A General View of Positivism by Auguste Comte (learn to read books TXT) 📕

appreciate and become familiar with every mode in which human society has formed itself. No sincere Monotheist can understand and represent with fairness the life of Polytheists or Fetishists. But the Positivist poet, accustomed to look upon all past historical stages in their proper filiation, will be able so thoroughly to identify himself with all, as to awaken our sympathies for them, and revive the traces which each individual may recognize of corresponding phases in his own history. Thus we shall be able thoroughly to enter into the aesthetic beauty of the Pagan creeds of Greece and Rome, without any of the scruples which Christians could not but feel when engaged on the same subject. In the Art of the Future all phases of the Past will be recalled to life with the same distinctness with which some of them have been already idealized by Homer and Corneille. And the value of this new source of inspiration is the greater that, at the same time that it is being opened out to the artist, the public is being prepared for its enjoyment. An almost exhaustless series of beautiful creations in epic or dramatic art may be produced, which, by rendering it more easy to comprehend and to glorify the Past in all its phases, will form an essential element, on the one hand, of our educational system, and on the other, of the worship of Humanity.

Lastly, not only will the field for Art become wider, but its organs will be men of a higher stamp. The present system, in which the arts are cultivated by special classes, must be abolished, as being wholly alien to that synthetic spirit which always characterizes the highest poetic genius.

Real talent for Art cannot fail to be called out by the educational system of Positivism, which, though intended for the working classes, is equally applicable to all others. We can only idealize and portray what has become familiar to us; consequently poetry has always rested upon some system of belief, capable of giving a fixed direction to our thoughts and feelings. The greatest poets, from Homer to Corneille, have always participated largely in the best education of which their times admitted. The artist must have clear conceptions before he can exhibit true pictures. Even in these anarchic times, when the system of specialities is being carried to such an irrational extent, the so-called poets who imagine that they can themselves save the trouble of philosophical training, have in reality to borrow a basis of belief from some worn-out metaphysical or theological creed. Their special education, if it can be called so, consists merely in cultivating the talent for expression, and is equally injurious to their intellect and their heart. Incompatible with deep conviction of any kind, while giving mechanical skill in the technical department of Art, it impairs the far more important faculty of idealization. Hence it is that we are at present so deplorably overstocked with verse-makers and literary men, who are wholly devoid of real poetic feeling, and are fit for nothing but to disturb society by their reckless ambition. As for the four special arts, the training for them at present given, being still more technical, is even more hurtful in every respect to the student whose education does not extend beyond it. On every ground, then, artists of whatever kind should begin their career with the same education as the rest of society. The necessity for such an education in the case of women has been already recognized; and it is certainly not less desirable for artists and poets.

Indeed, so aesthetic is the spirit of Positive education, that no special training for Art will be needed, except that which is given spontaneously by practice. There is no other profession which requires so little direct instruction; the tendency of it in Art being to destroy originality, and to stifle the fire of genius with technical erudition. Even for the special arts no professional education is needed. These, like industrial arts, should be acquired by careful practice under the guidance of good masters. The notorious failure of public institutions established for the purpose of forming musicians and painters, makes it unnecessary to dwell further upon this point. Not to speak of their injurious effects upon character, they are a positive impediment to true genius. Poets and artists, then, require no education beyond that which is given to the public, whose thoughts and emotions it is their office to represent. Its want of speciality makes it all the more fit to develop and bring forward real talent. It will strengthen the love of all the fine arts simultaneously; for the connection between them is so intimate that those who make it a boast that their talent is for one of them exclusively will be strongly suspected of having no real vocation for any. All the greatest masters, modern no less than ancient, have shown this universality of taste. Its absence in the present day is but a fresh proof that aesthetic genius does not and cannot exist in times like these, when Art has no social purpose and rests on no philosophic principles. If even amateurs are expected to enjoy Art in all its forms, is it likely that composers of real genius will restrict their admiration to their own special mode of idealization and expression?

Positivism, then, while infusing a profoundly aesthetic spirit into general education, would suppress all special schools of Art on the ground that they impede its true growth, and simply promote the success of mediocrities. When this principle is carried out to its full length, we shall no longer have any special class of artists. The culture of Art, especially of poetry, will be a spontaneous addition to the functions of the three classes which constitute the moral power of society.

Under theocracy, the system by which the evolution of human society was inaugurated, the speculative class absorbed all functions except those relating to the common business of life. No distinction