The social philosophy and religion of Comte

Contents

Preface,

Chapter I. General Account Of Comte's Philosophy

Gomte's fundamental principles — Their bearing on his view q/"-- history — Decay of theology and of the social system founded on it — Metaphysic, its strength for destruction and weakness for construction — It prepares the way for positive science, on ivl „ the social system of the future must be based — Necessity for a new religion based on science — Humanity the true object of worship— The social system corresponding to the religion of Humanity — Man's intellectual and moral powers evolved in conflict with nature — The nature of the social organization and the three forms of society, the Family, the State, and the Church — The Priesthood of Humanity and its office, - 1-55

Chapter II

THE NEGATIVE SIDE OF COMTE's PHILOSOPHY — HIS OPPOSITION TO METAPHYSIC AND THEOLOGY.

Growth of a new view of the social organism opposed at once to Individualism and Socialism — Comte and the German Idealists — Meaning of his attack on Metaphysic — His re al agreement with modern meta physician s — He adopts Locke's principles as to knoivledge, yet is opposed to the Individualism of Locke's French disciples — He attacks Realism as a Nominalist and Nominalism as a Realist, and is really guided by a higher principle than either — His mistaken attitude towards th & Critical Philosophy — Relation of Philosophy to Science — It makelTmen conscious of their guiding yrinciyles — Comte' s consciousness of the categories /hat guide /its thought — Con sequent defects in his view of the development of Religion, of Philosophy, and of Science. — Mr. Spencer's criticism and Littre"s ansioer — Ambiguity in the opp>osition between the universal and the particular, 56-111 viii Contents.

Chapter III

THE POSITIVE OR CONSTRICTIVE SIDE OF COMTE'S PHILOSOPHY — HIS SUBSTITUTES EOR METAPHYSIC AND THEOLOGY.

His recognition of the need of substitutes for Theology and Metaphysic — His assertion that his philosophy is relative and subjectivp^Double meaning of the relativity of knowledge as involving ie assertion or the denial of real or absolute knowledge — Collision of Comte's earlier and later views on this point — Comte's subjective synthesis not subjective in the sense of Individualism, nor yet in the sense that a conscious subject is implied in all objects — His compromise between these opposite theories — His doctrine that man sees the world in ordine ad hominem but not in ordine ad universum — Impossibilityof separating nature from man and of criticising the whole system to vihich man belongs — Defects of Comte's religion"" according to his own idea of religion — Schisms in the school of Comte, 112-176

Chapter IV

COMTE'S VIEW OF THE RELATION OF THE INTELLECT TO THE HEART — ITS EFFECT ON HIS CONCEPTION OF HISTORY AND OF THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

The necessity for unity in man's intellectual and moral life — Nature of the conflict between the intelligence and the heart — It is really a conflict of intelligence with itself — Criticism of Comte's doctrine that the intelligence must he subjected to tinheart — Its effect upon his conception of history, especially of the history of Christianity — The two elements in Christianity, their conflict and reconciliation in its development — The negative tendencies of mediaeval Catholicism and the positive tendencies of the modern era — Comte's imp erfect conception of the Reformalmi and the Revolution — His restoration of the mediaeval ideal — His general position as a Philosopher.

177-249

Preface

This volume consists of a series of articles which have already appeared in the Contemporary Review, and which the proprietors of that review have kindly permitted me to republish. A few paragraphs have been re- written, and a few verbal changes introduced to remove obscurity or inaccuracy, but the general substance of the articles remains unaltered.

In the following exposition and criticism of Comte's philosophy I have considered it mainly, though not exclusively, in its ethical and religious aspects. I have not attempted to deal with the detailed discussion of the nature and methods of the sciences contained in the Philosophic Positive, except in so far as is necessary for the understanding of the Politique Positive, in which x Preface.

the social and religious aims of Comte's philosophy are for the first time explicitly stated. Not, indeed, that there is any very marked division between his earlier and his later treatises. The changes observable in the latter do not amount, as has sometimes been represented, to a sudden revolution, but are rather the last develojnnent of tendencies which had been gaining ground in Comte's mind as his work advanced, and gradually carrying him away from his original principles, or at least greatly modifying their first significance. I have preferred, however, to confine myself, in the main, to the social philosophy of Comte and the restoration of religion connected therewith, partly because I have not sufficient scientific knowledge to estimate the value of his critical review of mathematics and physics, chemistry and biology, and partly because, so far as I know, there has been very little serious criticism of that part of his work which he regarded (I think justly) as the most important and original. In his earlier treatise, or at least in the greater part of it, Comte was working upon lines which are common to him with all the . representatives of what in the last century

Preface. xi

was termed " Enlightenment," and now most often goes by the names of " Positivism " or " Agnosticism." But the distinctive peculiarity of Comte is that he does not stop at that negation of metaphysics and theology which is characteristic of this school, hut that Ids Positivism reproduces both, though in a new form. It is, indeed, just this new element in Comte which gives a truly " positive " meaning to his well-known law of development, which in its first form might more truly be described as " negative." For in that form all that it distinctly tells us about the development of the human mind is that man once believed in theological or metaphysical fictions, and that he has now ceased, or is gradually ceasing, to believe in them. In his later writings, however, Comte has come to see that both theology and metaphysics are based upon perennial wants of man's spiritual nature, wants which, as man, he cannot but feel, and for w T hich a real and not merely a fictitious satisfaction can be provided. He teaches us, therefore, to regard the progress of man as a true development, in which the passing away of the first forms of his higher life is incidental xii Preface.

to the further manifestation of the spirit, which was once expressed in them. Hence the last or " positive " stage of thought is conceived to be a negation and abolition of the past in which all that gave the past its value is reaffirmed and maintained. It is a higher "positive," which is reached through the negation of the lower, but it is itself a great deal more than that negation.

Now, the ultimate interest of Comte's philosophy lies in the success or failure of this attempt of his to find a new satisfaction for those higher wants of humanity, which Theology and Metaphysic, or, as I should prefer to say, Eeligion and Philosophy, have so long been supposed to satisfy. It is not difficult to describe, at least in general terms, what these wants are. Philosophy professes to seek and to find the principle of unity which underlies all the manifold particular truths of the separate sciences, and in reference to which they can be brought together and organized as a system of knowledge. And Eeligion, while it also is concerned with an absolute principle of reality, differs from Philosophy mainly in this, that it is not merely or primarily theoretical. For Eeligion what is required is such

Preface. xiii

a conviction as to the ultimate basis of our existence as shall enable us to find therein at once an adequate object of affection and a sufficient aim for all our practical endeavours. Now a scientific Agnosticism, such as is common at the present day, means either that there are no such wants in man, or that, if they exist, no provision is made for their satisfaction. Such an Agnosticism could scarcely find a better expression for itself than the Comtean law of intellectual development ; for, as that law is commonly understood, it implies that the whole progress of man has been just his gradual awakening to the necessity of renouncing all effort to penetrate to the reality which is hidden behind the veil of phenomena. On this view, it is vain for man to ask any longer the question of Philosophy, or to attempt to find a support for his life in the faiths and hopes of religion. Man is but a link or a series of links in the endless chain of phenomenal causes ; his utmost knowledge cannot reach beyond the relations of particular things to each other and to his own particular existence, and whatever he may desire, to these relations he must be content practically to limit xiv Preface.

Now the peculiarity of Comte's position is that he admits the principle on which this Agnostic view is based, and yet at the same time rejects the conclusions which are usually and naturally drawn from it. He accepts the situation as he understands it. He admits and contends that Philosophy is defeated in its attempt to reach an absolute principle — a principle of unity, which is at once the real or objective centre of the universe, and the subjective centre for our knowledge of it. He admits and contends that there is a great gulf fixed between the absolute reality of things and our consciousness of them. ' Nevertheless, he holds that, in a sense, we may still aspire to that encyclopaedic or universal view of things which Philosophy pretended to give ; for, though we cannot reach an objective principle of unity in things, we can still gather knowledge to a subjective centre, by regarding all things in relation to our own needs and uses. This, however, does not mean that we are to view everything in relation to our own individual pleasures and pains. For the indi-

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vidual is essentially related to his race, or rather, as we should say, that the " individual man is a mere abstraction, and that there is nothing real but Humanity." Hence, in knowledge and in feeling we are carried beyond ourselves ; and as in our moral life we can rise from egoism to altruism, so in our intellectual life we can learn to regard the world from the point of view, not of the individual, but of the race. And the same change brings with it the restoration of religion. The " objective " or absolute God, the God who made all things work together for good to His creatures, has disappeared with the fictions of childhood. But His place has been taken by Humanity, conceived as a great providential existence, which sustains and controls the life of the individual man, and in which he finds a sufficient object for all his devotion. Looking to this Great Being, man need not feel the want of any other God. He has before his eyes One who can help him and whom he can love and serve. Or if he should still feel something wanting, as an object of worship, in a Being who is not the Absolute Being, he is at liberty to indulge in the poetic illusion which makes xvi Preface.

Nature, as well as Humanity, the friend of man. If he does so, however, he must remember that he is yielding to an illusion, which is not supported by anything we know of Nature ; for Nature, apart from the action of man upon it, shows itself as a mere fatality, which is altogether indifferent to his weal or woe.

Even this short sketch of Comte's system — for the detailed exposition of which the reader is referred to the following chapters — may suffice to show where the vital spot, the Achilles' heel, of Comte's philosophy lies. It lies in the idea of a " subjective synthesis " or relative centre of knowledge. This idea for Comtists is the articulus stantis vel cadentis philosophiae. If this central principle can be securely defended, it matters little to the orthodox Positivist how many of the subordinate elements of Comte's thought may have to be abandoned or modified. If it has to be surrendered, however numerous and valuable may be the separate truths and suggestions which are discoverable in every part of Comte's works, his philosophy as a whole must be given up. From what I have read of the works of Comte's most zealous and discerning followers, I am dis-

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posed to think that they would be ready to accept this issue. Now Comte's position has generally been attacked, if one might so express it, from the rear, i.e., by those whose views accord most with his earlier doctrine expressed in the Philosophic Positive, and who regard him as abandoning the true Positivism when he admits any philosophical or religious synthesis whatever, whether subjective or objective, whether relative or absolute. It is in this way that Comte was assailed by Littre, the most eminent of his French disciples, and it is in this way also that he was criticised by Mill and Lewes, who, without being strictly his disciples, accepted most of the leading ideas of his earlier work. If there is any novelty in the criticism contained in the following pages, it is that it starts from the opposite point of view, and seeks to show that the true synthesis of philosophy must be objective as well as subjective, and that there can be no religion of Humanity which is not also a religion of God. And this means that it is logically impossible to go beyond the merely individualistic point of view with which Comte started, except on the assumption that the intelligence of man is, or xviii Preface.

involves, a universal principle of knowledge. The same arguments, in fact, which break down the division between man and man, break down also the division between man and nature ; for, if all Humanity be considered as organically united, it becomes impossible not to recognize in nature an essential relation to man, which makes it in some sense a part of the same organism. The history of the development of Comte's thought is itself, as I endeavour in the sequel to show, an evidence of this principle : for it is the history of a development which ends by all but retracting the negations with which it begins. And when, in his Synthase Subjective, Comte sanctions the poetic treatment of Space and the Earth as divine friends of man, and members of a kind of Trinity in which Humanity is the third person, he comes very near to a complete return upon himself. It has, indeed, been contended by Dr. Bridges # that this is but the ordinary license of poetry, such, for instance, as we find in Shelley's Earthhymn in the " Prometheus Unbound." " Supposing any one had taken Shelley seriously to task for maintaining; that the Earth is alive, should * Unity of Comte's Life and Doctrine, p. 60.

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we not think him curiously dull and pedantic ? " True, it may be answered : but, supposing any one had maintained that the earth is not in any sense the expression of that spiritual principle which expresses itself in a higher way in living beings, and above all in man, and that, therefore, there is nothing but fiction in the ascription of life to it, should we not be entitled to say that he had lost hold of the sense in which poetry is truth ? Should we not consider that he had degraded poetry from a sensuous and therefore partly fictitious presentment of ideal truth, into a mere plaything of fancy which bodies forth things that are not as if they were ? In Comte's case the interest of the poetic fiction consists in this, that it was the imaginative anticipation of a truth towards which he was moving, but which he had not distinctly recognized. His imagination had already emancipated him from the limits of those earlier opinions of his, which still held good for his understanding. If he had taken one step farther, the wheel would have " come full circle," and he would have restored both Theology and Philosophy to the place from which he expelled them. He would have xx Preface.

" burnt what he had adored, and adored what he had burnt."

I cannot say so much in criticism of Comte's views without adding — what every new reading of his works, and especially of the Politique Positive makes me feel more strongly — that the value of his teaching is by no means to be estimated by its mere logical result. Whatever may be said of his philosophy as a whole, he possessed that unmistakeable instinct for truth which renders even the errors and inconsistencies of men of genius more instructive than the most unexceptionable reasonings of many judicious persons, who follow the beaten tracks of thought and, therefore, " need no repentance."

Erratum.— Page 56, Contents, 6th line, for Religion read Realism.

THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY AND EELIGION OF COMTE.