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

will cease, and the moral dangers of a life exclusively devoted to the faculty of expression, will exist no longer.

I have now shown the position which Art will occupy in the social system as finally constituted. I have yet to speak of its influence in the actual movement of regeneration which Positivism is inaugurating. We have already seen that each of the three classes who participate in this movement, assumes functions similar to those for which it is ultimately destined; performing them in a more strenuous, though less methodic way. This is obviously true of the philosophic class who head the movement; nor is it less true of the proletariate, from whom it derives its vigour, or of women, whose support gives it a moral sanction. It is, therefore, at first sight probable that the same will hold good of the aesthetic conditions which are necessary to the completeness of these three functions of the social organism. On closer examination we shall find that this is the case.

The principal function of Art is to construct types on the basis furnished by Science. Now this is precisely what is required for inaugurating the new social system. However perfectly its first principles may be elaborated by thinkers, they will still be not sufficiently definite for the practical result. Systematic study of the Past can only reveal the Future in general outline. Even in the simpler sciences perfect distinctness is impossible without overstepping the limits of actual proof. Still more, therefore, in Sociology will the conclusions of Science fall always far short of that degree of precision and clearness, without which no principle can be thoroughly popularized. But at the point where Philosophy must always leave a void, Poetry steps in and stimulates to practical action. In the early periods of Polytheism, Poetry repaired the defects of the system viewed dogmatically. Its value will be even greater in idealizing a system founded, not upon imagination, but upon observation of fact. In the next chapter I shall dwell at greater length on the service which Poetry will render in representing the central conception of Positivism. It will be easy to apply the same principle to other cases.

In his efforts to accomplish this object, the Positivist poet will naturally be led to form prophetic pictures of the regeneration of Man, viewed in every aspect that admits of being ideally represented. And this is the second service which Art will render to the cause of social renovation; or rather it is an extension of the first. Systematic formation of Utopias will in fact become habitual; on the distinct understanding that, as in every other branch of art, the ideal shall be kept in subordination to the real. The unlimited license which is apparently given to Utopias by the unsettled character of the time is in reality a bar to their practical influence, since even the wildest dreamers shrink from extravagance that oversteps the ordinary conditions of mental sanity. But when it is once understood that the sphere of Imagination is simply that of explaining and giving life to the conclusions of Reason, the severest thinkers will welcome its influence; because so far from obscuring truth, it will give greater distinctness to it than could be given by Science unassisted. Utopias have, then, their legitimate purpose, and Positivism will strongly encourage their formation. They form a class of poetry which, under sound sociological principles, will prove of material service in leading the people of the West towards the normal state. Each of the five modes of Art may participate in this salutary influence; each in its own way may give a foretaste of the beauty and greatness of the new life that is now offered to the individual, to the family, and to society.

From this second mode in which Art assists the great work of reconstruction we pass naturally to a third, which at the present time is of equal importance. To remove the spell under which the Western nations are still blinded to the Future by the decayed ruins of the Past, all that is necessary is to bring these ruins into comparison with the prophetic pictures of which we have been speaking. Since the decline of Catholicism in the fourteenth century, Art has exhibited a critical spirit alien to its true nature, which is essentially synthetic. Henceforth it is to be constructive rather than critical; yet this is not incompatible with the secondary object of contending against opinions, and still more against modes of life, which ought to have died out with the Catholic system, or with the revolutionary period which followed it. But resistance to some of the most deeply-rooted errors of the Past will not interfere with the larger purpose of Positivist Art. No direct criticism will be needed. Whether against theological or against metaphysical dogmas, argument is henceforth needless, even in a philosophical treatise, much more so in poetry. All that is needed is simple contrast, which in most cases would be implied rather than expressed, of the procedure of Positivism and Catholicism in reference to similar social and moral problems. The scientific basis of such a contrast, is already furnished; it is for Art to do the rest, since the appeal should be to Feeling rather than to Reason. At the close of the last chapter I mentioned the principal case in which this comparison would have been of service, the introduction, namely, of Positivism to the two Southern nations. It was the task that I had marked out for my saintly fellow-worker, for it is one in which the aesthetic powers of women would be peculiarly available.

In this, the third of its temporary functions, Positivist Art approximates to its normal character. We have spoken of its idealization of the Future, but here it will idealize the Past also. Positivism cannot be accepted until it has rendered the fullest and most scrupulous justice to Catholicism. Our poets, so far from detracting from the moral and political worth of the medieval system,