can be acquired by any other means.The
conviction, however, that knowledge of the successions and
co-existences of phaenomena is the sole knowledge accessible to us,
could not be arrived at in a very early stage of the progress of
thought. Men have not even now left off hoping for other knowledge,
nor believing that they have attained it; and that, when attained,
it
is, in some undefinable manner, greatly more precious than mere
knowledge of sequences and co-existences. The true doctrine was not
seen in its full clearness even by Bacon, though it is the result
to
which all his speculations tend: still less by Descartes. It was,
however, correctly apprehended by Newton.[1]But
it was probably first conceived in its entire generality by Hume,
who
carries it a step further than Comte, maintaining not merely that
the
only causes of phaenomena which can be known to us are other
phaenomena, their invariable antecedents, but that there is no
other
kind of causes: cause, as he interprets it,
means the
invariable antecedent. This is the only part of Hume's doctrine
which
was contested by his great adversary, Kant; who, maintaining as
strenuously as Comte that we know nothing of Things in themselves,
of
Noumena, of real Substances and real Causes, yet peremptorily
asserted their existence. But neither does Comte question this: on
the contrary, all his language implies it. Among the direct
successors of Hume, the writer who has best stated and defended
Comte's fundamental doctrine is Dr Thomas Brown. The doctrine and
spirit of Brown's philosophy are entirely Positivist, and no better
introduction to Positivism than the early part of his Lectures has
yet been produced. Of living thinkers we do not speak; but the same
great truth formed the groundwork of all the speculative philosophy
of Bentham, and pre-eminently of James Mill: and Sir William
Hamilton's famous doctrine of the Relativity of human knowledge has
guided many to it, though we cannot credit Sir William Hamilton
himself with having understood the principle, or been willing to
assent to it if he had.The
foundation of M. Comte's philosophy is thus in no way peculiar to
him, but the general property of the age, however far as yet from
being universally accepted even by thoughtful minds.The
philosophy called Positive is not a recent invention of M. Comte,
but
a simple adherence to the traditions of all the great scientific
minds whose discoveries have made the human race what it is. M.
Comte
has never presented it in any other light. But he has made the
doctrine his own by his manner of treating it. To know rightly what
a
thing is, we require to know, with equal distinctness, what it is
not. To enter into the real character of any mode of thought, we
must
understand what other modes of thought compete with it. M. Comte
has
taken care that we should do so. The modes of philosophizing which,
according to him, dispute ascendancy with the Positive, are two in
number, both of them anterior to it in date; the Theological, and
the
Metaphysical.We
use the words Theological, Metaphysical, and Positive, because they
are chosen by M. Comte as a vehicle for M. Comte's ideas. Any
philosopher whose thoughts another person undertakes to set forth,
has a right to require that it should be done by means of his own
nomenclature. They are not, however, the terms we should ourselves
choose. In all languages, but especially in English, they excite
ideas other than those intended. The words Positive and Positivism,
in the meaning assigned to them, are ill fitted to take, root in
English soil; while Metaphysical suggests, and suggested even to M.
Comte, much that in no way deserves to be included in his
denunciation. The term Theological is less wide of the mark, though
the use of it as a term of condemnation implies, as we shall see, a
greater reach of negation than need be included in the Positive
creed. Instead of the Theological we should prefer to speak of the
Personal, or Volitional explanation of nature; instead of
Metaphysical, the Abstractional or Ontological: and the meaning of
Positive would be less ambiguously expressed in the objective
aspect
by Phaenomenal, in the subjective by Experiential. But M. Comte's
opinions are best stated in his own phraseology; several of them,
indeed, can scarcely be presented in some of their bearings without
it.The
Theological, which is the original and spontaneous form of thought,
regards the facts of the universe as governed not by invariable
laws
of sequence, but by single and direct volitions of beings, real or
imaginary, possessed of life and intelligence. In the infantile
state
of reason and experience, individual objects are looked upon as
animated. The next step is the conception of invisible beings, each
of whom superintends and governs an entire class of objects or
events. The last merges this multitude of divinities in a single
God,
who made the whole universe in the beginning, and guides and
carries
on its phaenomena by his continued action, or, as others think,
only
modifies them from time to time by special interferences.The
mode of thought which M. Comte terms Metaphysical, accounts for
phaenomena by ascribing them, not to volitions either sublunary or
celestial, but to realized abstractions. In this stage it is no
longer a god that causes and directs each of the various agencies
of
nature: it is a power, or a force, or an occult quality, considered
as real existences, inherent in but distinct from the concrete
bodies
in which they reside, and which they in a manner animate. Instead
of
Dryads presiding over trees, producing and regulating their
phaenomena, every plant or animal has now a Vegetative Soul, the
θρεπτίκη ψυχή of Aristotle. At a later period the
Vegetative Soul has become a Plastic Force, and still later, a
Vital
Principle. Objects now do all that they do because it is their
Essence to do so, or by reason of an inherent Virtue. Phaenomena
are
accounted for by supposed tendencies and propensities of the
abstraction Nature; which, though regarded as impersonal, is
figured
as acting on a sort of motives, and in a manner more or less
analogous to that of conscious beings. Aristotle affirms a tendency
of nature towards the best, which helps him to a theory of many
natural phaenomena. The rise of water in a pump is attributed to
Nature's horror of a vacuum. The fall of heavy bodies, and the
ascent
of flame and smoke, are construed as attempts of each to get to
its
natural place. Many
important consequences are deduced from the doctrine that Nature
has
no breaks (non habet saltum). In medicine the curative force (vis
medicatrix) of Nature furnishes the explanation of the reparative
processes which modern physiologists refer each to its own
particular
agencies and laws.Examples
are not necessary to prove to those who are acquainted with the
past
phases of human thought, how great a place both the theological and
the metaphysical interpretations of phaenomena have historically
occupied, as well in the speculations of thinkers as in the
familiar
conceptions of the multitude. Many had perceived before M. Comte
that
neither of these modes of explanation was final: the warfare
against
both of them could scarcely be carried on more vigorously than it
already was, early in the seventeenth century, by Hobbes. Nor is it
unknown to any one who has followed the history of the various
physical sciences, that the positive explanation of facts has
substituted itself, step by step, for the theological and
metaphysical, as the progress of inquiry brought to light an
increasing number of the invariable laws of phaenomena. In these
respects M. Comte has not originated anything, but has taken his
place in a fight long since engaged, and on the side already in the
main victorious. The generalization which belongs to himself, and
in
which he had not, to the best of our knowledge, been at all
anticipated, is, that every distinct class of human conceptions
passes through all these stages, beginning with the theological,
and
proceeding through the metaphysical to the positive: the
metaphysical
being a mere state of transition, but an indispensable one, from
the
theological mode of thought to the positive, which is destined
finally to prevail, by the universal recognition that all
phaemomena
without exception are governed by invariable laws, with which no
volitions, either natural or supernatural, interfere. This general
theorem is completed by the addition, that the theological mode of
thought has three stages, Fetichism, Polytheism, and Monotheism:
the
successive transitions being prepared, and indeed caused, by the
gradual uprising of the two rival modes of thought, the
metaphysical
and the positive, and in their turn preparing the way for the
ascendancy of these; first and temporarily of the metaphysical,
finally of the positive.This
generalization is the most fundamental of the doctrines which
originated with M. Comte; and the survey of history, which occupies
the two largest volumes of the six composing his work, is a
continuous exemplification and verification of the law. How well it
accords with the facts, and how vast a number of the greater
historical phaenomena it explains, is known only to those who have
studied its exposition, where alone it can be found—in these most
striking and instructive volumes. As this theory is the key to M.
Comte's other generalizations, all of which arc more or less
dependent on it; as it forms the backbone, if we may so speak, of
his
philosophy, and, unless it be true, he has accomplished little; we
cannot better employ part of our space than in clearing it from
misconception, and giving the explanations necessary to remove the
obstacles which prevent many competent persons from assenting to
it.It
is proper to begin by relieving the doctrine from a religious
prejudice. The doctrine condemns all theological explanations, and
replaces them, or thinks them destined to be replaced, by theories
which take no account of anything but an ascertained order of
phaenomena. It is inferred that if this change were completely
accomplished, mankind would cease to refer the constitution of
Nature
to an intelligent will or to believe at all in a Creator and
supreme
Governor of the world. This supposition is the more natural, as M.
Comte was avowedly of that opinion. He indeed disclaimed, with some
acrimony, dogmatic atheism, and even says (in a later work, but the
earliest contains nothing at variance with it) that the hypothesis
of
design has much greater verisimilitude than that of a blind
mechanism. But conjecture, founded on analogy, did not seem to him
a
basis to rest a theory on, in a mature state of human intelligence.
He deemed all real knowledge of a commencement inaccessible to us,
and the inquiry into it an overpassing of the essential limits of
our
mental faculties. To this point, however, those who accept his
theory
of the progressive stages of opinion are not obliged to follow him.
The Positive mode of thought is not necessarily a denial of the
supernatural; it merely throws back that question to the origin of
all things. If the universe had a beginning, its beginning, by the
very conditions of the case, was supernatural; the laws of nature
cannot account for their own origin. The Positive philosopher is
free
to form his opinion on the subject, according to the weight he
attaches to the analogies which are called marks of design, and to
the general traditions of the human race. The value of these
evidences is indeed a question for Positive philosophy, but it is
not
one upon which Positive philosophers must necessarily be agreed. It
is one of M. Comte's mistakes that he never allows of open
questions.
Positive Philosophy maintains that within the existing order of the
universe, or rather of the part of it known to us, the direct
determining cause of every phaenomenon is not supernatural but
natural. It is compatible with this to believe, that the universe
was
created, and even that it is continuously governed, by an
Intelligence, provided we admit that the intelligent Governor
adheres
to fixed laws, which are only modified or counteracted by other
laws
of the same dispensation, and are never either capriciously or
providentially departed from. Whoever regards all events as parts
of
a constant order, each one being the invariable consequent of some
antecedent condition, or combination of conditions, accepts fully
the
Positive mode of thought: whether he acknowledges or not an
universal
antecedent on which the whole system of nature was originally
consequent, and whether that universal antecedent is conceived as
an
Intelligence or not.There
is a corresponding misconception to be corrected respecting the
Metaphysical mode of thought. In repudiating metaphysics, M. Comte
did not interdict himself from analysing or criticising any of the
abstract conceptions of the mind. He was not ignorant (though he
sometimes seemed to forget) that such analysis and criticism are a
necessary part of the scientific process, and accompany the
scientific mind in all its operations. What he condemned was the
habit of conceiving these mental abstractions as real entities,
which
could exert power, produce phaenomena, and the enunciation of which
could be regarded as a theory or explanation of facts. Men of the
present day with difficulty believe that so absurd a notion was
ever
really entertained, so repugnant is it to the mental habits formed
by
long and assiduous cultivation of the positive sciences. But those
sciences, however widely cultivated, have never formed the basis of
intellectual education in any society. It is with philosophy as
with
religion: men marvel at the absurdity of other people's tenets,
while
exactly parallel absurdities remain in their own, and the same man
is
unaffectedly astonished that words can be mistaken for things, who
is
treating other words as if they were things every time he opens his
mouth to discuss. No one, unless entirely ignorant of the history
of
thought, will deny that the mistaking of abstractions for realities
pervaded speculation all through antiquity and the middle ages. The
mistake was generalized and systematized in the famous Ideas of
Plato. The Aristotelians carried it on. Essences, quiddities,
virtues
residing in things, were accepted as a
bonâ fide
explanation of phaenomena. Not only abstract qualities, but the
concrete names of genera and species, were mistaken for objective
existences. It was believed that there were General Substances
corresponding to all the familiar classes of concrete things: a
substance Man, a substance Tree, a substance Animal, which, and not
the individual objects so called, were directly denoted by those
names. The real existence of Universal Substances was the question
at
issue in the famous controversy of the later middle ages between
Nominalism and Realism, which is one of the turning points in the
history of thought, being its first struggle to emancipate itself
from the dominion of verbal abstractions. The Realists were the
stronger party, but though the Nominalists for a time succumbed,
the
doctrine they rebelled against fell, after a short interval, with
the
rest of the scholastic philosophy. But while universal substances
and
substantial forms, being the grossest kind of realized
abstractions,
were the soonest discarded, Essences, Virtues, and Occult Qualities
long survived them, and were first completely extruded from real
existence by the Cartesians. In Descartes' conception of science,
all
physical phaenomena were to be explained by matter and motion, that
is, not by abstractions but by invariable physical laws: though his
own explanations were many of them hypothetical, and turned out to
be
erroneous. Long after him, however, fictitious entities (as they
are
happily termed by Bentham) continued to be imagined as means of
accounting for the more mysterious phaenomena; above all in
physiology, where, under great varieties of phrase,
mysterious
forces and
principles were the
explanation, or substitute for explanation, of the phaenomena of
organized beings. To modern philosophers these fictions are merely
the abstract names of the classes of phaenomena which correspond to
them; and it is one of the puzzles of philosophy, how mankind,
after
inventing a set of mere names to keep together certain combinations
of ideas or images, could have so far forgotten their own act as to
invest these creations of their will with objective reality, and
mistake the name of a phaenomenon for its efficient cause. What was
a
mystery from the purely dogmatic point of view, is cleared up by
the
historical. These abstract words are indeed now mere names of
phaenomena, but were not so in their origin. To us they denote only
the phaenomena, because we have ceased to believe in what else they
once designated; and the employment of them in explanation is to us
evidently, as M. Comte says, the naïf reproduction of the
phaenomenon as the reason for itself: but it was not so in the
beginning. The metaphysical point of view was not a perversion of
the
positive, but a transformation of the theological. The human mind,
in
framing a class of objects, did not set out from the notion of a
name, but from that of a divinity. The realization of abstractions
was not the embodiment of a word, but the gradual disembodiment of
a
Fetish.The
primitive tendency or instinct of mankind is to assimilate all the
agencies which they perceive in Nature, to the only one of which
they
are directly conscious, their own voluntary activity. Every object
which seems to originate power, that is, to act without being first
visibly acted upon, to communicate motion without having first
received it, they suppose to possess life, consciousness, will.
This
first rude conception of nature can scarcely, however, have been at
any time extended to all phaenomena. The simplest observation,
without which the preservation of life would have been impossible,
must have pointed out many uniformities in nature, many objects
which, under given circumstances, acted exactly like one another:
and
whenever this was observed, men's natural and untutored faculties
led
them to form the similar objects into a class, and to think of them
together: of which it was a natural consequence to refer effects,
which were exactly alike, to a single will, rather than to a number
of wills precisely accordant. But this single will could not be the
will of the objects themselves, since they were many: it must be
the
will of an invisible being, apart from the objects, and ruling them
from an unknown distance. This is Polytheism. We are not aware that
in any tribe of savages or negroes who have been observed,
Fetichism
has been found totally unmixed with Polytheism, and it is probable
that the two coexisted from the earliest period at which the human
mind was capable of forming objects into classes. Fetichism proper
gradually becomes limited to objects possessing a marked
individuality. A particular mountain or river is worshipped bodily
(as it is even now by the Hindoos and the South Sea Islanders) as a
divinity in itself, not the mere residence of one, long after
invisible gods have been imagined as rulers of all the great
classes
of phaenomena, even intellectual and moral, as war, love, wisdom,
beauty, &c. The worship of the earth (Tellus or Pales) and of
the
various heavenly bodies, was prolonged into the heart of
Polytheism.
Every scholar knows, though
littérateurs and
men of the world do not, that in the full vigour of the Greek
religion, the Sun and Moon, not a god and goddess thereof, were
sacrificed to as deities—older deities than Zeus and his
descendants, belonging to the earlier dynasty of the Titans (which
was the mythical version of the fact that their worship was older),
and these deities had a distinct set of fables or legends connected
with them. The father of Phaëthon and the lover of Endymion were
not
Apollo and Diana, whose identification with the Sungod and the
Moongoddess was a late invention. Astrolatry, which, as M. Comte
observes, is the last form of Fetichism, survived the other forms,
partly because its objects, being inaccessible, were not so soon
discovered to be in themselves inanimate, and partly because of the
persistent spontaneousness of their apparent motions.As
far as Fetichism reached, and as long as it lasted, there was no
abstraction, or classification of objects, and no room consequently
for the metaphysical mode of thought. But as soon as the voluntary
agent, whose will governed the phaenomenon, ceased to be the
physical
object itself, and was removed to an invisible position, from which
he or she superintended an entire class of natural agencies, it
began
to seem impossible that this being should exert his powerful
activity
from a distance, unless through the medium of something present on
the spot. Through the same Natural Prejudice which made Newton
unable
to conceive the possibility of his own law of gravitation without a
subtle ether filling up the intervening space, and through which
the
attraction could be communicated—from this same natural infirmity
of the human mind, it seemed indispensable that the god, at a
distance from the object, must act through something residing in
it,
which was the immediate agent, the god having imparted to the
intermediate something the power whereby it influenced and directed
the object. When mankind felt a need for naming these imaginary
entities, they called them the
nature of the
object, or its
essence, or
virtues residing in
it, or by many other different names. These metaphysical
conceptions
were regarded as intensely real, and at first as mere instruments
in
the hands of the appropriate deities. But the habit being acquired
of
ascribing not only substantive existence, but real and efficacious
agency, to the abstract entities, the consequence was that when
belief in the deities declined and faded away, the entities were
left
standing, and a semblance of explanation of phaenomena, equal to
what
existed before, was furnished by the entities alone, without
referring them to any volitions. When things had reached this
point,
the metaphysical mode of thought, had completely substituted itself
for the theological.