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

this limitation, experience has shown too clearly that it would almost always follow its natural bent for useless or insoluble questions, which are the most plentiful and the easiest to deal with. But when any problem of a legitimate kind has been once proposed, it is the sole judge of the method to be pursued, and of the utility of the results obtained. Its province is to inquire into the present, in order to foresee the future, and to discover the means of improving it. In this province it is not to be interfered with. In a word the intellect is to be the servant of the heart, not its slave. Under these two correlative conditions the elements of our nature will at last be brought into harmony. The equilibrium of these two elements, once established, is in little danger of being disturbed. For since it is equally favourable to both of them, both will be interested in maintaining it. The fact that Reason in modern times has become habituated to revolt, is no ground for supposing that it will always retain its revolutionary character, even when its legitimate claims have been fully satisfied. Supposing the case to arise, however, society, as I shall show afterwards, would not be without the means of repressing any pretensions that were subversive of order. There is another point of view which may assure us that the position given to the heart under the new system will involve no danger to the growth of intellect. Love, when real, ever desires light, in order to attain its ends. The influence of true feeling is as favourable to sound thought as to wise activity.

Our doctrine, therefore, is one which renders hypocrisy and oppression alike impossible. And it now stands forward as the result of all the efforts of the past, for the regeneration of order, which, whether considered individually or socially, is so deeply compromised by the anarchy of the present time. It establishes a fundamental principle by which true philosophy and sound polity are brought into correlation; a principle which can be felt as well as proved, and which is at once the keystone of a system and a basis of government. I shall show, moreover, in the fifth chapter, that the doctrine is as rich in aesthetic beauty as in philosophical power and in social influence. This will complete the proof of its efficacy as the centre of a universal system. Viewed from the moral, scientific, or poetical aspect, it is equally valuable; and it is the only principle which can bring Humanity safely through the most formidable crisis that she has ever yet undergone. It will be now clear to all that the force of demonstration, a force peculiar to modern times, and which still retains much of its destructive character, becomes matured and elevated by Positivism. It begins to develop constructive tendencies, which will soon be developed more largely. It is not too much, then, to say that Positivism, notwithstanding its speculative origin, offers as much to natures of deep sympathy as to men of highly cultivated intellects, or of energetic character.

The spirit and the principle of the synthesis which all true philosophers should endeavour to establish, have now been defined. I proceed to explain the method that should be followed in the task, and the peculiar difficulty with which it is attended.

The object of the synthesis will not be secured until it embraces the whole extent of its domain, the moral and practical departments as well as the intellectual. But these three departments cannot be dealt with simultaneously. They follow an order of succession which, so far from dissevering them from the whole to which they belong, is seen when carefully examined to be a natural result of their mutual dependence. The truth is, and it is a truth of great importance, that Thoughts must be systematized before Feelings, Feelings before Actions. It is doubtless, owing to a confused apprehension of this truth, that philosophers hitherto, in framing their systems of human nature, have dealt almost exclusively, with our intellectual faculties.

The necessity of commencing with the coordination of ideas is not merely due to the fact that the relations of these, being more simple and more susceptible of demonstration, form a useful logical preparation for the remainder of the task. On closer examination we find a more important, though less obvious reason. If this first portion of the work be once efficiently performed, it is the foundation of all the rest. In what remains no very serious difficulty will occur, provided always that we content ourselves with that degree of completeness which the ultimate purpose of the system requires.

To give such paramount importance to this portion of the subject may seem at first sight inconsistent with the proposition just laid down, that the strength of the intellectual faculties is far inferior to that of the other elements of our nature. It is quite certain that Feeling and Activity have much more to do with any practical step that we take than pure Reason. In attempting to explain this paradox, we come at last to the peculiar difficulty of this great problem of human Unity.

The first condition of unity is a subjective principle; and this principle in the Positive system is the subordination of the intellect to the heart: Without this the unity that we seek can never be placed on a permanent basis, whether individually or collectively. It is essential to have some influence sufficiently powerful to produce convergence amid the heterogeneous and often antagonistic tendencies of so complex an organism as ours. But this first condition, indispensable as it is, would be quite insufficient for the purpose, without some objective basis, existing independently of ourselves in the external world. That basis consists for us in the laws or Order of the phenomena by which Humanity is regulated. The subjection of human life to this order is incontestable; and as soon as the intellect has enabled us to comprehend it, it