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

encyclopædic scale of sciences. When it reaches the study of Society, which is its true and ultimate sphere, it has to deal with the conceptions of Poetry, as well as with the operations of Feeling: since its object must then be to give a faithful and complete representation of human nature under its individual, and still more under its social, aspects. Hitherto Positive science has avoided these two subjects: but their charm is such that, when the study of them has been once begun, it cannot fail to be prosecuted with ardour; and their proper place in the constitution of Man and of Society will then be recognized. Reason has been divorced for a long time from Feeling and Imagination. But, with the more complete and systematic culture here proposed, they will be reunited.

To those who have studied the foregoing chapters with attention, the view that the new philosophy is unfavourable to Art, will be obviously unjust. Supposing even that there were no important functions specially assigned to the fine arts in the Positive system, yet indirectly, the leading principles of the system, its social purpose, and the influences by which it is propagated, are all most conducive to the interests of Art. To demonstrate, as Positivism alone of all philosophies has done, the subordination of the intellect to the heart, and the dependence of the unity of human nature upon Feeling, is to stimulate the aesthetic faculties, because Feeling is their true source. To propound a social doctrine by which the Revolution is brought to a close, is to remove the principal obstacle to the growth of Art, and to open a wide field and a firm foundation for it, by establishing fixed principles and modes of life; in the absence of which Poetry can have nothing noble to narrate or to inspire. To exhort the working classes to seek happiness in calling their moral and mental powers into constant exercise, and to give them an education, the principal basis of which is aesthetic, is to place Art under the protection of its natural patrons.

But one consideration is of itself sufficient for our purpose. We have but to look at the influence of Positivism upon Women, at its tendency to elevate the social dignity of their sex, while at the same time strengthening all family ties. Now of all the elements of which society is constituted, Woman certainly is the most aesthetic, alike from her nature and her position; and both her position and her nature are raised and strengthened by Positivism. We receive from women, not only our first ideas of Goodness, but our first sense of Beauty; for their own sensibility to it is equalled by their power of imparting it to others. We see in them every kind of beauty combined; beauty of mind and character as well as of person. All their actions, even those which are unconscious, exhibit a spontaneous striving for ideal perfection. And their life at home, when free from the necessity of labouring for a livelihood, favours this tendency. Living as they do for affection, they cannot fail to feel aspirations for all that is highest, in the world around them first, and then also in the world of imagination. A doctrine, then, which regards women as the originators of moral influence in society, and which places the groundwork of education under their charge, cannot be suspected of being unfavourable to Art.

Leaving these prejudices, we may now examine the mode in which the incorporation of Art into the modern social system will be promoted by Positivism. In the first place systematic principles of Art will be laid down, and its proper function clearly defined. The result of this will be to call out new and powerful means of expression, and also new organs. I may observe that the position which Art will occupy in the present movement of social regeneration is already an inauguration of its final function; as we saw in the analogous cases of the position of women and of the working classes.

But before touching on this question it will be well to rectify a prevalent misconception on the subject, one of the many consequences of our mental and moral anarchy. I refer to the exaggeration of the influence of Art; an error which, if uncorrected, would vitiate all our views with regard to it.

All poets of real genius, from Homer to Corneille, have always considered their work to be that of beautifying human life, and so far, of elevating it. Government of human life they had never supposed to fall within their province. Indeed no sane man would lay it down as a proposition that Imagination should control the other mental faculties. It would imply that the normal condition of the intellect was insanity; insanity being definable as that state of mind in which subjective inspirations are stronger than objective judgments. It is a static law of our nature, which has never been permanently suspended, that the faculties of Representation and Expression should be subordinate to those of Conception and Coordination. Even in cerebral disturbances the law holds good. The relation with the external world is perverted, but the original correlation of the internal mental functions remains unaffected.

The foolish vanity of the later poets of antiquity led some of them into errors much resembling those which now prevail on this point. Still in Polytheistic society artists were at no time looked upon as the leading class, notwithstanding the aesthetic character of Greek and Roman religion. If proofs were necessary, Homer’s poems, especially the Odyssey, would show how secondary the influence of the fine arts was upon society, even when the priesthood had ceased to control them. Plato’s Utopia, written when Polytheism was in its decline, represented a state in which the interference of poets was systematically prevented. Medieval Monotheism was still less disposed to overrate the importance of Art, though its true value was recognized more generally than it had ever been before. But with the decline of