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

attribute of the human race, the tendency to place social above personal feeling, she is undoubtedly superior to man. Morally, therefore, and apart from all material considerations, she merits always our loving veneration, as the purest and simplest impersonation of Humanity, who can never be adequately represented in any masculine form. But these qualities do not involve the possession of political power, which some visionaries have claimed for women, though without their own consent. In that which is the great object of human life, they are superior to men; but in the various means of attaining that object they are undoubtedly inferior. In all kinds of force, whether physical, intellectual, or practical, it is certain that Man surpasses Woman, in accordance with a general law which prevails throughout the animal kingdom. Now practical life is necessarily governed by force rather than by affection, because it requires unremitting and laborious activity. If there were nothing else to do but to love, as in the Christian utopia of a future life in which there are no material wants, Women would be supreme. But life is surrounded with difficulties, which it needs all our thoughts and energies to avoid; therefore Man takes the command, notwithstanding his inferiority in goodness. Success in all great efforts depends more upon energy and talent than upon goodwill, although this last condition reacts strongly upon the others.

Thus the three elements of our moral constitution do not act in perfect harmony. Force is naturally supreme, and all that women can do is to modify it by affection. Justly conscious of their superiority in strength of feeling, they endeavour to assert their influence in a way which is often attributed by superficial observers to the mere love of power. But experience always teaches them that in a world where the simplest necessaries of life are scarce and difficult to procure, power must belong to the strongest, not to the most affectionate, even though the latter may deserve it best. With all their efforts they can never do more than modify the harshness with which men exercise their authority. And men submit more readily to this modifying influence, from feeling that in the highest attributes of Humanity women are their superiors. They see that their own supremacy is due principally to the material necessities of life, provision for which calls into play the self-regarding rather than the social instincts. Hence we find it the case in every phase of human society that women’s life is essentially domestic, public life being confined to men. Civilization, so far from effacing this natural distinction, tends, as I shall afterwards show, to develop it, while remedying its abuses.

Thus the social position of women is in this respect very similar to that of philosophers and of the working classes. And we now see why these three elements should be united. It is their combined action which constitutes the moral or modifying force of society.

Philosophers are excluded from political power by the same fatality as women, although they are apt to think that their intellectual eminence gives them a claim to it. Were our material wants more easily satisfied, the influence of intellect would be less impeded than it is by the practical business of life. But, on this hypothesis, women would have a better claim to govern than philosophers. For the reasoning faculties would have remained almost inert had they not been needed to guide our energies; the constitution of the brain not being such as to favour their spontaneous development. Whereas the affective principle is dependent on no such external stimulus for its activity. A life of thought is a more evident disqualification for the government of the world even than a life of feeling, although the pride of philosophers is a greater obstacle to submission than the vanity of women. With all its pretensions, intellectual force is not in itself more moral than material force. Each is but an instrument; the merit depends entirely upon its right employment. The only element of our nature which is in itself moral is Love; for Love alone tends of itself towards the preponderance of social feeling over self-interest. And since even Love cannot govern, what can be the claim of Intellect? In practical life precedence must always depend upon superior energy. Reason, even more than Feeling, must be restricted to the task of modifying. Philosophers therefore must be excluded from government, at least as rigidly as women. It is in vain for intellect to attempt to command; it never can do more than modify. In fact, the morality which it indirectly possesses is due to this impossibility of exercising compulsory power, and would be ruined by the attainment of it, supposing it were possible. Intellect may do much to amend the natural order of things, provided that it does not attempt to subvert it. What it can do is by its power of systematic arrangement to effect the union of all the classes who are likely to exert a beneficial influence on material power. It is with this view that every spiritual power has availed itself of the aid of women, as we see was the case in the Middle Ages.

Proceeding with our sociological analysis of moral force, we shall find an equally striking resemblance between the influence of Women and that exercised by the People.

In the first stage of progress, there is no modifying power except what springs from Feeling; afterwards Intellect combines with it, finding itself unable to govern. The only element now wanting is Activity; and this want, which is indispensable, is supplied by the cooperation of the people. The fact is, that although the people constitute the basis on which all political power rests, yet they have as little to do directly with the administration of power as philosophers or women.

Power, in the strict sense of the word, power, that is, which controls action without persuading the will, has two perfectly distinct sources, numbers and wealth. The force of numbers is usually considered