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

of the social instincts. Self-love comes to be regarded as an incurable infirmity, which is to be yielded to only so far as is absolutely necessary. Here lies the universal adaptability of Positivism to every type of character and to all circumstances. In the humblest relations of life, as in the highest, regenerate Humanity will apply the obvious truth, It is better to give than to receive.

The Heart thus aroused will in its turn react beneficially upon the Intellect; and it is especially from women that this reaction will proceed. I have spoken of it so fully before, that I need not describe it further. It is in Feeling that I find the basis on which the whole structure of Positivism, intellectually as well as morally considered, rests. The only remark I have now to add is, that by following out this principle, philosophical difficulties of the most formidable kind are at once surmounted. From moral considerations, the intellect may be readily induced to submit to scientific restrictions, the propriety of which would remain for a long time matter of debate, were philosophical discussions the only means of indicating it. Attempt, for instance, to convince a pure mathematician, however conscientious and talented, that Sociology is both logically and scientifically superior to all other studies. He would not readily admit this; and severe exertion of the inductive and deductive faculties can alone convince him of it. But by the aid of Feeling, an artisan or a woman can, without education, readily grasp this great encyclopædic principle, and apply it practically to the common affairs of life. But for this, the larger conceptions of philosophy would have but a limited range, and very few would be capable of the course of study which is yet so important on social grounds for all. Comprehensiveness of mind is no doubt favourable to sympathy, but is itself more actively stimulated by it. When the Positivist method of education is accepted, moral excellence will be very generally regarded as a guarantee of real intellectual capacity. The revolutionist leaders of the Convention showed their sense of this connection by allowing, as they did sometimes, republican ardour to outweigh scientific attainment. Of course, so long as men remain without a systematic theory of morals, such policy would be likely to fail of its object, and indeed would become positively mischievous. But the reproach is usually that it was a retrograde policy, a reproach far more applicable to the present system, in which the standard of fitness for any office is regulated exclusively by intellectual considerations, the heart being altogether disregarded. Historically we can explain this practice by the fact that the religious faith in which our moral nature has hitherto been trained has been of a most oppressive character. Ever since the Middle Ages, the intellect and the heart have been unavoidably at issue. Positivism is the only system which can put an end to their antagonism, because, as I have before explained, while subordinating Reason to Feeling, it does so in such a way as not to impair the development of either. With its present untenable claims to supremacy, Intellect is in reality the principal source of social discord. Until it abdicates in favour of the Heart, it can never be of real service in reconstruction. But its abdication will be useless, unless it is entirely voluntary. Now this is precisely the result which Positivism attains, because it takes up the very ground on which the claims of intellect are defended, namely, scientific demonstration, a ground which the defenders of intellect cannot repudiate without suspicion at once attaching to their motives. But theological or metaphysical remedies can only exasperate the disease. By oppressing the intellect they provoke it to fresh insurrection against the heart.

For all these reasons, women, who are better judges of moral questions than ourselves, will admit that Positivism, incontestably superior as it is to other systems intellectually, surpasses them yet more in dealing with the affections. Their only objection arises from confounding Positive Philosophy itself with its preliminary course of scientific study.

Women’s minds no doubt are less capable than ours of generalizing very widely, or of carrying on long processes of deduction. They are, that is, less capable than men of abstract intellectual exertion. On the other hand, they are generally more alive to that combination of reality with utility which is one of the characteristics of Positive speculation. In this respect they have much in common intellectually with the working classes; and fortunately they have also the same advantage of being untrammelled by the present absurd system of education. Nor is their position far removed from what it should be normally; being less engaged than men in the business of life, their contemplative faculties are called into activity more easily. Their minds are neither preoccupied nor indifferent; the most favourable condition for the reception of philosophical truth. They have far more affinity intellectually with philosophers who truly deserve the name, than we find in the scientific men of the present day. Comprehensiveness of thought they consider as important as positivity, whereas our savants care for nothing but the latter quality, and even that they understand imperfectly. Molière’s remarkable expression, “des clartés de tout,” which I applied in the last chapter to popular education, was used by him in reference to women. Accordingly we find that women took a vivid interest in the very first attempt made to systematize Positive speculation, the Cartesian philosophy. No more striking proof could be given of their philosophical affinities; and the more so that in the Cartesian system moral and social speculations were necessarily excluded. Surely, then, we may expect them to receive Positivism far more favourably, a system of which the principal subject of speculation is the moral problem in which both sexes are alike interested.

Women, therefore, may, like the people, be counted among the future supporters of the new philosophy. Without their combined aid it could never hope to surmount the strong repugnance to