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

the basis of our practical action. The first class of studies, as I have stated before, includes four sciences which we may arrange in pairs: Mathematics and Astronomy forming the first pair; Physics and Chemistry the second. To each of these pairs, two years may be given. But as the first ranges over a wide field, and is of greater logical importance, it will require two lectures weekly; whereas, for all the subsequent studies one lecture will be sufficient. Besides, during these two years, the necessities of practical life will not press heavily, and more time may fairly be spent in mental occupation. From the study of inorganic science, the pupil will proceed to Biology: this subject may easily be condensed in the fifth year into a series of forty lectures, without really losing either its philosophic or its popular character. This concludes the introductory part of Education. The student will now coordinate all his previous knowledge by the direct study of Sociology, statically and dynamically viewed. On this subject also forty lectures will be given, in which the structure and growth of human societies, especially those of modern times, will be clearly explained. With this foundation we come to the last of the seven years of pupillage, in which the great social purpose of the scheme is at last reached. It will be devoted to a systematic exposition of Moral Science, the principles of which may be now fully understood by the light of the knowledge previously obtained of the World, of Life, and of Humanity.

During this course of study, part of the three unoccupied months of each year will be spent in public examinations, to test the degree to which the instruction has been assimilated. The pupils will of their own accord continue their aesthetic pursuits, even supposing their natural tastes in this direction not to be encouraged as they ought to be. During the last two years the Latin and Greek languages might be acquired, as an accessory study, which would improve the poetic culture of the student, and be useful to him in the historical and moral questions with which he will then be occupied. For the purposes of Art, Greek is the more useful of the two; but in the second object, that of enabling us to realize our social Filiation, Latin is of even greater importance.

In the course of these seven years the philosophic development of the individual, preserving its correspondence with that of the race, will pass through its last phase. As the pupil passed before from Fetishism to Polytheism, so he will now pass, as spontaneously, into Monotheism, induced by the influence on his imaginative powers which hitherto have been supreme, of the spirit of discussion. No interference should be offered to this metaphysical transition, which is the homage that he pays to the necessary conditions under which mankind arrives at truth. There is something in this provisional phase which evidently harmonizes well with the abstract and independent character of Mathematics, with which the two first years of the seven are occupied. As long as more attention is given to deduction than to induction, the mind cannot but retain a leaning to metaphysical theories. Under their influence the student will soon reduce his primitive theology to Deism of a more or less distinct kind; and this during his physicochemical studies will most likely degenerate into a species of Atheism; which last phase, under the enlightening influence of biological and still more of sociological knowledge, will be finally replaced by Positivism. Thus at the time fixed for the ultimate study of moral science, each new member of Humanity will have been strongly impressed by personal experience, with a sense of historical Filiation, and will be enabled to sympathize with his ancestors and contemporaries, while devoting his practical energies to the good of his successors.

There is an excellent custom prevalent among the working men of France and creditable to their good sense, with which our educational scheme seems at first sight incompatible. I refer to the custom of travelling from place to place during the last years of apprenticeship; which is as beneficial to their mind and character, as the purposeless excursions of our wealthy and idle classes are in most cases injurious. But there is no necessity for its interfering with study, since it always involves long residence in the chief centres of production, where the workman is sure to find annual courses of lectures similar to those which he would otherwise have been attending at home. As the structure and distribution of the philosophic body will be everywhere the same, there need be no great inconvenience in these changes. For every centre not more than seven teachers will be required; each of whom will take the whole Encyclopædic scale successively. Thus the total number of lectures will be so small as to admit of a high standard of merit being everywhere attained, and of finding everywhere a fair measure of material support. So far from discouraging the travelling system, Positivism will give it a new character, intellectually and socially, by extending the range of travel to the whole of Western Europe, since there is no part of it in which the workman will not be able to prosecute his education. The difference of language will then be no obstacle. Not only would the sense of fraternity among Western nations be strengthened by such a plan, but great improvement would result aesthetically. The languages of Europe would be learnt more thoroughly, and there would be a keener appreciation of works of art, whether musical, pictorial, or architectural; for these can never be properly appreciated but in the country which gave them birth.

Judging by our present practice, it would seem impossible to include such a mass of important scientific studies, as are here proposed, in three hundred and sixty lectures. But the length to which courses of lectures on any subject extend at present, is owing partly to the special or professional object with