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

For Caesar has been almost equally misjudged by theological and by metaphysical writers; and Catholicism has done very little for the appreciation of Charlemagne. However, notwithstanding the absence of any systematic appreciation of these great men, yet from the reverence with which they are generally regarded, we can hardly doubt that the celebration here proposed would meet with ready acceptance throughout Western Europe.

To illustrate my meaning still further, I may observe that history presents cases where exactly the opposite course is called for, and which should be held up not for approbation but for infamy. Blame, it is true, should not be carried to the same extent as praise, because it stimulates the destructive instincts to a degree which is always painful and sometimes injurious. Yet strong condemnation is occasionally desirable. It strengthens social feelings and principles, if only by giving more significance to our approval. Thus I would suggest that after doing honour to the three great men who have done so much to promote the development of our race, there should be a solemn reprobation of the two principal opponents of progress, Julian and Bonaparte; the latter being the more criminal of the two, the former the more insensate. Their influence has been sufficiently extensive to allow of all the Western nations joining in this damnatory verdict.6

The principal function of the spiritual power is to direct the future of society by means of education; and, as a supplementary part of education, to pronounce judgment upon the past in the mode here indicated. But there are functions of another kind, relating more immediately to the present; and these too result naturally from its position as an educating body. If the educators are men worthy of their position, it will give them an influence over the whole course of practical life, whether private or public. Of course it will merely be the influence of counsel, and practical men will be free to accept or reject it; but its weight may be very considerable when given prudently, and when the authority from which it proceeds is recognized as competent. The questions on which its advice is most needed are the relations between different classes. Its action will be coextensive with the diffusion of Positive principles; for nations professing the same faith, and sharing in the same education, will naturally accept the same intellectual and moral directors. In the next chapter I shall treat this subject more in detail. I merely mention it here as one among the list of functions belonging to the new spiritual power.

It will now not be difficult to show all the characteristics of Positivism are summed up in the motto, “Order and Progress,” a motto which has a philosophical as well as political bearing, and which I shall always feel glad to have put forward.

Positivism is the only school which has given a definite significance to these two conceptions, whether regarded from their scientific or their social aspect. With regard to Progress, the assertion will hardly be disputed, no definition of it but the Positive ever having yet been given. In the case of Order, it is less apparent; but, as I have shown in the first chapter, it is no less profoundly true. All previous philosophies had regarded Order as stationary, a conception which rendered it wholly inapplicable to modern politics. But Positivism, by rejecting the absolute, and yet not introducing the arbitrary, represents Order in a totally new light, and adapts it to our progressive civilization. It places it on the firmest possible foundation, that is, on the doctrine of the invariability of the laws of nature, which defends it against all danger from subjective chimeras. The Positivist regards artificial Order in Social phenomena, as in all others, as resting necessarily upon the Order of nature, in other words, upon the whole series of natural laws.

But Order has to be reconciled with Progress: and here Positivism is still more obviously without a rival. Necessary as the reconciliation is, no other system has even attempted it. But the facility with which we are now enabled, by the encyclopædic scale, to pass from the simplest mathematical phenomena to the most complicated phenomena of political life, leads at once to a solution of the problem. Viewed scientifically, it is an instance of that necessary correlation of existence and movement, which we find indicated in the inorganic world, and which becomes still more distinct in Biology. Finding it in all the lower sciences, we are prepared for its appearance in a still more definite shape in Sociology. Here its practical importance becomes more obvious, though it had been implicitly involved before. In Sociology the correlation assumes this form: Order is the condition of all Progress; Progress is always the object of Order. Or, to penetrate the question still more deeply, Progress may be regarded simply as the development of Order; for the order of nature necessarily contains within itself the germ of all possible progress. The rational view of human affairs is to look on all their changes, not as new Creations, but as new Evolutions. And we find this principle fully borne out in history. Every social innovation has its roots in the past; and the rudest phases of savage life show the primitive trace of all subsequent improvement.

Progress then is in its essence identical with Order, and may be looked upon as Order made manifest. Therefore, in explaining this double conception on which the Science and Art of society depend, we may at present limit ourselves to the analysis of Progress. Thus simplified it is more easy to grasp, especially now that the novelty and importance of the question of Progress are attracting so much attention. For the public is becoming instinctively alive to its real significance, as the basis on which all sound moral and political teaching must henceforth rest.

Taking, then, this point of view, we may say that the one great object of life, personal and social, is to become more perfect