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

to submit to it, provided that it be always regarded as secondary to the uniform supremacy of external Laws, and that every step in the development of our mental and moral powers shall restrict its employment. Both conditions are evidently satisfied in the Positive system of life. The tendency of modern industry and science is to make us less dependent on individual caprice, as well as more assimilable to the universal Organism. Positivism therefore secures the liberty and dignity of man by its demonstration that social phenomena, like all others, are subject to natural laws, which, within certain limits, are modifiable by wise action on the part of society. Totally contrary, on the other hand, is the spirit of metaphysical schemes of polity, in which society is supposed to have no spontaneous impulses, and is handed over to the will of the legislator. In these degrading and oppressive schemes, union is purchased, as in ancient times, at the cost of independence.

In these two ways, then, Positive religion influences the practical life of Humanity, in accordance with the natural laws that regulate her existence. First, the sense of Solidarity with the Present is perfected by adding to it the sense of Continuity with the Past; secondly, the cooperation of her individual agents is rendered compatible with their independence. Not till this is done can Politics become really subordinate to Morals, and the feeling of Duty be substituted for that of Right. Our active powers will be modified by the combined influence of feeling and reason, as expressed in indisputable rules which it will be for the spiritual power to make known to us. Temporal government, whoever its administrators may be, will always be modified by morality. Whereas in all metaphysical systems of polity nothing is provided for but the modes of access to government and the limits of its various departments; no principles are given to direct its application or to enable us to form a right judgment of it.

From this general view of the practical service of Humanity, we pass now to the two leading divisions of the subject; with the view of completing our conception of the fundamental principle of Positive Polity, the separation of temporal from spiritual power.

The action of Humanity relates either to her external circumstances, or to the facts of her own nature. Each of these two great functions involves both Order and Progress; but the first relates more specially to the preservation of her existence, the second to her progressive development. Humanity, like every other organism, has to act unceasingly on the surrounding world in order to maintain and extend her material existence. Thus the chief object of her practical life is to satisfy the wants of our physical nature, wants which necessitate continual reproduction of materials in sufficient quantities. This production soon comes to depend more on the cooperation of successive generations than on that of contemporaries. Even in these lower but indispensable functions, we work principally for our successors, and the results that we enjoy are in great part due to those that have gone before us. Each generation produces more material wealth than is required for its own wants; and the use of the surplus is to facilitate the labour and prepare the maintenance of the generation following. The agents in this transmission of wealth naturally take the lead in the industrial movement; since the possession of provisions and instruments of production gives an advantage which can only be lost by unusual incapacity. And this will seldom happen, because capital naturally tends to accumulate with those who make a cautious and skilful use of it.

Capitalists then will be the temporal chiefs of modern society. Their office is consecrated in Positive religion as that of the nutritive organs of Humanity; organs which collect and prepare the materials necessary for life, and which also distribute them, subject always to the influence of a modifying central organ. The direct and palpable importance of their functions is a stimulus to pride; and in every respect they are strongly influenced by personal instincts, which are necessary to sustain the vigour of their energies. Consequently, if left to themselves, they are apt to abuse their power, and to govern by the ignoble method of compulsion, disregarding all appeals to reason and to morality. Hence the need of a combination of moral forces to exercise a constant check upon the hardness with which they are so apt to use their authority. And this leads us to the second of the two great functions of Humanity.

This function is analogous to that of Innervation in individuals. Its object is the advancement of Humanity, whether in physical or still more in intellectual and moral aspects. It might seem at first sight restricted, as in lower organisms, to the secondary office of assisting the nutritive function. Soon, however, it develops qualities peculiar to itself, qualities on which our highest happiness depends. And thus we might imagine that life was to be entirely given up to the free play of reason, imagination, and feeling, were we not constantly forced back by the necessities of our physical nature to less delightful occupations. Therefore this intellectual and moral function, notwithstanding its eminence, can never be supreme in our nature; yet independently of its intrinsic charm, it forms our principal means, whether used consciously or otherwise, in controlling the somewhat blind action of the nutritive organs. It is in women, whose function is analogous to that of the affective organs in the individual brain, that we find this modifying influence in its purest and most spontaneous form. But the full value of their influence is not realized until they act in combination with the philosophic class; which, though its direct energy is small, is as indispensable to the collective Organism as the speculative functions of the brain are to the individual. Besides these two essential elements of moral power, we find, when Humanity reaches her maturity, a third element which completes the constitution of this power and