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 CRITICAL MISCELLANIES

 BY

 JOHN MORLEY

 VOL. III. 

 Essay 10: Auguste Comte

 London MACMILLAN AND CO. , LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1904

CONTENTS

AUGUSTE COMTE. 

 PAGE

 Introduction 337

 Influence of Saint Simon 340

 Marriage 343

 Serious illness 345

 Official work 347

 Completion of _Positive Philosophy_ 349

 J. S. Mill 350

 Question of Subsidy 352

 Money 353

 Literary method 354

 _Hygiène cérébrale_ 356

 Madame de Vaux 356

 _Positive Polity_ 358

 Death 359

 Comte's philosophic consistency 360

 Early writings 361

 Law of the Three States 363

 Classification of sciences 366

 The double key of Positive Philosophy 368

 Criticism on Comte's classification 369

 Sociological conceptions 371

 Method 371

 Decisive importance of intellectual development 373

 Historical elucidations 374

 Their value and popularity 374

 Social dynamics in the _Positive Polity_ 375

 The Positivist system 376

 The key to social regeneration 377

 The Religion of Humanity 377

 The Great Being 378

 Remarks on the Religion 378

 The worship and discipline 380

 The priesthood 381

 Women 382

 Conclusion 383

AUGUSTE COMTE. [1]

Comte is now generally admitted to have been the most eminent andimportant of that interesting group of thinkers whom the overthrow ofold institutions in France turned towards social speculation. Vastlysuperior as he was to men like De Maistre on the one hand, and to menlike Saint Simon or Fourier on the other, as well in scientificacquisitions as in mental capacity, still the aim and interest of allhis thinking was also theirs, namely, the renovation of the conditionsof the social union. If, however, we classify him, not thus accordingto aim, but according to method, then he takes rank among men of avery different type from these. What distinguishes him in method fromhis contemporaries is his discernment that the social order cannot betransformed until all the theoretic conceptions that belong to it havebeen rehandled in a scientific spirit, and maturely gathered up into asystematic whole along with the rest of our knowledge. This presidingdoctrine connects Comte with the social thinkers of the eighteenthcentury, --indirectly with Montesquieu, directly with Turgot, and moreclosely than either with Condorcet, of whom he was accustomed to speakas his philosophic father. 

 [1] Reprinted by the kind permission of Messrs. A. And C. Black from the new edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. 

Isidore-Auguste-Marie-François-Xavier Comte was born in January 1798, at Montpellier, where his father was a receiver-general of taxes forthe district. He was sent for his earliest instruction to the schoolof the town, and in 1814 was admitted to the École Polytechnique. Hisyouth was marked by a constant willingness to rebel against merelyofficial authority; to genuine excellence, whether moral orintellectual, he was always ready to pay unbounded deference. Thatstrenuous application which was one of his most remarkable gifts inmanhood showed itself in his youth, and his application was backed orinspired by superior intelligence and aptness. After he had been twoyears at the École Polytechnique he took a foremost part in a mutinousdemonstration against one of the masters; the school was broken up, and Comte like the other scholars was sent home. To the greatdissatisfaction of his parents, he resolved to return to Paris (1816), and to earn his living there by giving lessons in mathematics. Benjamin Franklin was the youth's idol at this moment. 'I seek toimitate the modern Socrates, ' he wrote to a school friend, 'not intalents, but in way of living. You know that at five and twenty heformed the design of becoming perfectly wise, and that he fulfilledhis design. I have dared to undertake the same thing, though I am notyet twenty. ' Though Comte's character and aims were as far removed aspossible from Franklin's type, neither Franklin nor any man that everlived could surpass him in the heroic tenacity with which, in the faceof a thousand obstacles, he pursued his own ideal of a vocation. 

For a moment circumstances led him to think of seeking a career inAmerica, but a friend who preceded him thither warned him of thepurely practical spirit that prevailed in the new country. 'IfLagrange were to come to the United States, he could only earn hislivelihood by turning land surveyor. ' So Comte remained in Paris, living as he best could on something less than £80 a year, and hoping, when he took the trouble to break his meditations upon greater thingsby hopes about himself, that he might by and by obtain an appointmentas mathematical master in a school. A friend procured him a situationas tutor in the house of Casimir Périer. The salary was good, but theduties were too miscellaneous, and what was still worse, there was anend of the delicious liberty of the garret. After a short experienceof three weeks Comte returned to neediness and contentment. He was notaltogether without the young man's appetite for pleasure; yet when hewas only nineteen we find him wondering, amid the gaieties of thecarnival of 1817, how a gavotte or a minuet could make people forgetthat thirty thousand human beings around them had barely a morsel toeat. Hardship in youth has many drawbacks, but it has the immenseadvantage over academic ease of making the student's interest in menreal, and not merely literary. 

Towards 1818 Comte became associated as friend and disciple with a manwho was destined to exercise a very decisive influence upon the turnof his speculation. Henry, count of Saint Simon, was second cousin ofthe famous duke of Saint Simon, the friend of the Regent, and authorof the most important set of memoirs in a language that is soincomparably rich in memoirs. He was now nearly sixty, and if he hadnot gained a serious reputation, he had at least excited the curiosityand interest of his contemporaries by the social eccentricities of hislife, by the multitude of his schemes and devices, and by thefantastic ingenuity of his political ideas. Saint Simon's mostcharacteristic faculty was an exuberant imagination, working in thesphere of real things. Scientific discipline did nothing for him; hehad never undergone it, and he never felt its value. He was an artistin social construction; and if right ideas, or the suggestion of rightideas, sometimes came into his head, about history, about humanprogress, about a stable polity, such ideas were not the products oftrains of ordered reasoning; they were the intuitional glimpses of thepoet, and consequently as they professed to be in real matter, eventhe right ideas were as often as not accompanied by wrong ones. 

The young Comte, now twenty, was enchanted by the philosophic veteran. In after years he so far forgot himself as to write of Saint Simon asa depraved quack, and to deplore his connection with him as purelymischievous. While the connection lasted he thought very differently. Saint Simon is described as the most estimable and lovable of men, andthe most delightful in his relations; he is the worthiest ofphilosophers. Even after the association had come to an end, and atthe very moment when Comte was congratulating himself on having thrownoff the yoke, he honestly admits that Saint Simon's influence has beenof powerful service in his philosophic education. 'I certainly, ' hewrites to his most intimate friend, 'am under great personalobligations to Saint Simon; that is to say, he helped in a powerfuldegree to launch me in the philosophical direction that I have nowdefinitely marked out for myself, and that I shall follow withoutlooking back for the rest of my life. ' Even if there were no suchunmistakable expressions as these, the most cursory glance into SaintSimon's writings is enough to reveal the thread of connection betweenthe ingenious visionary and systematic thinker. We see the debt, andwe also see that when it is stated at the highest possible, nothinghas really been taken either from Comte's claims as a powerfuloriginal thinker, or from his immeasurable pre-eminence over SaintSimon in intellectual grasp and vigour and coherence. As high a degreeof originality may be shown in transformation as in invention, asMolière and Shakespeare have proved in the region of dramatic art. Inphilosophy the conditions are not different. _Il faut prendre sonbien où on le trouve. _

It is no detriment to Comte's fame that some of the ideas which herecombined and incorporated in a great philosophic structure had theirorigin in ideas that were produced almost at random in the incessantfermentation of Saint Simon's brain. Comte is in no true sense afollower of Saint Simon, but it was undoubtedly Saint Simon wholaunched him, to take Comte's own word, by suggesting to his strongand penetrating mind the two starting-points of what grew into theComtist system--first, that political phenomena are as capable ofbeing grouped under laws as other phenomena; and second, that the truedestination of philosophy must be social, and the true object of thethinker must be the reorganisation of the moral, religious, andpolitical systems. We can readily see what an impulse thesefar-reaching conceptions would give to Comte's meditations. There wereconceptions of less importance than these, in which it is impossiblenot to feel that it was Saint Simon's wrong or imperfect idea that puthis young admirer on the track to a right and perfected idea. Thesubject is not worthy of further discussion. That Comte would haveperformed some great intellectual achievement, if Saint Simon hadnever been born, is certain. It is hardly less certain that the greatachievement which he did actually perform was originally set in motionby Saint Simon's conversation, though it was afterwards directlyfiliated with the fertile speculations of Turgot and Condorcet. Comtethought almost as meanly of Plato as he did of Saint Simon, and heconsidered Aristotle the prince of all true thinkers; yet their vitaldifference about Ideas did not prevent Aristotle from calling Platomaster. 

After six years the differences between the old and the youngphilosopher grew too marked for friendship. Comte began to fret underSaint Simon's pretensions to be his director. Saint Simon, on theother hand, perhaps began to feel uncomfortably conscious of thesuperiority of his disciple. The occasion of the breach between them(1824) was an attempt on Saint Simon's part to print a production ofComte's as if it were in some sort connected with Saint Simon'sschemes of social reorganisation. Comte was never a man to quarrel byhalves, and not only was the breach not repaired, but long afterwardsComte, as we have said, with painful ungraciousness took to callingthe encourager of his youth by very hard names. 

In 1825 Comte married. His marriage was one of those of which'magnanimity owes no account to prudence, ' and it did not turn outprosperously. His family were strongly Catholic and royalist, and theywere outraged by his refusal to have the marriage performed other thancivilly. They consented, however, to receive his wife, and the pairwent on a visit to Montpellier. Madame Comte conceived a dislike tothe circle she found there, and this was the too early beginning ofdisputes which lasted for the remainder of their union. In the year ofhis marriage we find Comte writing to the most intimate of hiscorrespondents:--'I have nothing left but to concentrate my wholemoral existence in my intellectual work, a precious but inadequatecompensation; and so I must give up, if not the most dazzling, stillthe sweetest part of my happiness. ' We cannot help admiring theheroism which cherishes great ideas in the midst of petty miseries, and intrepidly throws all squalid interruptions into the backgroundwhich is their true place. Still, we may well suppose that the sordidcares that come with want of money made a harmonious life none themore easy. Comte tried to find pupils to board with him, but only onepupil came, and he was soon sent away for lack of companions. 'I wouldrather spend an evening, ' wrote the needy enthusiast, 'in solving adifficult question, than in running after some empty-headed andconsequential millionaire in search of a pupil. ' A little money wasearned by an occasional article in _Le Producteur_, in which he beganto expound the philosophic ideas that were now maturing in his mind. He announced a course of lectures (1826), which it was hoped wouldbring money as well as fame, and which were to be the first dogmaticexposition of the Positive Philosophy. A friend had said to him, 'Youtalk too freely, your ideas are getting abroad, and other people usethem without giving you the credit; put your ownership on record. ' Thelectures were intended to do this among other things, and theyattracted hearers so eminent as Humboldt the cosmologist, as Poinsotthe geometer, as Blainville the physiologist. 

Unhappily, after the third lecture of the course, Comte had a severeattack of cerebral derangement, brought on by intense and prolongedmeditation, acting on a system that was already irritated by thechagrin of domestic failure. He did not recover his health for morethan a year, and as soon as convalescence set in he was seized by soprofound a melancholy at the disaster which had thus overtaken him, that he threw himself into the Seine. Fortunately he was rescued, andthe shock did not stay his return to mental soundness. One incident ofthis painful episode is worth mentioning. Lamennais, then in theheight of his Catholic exaltation, persuaded Comte's mother to insiston her son being married with the religious ceremony, and as theyounger Madame Comte apparently did not resist, the rite was dulyperformed, in spite of the fact that the unfortunate man was at thetime neither more nor less than raving mad. To such shockingconspiracies against common sense and decency does ecclesiasticalzealotry bring even good men like Lamennais. On the other hand, philosophic assailants of Comtism have not always resisted thetemptation to recall the circumstance that its founder was once out ofhis mind, --an unworthy and irrelevant device, that cannot be excusedeven by the provocation of Comte's own occasional acerbity. As hasbeen justly said, if Newton once suffered a cerebral attack without onthat account forfeiting our veneration for the _Principia_, Comte mayhave suffered in the same way, and still not have forfeited ourrespect for what is good in the systems of Positive Philosophy andPositive Polity. 

In 1828 the lectures were renewed, and in 1830 was published the firstvolume of the _Course of Positive Philosophy_. The sketch and groundplan of this great undertaking had appeared in 1826. The sixth andlast volume was published in 1842. The twelve years covering thepublication of the first of Comte's two elaborate works were years ofindefatigable toil, and they were the only portion of his life inwhich he enjoyed a certain measure, and that a very modest measure, ofmaterial prosperity. In 1833 he was appointed examiner of the boys inthe various provincial schools who aspired to enter the ÉcolePolytechnique at Paris. This and two other engagements as a teacher ofmathematics secured him an income of some £400 a year. He made M. Guizot, then Louis Philippe's minister, the important proposal toestablish a chair of general history of the sciences. If there arefour chairs, he argued, devoted to the history of philosophy, that isto say, the minute study of all sorts of dreams and aberrationsthrough the ages, surely there ought to be at least one to explain theformation and progress of our real knowledge? This wise suggestion, which still remains to be acted upon, was at first welcomed, accordingto Comte's own account, by Guizot's philosophic instinct, and thenrepulsed by his 'metaphysical rancour. '

Meanwhile Comte did his official work conscientiously, sorely as hegrudged the time which it took from the execution of the great objectof his thoughts. We cannot forbear to transcribe one delightful andtouching trait in connection with this part of Comte's life. 'I hardlyknow if even to you, ' he writes in the expansion of domesticconfidence to his wife, 'I dare disclose the sweet and softenedfeeling that comes over me when I find a young man whose examinationis thoroughly satisfactory. Yes, though you may smile, the emotionwould easily stir me to tears if I were not carefully on my guard. 'Such sympathy with youthful hope; in union with the industry andintelligence that are the only means of bringing the hope tofulfilment, shows that Comte's dry and austere manner veiled the firesof a generous social emotion. It was this which made the overworkedstudent take upon himself the burden of delivering every year from1831 to 1848 a course of gratuitous lectures on astronomy for apopular audience. The social feeling that inspired this disinterestedact showed itself in other ways. He suffered the penalty ofimprisonment rather than serve in the national guard; his position wasthat though he would not take arms against the new monarchy of July, yet being a republican he would take no oath to defend it. The onlyamusement that Comte permitted himself was a visit to the opera. Inhis youth he had been a playgoer, but he shortly came to theconclusion that tragedy is a stilted and bombastic art, and after atime comedy interested him no more than tragedy. For the opera he hada genuine passion, which he gratified as often as he could, until hismeans became too narrow to afford even that single relaxation. 

Of his manner and personal appearance we have the following accountfrom one who was his pupil:--'Daily as the clock struck eight on thehorologe of the Luxembourg, while the ringing hammer on the bell wasyet audible, the door of my room opened, and there entered a man, short, rather stout, almost what one might call sleek, freshly shaven, without vestige of whisker or moustache. He was invariably dressed ina suit of the most spotless black, as if going to a dinner party; hiswhite neckcloth was fresh from the laundress's hands, and his hatshining like a racer's coat. He advanced to the arm-chair prepared forhim in the centre of the writing-table, laid his hat on the left-handcorner; his snuff-box was deposited on the same side beside the quireof paper placed in readiness for his use, and dipping the pen twiceinto the ink-bottle, then bringing it to within an inch of his nose, to make sure it was properly filled, he broke silence: "We have saidthat the chord AB, " etc. For three quarters of an hour he continuedhis demonstration, making short notes as he went on, to guide thelistener in repeating the problem alone; then, taking up anothercahier which lay beside him, he went over the written repetition ofthe former lesson. He explained, corrected, or commented till theclock struck nine; then, with the little finger of the right handbrushing from his coat and waistcoat the shower of superfluous snuffwhich had fallen on them, he pocketed his snuff-box, and resuming hishat, he as silently as when he came in made his exit by the door whichI rushed to open for him. '

In 1842, as we have said, the last volume of the _Positive Philosophy_was given to the public. Instead of that contentment which we like topicture as the reward of twelve years of meritorious toil devoted tothe erection of a high philosophic edifice, the author of this greatcontribution found himself in the midst of a very sea of smalltroubles. And they were troubles of that uncompensated kind thatharass without elevating, and waste a man's spirit without softeningor enlarging it. First, the jar of temperament between Comte and hiswife had become so unbearable that they separated (1842). It is notexpedient for strangers to attempt to allot blame in such cases, forit is impossible for strangers to know all the deciding circumstances. We need only say that in spite of one or two disadvantageous facts inher career which do not concern the public, Madame Comte seems to haveuniformly comported herself towards her husband with an honourablesolicitude for his wellbeing. Comte made her an annual allowance, andfor some years after the separation they corresponded on friendlyterms. Next in the list of the vexations that greeted Comte onemerging from the long tunnel of philosophising was a lawsuit with hispublisher. The publisher had impertinently inserted in the sixthvolume a protest against a certain foot-note, in which Comte had usedsome hard words about M. Arago. Comte threw himself into the suit withan energy worthy of Voltaire, and he won it. Third, and worst of all, he had prefixed a preface to the sixth volume, in which hedeliberately went out of his way to rouse the active enmity of thevery men on whom depended his annual re-election to the post ofexaminer for the Polytechnic School. The result of this perversity wasthat by and by he lost the appointment, and with it one half of hisvery modest income. This was the occasion of an episode, which is ofmore than merely personal interest. 

Before 1842 Comte had been in correspondence with our distinguishedcountryman, J. S. Mill. Mr. Mill had been greatly impressed by Comte'sphilosophic ideas; he admits that his own _System of Logic_ owes manyvaluable thoughts to Comte, and that, in the portion of that workwhich treats of the logic of the moral sciences, a radical improvementin the conceptions of logical method was derived from the _PositivePhilosophy_. Their correspondence, which was extremely full andcopious, and which we may hope will one day be made accessible to thepublic, turned principally upon the two great questions of theequality between men and women, and of the expediency andconstitution of a sacerdotal or spiritual order. When Comte foundhimself straitened, he confided the entire circumstances to hisEnglish friend. As might be supposed by those who know theaffectionate anxiety with which Mr. Mill regarded the welfare of anyone whom he believed to be doing good work in the world, he at oncetook pains to have Comte's loss of income made up to him, until Comteshould have had time to repair that loss by his own endeavour. Mr. Mill persuaded Grote, Molesworth, and Raikes Currie to advance the sumof £240. At the end of the year (that is in 1845) Comte had taken nosteps to enable himself to dispense with the aid of the threeEnglishmen. Mr. Mill applied to them again, but with the exception ofGrote, who sent a small sum, they gave Comte to understand that theyexpected him to earn his own living. Mr. Mill had suggested to Comtethat he should write articles for the English periodicals, andexpressed his own willingness to translate any such articles from theFrench. Comte at first fell in with the plan, but he speedilysurprised and disconcerted Mr. Mill by boldly taking up the positionof 'high moral magistrate, ' and accusing the three defaultingcontributors of a scandalous falling away from righteousness and ahigh mind. Mr. Mill was chilled by these pretensions; they struck himas savouring of a totally unexpected charlatanry; and thecorrespondence came to an end. For Comte's position in the argumentone feels that there is much to be said. If you have good reason forbelieving that a given thinker is doing work that will destroy theofficial system of science or philosophy, and if you desire itsdestruction, then you may fairly be asked to help to provide for himthe same kind of material freedom that is secured to the professorsand propagators of the official system by the state or by theuniversities. And if it is a fine thing for a man to leave moneybehind him in the shape of an endowment for the support of ascientific teacher of whom he has never heard, why should it not bejust as natural and as laudable to give money, while he is yet alive, to a teacher whom he both knows and approves of? On the other hand, Grote and Molesworth might say that, for anything they could tell, they would find themselves to be helping the construction of a systemof which they utterly disapproved. And, as things turned out, theywould have been perfectly justified in this serious apprehension. Tohave done anything to make the production of the _Positive Polity_easier would have been no ground for anything but remorse to any ofthe three. It is just to Comte to remark that he always assumed thatthe contributors to the support of a thinker should be in allessentials of method and doctrine that thinker's disciples; aid fromindifferent persons he counted irrational and humiliating. But is anendowment ever a blessing to the man who receives it? The question isdifficult to answer generally; in Comte's case there is reason in thedoubts felt by Madame Comte as to the expediency of relieving thephilosopher from the necessity of being in plain and business-likerelations with indifferent persons for a certain number of hours inthe week. Such relations do as much as a doctrine to keep egoismwithin decent bounds, and they must be not only a relief, but awholesome corrective to the tendencies of concentrated thinking onabstract subjects. 

What finally happened was this. From 1845 to 1848 Comte lived as besthe could, as well as made his wife her allowance, on an income of £200a year. We need scarcely say that he was rigorously thrifty. Hislittle account books of income and outlay, with every item entereddown to a few hours before his death, are accurate and neat enough tohave satisfied an ancient Roman householder. In 1848, through no faultof his own, his salary was reduced to £80. M. Littré and others, withComte's approval, published an appeal for subscriptions, and on themoney thus contributed Comte subsisted for the remaining nine years ofhis life. By 1852 the subsidy produced as much as £200 a year. It isworth noticing, after the story we have told, that Mr. Mill was one ofthe subscribers, and that M. Littré continued his assistance after hehad been driven from Comte's society by his high pontifical airs. Weare sorry not to be able to record any similar trait of magnanimity onComte's part. His character, admirable as it is for firmness, forintensity, for inexorable will, for iron devotion to what he thoughtthe service of mankind, yet offers few of those softening qualitiesthat make us love good men and pity bad ones. He is of the type ofBrutus or of Cato--a model of austere fixity of purpose, butungracious, domineering, and not quite free from petty bitterness. 

If you seek to place yourself in sympathy with Comte it is best tothink of him only as the intellectual worker, pursuing in uncomfortedobscurity the laborious and absorbing task to which he had given uphis whole life. His singularly conscientious fashion of elaboratinghis ideas made the mental strain more intense than even so exhaustinga work as the abstract exposition of the principles of positivescience need have been, if he had followed a more self-indulgent plan. He did not write down a word until he had first composed the wholematter in his mind. When he had thoroughly meditated every sentence, he sat down to write, and then, such was the grip of his memory, theexact order of his thoughts came back to him as if without an effort, and he wrote down precisely what he had intended to write, without theaid of a note or a memorandum, and without check or pause. Forexample, he began and completed in about six weeks a chapter in the_Positive Philosophy_ (vol. V. Ch. Lv. ), which would fill forty of thelarge pages of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. Even if his subject hadbeen merely narrative or descriptive, this would be a verysatisfactory piece of continuous production. When we reflect that thechapter in question is not narrative, but an abstract exposition ofthe guiding principles of the movements of several centuries, withmany threads of complex thought running along side by side allthrough the speculation, then the circumstances under which it wasreduced to literary form are really astonishing. It is hardly possiblefor a critic to share the admiration expressed by some of Comte'sdisciples for his style. We are not so unreasonable as to blame himfor failing to make his pages picturesque or thrilling; we do not wantsunsets and stars and roses and ecstasy; but there is a certainstandard for the most serious and abstract subjects. When comparedwith such philosophic writing as Hume's, Diderot's, Berkeley's, thenComte's manner is heavy, laboured, monotonous, without relief andwithout light. There is now and then an energetic phrase, but as awhole the vocabulary is jejune; the sentences are overloaded; thepitch is flat. A scrupulous insistence on making his meaning clear ledto an iteration of certain adjectives and adverbs, which at lengthdeaden the effect beyond the endurance of all but the most resolutestudents. Only the profound and stimulating interest of much of thematter prevents one from thinking of Rivarol's ill-natured remark uponCondorcet, that he wrote with opium on a page of lead. The generaleffect is impressive, not by any virtues of style, for we do notdiscern one, but by reason of the magnitude and importance of theundertaking, and the visible conscientiousness and the grasp withwhich it is executed. It is by sheer strength of thought, by thevigorous perspicacity with which he strikes the lines of cleavage ofhis subject, that he makes his way into the mind of the reader; in thepresence of gifts of this power we need not quarrel with an ungainlystyle. 

Comte pursued one practice which ought to be mentioned in connectionwith his personal history, the practice of what he styled _hygiènecérébrale_. After he had acquired what he considered to be asufficient stock of material, and this happened before he hadcompleted the _Positive Philosophy_, he abstained deliberately andscrupulously from reading newspapers, reviews, scientifictransactions, and everything else whatever, except two or three poets(notably Dante) and the _Imitatio Christi_. It is true that hisfriends kept him informed of what was going on in the scientificworld. Still this partial divorce of himself from the record of thesocial and scientific activity of his time, though it may save athinker from the deplorable evils of dispersion, moral andintellectual, accounts in no small measure for the exaggerated egoism, and the absence of all feeling for reality, which marked Comte's laterdays. 

Only one important incident in Comte's life now remains to be spokenof. In 1845 he made the acquaintance of Madame Clotilde de Vaux, alady whose husband had been sent to the galleys for life, and who wastherefore, in all but the legal incidents of her position, a widow. Very little is known about her qualities. She wrote a little piecewhich Comte rated so preposterously as to talk about George Sand inthe same sentence; it is in truth a flimsy performance, though itcontains one or two gracious thoughts. There is true beauty in thesaying--_'It is unworthy of a noble nature to diffuse its pain. '_Madame de Vaux's letters speak well for her good sense and goodfeeling, and it would have been better for Comte's later work if shehad survived to exert a wholesome restraint on his exaltation. Theirfriendship had only lasted a year when she died (1846), but the periodwas long enough to give her memory a supreme ascendency in Comte'smind. Condillac, Joubert, Mill, and other eminent men have shown whatthe intellectual ascendency of a woman can be. Comte was asinconsolable after Madame de Vaux's death as D'Alembert after thedeath of Mademoiselle L'Espinasse. Every Wednesday afternoon he made areverential pilgrimage to her tomb, and three times every day heinvoked her memory in words of passionate expansion. His disciplesbelieve that in time the world will reverence Comte's sentiment aboutClotilde de Vaux, as it reveres Dante's adoration of Beatrice--aparallel that Comte himself was the first to hit upon. It is no doubtthe worst kind of cynicism to make a mock in a realistic vein of anypersonality that has set in motion the idealising thaumaturgy of theaffections. Yet we cannot help feeling that it is a grotesque andunseemly anachronism to apply in grave prose, addressed to the wholeworld, those terms of saint and angel which are touching and in theirplace amid the trouble and passion of the great mystic poet. Only anenergetic and beautiful imagination, together with a mastery of therhythm and swell of impassioned speech, can prevent an invitation tothe public to hearken to the raptures of intense personal attachmentfrom seeming ludicrous and almost indecent. Whatever other gifts Comtemay have had--and he had many of the rarest kind, --poetic imaginationwas not among them, any more than poetic or emotional expression wasamong them. His was one of those natures whose faculty of deep feelingis unhappily doomed to be inarticulate, and to pass away without themagic power of transmitting itself. 

Comte lost no time, after the completion of his _Course of PositivePhilosophy_, in proceeding with the _System of Positive Polity_, towhich the earlier work was designed to be a foundation. The firstvolume was published in 1851, and the fourth and last in 1854. In1848, when the political air was charged with stimulating elements, hefounded the Positive Society, with the expectation that it might growinto a reunion as powerful over the new revolution as the Jacobin Clubhad been in the revolution of 1789. The hope was not fulfilled, but acertain number of philosophic disciples gathered round Comte, andeventually formed themselves, under the guidance of the new ideas ofthe latter half of his life, into a kind of church. In the years 1849, 1850, and 1851, Comte gave three courses of lectures at the PalaisRoyal. They were gratuitous and popular, and in them he boldlyadvanced the whole of his doctrine, as well as the direct andimmediate pretensions of himself and his system. The third courseended in the following uncompromising terms--'In the name of the Pastand of the Future, the servants of Humanity--both its philosophicaland its practical servants--come forward to claim as their due thegeneral direction of this world. Their object is to constitute atlength a real Providence in all departments, --moral, intellectual, andmaterial. Consequently they exclude once for all from politicalsupremacy all the different servants of God--Catholic, Protestant, orDeist--as being at once behindhand and a cause of disturbance. ' A fewweeks after this invitation a very different person stepped forward toconstitute himself a real Providence. 

In 1852 Comte published the _Catechism of Positivism_. In the prefaceto it he took occasion to express his approval of Louis Napoleon's_coup d'état_ of the 2d of December, --'a fortunate crisis which hasset aside the parliamentary system, and instituted a dictatorialrepublic. ' Whatever we may think of the political sagacity of such ajudgment, it is due to Comte to say that he did not expect to see hisdictatorial republic transformed into a dynastic empire, and, next, that he did expect from the Man of December freedom of the press andof public meeting. His later hero was the Emperor Nicholas, 'the onlystatesman in Christendom, '--as unlucky a judgment as that which placedDr. Francia in the Comtist Calendar. 

In 1857 he was attacked by cancer, and died peaceably on the 5th ofSeptember of that year. The anniversary is always celebrated byceremonial gatherings of his French and English followers, who thencommemorate the name and the services of the founder of theirreligion. Comte was under sixty when he died. We cannot helpreflecting that one of the worst of all the evils connected with theshortness of human life is the impatience that it breeds in some ofthe most ardent and enlightened minds to hurry on the execution ofprojects, for which neither the time nor the spirit of their author isfully ripe. 

In proceeding to give an outline of Comte's system, we shall considerthe _Positive Polity_ as the more or less legitimate sequel of the_Positive Philosophy_, notwithstanding the deep gulf which so eminenta critic as Mr. Mill insisted upon fixing between the earlier and thelater work. [2] There may be, as we think there is, the greatestdifference in their value, and the temper is not the same, nor themethod. But the two are quite capable of being regarded, and for thepurposes of an account of Comte's career ought to be regarded, as anintegral whole. His letters when he was a young man of one and twenty, and before he had published a word, show how strongly present thesocial motive was in his mind, and in what little account he shouldhold his scientific works, if he did not perpetually think of theirutility for the species. 'I feel, ' he wrote, 'that such scientificreputation as I might acquire would give more value, more weight, moreuseful influence to my political sermons. ' In 1822 he published a_Plan of the Scientific Works necessary to Reorganise Society_. Inthis opuscule he points out that modern society is passing through agreat crisis, due to the conflict of two opposing movements, --thefirst, a disorganising movement owing to the break-up of oldinstitutions and beliefs; the second, a movement towards a definitesocial state, in which all means of human prosperity will receivetheir most complete development and most direct application. How isthis crisis to be dealt with? What are the undertakings necessary inorder to pass successfully through it towards an organic state? Theanswer to this is that there are two series of works. The first istheoretic or spiritual, aiming at the development of a new principleof co-ordinating social relations and the formation of the system ofgeneral ideas which are destined to guide society. The second work ispractical or temporal; it settles the distribution of power and theinstitutions that are most conformable to the spirit of the systemwhich has previously been thought out in the course of the theoreticwork. As the practical work depends on the conclusions of thetheoretical, the latter must obviously come first in order ofexecution. 

 [2] The English reader is specially well placed for satisfying such curiosity as he may have about Comte's philosophy. Miss Martineau condensed the six volumes of the _Philosophie Positive_ into two volumes of excellent English (1853); Comte himself gave them a place in the Positivist Library. The _Catechism_ was translated by Dr. Congreve in 1858. The _Politique Positive_ has been reproduced in English (Longmans, 1875-1877) by the conscientious labour of Comte's London followers. This translation is accompanied by a careful running analysis and explanatory summary of contents, which make the work more readily intelligible than the original. For criticisms, the reader may be referred to Mr. Mill's _Auguste Comte and Positivism_; Dr. Bridges's reply to Mr. Mill, _The Unity of Comte's Life and Doctrines_ (1866); Mr. Herbert Spencer's essay on the Genesis of Science, and pamphlet on _The Classification of the Sciences_; Professor Huxley's 'Scientific Aspects of Positivism, ' in his _Lay Sermons_; Dr. Congreve's _Essays Political, Social, and Religious_ (1874); Mr. Fiske's _Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy_ (1874); Mr. Lewes's _History of Philosophy_, vol. Ii. 

In 1826 this was pushed further in a most remarkable piece called_Considerations on the Spiritual Power_--the main object of which isto demonstrate the necessity of instituting a spiritual power, distinct from the temporal power and independent of it. In examiningthe conditions of a spiritual power proper for modern times, heindicates in so many terms the presence in his mind of a directanalogy between his proposed spiritual power and the functions of theCatholic clergy at the time of its greatest vigour and most completeindependence, --that is to say, from about the middle of the eleventhcentury until towards the end of the thirteenth. He refers to DeMaistre's memorable book, _Du Pape_, as the most profound, accurate, and methodical account of the old spiritual organisation, and startsfrom that as the model to be adapted to the changed intellectual andsocial conditions of the modern time. In the _Positive Philosophy_, again (vol. V. P. 344), he distinctly says that Catholicism, reconstituted as a system on new intellectual foundations, wouldfinally preside over the spiritual reorganisation of modern society. Much else could easily be quoted to the same effect. If unity ofcareer, then, means that Comte from the beginning designed theinstitution of a spiritual power and the systematic reorganisation oflife, it is difficult to deny him whatever credit that unity may beworth, and the credit is perhaps not particularly great. Even there-adaptation of the Catholic system to a scientific doctrine wasplainly in his mind thirty years before the final execution of the_Positive Polity_, though it is difficult to believe that he foresawthe religious mysticism in which the task was to land him. A greatanalysis was to precede a great synthesis, but it was the synthesis onwhich Comte's vision was centred from the first. Let us first sketchthe nature of the analysis. Society is to be reorganised on the baseof knowledge. What is the sum and significance of knowledge? That isthe question which Comte's first master-work professes to answer. 

The _Positive Philosophy_ opens with the statement of a certain law ofwhich Comte was the discoverer, and which has always been treated bothby disciples and dissidents as the key to his system. This is the Lawof the Three States. It is as follows. Each of our leadingconceptions, each branch of our knowledge, passes successively throughthree different phases; there are three different ways in which thehuman mind explains phenomena, each way following the other in order. These three stages are the Theological, the Metaphysical, and thePositive. Knowledge, or a branch of knowledge, is in the Theologicalstate, when it supposes the phenomena under consideration to be dueto immediate volition, either in the object or in some supernaturalbeing. In the Metaphysical state, for volition is substituted abstractforce residing in the object, yet existing independently of theobject; the phenomena are viewed as if apart from the bodiesmanifesting them; and the properties of each substance have attributedto them an existence distinct from that substance. In the Positivestate inherent volition or external volition and inherent force orabstraction personified have both disappeared from men's minds, andthe explanation of a phenomenon means a reference of it, by way ofsuccession or resemblance, to some other phenomenon, --means theestablishment of a relation between the given fact and some moregeneral fact. In the Theological and Metaphysical state men seek acause or an essence; in the Positive they are content with a law. Toborrow an illustration from an able English disciple of Comte:--'Takethe phenomenon of the sleep produced by opium. The Arabs are contentto attribute it to the "will of God. " Molière's medical studentaccounts for it by a _soporific principle_ contained in the opium. Themodern physiologist knows that he cannot account for it at all. He cansimply observe, analyse, and experiment upon the phenomena attendingthe action of the drug, and classify it with other agents analogous incharacter' (_Dr. Bridges_). 

The first and greatest aim of the Positive Philosophy is to advancethe study of society into the third of the three stages, --to removesocial phenomena from the sphere of theological and metaphysicalconceptions, and to introduce among them the same scientificobservation of their laws which has given us physics, chemistry, physiology. Social physics will consist of the conditions andrelations of the facts of society, and will have two departments, --onestatical, containing the laws of order; the other dynamical, containing the laws of progress. While men's minds were in thetheological state, political events, for example, were explained bythe will of the gods, and political authority based on divine right. In the metaphysical state of mind, then, to retain our instance, political authority was based on the sovereignty of the people, andsocial facts were explained by the figment of a falling away from astate of nature. When the positive method has been finally extended tosociety, as it has been to chemistry and physiology, these socialfacts will be resolved, as their ultimate analysis, into relationswith one another, and instead of seeking causes in the old sense ofthe word, men will only examine the conditions of social existence. When that stage has been reached not merely the greater part, but thewhole, of our knowledge will be impressed with one character--thecharacter, namely, of positivity or scientificalness; and all ourconceptions in every part of knowledge will be thoroughly homogeneous. The gains of such a change are enormous. The new philosophical unitywill now in its turn regenerate all the elements that went to its ownformation. The mind will pursue knowledge without the wasteful jar andfriction of conflicting methods and mutually hostile conceptions;education will be regenerated; and society will reorganise itself onthe only possible solid base--a homogeneous philosophy. 

The _Positive Philosophy_ has another object besides the demonstrationof the necessity and propriety of a science of society. This object isto show the sciences as branches from a single trunk, --is to give toscience the ensemble or spirit of generality hitherto confined tophilosophy, and to give to philosophy the rigour and solidity ofscience. Comte's special object is a study of social physics, ascience that before his advent was still to be formed; his secondobject is a review of the methods and leading generalities of all thepositive sciences already formed, so that we may know both what systemof inquiry to follow in our new science, and also where the newscience will stand in relation to other knowledge. 

The first step in this direction is to arrange scientific method andpositive knowledge in order, and this brings us to another cardinalelement in the Comtist system, the classification of the sciences. Inthe front of the inquiry lies one main division, that, namely, betweenspeculative and practical knowledge. With the latter we have noconcern. Speculative or theoretic knowledge is divided into abstractand concrete. The former is concerned with the laws that regulatephenomena in all conceivable cases; the latter is concerned with theapplication of these laws. Concrete science relates to objects orbeings; abstract science to events. The former is particular ordescriptive; the latter is general. Thus, physiology is an abstractscience; but zoology is concrete. Chemistry is abstract; mineralogy isconcrete. It is the method and knowledge of the abstract sciences thatthe Positive Philosophy has to reorganise in a great whole. 

Comte's principle of classification is that the dependence and orderof scientific study follows the dependence of the phenomena. Thus, ashas been said, it represents both the objective dependence of thephenomena and the subjective dependence of our means of knowing them. The more particular and complex phenomena depend upon the simpler andmore general. The latter are the more easy to study. Therefore sciencewill begin with those attributes of objects which are most general, and pass on gradually to other attributes that are combined in greatercomplexity. Thus, too, each science rests on the truths of thesciences that precede it, while it adds to them the truths by which itis itself constituted. Comte's series or hierarchy is arranged asfollows:--(1) Mathematics (that is, number, geometry, and mechanics), (2) Astronomy, (3) Physics, (4) Chemistry, (5) Biology, (6) Sociology. Each of the members of this series is one degree more special than themember before it, and depends upon the facts of all the memberspreceding it, and cannot be fully understood without them. It followsthat the crowning science of the hierarchy, dealing with thephenomena of human society, will remain longest under the influence oftheological dogmas and abstract figments, and will be the last to passinto the positive stage. You cannot discover the relations of thefacts of human society without reference to the conditions of animallife; you cannot understand the conditions of animal life without thelaws of chemistry; and so with the rest. 

This arrangement of the sciences and the Law of the Three States aretogether explanatory of the course of human thought and knowledge. They are thus the double key of Comte's systematisation of thephilosophy of all the sciences from mathematics to physiology, and hisanalysis of social evolution, which is the basis of sociology. Eachscience contributes its philosophy. The co-ordination of all thesepartial philosophies produces the general Positive Philosophy. 'Thousands had cultivated science, and with splendid success; not onehad conceived the philosophy which the sciences when organised wouldnaturally evolve. A few had seen the necessity of extending thescientific method to all inquiries, but no one had seen how this wasto be effected. . . . The Positive Philosophy is novel as a philosophy, not as a collection of truths never before suspected. Its novelty isthe organisation of existing elements. Its very principle implies theabsorption of all that great thinkers had achieved; whileincorporating their results it extended their methods. . . . Whattradition brought was the results; what Comte brought was theorganisation of these results. He always claimed to be the founder ofthe Positive Philosophy. That he had every right to such a title isdemonstrable to all who distinguish between the positive sciences andthe philosophy which co-ordinated the truths and methods of thesesciences into a doctrine' (_G. H. Lewes_). 

We may interrupt our short exposition here to remark that Comte'sclassification of the sciences has been subjected to a vigorouscriticism by Mr. Herbert Spencer. Mr. Spencer's two chief points arethese:--(1) He denies that the principle of the development of thesciences is the principle of decreasing generality; he asserts thatthere are as many examples of the advent of a science being determinedby increasing generality as by increasing speciality. (2) He holdsthat any grouping of the sciences in a succession gives a radicallywrong idea of their genesis and their interdependence; no truefiliation exists; no science develops itself in isolation; no one isindependent, either logically or historically. M. Littré, by far themost eminent of the scientific followers of Comte, concedes a certainforce to Mr. Spencer's objections, and makes certain secondarymodifications in the hierarchy in consequence, while still cherishinghis faith in the Comtist theory of the sciences. Mr. Mill, whileadmitting the objections as good, if Comte's arrangement pretended tobe the only one possible, still holds that arrangement as tenable forthe purpose with which it was devised. Mr. Lewes asserts against Mr. Spencer that the arrangement in a series is necessary, on groundssimilar to those which require that the various truths constituting ascience should be systematically co-ordinated, although in nature thephenomena are intermingled. 

The first three volumes of the _Positive Philosophy_ contain anexposition of the partial philosophies of the five sciences thatprecede sociology in the hierarchy. Their value has usually beenplaced very low by the special followers of the sciences concerned;they say that the knowledge is second-hand, is not coherent, and istoo confidently taken for final. The Comtist replies that the task isphilosophic, and is not to be judged by the minute accuracies ofscience. In these three volumes Comte took the sciences roughly as hefound them. His eminence as a man of science must be measured by hisonly original work in that department, --the construction, namely, ofthe new science of society. This work is accomplished in the lastthree volumes of the _Positive Philosophy_ and the second and thirdvolumes of the _Positive Polity_. The Comtist maintains that even ifthese five volumes together fail in laying down correctly and finallythe lines of the new science, still they are the first solution of agreat problem hitherto unattempted. 'Modern biology has got beyondAristotle's conception; but in the construction of the biologicalscience, not even the most unphilosophical biologist would fail torecognise the value of Aristotle's attempt. So for sociology. Subsequent sociologists may have conceivably to remodel the wholescience, yet not the less will they recognise the merit of the firstwork which has facilitated their labours' (_Congreve_). 

We shall now briefly describe Comte's principal conceptions insociology, his position in respect to which is held by himself, and byothers, to raise him to the level of Descartes or Leibnitz. Of coursethe first step was to approach the phenomena of human character andsocial existence with the expectation of finding them as reducible togeneral laws as the other phenomena of the universe, and with the hopeof exploring these laws by the same instruments of observation andverification as had done such triumphant work in the case of thelatter. Comte separates the collective facts of society and historyfrom the individual phenomena of biology; then he withdraws thesecollective facts from the region of external volition, and places themin the region of law. The facts of history must be explained, not byprovidential interventions, but by referring them to conditionsinherent in the successive stages of social existence. This conceptionmakes a science of society possible. What is the method? It comprises, besides observation and experiment (which is, in fact, only theobservation of abnormal social states), a certain peculiarity ofverification. We begin by deducing every well-known historicalsituation from the series of its antecedents. Thus we acquire a bodyof empirical generalisations as to social phenomena, and then weconnect the generalisations with the positive theory of human nature. A sociological demonstration lies in the establishment of anaccordance between the conclusions of historical analysis and thepreparatory conceptions of biological theory. As Mr. Mill putsit:--'If a sociological theory, collected from historical evidence, contradicts the established general laws of human nature; if (to useM. Comte's instances) it implies, in the mass of mankind, any verydecided natural bent, either in a good or in a bad direction; if itsupposes that the reason, in average human beings, predominates overthe desires or the disinterested desires over the personal, --we mayknow that history has been misinterpreted, and that the theory isfalse. On the other hand, if laws of social phenomena, empiricallygeneralised from history, can, when once suggested, be affiliated tothe known laws of human nature; if the direction actually taken by thedevelopments and changes of human society can be seen to be such asthe properties of man and of his dwelling-place made antecedentlyprobable, the empirical generalisations are raised into positive laws, and sociology becomes a science. ' The result of this method is anexhibition of the events of human experience in co-ordinated seriesthat manifest their own graduated connection. 

Next, as all investigation proceeds from that which is known best tothat which is unknown or less well known, and as, in social states, itis the collective phenomenon that is more easy of access to theobserver than its parts, therefore we must consider and pursue allthe elements of a given social state together and in common. Thesocial organisation must be viewed and explored as a whole. There is anexus between each leading group of social phenomena and other leadinggroups; if there is a change in one of them, that change isaccompanied by a corresponding modification of all the rest. 'Not onlymust political institutions and social manners on the one hand, andmanners and ideas on the other, be always mutually connected; butfurther, this consolidated whole must be always connected by itsnature with the corresponding state of the integral development ofhumanity, considered in all its aspects of intellectual, moral andphysical activity' (_Comte_). 

Is there any one element which communicates the decisive impulse toall the rest, --any predominating agency in the course of socialevolution? The answer is that all the other parts of social existenceare associated with, and drawn along by, the contemporary condition ofintellectual development. The Reason is the superior and preponderantelement which settles the direction in which all the other facultiesshall expand. 'It is only through the more and more marked influenceof the reason over the general conduct of man and of society that thegradual march of our race has attained that regularity and perseveringcontinuity which distinguish it so radically from the desultory andbarren expansion of even the highest animal orders, which share, andwith enhanced strength, the appetites, the passions, and even theprimary sentiments of man. ' The history of intellectual development, therefore, is the key to social evolution, and the key to the historyof intellectual development is the Law of the Three States. 

Among other central thoughts in Comte's explanation of history arethese:--The displacement of theological by positive conceptions hasbeen accompanied by a gradual rise of an industrial _régime_ out ofthe military _régime;_--the great permanent contribution ofCatholicism was the separation which it set up between the temporaland the spiritual powers;--the progress of the race consists in theincreasing preponderance of the distinctively human elements over theanimal elements;--the absolute tendency of ordinary social theorieswill be replaced by an unfailing adherence to the relative point ofview, and from this it follows that the social state, regarded as awhole, has been as perfect in each period as the co-existing conditionof humanity and its environment would allow. 

The elaboration of these ideas in relation to the history of thecivilisation of the most advanced portion of the human race occupiestwo of the volumes of the _Positive Philosophy_, and has been acceptedby competent persons of very different schools as a masterpiece ofrich, luminous, and far-reaching suggestion. Whatever additions it mayreceive, and whatever corrections it may require, this analysis ofsocial evolution will continue to be regarded as one of the greatachievements of human intellect. The demand for the first of Comte'stwo works has gone on increasing in a significant degree. It wascompleted, as we have said, in 1842. A second edition was published in1864; a third some years afterwards; and while we write (1876) afourth is in the press. Three editions within twelve years of a workof abstract philosophy in six considerable volumes are the measure ofa very striking influence. On the whole, we may suspect that no partof Comte's works has had so much to do with this marked success as hissurvey and review of the course of history. 

The third volume of the later work, the _Positive Polity_, treats ofsocial dynamics, and takes us again over the ground of historicevolution. It abounds with remarks of extraordinary fertility andcomprehensiveness; but it is often arbitrary; its views of the pastare strained into coherence with the statical views of the precedingvolume; and so far as concerns the period to which the present writerhappens to have given special attention, it is usually slight andsometimes random. As it was composed in rather less than six months, and as the author honestly warns us that he has given all hisattention to a more profound co-ordination, instead of working out thespecial explanations more fully, as he had promised, we need not besurprised if the result is disappointing to those who had mastered thecorresponding portion of the _Positive Philosophy_. Comte explains thedifference between his two works. In the first his 'chief object wasto discover and demonstrate the laws of progress, and to exhibit inone unbroken sequence the collective destinies of mankind, till theninvariably regarded as a series of events wholly beyond the reach ofexplanation, and almost depending on arbitrary will. The present work, on the contrary, is addressed to those who are already sufficientlyconvinced of the certain existence of social laws, and desire only tohave them reduced to a true and conclusive system. '

What that system is it would take far more space than we can afford tosketch even in outline. All we can do is to enumerate some of its mainpositions. They are to be drawn not only from the _Positive Polity_, but from two other works, --the _Positivist Catechism: a SummaryExposition of the Universal Religion, in Twelve Dialogues between aWoman and a Priest of Humanity_; and second, _The SubjectiveSynthesis_ (1856), which is the first and only volume of a work uponmathematics announced at the end of the _Positive Philosophy_. Thesystem for which the _Positive Philosophy_ is alleged to have been thescientific preparation contains a Polity and a Religion; a completearrangement of life in all its aspects, giving a wider sphere toIntellect, Energy, and Feeling than could be found in any of theprevious organic types, --Greek, Roman, or Catholic-feudal. Comte'simmense superiority over such præ-Revolutionary Utopians as the AbbéSaint Pierre, no less than over the group of post-revolutionaryUtopians, is especially visible in his firm grasp of the cardinaltruth that the improvement of the social organism can only beeffected by a moral development, and never by any changes in merepolitical mechanism, or any violences in the way of an artificialredistribution of wealth. A moral transformation must precede any realadvance. The aim, both in public and private life, is to secure to theutmost possible extent the victory of the social feeling overself-love, or Altruism over Egoism. This is the key to theregeneration of social existence, as it is the key to that unity ofindividual life which makes all our energies converge freely andwithout wasteful friction towards a common end. What are theinstruments for securing the preponderance of Altruism? Clearly theymust work from the strongest element in human nature, and this elementis Feeling or the Heart. Under the Catholic system the supremacy ofFeeling was abused, and the intellect was made its slave. Thenfollowed a revolt of Intellect against Sentiment. The business of thenew system will be to bring back the Intellect into a condition, notof slavery, but of willing ministry to the Feelings. The subordinationnever was, and never will be, effected except by means of a religion, and a religion, to be final, must include a harmonious synthesis ofall our conceptions of the external order of the universe. Thecharacteristic basis of a religion is the existence of a Power withoutus, so superior to ourselves as to command the complete submission ofour whole life. This basis is to be found in the Positive stage, inHumanity, past, present, and to come, conceived as the Great Being. 

 A deeper study of the great universal order reveals to us at length the ruling power within it of the true Great Being, whose destiny it is to bring that order continually to perfection by constantly conforming to its laws, and which thus best represents to us that system as a whole. This undeniable Providence, the supreme dispenser of our destinies, becomes in the natural course the common centre of our affections, our thoughts, and our actions. Although this Great Being evidently exceeds the utmost strength of any, even of any collective, human force, its necessary constitution and its peculiar function endow it with the truest sympathy towards all its servants. The least amongst us can and ought constantly to aspire to maintain and even to improve this Being. This natural object of all our activity, both public and private, determines the true general character of the rest of our existence, whether in feeling or in thought; which must be devoted to love, and to know, in order rightly to serve, our Providence, by a wise use of all the means which it furnishes to us. Reciprocally this continued service, while strengthening our true unity, renders us at once both happier and better. 

The exaltation of Humanity into the throne occupied by the SupremeBeing under monotheistic systems made all the rest of Comte'sconstruction easy enough. Utility remains the test of everyinstitution, impulse, act; his fabric becomes substantially an arch ofutilitarian propositions, with an artificial Great Being inserted atthe top to keep them in their place. The Comtist system isutilitarianism crowned by a fantastic decoration. Translated into theplainest English, the position is as follows: 'Society can only beregenerated by the greater subordination of politics to morals, by themoralisation of capital, by the renovation of the family, by a higherconception of marriage, and so on. These ends can only be reached by aheartier development of the sympathetic instincts. The sympatheticinstincts can only be developed by the Religion of Humanity. ' Lookingat the problem in this way, even a moralist who does not expecttheology to be the instrument of social revival, might still askwhether the sympathetic instincts will not necessarily be alreadydeveloped to their highest point, before people will be persuaded toaccept the religion, which is at bottom hardly more than sympathyunder a more imposing name. However that may be, the wholebattle--into which we shall not enter--as to the legitimateness ofComtism as a religion turns upon this erection of Humanity into aBeing. The various hypotheses, dogmas, proposals, as to the family, tocapital, etc. Are merely propositions measurable by considerations ofutility and a balance of expediencies. Many of these proposals are ofthe highest interest, and many of them are actually available; butthere does not seem to be one of them of an available kind which couldnot equally well be approached from other sides, and even incorporatedin some radically antagonistic system. Adoption, for example, as apractice for improving the happiness of families and the welfare ofsociety, is capable of being weighed, and can in truth only be weighedby utilitarian considerations, and has been commended by men to whomthe Comtist religion is naught. The singularity of Comte'sconstruction, and the test by which it must be tried, is the transferof the worship and discipline of Catholicism to a system in which 'theconception of God is superseded' by the abstract idea of Humanity, conceived as a kind of Personality. 

And when all is said, the invention does not help us. We have still tosettle what _is_ for the good of Humanity, and we can only do that inthe old-fashioned way. There is no guidance in the conception. Noeffective unity can follow from it, because you can only find out theright and wrong of a given course by summing up the advantages anddisadvantages, and striking a balance, and there is nothing in theReligion of Humanity to force two men to find the balance on the sameside. The Comtists are no better off than other utilitarians injudging policy, events, conduct. 

The particularities of the worship, its minute and truly ingeniousre-adaptation of sacraments, prayers, reverent signs, down even to theinvocation of a new Trinity, need not detain us. They are said, thoughit is not easy to believe, to have been elaborated by way of Utopia. If so, no Utopia has ever yet been presented in a style so littlecalculated to stir the imagination, to warm the feelings, to soothethe insurgency of the reason. It is a mistake to present a great bodyof hypotheses--if Comte meant them for hypotheses--in the mostdogmatic and peremptory form to which language can lend itself. Andthere is no more extraordinary thing in the history of opinion thanthe perversity with which Comte has succeeded in clothing aphilosophic doctrine, so intrinsically conciliatory as his, in ashape that excites so little sympathy and gives so much provocation. An enemy defined Comtism as Catholicism _minus_ Christianity, to whichan able champion retorted by calling it Catholicism _plus_ Science. Hitherto Comte's Utopia has pleased the followers of the Catholic, just as little as those of the scientific spirit. 

The elaborate and minute systematisation of life, proper to thereligion of Humanity, is to be directed by a priesthood. The priestsare to possess neither wealth nor material power; they are not tocommand, but to counsel; their authority is to rest on persuasion, noton force. When religion has become positive and society industrial, then the influence of the church upon the state becomes really freeand independent, which was not the case in the Middle Age. The powerof the priesthood rests upon special knowledge of man and nature; butto this intellectual eminence must also be added moral power and acertain greatness of character, without which force of intellect andcompleteness of attainment will not receive the confidence they oughtto inspire. The functions of the priesthood are of this kind:--Toexercise a systematic direction over education; to hold a consultativeinfluence over all the important acts of actual life, public andprivate; to arbitrate in cases of practical conflict; to preachsermons recalling those principles of generality and universal harmonywhich our special activities dispose us to ignore; to order the dueclassification of society. To perform the various ceremoniesappointed by the founder of the religion. The authority of thepriesthood is to rest wholly on voluntary adhesion, and there is to beperfect freedom of speech and discussion; though, by the way, wecannot forget Comte's detestable congratulations to the Czar Nicholason the 'wise vigilance' with which he kept watch over the importationof Western books. 

From his earliest manhood Comte had been powerfully impressed by thenecessity of elevating the condition of women (see remarkable passagein his letters to M. Valat, pp. 84-87). His friendship with Madame deVaux had deepened the impression, and in the reconstructed societywomen are to play a highly important part. They are to be carefullyexcluded from public action, but they are to do many more importantthings than things political. To fit them for their functions, theyare to be raised above material cares, and they are to be thoroughlyeducated. The family, which is so important an element of the Comtistscheme of things, exists to carry the influence of woman over man tothe highest point of cultivation. Through affection she purifies theactivity of man. 'Superior in power of affection, more able to keepboth the intellectual and the active powers in continual subordinationto feeling, women are formed as the natural intermediaries betweenHumanity and man. The Great Being confides specially to them its moralProvidence, maintaining through them the direct and constantcultivation of universal affection, in the midst of all thedistractions of thought or action, which are for ever withdrawing menfrom its influence. . . . Beside the uniform influence of every woman onevery man, to attach him to Humanity, such is the importance and thedifficulty of this ministry that each of us should be placed under thespecial guidance of one of these angels, to answer for him, as itwere, to the Great Being. This moral guardianship may assume threetypes, --the mother, the wife, and the daughter; each having severalmodifications, as shown in the concluding volume. Together theyform the three simple modes of solidarity, or unity withcontemporaries, --obedience, union, and protection, --as well as thethree degrees of continuity between ages, by uniting us with the past, the present, and the future. In accordance with my theory of thebrain, each corresponds with one of our three altruisticinstincts, --veneration, attachment, and benevolence. 

How the positive method of observation and verification of real factshas landed us in this, and much else of the same kind, is extremelyhard to guess. Seriously to examine an encyclopædic system, thattouches life, society, and knowledge at every point, is evidentlybeyond the compass of such an article as this. There is in everychapter a whole group of speculative suggestions, each of which wouldneed a long chapter to itself to elaborate or to discuss. There is atleast one biological speculation of astounding audacity that could beexamined in nothing less than a treatise. Perhaps we have said enoughto show that after performing a great and real service to thought, Comte almost sacrificed his claims to gratitude by the invention of asystem that, as such, and independently of detached suggestions, ismarkedly retrograde. But the world has strong self-protectingqualities. It will take what is available in Comte, while forgettingthat in his work which is as irrational in one way as Hegel is inanother. 

THE END. 

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. 

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Transcriber's Notes:

The transcriber made the following changes to the text to correctobvious errors:

 1. P. 347, "delighful" changed to "delightful" 2. P. 382, "'Superior in power of . . . " no ending single quote