Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 329, March, 1843

COMTE

Cours de Philosophie Positive, par M. Auguste Comte.

It is pleasant to find in some extreme, uncompromising, eccentric work, written for the complete renovation of man, a new establishment of truth, little else, after all its tempest of thought has swept over the mind, than another confirmation of old, and long-settled, and temperate views. Our sober philosophy, like some familiar landscape seen after a thunder storm, comes out but the more distinct, the brighter, and the more tranquil, for the bursting cloud and the windy tumult that had passed over its surface. Some such experience have we just had. Our Conservative principles, our calm and patient manner of viewing things, have rarely received a stronger corroboration than from the perusal or the extraordinary work of M. Comte—a work written, assuredly, for no such comfortable purpose, but for the express object (so far as we can at present state it to our readers) of re-organizing political society, by means of an intellectual reformation amongst political thinkers.

We would not be thought to throw an idle sneer at those generous hopes of the future destiny of society which have animated some of the noblest and most vigorous minds. It is no part of a Conservative philosophy to doubt on the broad question of the further and continuous improvement of mankind. Nor will the perusal of M. Comte's work induce, or permit, such a doubt. But while he leaves with his reader a strong impression of the unceasing development of social man, he leaves a still stronger impression of the futile or mischievous efforts of those—himself amongst the number—who are thrusting themselves forward as the peculiar and exclusive advocates of progress and improvement. He exhibits himself in the attitude of an innovator, as powerless in effect as he is daring to design; whilst, at the same time, he deals a crashing blow (as upon rival machinators) on that malignant party in European politics, whether it call itself liberal or of the movement, whose most distinct aim seems to be to unloose men from the bonds of civil government. We, too, believe in the silent, irresistible progress of human society, but we believe also that he is best working for posterity, as well as for the welfare of his contemporaries, who promotes order and tranquil effort in his own generation, by means of those elements of order which his own generation supplies.

That which distinguishes M. Comte's work from all other courses of philosophy, or treatises upon science, is the attempt to reduce to the scientific method of cogitation the affairs of human society—morality, politics; in short, all those general topics which occupy our solitary and perplexed meditation, or sustain the incessant strife of controversy. These are to constitute a new science, to be called Social Physics, or Sociology. To apply the Baconian, or, as it is here called, the positive method, to man in all phases of his existence—to introduce the same fixed, indissoluble, imperturbable order in our ideas of morals, politics, and history, that we attain to astronomy and mechanics, is the bold object of his labours. He does not here set forth a model of human society based on scientific conclusions; something of this kind is promised us in a future work; in the present undertaking he is especially anxious to compel us to think on all such topics in the scientific method, and in no other. For be it known, that science is not only weak in herself, and has been hitherto incompetent to the task of unravelling the complicate proceedings of humanity, but she has also a great rival in the form of theologic method, wherein the mind seeks a solution for its difficulties in a power above nature. The human being has contracted an inveterate habit of viewing itself as standing in a peculiar relation to a supreme Architect and Governor of the world—a habit which in many ways, direct and indirect, interferes, it seems, with the application of the positive method. This habit is to be corrected; such supreme Architect and Governor is to be dismissed from the imagination of men; science is to supply the sole mode of thought, and humanity to be its only object.

We have called M. Comte's an extraordinary book, and this is an epithet which our readers are already fully prepared to apply. But the book, in our judgment, is extraordinary in more senses than one. It is as remarkable for the great mental energy it displays, for its originality and occasional profundity of thought, as it is for the astounding conclusions to which it would conduct us, for its bold paradoxes, and for what we can designate no otherwise than its egregious errors. As a discipline of the mind, so far as a full appreciation is concerned of the scientific method, it cannot be read without signal advantage. The book is altogether an anomaly; exhibiting the strangest mixture that ever mortal work betrayed of manifold blunder and great intellectual power. The man thinks at times with the strength of a giant. Neither does he fail, as we have already gathered, in the rebellious and destructive propensities for which giants have been of old renowned. Fable tells us how they could have no gods to reign over them, and how they threatened to drive Jupiter himself from the skies. Our intellectual representative of the race nourishes designs of equal temerity. Like his earth-born predecessors, his rage, we may be sure, will be equally vain. No thunder will be heard, neither will the hills move to overwhelm him; but in due course of time he will lie down, and be covered up with his own earth, and the heavens will be as bright and stable as before, and still the abode of the same unassailable Power.

For the style of M. Comte's work, it is not commendable. The philosophical writers of his country are in general so distinguished for excellence in this particular, their exposition of thought is so remarkably felicitous, that a failure in a Frenchman in the mere art of writing, appears almost as great an anomaly as any of the others which characterize this production. During the earlier volumes, which are occupied with a review of the recognized branches of science, the vices of style are kept within bounds, but after he has entered on what is the great subject of all his lucubrations, his social physics, they grow distressingly conspicuous. The work extends to six volumes, some of them of unusually large capacity; and by the time we arrive at the last and the most bulky, the style, for its languor, its repetitions, its prolixity, has become intolerable.

Of a work of this description, distinguished by such bold features, remarkable for originality and subtlety, as well as for surprising hardihood and eccentricity of thought, and bearing on its surface a manner of exposition by no means attractive, we imagine that our readers will not be indisposed to receive some notice. Its errors—supposing we are capable of coping with them—are worthy of refutation. Moreover, as we have hinted, the impression it conveys is, in relation to politics, eminently Conservative; for, besides that he has exposed, with peculiar vigour, the utter inadequacy of the movement, or liberal party, to preside over the organization of society, there is nothing more calculated to render us content with an empirical condition of tolerable well-being, than the exhibition (and such, we think, is here presented to us) of a strong mind palpably at fault in its attempt to substitute, out of its own theory of man, a better foundation for the social structure than is afforded by the existing unphilosophical medley of human thought. Upon that portion of the Cours de Philosophie Positive which treats of the sciences usually so called, we do not intend to enter, nor do the general remarks we make apply to it. Our limited object is to place our reader at the point of view which M. Comte takes in his new science of Sociology; and to do this with any justice to him or to ourselves, in the space we can allot to the subject, will be a task of sufficient difficulty.

And first, as to the title of the work, Philosophie Positive, which has, perhaps, all this while been perplexing the reader. The reasons which induced M. Comte to adopt it, shall be given in his own words; they could not have been appreciated until some general notion had been given of the object he had in view.

"There is doubtless," he says, in his Avertissement, "a close resemblance between my Philosophie Positive, and what the English, especially since the days of Newton, understand by Natural Philosophy. But I would not adopt this last expression, any more than that of Philosophy of the Sciences, which would have perhaps been still more precise, because neither of these has yet been extended to all orders of phenomena, whilst Philosophie Positive, in which I comprehend the study of the social phenomena, as well as all others, designs a uniform manner of reasoning applicable to all subjects on which the human mind can be exerted. Besides which, the expression Natural Philosophy is employed in England to denote the aggregate of the several sciences of observation, considered even in their most minute details; whereas, by the title of Philosophie Positive, I intimate, with regard to the several positive sciences, a study of them only in their generalities, conceiving them as submitted to a uniform method, and forming the different parts of a general plan of research. The term which I have been led to construct is, therefore, at once more extended and more restricted than other denominations, which are so far similar that they have reference to the same fundamental class of ideas."

This very announcement of M. Comte's intention to comprehend in his course of natural philosophy the study of the several phenomena, compels us to enquire how far these are fit subjects for the strict application of the scientific method. We waive the metaphysical question of the free agency of man, and the theological question of the occasional interference of the Divine Power; and presuming these to be decided in a manner favourable to the project of our Sociologist, we still ask if it be possible to make of the affairs of society—legislation and politics, for instance—a department of science?

The mere multiplicity and complication of facts in this department of enquiry, have been generally regarded as rendering such an attempt hopeless. In any social problem of importance, we invariably feel that to embrace the whole of the circumstances, with all their results and dependencies, is really out of our power, and we are forced to content ourselves with a judgment formed on what appear to us the principal facts. Thus arise those limited truths, admitting of exceptions, of qualification, of partial application, on which we are fain to rely in the conduct of human affairs. In framing his measures, how often is the statesman, or the jurist, made aware of the utter impossibility of guarding them against every species of objection, or of so constructing them that they shall present an equal front on every side! How still more keenly is the speculative politician made to feel, when giving in his adherence to some great line of policy, that he cannot gather in under his conclusions all the political truths he is master of! He reluctantly resigns to his opponent the possession, or at least the usufruct, of a certain class of truths which he is obliged to postpone to others of more extensive or more urgent application.

But this multiplicity and complication of facts may merely render the task of the Sociologist extremely difficult, not impossible; and the half truths, and the perplexity of thought above alluded to, may only prove that his scientific task has not yet been accomplished. Nothing is here presented in the nature of the subject to exclude the strict application of the method. There is, however, one essential, distinctive attribute of human society which constitutes a difference in the nature of the subject, so as to render impossible the same scientific survey and appreciation of the social phenomena of the world that we may expect to obtain of the physical. This is the gradual and incessant developement which humanity has displayed, and is still displaying. Who can tell us that that experience on which a fixed and positive theory of social man is to be formed, is all before us? From age to age that experience is enlarging.

In all recognized branches of science nature remains the same, and continually repeats herself; she admits of no novelty; and what appears new to us, from our late discovery of it, is as old as the most palpable sequence of facts that, generation after generation, catches the eye of childhood. The new discovery may disturb our theories, it disturbs not the condition of things. All is still the same as it ever was. What we possessed of real knowledge is real knowledge still. We sit down before a maze of things bewildering enough; but the vast mechanism, notwithstanding all its labyrinthian movements, is constant to itself, and presents always the same problem to the observer. But in this department of humanity, in this sphere of social existence, the case is otherwise. The human being, with hand, with intellect, is incessantly at work—has a progressive movement—grows from age to age. He discovers, he invents, he speculates; his own inventions react upon the inventor; his own thoughts, creeds, speculations, become agents in the scene. Here new facts are actually from time to time starting into existence; new elements are introduced into society, which science could not have foreseen; for if they could have been foreseen, they would already have been there. A new creed, even a new machine, may confound the wisest of speculations. Man is, in relation to the science that would survey society, a creator. In short, that stability in the order of events, that invariable recurrence of the same linked series, on which science depends for its very existence, here, in some measure, fails us. In such degree, therefore, as humanity can be described as progressive, or developing itself, in such degree is it an untractable subject for the scientific method. We have but one world, but one humanity before us, but one specimen of this self developing creature, and that perhaps but half grown, but half developed. How can we know whereabouts we are in our course, and what is coming next? We want the history of some extinguished world in which a humanity has run its full career; we need to extend our observation to other planets peopled with similar but variously developed inhabitants, in order scientifically to understand such a race as ours.

What, for example, could be more safely stated as an eternal law of society than that of property?—a law which so justly governs all our political reasonings, and determines the character of our political measures the most prospective—a law which M. Comte has not failed himself to designate as fundamental. And yet, by what right of demonstration can we pronounce this law to be inherent in humanity, so that it shall accompany the race during every stage of its progress? That industry should be rewarded by a personal, exclusive property in the fruits of industry, is the principle consecrated by our law of property, and to which the spontaneous passions of mankind have in all regions of the earth conducted. Standing where we do, and looking out as far as our intellectual vision can extend, we pronounce it to be the basis of society; but if we added that, as long as the world lasts, it must continue to be the basis of society, that there are no elements in man to furnish forth, if circumstances favoured their development, a quite different principle for the social organization, we feel that we should be overstepping the modest bounds of truth, and stating our proposition in terms far wider and more absolute than we were warranted. Experiments have been made, and a tendency has repeatedly been manifested, to frame an association of men in which the industry of the individual should have its immediate reward and motive in the participated prosperity of the general body—where the good of the whole should be felt as the interest of each. How such a principle is to be established, we confess ourselves utterly at a loss to divine; but that no future events unforeseen by us, no unexpected modification of the circumstances affecting human character, shall ever develop and establish such a principle—this is what no scientific mind would venture to assert. Our knowledge is fully commensurate to our sphere of activity, nor need it, nor can it, pass beyond that sphere. We know that the law of property now forms the basis of society; we know that an attempt to abrogate it would be the signal for war and anarchy, and we know this also, that at no time can its opposite principle be established by force, because its establishment will require a wondrous harmony in the social body; and a civil war, let the victory fall where it may, must leave mankind full of dissension, rancour, and revenge. Our convictions, therefore, for all practical purposes, can receive no confirmation. If the far future is to be regulated by different principles, of what avail the knowledge of them, or how can they be intelligible to us, to whom are denied the circumstances necessary for their establishment, and for the demonstration of their reasonableness?

"The great Aristotle himself," says M. Comte, speaking of the impossibility of any man elevating himself above the circumstances of his age—"The great Aristotle himself, the profoundest thinker of ancient times, (la plus forte tête de toute l'antiquité,) could not conceive of a state of society not based on slavery, the irrevocable abolition of which commenced a few generations afterwards."—Vol. iv. p.38. In the sociology of Aristotle, slavery would have been a fundamental law.

There is another consideration, not unworthy of being mentioned, which bears upon this matter. In one portion of M. Comte's work, (we cannot now lay our hand upon the passage,) the question comes before him of the comparative happiness of the savage and the civilized man. He will not entertain it, refuses utterly to take cognizance of the question, and contents himself with asserting the fuller development of his nature displayed by the civilized man. M. Comte felt that science had no scale for this thing happiness. It was not ponderable, nor measurable, nor was there an uniformity of testimony to be collected thereon. How many of our debates and controversies terminate in a question of this kind—of the comparative happiness of two several conditions? Such questions are, for the most part, practically decided by those who have to feel; but to estimate happiness by and for the feelings of others, would be the task of science. Some future Royal Society must be called upon to establish a standard measure for human felicity.

We are speaking, it will be remembered, of the production of a science. A scientific discipline of mind is undoubtedly available in the examination of social questions, and may be of eminent utility to the moralist, the jurist, and the politician—though it is worthy of observation that even the habit of scientific thought, if not in some measure tempered to the occasion, may display itself very inconveniently and prejudicially in the determination of such questions. Our author, for instance, after satisfying himself that marriage is a fundamental law of society, is incapable of tolerating any infraction whatever of this law in the shape of a divorce. He would give to it the rigidity of a law of mechanics; he finds there should be cohesion here, and he will not listen to a single case of separation: forgetful that a law of society may even be the more stable for admitting exceptions which secure for it the affection of those by whom it is to be reverenced and obeyed.

With relation to the past, and in one point of view—namely, so far as regards the development of man in his speculative career—our Sociologist has endeavoured to supply a law which shall meet the peculiar exigencies of his case, and enable him to take a scientific survey of the history of a changeful and progressive being. At the threshold of his work we encounter the announcement of a new law, which has regulated the development of the human mind from its rudest state of intellectual existence. As this law lies at the basis of M. Comte's system—as it is perpetually referred to throughout his work—as it is by this law he proceeds to view history in a scientific manner—as, moreover, it is by aid of this law that he undertakes to explain the provisional existence of all theology, explaining it in the past, and removing it from the future—it becomes necessary to enter into some examination of its claims, and we must request our readers' attention to the following statement of it:—

"In studying the entire development of the human intelligence in its different spheres of activity, from its first efforts the most simple up to our own days, I believe I have discovered a great fundamental law, to which it is subjected by an invariable necessity, and which seems to me capable of being firmly established, whether on those proofs which are furnished by a knowledge of our organization, or on those historical verifications which result from an attentive examination of the past. The law consists in this—that each of our principal conceptions, each branch of our knowledge, passes successively through three different states of theory: the theologic, or fictitious; the metaphysic, or abstract; the scientific, or positive. In other terms, the human mind, by its nature, employs successively, in each of its researches, three methods of philosophizing, the character of which is essentially different, and even radically opposed; at first the theologic method, then the metaphysical, and last the positive method. Hence three distinct philosophies, or general systems of conceptions on the aggregate of phenomena, which mutually exclude each other; the first is the necessary starting-point of the human intelligence; the third is its fixed and definite state; the second is destined to serve the purpose only of transition.

"In the theologic state, the human mind, directing its researches to the intimate nature of things, the first causes and the final causes of all those effects which arrest its attention, in a word, towards an absolute knowledge of things, represents to itself the phenomena as produced by the direct and continuous action of supernatural agents, more or less numerous, whose arbitrary intervention explains all the apparent anomalies of the universe.

"In the metaphysic state, which is, in its essence, a modification of the former, the supernatural agents are displaced by abstract forces, veritable entities (personified abstractions) inherent in things, and conceived as capable of engendering by themselves all the observed phenomena—whose explanation, thenceforth, consists in assigning to each its corresponding entity.

"At last, in the positive state the human mind, recognizing the impossibility of obtaining absolute notions, renounces the search after the origin and destination of the universe, and the knowledge of the intimate causes of phenomena, to attach itself exclusively to the discovery, by the combined efforts of ratiocination and observation, of their effective laws; that is to say, their invariable relations of succession and of similitude. The explanation of things, reduced now to its real terms, becomes nothing more than the connexion established between the various individual phenomena and certain general facts, the number of which the progress of science tends continually to diminish.

"The theologic system has reached the highest state of perfection of which it is susceptible, when it has substituted the providential action of one only being for the capricious agency of the numerous independent divinities who had previously been imagined. In like manner, the last term of the metaphysic system consists in conceiving, instead of the different special entities, one great general entity, nature, considered as the only source of all phenomena. The perfection of the positive system, towards which it unceasingly tends, though it is not probable it can ever attain to it, would be the ability to represent all observable phenomena as particular cases of some one general fact; such, for instance, as that of gravitation."—Vol. I. p. 5.